Analysis of the accessibility of selected massive open online courses (MOOCs) for users with disabilities

• Published in: Universal access in the information society Vol. 23; no. 1; pp. 191 - 202
• Main Authors: Królak, Aleksandra, Zając, Piotr
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Berlin/Heidelberg Springer Berlin Heidelberg 01.03.2024; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Accessibility; Computer Communication Networks; Computer Science; Computers and Society; Disabilities; Guidelines; Handicapped accessibility; Information Storage and Retrieval; Information Systems Applications (incl.Internet); IT in Business; Long Paper; Online instruction; Questionnaires; User Interfaces and Human Computer Interaction; MOOC; WCAG; Accessibility; Universal design; Coursera
• ISSN: 1615-5289; 1615-5297
• DOI: 10.1007/s10209-022-00927-2

The aim of this paper is to analyze the massive open online courses available on the platform “Coursera” from the perspective of their accessibility for users with disabilities. The analysis was carried out against the guidelines developed by the world wide web consortium in three ways: user testing, heuristic evaluation and automatic audit using selected online tools. Ten users, one of them being an accessibility expert, with different impairments were involved in the research procedure. Their task was to follow a course of their choice and to communicate their observations and comments on the courses with the use of a specially designed questionnaire. Despite the continuous development of Coursera platform, the introduction of new improvements and the implementation of an accessibility policy along with a subpage dedicated to this subject, the participants of the study still faced barriers to digital accessibility. Significant non-compliances with the aforementioned guidelines have been demonstrated through the analysis of the questionnaire results and through a simplified audit of the platform.