A Digital Book Based Pedagogy to Improve Course Content Accessibility for Students with and without Disabilities in Engineering or other STEMcourses (WIP)

2024 · 3 citations

• Computer Science
• Computer Science
• Mathematics education

Accessibility of course content plays a critical role in student success. Among all college students, students with disabilities (SWD) face numerous additional challenges when digital content is inaccessible or difficult to use. The main contributions of this paper are firstly we examined different course delivery modalities to identify components that engage both SWD and students without disabilities (SWOD) and secondly, present new accessibility features for digital book creation that were implemented at the University of Illinois. An equitable, inclusive design for everyone is our ultimate goal, but we also wanted to understand the needs, and preferences of, SWDs in particular. A national survey instrument by the Collegiate Student Assessment of Textbooks (CSAT) to study student preferences was adapted and supplemented with questions that allowed students to optionally identify as SWD with a physical, mental and/or emotional disability. This survey enabled an analysis of the textbook preferences for engineering students with and without disabilities. Results from 50 SWD and 48 SWOD indicated that SWD and SWODs prioritized similar features. The main significant difference between SWD and SWOD were in the responses about how the instructor used the textbook and the importance of graphs in the textbook. The SWDs cared strongly about the accessibility features of a textbook. The top-five desired-features among all students were: 1) The book is low-cost or free, 2) There is a search feature for the book, 3) The book is up to date, 4) The examples used in the book matched the definitions, 5) The examples used in the book are relevant. Faculty were also surveyed using the same questions, providing insight into areas of alignment in preferences between students and faculty. Data from 10 faculty revealed similar textbook preferences: 1) The book is up to date, 2) Examples are representative of the definitions provided, 3) The book is low-cost or free, 4) The book is available online and as print copy, 5) The examples are relevant. Among the textbook features, all students were least interested in being called on during class with questions from the book. Additionally, SWDs did not value features pertaining to how the instructor used the textbook. By understanding the needs of SWD and SWOD, a faculty member can be informed about techniques to increase content accessibility. Secondly, we identified and designed new accessibility functionalities, including a visual table of contents, accessibility tags, and conditional publishing on students and instructors with a focus on meeting the needs of SWD. Recommendations and techniques are offered for instructors wishing to develop digital books to provide more accessible content delivery.

Understanding the needs of students with and without disabilities for inclusive UDL-based design of Engineering courses through learning management systems

2024 · 3 citations

• Computer Science
• Computer Science
• Mathematics education

As increasingly many classes are transitioning part or all of their content to online platforms, it becomes crucial to identify which aspects of learning management systems (LMS) are sufficiently accommodating the learning of students from different backgrounds.We conducted a survey across undergraduate STEM students at the University of Illinois regarding their perceptions on LMS, including how the students with disabilities (SWDs) perceive the quality and features of LMS, because online access to course materials has been identified as the number one feature needed for SWDs and SWDs preferred to use their institute's LMS [5].We designed questions using four major constructs such as education equity, system quality, information quality, and performance impact of the LMS.Beyond demographic and disability disclosure, our survey also included the students' usage and view about the quality of specific features such as the calendar, message board, file uploading, assessments, LMS discussion boards, Gradescope integration, recordings posted in various capacities and accessibility of the features.In addition, we investigated the effect of students' mode of learning such as "in person", "hybrid", or "online" on their perceptions.Preliminary results from 131 responses (including 37 SWDs) that span 69 different courses predominantly show that students prefer to have a single website or LMS for their course, and SWDs have significantly stronger preference for such design.In the in-person learning mode, SWDs are significantly less pleased about the message posting on the course website.About the four constructs for LMS quality, the majority of students are giving high evaluations.We found there is a group of students (n=13) who did not have a particular officially accommodated disability but faced conditions that prevented them from attending class at some point.Including such a group of students with SWD together and naming them SWD-like, we found that SWD-like were significantly less pleased than students without disabilities (SWODs) with the way course materials were being posted to the existing course website.Furthermore, students with SWD-like status rated the efficacy of lecture video transcripts to be higher, and were generally less satisfied with how Canvas was being used as an LMS.From these results, we can identify valuable knowledge and opportunities to develop more inclusive LMS-based courses that serve all students, especially SWDs fairly following Universal Design Principles (UDL) [4].

