TO ADD: Putnam 2016 paper and sub papers

Putnam et al (2016) argue that computing education needs to respond to the needs of our digital society, including those with disabilities and the aging population to include topics about accessibility and designing for inclusion. They highlight that many authors have argued similarly for the teaching of accessibility related topics within the computing and ICT curricula (Waller et al, 2009; Lazar, 2002; Rosmaita et al, 2006; Bohman, 2012).

They explain that most studies currently provide small scale examples or first person reflections or descriptions of teaching accessibility. Their aim was to explore examples in literature and synthesise these against their own studies of existing programs that had taught elements of accessibility.

To explore existing programs Putnam et al (2016) searched the top 160 universities in the US, and by using keywords they analysed course descriptions that included topics such as accessibility, assistive technology, design for all, inclusive design, universal access and Section 508 the US regulations for accessible content.

From these findings they contacted all course leads, with 18 agreeing to be interviewed. They were asked about course details including: the names of courses and modules; learning goals and objectives; topics covered; assignments and the textbooks and resources used. Findings from the interviews were structured by authentic learning theory and concepts from the 21st Century skills framework. They were, prominence of real-world learning and learning being personally meaningful to students; providing opportunities for students to work collaboratively and share knowledge; exposing students to the topic in multiple ways; instructor frustration and challenges as well as the importance of instructor initiative.

The three most common approaches to promoting real world learning were the emphasis and awareness of users with disabilities, simulation of disabilities and direct interaction with end users with disabilities. These were followed by course materials that emphasised awareness, touched on the moral aspects of meeting people’s needs and regulatory requirements. Five interviews discussed the simulation of disabilities using tools that simulate colour blindness, using screen readers, head sticks, blindfolds and gloves that simulated arthritis. One respondent said it becomes amazingly clear to them how much difference some simple design differences can make to accessibility. But by far the most common approach to making the topic personally meaningful was to provide opportunities for students to interact with people who have disabilities (p.13). When providing opportunities to work collaboratively this mainly fell into two categories of building a digital asset or creating a video. For exposing students to accessibility these mainly sat within evaluation and testing of products for accessibility, the reading and use of online resources and tools, field trips and videos. When it came to instructor challenges these sat in the categories of lack of student awareness for the importance of accessibility, difficulty recruiting and engaging participants for classes especially when it came to discussing the legal and technical topics, lack of appropriate text books and avoiding the idea that accessibility is an act of charity rather than something everyone can benefit from. One participant said, I found that if I teach students the rules and the laws they fall asleep and still do a terrible job on their project, so I have shifted towards trying to build empathy (p.17). When it came to the importance of instructor initiative a recurring theme in the interviews was that the teaching and inclusion of the subject was rarely embedded unless an instructor interested in the subject takes the initiative. 

This findings from Putnam (2016) is similar to Bohman (2012) who raised concerns that the lack of being able to recruit students, the elective nature of units and the reliance on only those teachers initiating the teaching of accessibility means it is hard to build and sustain these types of programs longer-term. 

Putman et al (2016) suggest that accessibility could be built into other topics when and where it makes sense and this would provide opportunities for more students to come into contact with accessibility even though this might be at be a more superficial level. They recognise that at present there is a clear need to address the challenges of teaching accessibility for a longer-term solution, arguing that this is important if we want the next generation of students to be positioned with the knowledge and skills to provide compelling user experiences for an often underserved and growing population who need accessible digital solutions.

##

The PHD study by Bohman (2012) explored how accessibility was taught in three masters degree programs. These were case studies from universities in the UK, US and Austria. Two of the three programs didn’t survive over the two years due to lack of enrolment, something he suggested implied that the perceived need for this type of education and learning to develop accessibility practitioners and experts had not yet reached a level to evidence and sustain programs dedicated to the subject. One concern raised was that often these programs were only introduced or existed because of a dedicated instructor who had an interest or expertise in this area. 

Over ten years later from Bohman’s study there are still concerns about the over reliance on individual instructors or the hero model (ref,Ref )

Rosmaita et al (2006, p.272) argued that all aspects of web design should be taught from the standpoint of how they contribute to accessibility.

Petrie and Edwards (2006) argued that accessibility should be discussed in all human computer interaction (HCI) courses as it is inherently linked to how all users, including those different to themselves need to be considered, especially as they are training to be ICT professionals. They put forward that what is required is not only specialist courses but courses need to offer an awareness of the relevant issues such as the existence of people with disabilities, their needs in relation to technologies and finally how to design to include their needs. They also need to cover relevant legal responsibilities and discussion as to how to include inclusive design as a methodology. They explain there are many useful resources on the web for teaching inclusive design and some they found particularly useful such as demonstrations of screen readers and assistive technology for dyslexic people.

