The accessibility of MOOC platforms from instructors’ perspective

Abstract

MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) provides remarkable learning opportunities for a great diversity of people. MOOCs have been studied from several perspectives, including accessibility. However, little attention has so far been paid to investigating whether MOOC platforms themselves are accessible for instructors who are the authors of MOOCs. To ensure universal and equal access to the MOOC platforms, a systematic study of the accessibility of the MOOC platforms from instructors’ perspective is essential. This paper presents results from a heuristic evaluation of the Canvas platform, focusing on its accessibility to instructors creating course contents in MOOCs. We have based the evaluation on Part A of the Authoring Tool Accessibility Guidelines (ATAG) 2.0 by W3C Web Accessibility Initiative (WAI). The preliminary results show that although Canvas provides much support for instructors to create accessible MOOCs, it does not comply fully with ATAG 2.0.