跳至主要内容

Health Education for the Blind: Evaluation of Accessibility of an Inclusive Online Course

Read full paper at:
http://www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?PaperID=50205#.VDH95FfHRK0

This article provides a presentation of the method used to guarantee the accessibility and usability of an online course for blind women. The course discusses breast cancer with a focus on early detection, with a view to granting these women a new form of learning about breast cancer. In this paper, the evaluation of the accessibility of HTML pages was presented by the use of specific software. In addition, it presents the accessibility and usability for blind women in a course in a virtual learning environment. The accessibility evaluation using the software revealed 21 errors. When the blind women accessed the virtual learning environment, sporadic barriers were identified, such as difficulties for registering and using the forum. These were bypassed and the participants defined the access to the online course as satisfactory. This study aims to bring awareness to online education and health professionals about the accessibility of online courses. With regard to health promotion, the importance of this study is clear owing to the lack of educational resources in health for visually impaired people, in addition to the importance of the timeliness of the topic owing to the magnitude of the issue of breast cancer around the world.
Cite this paper
de Carvalho, A. , da Silva, A. , Fenandes, A. and Pagliuca, L. (2014) Health Education for the Blind: Evaluation of Accessibility of an Inclusive Online Course. Creative Education, 5, 1559-1566. doi: 10.4236/ce.2014.516172. 
 

[1] American Foundation for the Blind (2014). Tips and Tricks to Improve Web Accessibility.
http://www.afb.org/section.aspx?FolderID=2&SectionID=4&TopicID=167&DocumentID=1453
[2] Basdekis, I., Klironomos, I., Metaxas, I., & Stephanidis, C. (2010). An Overview of Web Accessibility in Greece: A Comparative Study 2004-2008. Universal Access in the Information Society, 9, 185-190.
http://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007%2Fs10209-009-0166-z.pdf
[3] Batista, H., & Mollica, M. (2014). Public Virtual Rooms of Learning and Social Identity: An Emerging Technology Resource. Creative Education, 5, 630-635.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4236/ce.2014.58074
[4] Becker, H., Mackert, M., & Kang, S. J. (2013). Using an E-Health Intervention to Promote the Health of Cancer Survivors with Preexisting Disabling Conditions. Computers, Informatics, Nursing, 31, 107-114.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23254367
http://dx.doi.org/10.1097/NXN.0b013e3182771895
[5] Behar, P. A., Souza, E. K., Goes, C. G., & Lima E. M. (2008). A importância da acessibilidade digital naconstrução de objetos de aprendizagem. Renote, 6, 2.
http://seer.ufrgs.br/renote/article/view/14459.
[6] Brajnik, G., Yesilada, Y., & Harper, S. (2012). Is Accessibility Conformance an Elusive Property? A Study of Validity and Reliability of WCAG 2.0. ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing, 4, Article 8.
http://users.dimi.uniud.it/~giorgio.brajnik/papers/taccess2012.pdf
[7] Brasil (2011). Ministério do Planejamento, Orçamento e Gestão. Secretaria de Logística e Tecnologia da Informação. Departamento de GovernoEletr?nico. eMag-Modelo de Acessibilidade em Governo Eletr?nico. Brasília: Ministério do Planejamento, Orçamento e Gestão. 13 Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0. W3C.
http://www.governoeletronico.gov.br/acoes-e-projetos/e-MAG
http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG/
[8] Chalamandaris, A., Raptis, S., Tsiakoulis, P., & Karabetsos, S. (2009). Enhancing Accessibility of Web Content for the Print-Impaired and Blind People. Computer Science, 58, 89.
[9] Chandrashekar, S., & Hockem, S. (2009). Online Access, Participation and Information Credibility Assessment. Proceedings of the Science and Technology for Humanity (TIC-STH), IEEE Toronto International Conference, Toronto, 26-27 September 2009.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1109/TIC-STH.2009.5444397
[10] Dias, C. O., & Passerino, L. M. (2009). Uma proposta de metodologia para adaptação de OA usando critérios de acessibilidade. Renote, 7.
http://seer.ufrgs.br/renote/article/view/13585
[11] Evans, S., & Douglas, G. (2008). E-Learning and Blindness: A Comparative Study of the Quality of an E-Learning Experience. Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 102, 77-88.
[12] Falkembach, G. A. M. (2005). Concepção e Desenvolvimento de Material Educativo Digital. Renote, 3.
[13] Ferreira, G. A., & Cianconi, R. B. (2011). Acessibilidade dos deficientesvisuais e cegosàsInformaç?es de Bibliotecasuniversitáriasna web. Informação & Sociedade, 21, 151-163.
http://www.ies.ufpb.br/ojs/index.php/ies/article/view/10248
[14] Fitchen, C. S., Asuncion, J. V., Barile, M., Ferraro, V., & Wolforth, J. (2009). Accessibility of e-Learning and Computer and Information Technologies for Students with Visual Impairments in Postsecondary Education. Journal of Visual Impairment & Blindness, 103, 543-557.
[15] Guercio, A., Stirbens, K. A., Williams, J., & Haiber, C. (2011). Addressing Challenges in Web Accessibility for the Blind and Visually Impaired. International Journal of Distance Education Technologies, 9, 1-13.
http://dx.doi.org/10.4018/IJDET.2011100101
[16] Kane, K. (2010). eHealth and Nursing Informatics. British Journal of Community Nursing, 15, 157.
http://dx.doi.org/10.12968/bjcn.2010.15.4.47350
[17] May, S., & Zhu, Q. (2010). A Web Accessibility Assessment on the Texas Public School System. Universal Access in the Information Society, 9, 87-96.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10209-009-0153-4
[18] McCarthy, E. P., Ngo, L. H., Roetzheim, R. G., Chirikos, T. N., Li, D. L., Drews, R. E., & Iezzoni, L. I. (2006). Disparities in Breast Cancer Treatment and Survival for Women with Disabilities. Annals of Internal Medicine, 145, 637-645.
http://dx.doi.org/10.7326/0003-4819-145-9-200611070-00005
[19] Murphy, E., Kuber, R., McAllister, G., Strain, P., & Yu, W. (2008). An Empirical Investigation into the Difficulties Experienced by Visually Impaired Internet Users. Universal Access in the Information Society, 7, 79-91.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10209-007-0098-4
[20] Nóbrega, G. C. (2011). Acessibilidade aos conteúdos visuais em ambientes virtuais de aprendizagem. Revista Brasileira de Tradução Visual, 9.
[21] Pagliuca, L. M. F., & Costa, E. M. (2005). Tecnologia educativa para o autoexame das mamas em mulheres cegas. Revista da Rede de Enfermagem do Nordeste, 6, 77-85.
[22] Porta, G. (2008). Formulários em uma Web para todos.
http://acessibilidadelegal.com/13-formularios.php
[23] Santarosa, L. M. C., Passerino, L., Basso, L. O., & Dias, C. O. (2007). Acessibilidade em Ambientes de Aprendizagem por Projetos: Construção de espaçosvirtuais para inclusão digital e social de PNEEs. Renote, 5.
[24] Staggers, N. (2010). The Rapidly Emerging National Interest in HIT Usability. OJNI Online Journal of Nursing Informatics, 14, 1-4.
http://ojni.org/14_3/Staggers.pdf
[25] United Nations (2012). Factsheet on Persons with Disabilities.
http://www.un.org/disabilities/default.asp?id=18
[26] Web Accessibility in Mind (2013). Designing for Screen Reader Compatibility.
http://webaim.org/techniques/screenreader/               eww141006lx
[27] Yesilada, Y., Brajnik, G., & Harper, S. (2011). Barriers Common to Mobile and Disabled Web Users. Interacting with Computers, 23, 525-542. https://www.escholar.manchester.ac.uk/uk-ac-man-scw:147728
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.intcom.2011.05.005
标签：