Shinohara et al (2016; 2018) focused specifically on which elements of inclusive design influence student designs to incorporate accessibility in their design process and thinking, not just as a special topic or an afterthought just to meet legal needs (2016; p. 229). They aimed to gain insight to see how students balance the requirements from the sides of both disabled and non-disabled users to encourage them to shift their thinking from ableist perspectives of disability towards a more inclusive approach to designing solutions overall. They expanded their initial 2016 study from one group to two in 2018.

In their study, Shinohara et al (2016; 2018) describe that students were facilitated to interact with users with disabilities multiple times throughout the course. But to avoid creating bias towards functional disability technology solutions they were encouraged to consider both disabled and non-disabled needs to make solutions mainstream to promote the view that disability is just one part of diversity among technology users and part of the wider socio-technical community of users. Students were prompted to reflect on their experiences during the design and development process. Students created personas and scenarios, conducted interviews, created conceptual models, created paper based and interactive prototypes and tested their designs with all users. They also wrote reflective journals. There were 42 students who worked in groups and each group was paired with a person with disabilities, named an expert user, as well as other users without a disability. Expert users were asked to feedback at the end of the 10-week term. Findings indicated that addressing the needs of both user groups was deemed daunting, particularly if students had little or no experience with design for disability which was most of them. Almost all of them reported that they expressed initial discomfort and were self-conscious about their ignorance of disabilities prior to meeting expert users, even though they’d had introductory lectures around disability etiquette. However, student perceptions did change as they interacted with the expert users. Findings indicated that students initially assumed it was unnecessary to include accessibility until they worked with expert users and understood the implications of inaccessible content. Over time misconceptions faded and students learned about their expert users as a person, not as a disability. Some even started to develop strategies to start from expert user requirements and found ways it might also appeal to non disabled users (2016; p.234).

Ableism is a tendency to consider non-disabled people as superior to disabled people; the consequences of ableism have far reaching historical and social detrimental effects (Charlton, 1998; Linton, 1998; Shinohara et at, 2016; p.229).

##

Points to discuss:

The conceptual knowledge of disability and building empathy with users appears to have more success to engage users (Ref) and this is deemed to be an important element not to leave out as engaging with users later can make retrofitting for accessibility more complex (ref). It is also highlighted that the conceptual understanding of disability and user needs is often a core first learning objective in many courses or modules related to accessibility (ref).

There was a mixed view of success for learning about the more technical aspects of digital accessibility, especially that WCAG was hard to engage with (ref) assumes a level of prior technical knowledge (ref) and difficult to interpret (ref). However some of the basic principles when demonstrated were impactful (Ref) with the skills described as ‘low hanging fruit appear to be more easily adopted. 

Many studies refer to the lack of helpful toolkits needed to support teachers (Ref) and the lack of teachers with expertise to teach the subject, although the majority of studies refer to specialist units at post secondary, degree or masters level studies or learning in the technical workplace (Ref).

There was consensus that students often lacked awareness around digital accessibility awareness and skills prior to their courses or modules (Ref) and that this lack of awareness is also inherent in the wider workforce in organisations (Ref) and sometimes extends to the developers (Ref) or managers in the workplace (ref). It is clear that this knowledge is not in the mainstream (ref) yet deemed a mainstream need in a world of digital first and intensive computing (Christopherson, 2023). It is argued that there is both a demand and need for web developers to be taught this in their university courses (Ref) but also to expose learners on a range of course disciplines in the importance of the basics of digital accessibility (Ref) and this could be introduced at a much earlier age (Ref; Wilson, 2023).

This study will contribute to this exploring activities and resources for school age learners and their teachers in the basic principles of digital accessibility that could be more easily adopted by both the students and the teachers. 

Implementation maturity - title for workplace section. 

Currently there appears to be challenges in the workplace. The reports suggest this is due to lack of skills, training and appreciation of involving people with disabilities (in education however this in contrast appears to be the most meaningful and effective aspect of learning in this area).

Workplaces Motivated by the legal aspect and compliance and yet the legal aspect was suggested as the part that sent students to sleep (Ref). The WCAG guidelines tend to be the primary source of workplace guidance and specification, yet this was deemed a challenge to interpret for education, with the suggestion in one study that students no longer referred to WCAG when they worked directly with users and used anecdotal experiences to guide their thinking.

Currently difficult to implement in education and sustain due to lack of teachers and resources as well as expertise.

Other question of legal learning - to include the full multidisciplinary set - each question to be justified and discussed.

Methodology discussed - what is used:

Pre and post survey. Interviews. Student work. Menti?

Learning relevant to real world and meaningful.

Emphasis on real-world learning - understanding social issues or make it personally meaningful, learn in multiple ways (multidisciplinary lends itself to this and different resources to find answers), collaboration and learning together to build something - justification for authentic learning as an analytical framework.