Accessible Web-based Distance Education: Principles and Best Practices Article

Accessible Web-based Distance Education: Principles and Best Practices

I really like this article from Laurie Harrison at the Unversity of Toronto because of the emphasis on Universal Design Principles. While it is a bit dated (it looks like all of the references were pulled in July of 1999), the ideas expressed are solid and provide a good basic overview for someone new to the ideas of universally designed distance education.

The idea of universal design is vital in promoting the develpment of accessible distance education resources. Unfortunately, too many developers still ignorantly lump all types of users with disabilities together and then dismiss their content as being irrelevant to “that population.” Idiots. When people realize that standards based markup that separates content from presentation in accessible ways benefits EVERYONE then maybe we’ll see widespread change happening. The good news is that it is already happening to some degree and we’ll only see more of it in the next few years.

On a sidenote, I’m getting my tonsils out in a couple of hours, so it may be a week or two before I post again. I’ll have plenty of time to think while recovering (and I’ll be on some pretty heavy painkillers), so maybe I’ll have some interesting thoughts to share when I come back.