评论

发表评论

此博客中的热门博文

Does Immigration Promote the Investment of the Monopolistic Firm?

In the present paper, we examine the effect of increasing uncertainty of immigrants’ growth on the optimal timing of investment of a firm that has a monopolistic power over the labor market. It is revealed that when the uncertainty of immigrants’ growth is more than a threshold level, increasing uncertainty of immigrants’ growth accelerates the optimal timing of firms’ investment and enhances the economic growth, even if the uncertainty of immigrants’ growth is formulated by the geometric Brownian motion, which is in sharp contrast to the standard result that an increase in the uncertainty postpones the optimal timing. With an increase in the immigrants over the past ten years, workforces in the host countries have been growing significantly to the extent that the immigrants represent 70% of the increase in the workforce in Europe, and 47% in the United States as OECD indicates. In the present paper, we attempted to investigate the effect of increased uncertainty caused by the growi...
发表评论
阅读全文

Education Policy Implementation: A Mechanism for Enhancing Primary Education Development in Zanzibar

Education is one of the fundamental rights of individuals; therefore, the government of a country needs to develop and strengthen educational policy and quality as well as to ensure that everyone has equal access to basic education. The improvement of access and quality of education in the world is becoming as an essential factor in development, whereas the basic education (primary school), is acknowledged as a foundation of the higher educational development for every country. To fulfill this goal, governments introduce several policies and procedures; however, it requires some reforms and participation from the politician, policymakers, and other stakeholders to re-examine educational policy so that it can lead to multiplication and betterment of the reforms. Educational reforms actually focus on accountability. A positive educational development and reform is very challenging and needs more effort and strategy on how to use and utilize the resources effectively as such it can achie...
发表评论
阅读全文