TO ADD: Lewthwaite etc 2023

(Lewthwaite, Horton and Coverdale, 2023) - Digital technologies increasingly mandate our access to education, work, family and friends (p.1).

(Lewthwaite, Horton and Coverdale, 2023) - However many aspects of our digital world remain out of reach to many due to lack of accessibility (p.1).

(Gilbert, Hassell, Sonka - assistive technology not working)

(Lewthwaite, Horton and Coverdale, 2023) - The COVID pandemic highlighted the impact and importance of content accessibility and the level of digital divide it creates (Gleason et al, 2020; Goggin and Ellis, 2020; Rosenblum et al, 2020).

(Lewthwaite, Horton and Coverdale, 2023) - Digital accessibility should be a deliberate and informed effort to account for a range of functional needs and input devices, so that everyone, including those with disabilities are not disabled by societies works and acts (p.2).

(Lewthwaite, Horton and Coverdale, 2023) - Accessibility in the digital context is about modes of designing and developing for using digital technologies such as websites, applications, apps, documents, presentations, video and audio, social media, devices and digital services to provide broad and equal access to information, transactions and communications (p.2).

To be able to contribute to the digital society and create accessible materials and content, developers and authors need the knowledge and skills to do it (Horton, 2022).

(Lewthwaite, Horton and Coverdale, 2023) - Current barriers to inclusive practice can be conceived as lack of awareness, with many including technology professionals are unaware that accessibility needs consideration or should be a critical factor in professional practice (p.2).

Surveys conducted by professionals and employers within the technology industry report a significant lack of digital accessibility awareness to be able to recruit people to fill the professional skills gap (PEAT, 2018) or see addressing these missing skills in the workplace a challenge (AbilityNet, 2022; 2023; Hassell Inclusion, 2023?; WebAIM, 2018; 2021).

(Lewthwaite, Horton and Coverdale, 2023) - In some cases professionals in the software development industry that should be meeting the legal requirements of the web are not fully familiar with the standards of the web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG) (W3C, 2018; 2023) - This is even evident in the software development industry (Patel et al, 2020).

(Lewthwaite, Horton and Coverdale, 2023) - From this standpoint, even foundation awareness in digital accessibility needs urgently defining and establishing in both workplaces and in education (p.2).

(UPIAS, 1976; p.14) - Disability is something imposed on top of our impairments by the way we are unnecessarily isolated and excluded from full participation in society.

(Lewthwaite, Horton and Coverdale, 2023) - Reviews of academic literature highlight that the topic or awareness of digital accessibility is limited in education (Lewthwaite and Sloan, 2016; Nishchyk and Chen, 2018; Baker et al, 2020; Lewthwaite, Coverdale and Butler-Rees, 2020). Where it is included it is minimal, surface level, or only an optional unit (Shinohara et al, 2018), or when it is elective it is commonly dropped as a unit (Baker et al, 2020), but most often it is not a part of any core curriculum, relevant course or subject discipline (Jia et al, 2021).

It is taught in HE in mainly computer science courses at degree level or in the workplace.  WEBAIM - not taught at school or prior to workplace. Most learners arrive on these courses with little or no knowledge of digital accessibility (ref). It has been raised that this type of awareness should be taught earlier, including at school.

However no studies have been identified earlier at school, sixth form or college level.

 Putnam et al (2016) raises the concern that if accessibility remains only an optional or elective feature in education it continues to send the message that it is not a priority or a necessity in digital content. And other raise concern that foundational awareness needs to be addressed across education and academia (ref).

Moreover, Shinohara et al. (2018) found that where there is a will toward teaching accessibility, many faculty question their own efficacy as accessibility educators, expressing lack of expertise and sub-area specific materials, and positioning of accessibility outside of the core curriculum as central challenges.

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Legal and laws aspect is framed around the social model of disability.

Social model of disability - Central to this idea is the notion that society creates the barriers and disablement, not the impairments an individual may have. 

In the physical environment one example of the social model of disability is for a wheelchair user to come up against an entrance that has steps rather than a ramp is the barrier to accessing the building, not the fact a person is in a wheelchair. In digital content this similarly applies, if for example a video on media has no captions this creates a barrier to those who cannot hear content, or the lack of alt text on images means a blind user is excluded from accessing the information. All of these things are about the design and creation of accessible experiences.

This research is based upon the argument that…

For the social model of disability to truly work, we can’t have only a silo of people addressing only a fraction of society’s digital content. Matt May quote. Web developers and those working towards meeting the web regulations for public body websites constitutes a very small fraction of what is needed, what we need is everyone contributing to an inclusive society in every aspect of digital content. Most people in today’s society post online or create documents in their everyday lives, they are not web developers and the skills needed for these contributors are not about coding websites, but being aware of the broader context and the simple practices that aid accessibility.

Sonka, McArdle and Potts (2021) highlight that many courses where digital accessibility has been taught still fail to recognise the social model of disability and still focus on the medical model or technical model, rather than engage with the sociopolitical aspects of social justice and considerations of designing for all.

Sonka, McArdle and Potts (2021) point out that it is impossible to discuss accessibility without touching on the human aspects and issues of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Many people can easily prevent simple barriers with minimal effort in their everyday contributions, and alongside other professionals in society with the more in-depth technical skills such as web and software developers, everyone together has the potential to reduce barriers and prevent exclusion and in this way do it at scale. For this to work everyone needs to be aware of what they can do.

