Reflection: Disabilities in Online Learning

Let’s be real: Online learning is only accelerating. As acceleration began in the early 2000s, online learning experiences did not always follow the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) or Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

Here’s an inside look at a real-life lawsuit for an institution that did not acknowledge or follow the WCAG guidelines:

University of California at Berkeley: The United States Department of Justice opened an investigation into UC Berkeley in August 2016 for inaccessible videos that were publicly available on the “webcast.berkeley” site. These videos were not prepared for users with visual or hearing disabilities (Silberman, 2018). Released DOJ documents indicated that UC Berkeley was in violation of Title II. DOJ mandated that the institution either move the videos into an authentication-required area or remediate 20,000 videos, and UC Berkeley ultimately chose the former option (Straumsheim, 2017). Externally, the university was criticized for removing free educational resources from the public domain.

After seeing this lawsuit, it becomes more realistic for all of us. Let’s watch a reflection on current online learning materials in relation to the WCAG and ADA guidelines.

Pretty interesting, huh? Here are a few resources to define the standards of accessible online learning:

Sources:

Straumsheim, C. (2017). Berkeley will delete online content. Inside Higher Ed. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/03/06/ U-california-berkeley-delete-publicly-available-educational-content