Steps Toward Making Distance Learning Accessible to Students and Instructors with Disabilities‪.‬

Distance learning courses have been in existence since the nineteenth century, beginning with correspondence using printed materials and postal mail, and progressing to include television and most recently the Internet. The widespread availability and flexibility of the Internet has led to an explosion of online offerings worldwide (Waits & Lewis, 2003). However, most of these courses erect barriers for some students and instructors with disabilities. For example, content within graphic images is not accessible to someone who is blind and using a text-to-speech system that reads aloud only text. The content of video presentations is not accessible to someone who is deaf unless captions or transcriptions are provided. Some inaccessible features also present barriers to students and instructors without disabilities who have slow Internet connections, use older technology, or whose native language is not the one in which the course is taught. The goal of distance learning programs to make education available to anyone anywhere at any time, cannot be realized unless courses are designed to be accessible to all potential students, including those with disabilities. Current published research and other literature in the distance learning arena rarely even address disability-related issues (Kinash, Crichton, & Kim-Rupnow, 2004; Schmetzke, 2001). In this article, the authors share the scope of a project and ongoing efforts of a university to proactively address accessibility issues in its central Distance Learning program, with a focus on universal design and systemic change Burgstahler, Corrigan, & McCarter, 2004). The authors also share lessons learned that can be applied in other programs that embrace the goal of making their Internet-based courses accessible to all students and instructors.