The everyday content we all create regularly has the potential to add or prevent barriers. Take for example links that are not descriptive… colour blindness.. hashtags and emojis on social media…alt text. All of which are easy to address by anyone who creates or contributes content. At present, in our digital society, the social model of disability is not achievable without awareness or education about what is needed from everyone. Adding it to the curriculum acts as a vehicle to educate our future generations at scale, therefore to tackle and address the culture and basic needs and awareness for accessibility in digital content at scale we need to educate people. Addressing digital accessibility in this way is described as social responsibility, social justice and … (Sonka).

In terms of social responsibility and social justice, other similar topics are currently integrated into the curriculum such as LGBTQ rights, online safety and data protection, therefore addressing the skills gap of social responsibility for being inclusive in online and digital content would complement what is already there in the computing and citizenship national curriculum. This research study could be potentially timely to evidence and prepare for the addition of this topic’s awareness as part of the computing curriculum reform recently announced by government (REF, 2023).

However there is a skills and research gap preventing this from happening.

When it comes to more general staff training Mancilla and Frey (2021) audited the landscape for the professional development of teaching faculty in digital accessibility skill, their findings found that most respondents suggested modifying training provision for faculty teachers who have limited time, knowledge or technology skills related to digital accessibility. The responses suggested a preference for just in time resources such as bite-sized videos, articles, guidelines and tip sheets (p.9).

Many studies report that many teachers and academic faculty members often lack sufficient knowledge about the challenges of those with disabilities who use online or digital content, as well as the skills needed for accessible content creation (Wynants and Dennis, 2017; Mancilla and Frey, 2021; …).

This poses a problem for the teaching of accessibility in practice.

Lazar, 2002 - digital content and websites should be built flexible enough to work with whatever input or output device is needed, especially by users with disabilities.

Lazar, 2002 - if technology or content is not accessible, it means that millions of disabled people who rely assistive technology or screen readers cannot benefit from the information, resources or services available to them.

The use of assistive technologies can only be successful when websites and digital content are developed in a compatible and accessible format (Lazar and Greenidge, 2006; Gilbert, 2019).

Therefore to prevent barriers in our digital society it has been repeatedly argued that it is necessary to incorporate the topic of digital accessibility into the information systems curriculum (Lazar, 2002 …), and disciplines that refer to the creation of any digital content (refs).

Lazar (2002) points out that even if one lecture or lesson on accessibility to raise awareness is better than completely neglecting the topic. He points out that at least students will then at least be exposed to or aware of accessibility and could be shown where to find more resources or guidance on the topic (p.375).

Digital accessibility could be a relevant topic across a broad range of curriculum areas, such as media (Youngblood, ????), computer science (ref), software engineering and development (ref), business, law and ethics (refs) as well as incorporated into disability studies and education (ref) rather than just confined to computer science disciplines (ref).

In the Teach Access program 

Sonka, McArdle and Potts (2021) point out that accessibility is everywhere and isn’t confined to just one discipline and their course lays down the foundation that accessibility is important whatever career path learners they take. Their course therefore touches on the broader aspects of universal design for learning, and includes disability studies, social justice, design, law, culture, policy, ethics, education and personal narratives of lived experience. Their key message was to create advocates for digital accessibility and promote a culture that recognises accessibility as a shared responsibility (Huntsman, Colton and Phillips, 2019; Lewthwaite??)

To be able to introduce the topic into the school curriculum it is pertinent to understand what needs to be covered to ensure learners have a full understanding of what digital accessibility is, why it’s important and they can input as a citizen in a digital society.

Learning objectives review - multidisciplinary - similarities of what they are and what works:

Lazar, Lazar and Pradhan (2019) found that a natural starting point for introducing the topic is to integrate an understanding of disability and then what accessibility is, with a focus on individuals and their experiences of digital content (p.2). 

Kat Holmes adds to this, that the starting point needs to include that digital accessibility benefits everyone and a natural starting point is to explain that there are permanent, temporary and situational disabilities and barriers in digital content that everyone can face and the concept of inclusive design to incorporate meeting the diverse needs of everyone is a helpful. This model means that everyone can relate to the importance of digital accessibility and it’s not just about one sector of our society, such as those with disabilities, but impacts everyone (Wilson, 2023 - more..).

This perspective is echoed by BLAHH (???) who said he changed a pilot curriculum around to introduce digital accessibility from the human perspective rather than from a technical and legal standpoint because it helped with early engagement in the top.

Sonka, McArdle and Potts (2021) refer to the work at Teach Access that aims to educate young people to work as advocates and accessibility allies. They put humanistic design and empathy as central to the work. Their course focused on the human experience first rather than technical aspects, so accessibility becomes the core focus to be able to enact the values of social justice and equity in technical communications (p.

Sonka, McArdle and Potts (2021) Disability permeates every aspect of design and engineering and therefore there is a need for it to be taught. 

Sonka, McArdle and Potts (2021) Highlight that many courses still fail to recognise the social model of disability and still focus on the medical model or technical specifications of accessibility, rather than engage with the human and sociopolitical aspects of social justice and the considerations of accessibility being about designing for all.

Many studies who have piloted or organised a curriculum or collection of lessons have adopted a similar starting point (refs??).

The topic of digital accessibility and content creation is not currently on the school, but there is brief mention of assistive technologies on the computing national curriculum (ref).

Without pedagogical guidance for the teaching of accessibility we can turn to its implementation in industry to guide how it is framed, presented and guided. Digital accessibility, otherwise referred to by the terms ‘web accessibility’, ‘inclusive design’ or ‘universal design’ or acknowledged under the tools used to make content accessible ‘assistive technology’ has several nuanced understandings.

To get any form of knowledge or guidance we have to turn to another discipline. Knowing in terms of guidance sits within computer science.