Adoption of an Online Queue App for Higher Education: A Case Study

2020 · 1 citations

• Computer Science
• Computer Science
• Medical education

Abstract A major concern with increasing student numbers is maintaining the quality of the student experience. Faculty employ both pedagogical approaches and educational technologies to reach ever-increasing numbers of students. While numerous approaches have been successfully deployed in the classrooms of large enrollment courses (for example, iClickers), office hours are often administered in the traditional method which does not account for, nor take advantage of, large student enrollments. As our large courses continue to grow larger, office and lab hours become crowded. Traditionally, students raise their hand or add their name to a whiteboard list to get assistance from course staff. In these settings, course staff may find themselves repeatedly answering the same or similar questions. Students may wait for long periods before getting help from an instructor. Shy students may be hesitant to ask for help or be overpowered by more aggressive personalities. While some office hours are crowded, others have very few students coming in, and rarely do we capture any analytics on utilization or usefulness of these one-to-one interactions with students. To facilitate office hours in large courses, we have previously described the development of an online queuing software for educational use. While the tool was initially developed for office hours in large enrollment courses, the Queue has been adopted in several additional use cases including advising, peer learning, and active learning. In these early adoption cases, we have identified benefits of implementing the Queue in educational settings, including saving time for students and instructors and expanding learning environments beyond classrooms and faculty offices. Further, the Queue can collect rich data that can help instructors identify common questions or "muddiest points". Instructors can use this data to assess course delivery, content, and performance of course staff. Overall, these benefits and features of the Queue provide educators with an easy-to-use tool for working with large student numbers. Here we present our findings from combining user surveys and interviews to present the use of the Queue in diverse educational settings.

Measuring Impact: Student and Instructor Experience Using an Online Queue

2020 ASEE Virtual Annual Conference Content Access Proceedings · 2020 · 2 citations

• Computer Science
• Computer Science
• Multimedia

Abstract This paper presents the results of surveys of students, educators, and advisors who used a custom online queuing system in diverse educational settings. Prior work identified that using technology such as a mobile-friendly, web-based queue has benefits to scaling student/educator interactions. The current study was developed to collect student, instructor, and advisor feedback to understand best practices, challenges, and perceptions from using the online queuing system for office hours, active learning, and advising. There is an increasing need to facilitate quality instruction in large enrollment courses. Towards addressing this need, we have previously described the development and early use of an online queue system for education (BLINDED). The Queue is an open-source application that allows students to add their name and a question or topic to an online queue that is monitored by course staff or advisors. Students can access the Queue web page with a cell phone, tablet, laptop, or any other computing device. Both students and course staff can view which students are in the queue and what questions they have. While the Queue software was originally developed for use in office hours of large enrollment courses, the software has since been adopted for other educational purposes, including, drop-in advising, peer learning, and active learning (BLINDED). Since its implementation in Fall 2017, the Queue has been adopted by 20 courses, 3 advising offices, and has facilitated over 50,000 questions from over 6,000 different students. In the early use cases of the Queue, we have identified several benefits for students and instructors, including but not limited to saved time, improved accessibility, and improved use of space since office hours are not set to a fixed location that may or may not accommodate demand. Student surveys will validate those benefits and add new personal insights into how the Queue enhances their interactions and success in courses. Surveys will collect data on student preferences when using the Queue to inform development features (e.g., I would prefer to be anonymous on the Queue) as well as assessing students perceptions about learning material (e.g., The Queue helped me toward mastering material in the course). Further, student surveys will assess whether the Queue facilitates student-instructor interactions (e.g., I am more likely to approach course or office staff using a digital queue). Student feedback on additional software features will also be solicited. Queue adopter surveys (administered to faculty, advisors, and staff who use the system) will assess ease of implementation (e.g., The Queue was easy to implement in my course/office) as well as solicit general feedback on features and data collection.