WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Call for papers: Accessibility of Open, Distance and e-Learning for Students with Disabilities

for

From: Jennifer Sutton
Date: Apr 7, 2014 3:52PM

I'm cross-posting this from the ATHEN email list.
Apologies for duplication.

On Behalf Of Chetz.Colwell
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2014 3:51 AM
Subject: Call for papers: Accessibility of Open,
Distance and e-Learning for Students with Disabilities

Dear Colleagues,

Please find below a call for papers for a special
issue on Accessibility of Open, Distance and
e-Learning for Students with Disabilities, for
The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning
(Open Learning). Anne Jelfs and I are the guest
editors for this special issue and we’d be very
pleased if you would consider submitting a paper or case study.

All the details are provided below, but if you
have any queries please just get in touch.

Please also forward this call for papers to your
colleagues and contacts who might be interested
in contributing to this special issue.

Regards,
Chetz

Introduction

The 21st century brings a changing educational
environment with greater emphasis on the use of
technology in teaching and learning, which is
particularly true for a lot of distance and open
education providers. In this call for papers we
are focusing on disabled students, especially
those studying at a distance from the educational
provider. In 2012/13 approximately 10% of UK
first year undergraduate and taught postgraduate
students have declared a disability (HESA, undated).

Along with education providers’ moral obligation
to enable disabled people to participate in
learning, in many countries there is a legal
imperative to avoid discrimination against
disabled people. For example, the UK’s Equality
Act (OPSI, 2010) places a duty on Universities to
avoid discrimination and provide reasonable
adjustments for disabled students. Similar
legislation exists in the USA’s Rehabilitation
Act and Americans with Disabilities Act which
impact on what and how education is delivered.
But that is not the whole story: How do students
work with technology that is both liberating and
possibly restricting their educational
experience? Does the curriculum or pedagogy need
to change to incorporate more disabled students?
How do educational institutions manage the
legislation? Plus many more questions, hence the
need for this special issue which focuses on the following themes.

Themes
The purpose of this special issue is to advance
understanding of the ways in which open and
distance learning can increase the accessibility
of learning for people with disabilities as well
as enhancing their learning experience and
academic performance, and the challenges in
enabling this. We welcome papers on applied and
developmental research and case studies in the following areas:
· Technology; the accessibility of online
learning and collaboration tools, the use of web
2.0 technologies for accessibility, technical
barriers to learning and overcoming them.
· Pedagogy:
· curriculum issues including teaching
students with disabilities in specific
disciplines such as Science, Technology,
Engineering, Mathematics, Arts, Languages,
developing particular tools to enable students in specific discipline areas
· Assessment, attainment and retention of
disabled students in distance and open learning.
· Accessibility of Open Educational
Resources (OERs) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).
· Institutional change: increasing
disability awareness; embedding accessibility in
policy; policy evaluation studies
· Disabled students’ perspectives: results of surveys or evaluations.
· Training and professional development
for those who support or teach disabled learners
· Technologies for teachers with disabilities
· Cultural issues – such as attitudes of
others: family members, fellow students, concepts
of disability, negative discrimination
· Working with other agencies to support students with disabilities

Research papers should be 5,000 -7,000 words and case studies 3,000 – 5,000.

References
Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA)
(undated) 2012/13 first year students by
Disability [online]
<http://www.hesa.ac.uk/dox/dataTables/studentsAndQualifiers/download/Disab1213.xlsx>;http://www.hesa.ac.uk/dox/dataTables/studentsAndQualifiers/download/Disab1213.xlsx
(accessed 14/03/2014)
Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) (2010)
Equality Act 2010 [online]
<http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents>;http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents
(accessed 14/03/2014)
Deadline for submission of full papers: 1st July 2014

Submission process
For more information about this call for papers
or if you are unsure whether your paper will be
suitable for inclusion, please email the editors
of the special issue: Dr Chetz Colwell
<mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> > <EMAIL REMOVED>
and Dr Anne Jelfs
<mailto: <EMAIL REMOVED> > <EMAIL REMOVED>
with an outline or any other queries. Otherwise
prepare your paper following the instructions to
authors given on the Open Learning journal
website at
<http://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=copl20&;page=instructions>http://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=copl20&;page=instructions,
and submit it directly any time before the deadline.
When using the online submission system, please
ensure that when you are asked to choose
‘manuscript type’, you select the option ‘special
issue manuscript’ from the drop down menu. This
ensures that your paper is allocated to the
processing stream of papers being considered for this special issue.
All papers will be read by the editors of the
special issue and then sent for double blind peer
review. Authors will be informed of the editors’
decision by the 1st August 2014 and any revisions
must be completed to the satisfaction of the
editors before the 1st October 2014.



Dr Chetz Colwell
Learning & Teaching Development Manager (Accessibility),
Co-chair of H810 Accessible online learning: supporting disabled students
(<http://www3.open.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/course/h810.htm>;http://www3.open.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/course/h810.htm)


Institute of Educational Technology
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA
01908 655772

The Open University is incorporated by Royal
Charter (RC 000391), an exempt charity in England
& Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302).