Search results

The purpose of this paper is to show how personalisation of learning resources and services can be achieved for students with and without disabilities, particularly responding to the needs of those with multiple disabilities in e‐learning systems. The paper aims to introduce ONTODAPS, the Ontology‐Driven Disability‐Aware Personalised E‐Learning System, which has the mechanism for such personalisation.

This paper reviews current e‐learning systems that provide personalisation for students, including their strengths and weaknesses. The paper presents personalisation and its techniques and then presents ONTODAPS, which personalises learning resources and services to students. In total, three case studies are considered to show how personalisation is achieved using ONTODAPS.

This paper shows that it is possible to use automated ontology‐based agents intercommunicating to provide an effective personalisation for disabled students. The results reveal that ONTODAPS is flexible enough to provide enough control and freedom to drive their learning. The results also suggest that ONTODAPS has the ability to provide appropriate levels of learner control by allowing them to self‐direct learning through personalising learning resources and then allowing them to choose which resources they wish to access. This thus gives them a sense of ownership and control.

This research reveals that it is possible for e‐learning systems to personalise learning for users with multiple disabilities. Thus, by considering the needs of such users and consulting them in the design and development process, developers of e‐learning systems can produce systems that are both accessible and usable by students with disabilities.

The inclusion of multiple formats of learning resources and personalisation of their presentation to students means students will have increased access to such resources, with the potential of consuming and assimilating the information. This also has the potential of improving understanding and hence and improvement in results.

This research shows that ONTODAPS is a medium where disabled students can have equivalent learning experience with their non‐disabled peers. This could potentially increase access to learning for disabled students and possibly help improve their results due to an increase in accessibility of learning resources and usability of the system. This system thus complies with contemporary legislation which requires “reasonable adjustments” or “reasonable accommodations” to be made to meet the needs of disabled people.

Although personalisation has been applied in e‐commerce systems, making them very successful, such personalisation is still a wish for e‐learning systems which struggle to catch up. This research proposes a solution in the e‐learning domain and its novelty is in its application to disabled students, including those with multiple disabilities.

The purpose of this paper is to address how virtual learning environments (VLEs) can be designed to include the needs of learners with multiple disabilities. Specifically, it employs AI to show how specific learning materials from a huge repository of learning materials can be recommended to learners with various disabilities. This is made possible through employing semantic web technology to model the learner and their needs.

The paper reviews personalised learning for students with disabilities, revealing the shortcomings of existing e-learning environments with respect to students with multiple disabilities. It then proceeds to show how the needs of a student with multiple disabilities can be analysed and then simple logical operators and knowledge-based rules used to personalise learning materials in order to meet the needs of such students.

It has been acknowledged in literature that designing for cases of multiple disabilities is difficult. This paper shows that existing learning environments do not consider the needs of students with multiple disabilities. As they are not flexibly designed and hence not adaptable, they cannot meet the needs of such students. Nevertheless, it is possible to anticipate that students with multiple disabilities would use learning environments, and then design learning environments to meet their needs.

This paper, by presenting various combination rules to present specific learning materials to students with multiple disabilities, lays the foundation for the design and development of learning environments that are inclusive of all learners, regardless of their abilities or disabilities. This could potentially stimulate designers of such systems to produce such inclusive environments. Hopefully, future learning environments will be adaptive enough to meet the needs of learners with multiple disabilities.

This paper, by proposing a solution towards developing inclusive learning environments, is a step towards inclusion of students with multiple disabilities in VLEs. When these students are able to access these environments with little or no barrier, they will be included in the learning community and also make valuable contributions.

So far, no study has proposed a solution to the difficulties faced by students with multiple disabilities in existing learning environments. This study is the first to raise this issue and propose a solution to designing for multiple disabilities. This will hopefully encourage other researchers to delve into researching the educational needs of students with multiple disabilities.

This paper aims to suggest how the information journey of students with disabilities could be facilitated, by first revealing the existence of inaccessible formats such as Portable Document Format (PDF) and then suggesting the inclusion of alternative formats of accessible learning materials, thus improving retrieval.

A sample of 400 articles published over 10 years (2009-2018) from four journals are selected and analysed for accessibility against the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines WCAG 2.0 by using automated accessibility checkers, a screen reader and manual human expertise. The results are presented and recommendations made on improving accessibility.

The findings suggest that the PDF versions of the selected journal articles are not accessible for screen reader users but could be improved by adopting accessible and inclusive practices. Including alternative formats of the learning materials could help support the student information journey.

The results of the study might not be very representative of all the articles in the journals given the small sample size. Additionally, the criteria used in the study do not consider all existing disabilities. Thus, although the PDFs may be inaccessible for some people with disabilities, they may be accessible to others.

Given that PDFs seem to be the preferred format of journal articles online, there is potential for a difficult information journey for some students due to the limitations posed by inaccessibility of the PDFs. Thus, it is recommended to include alternative formats which could be more accessible, giving the student the choice of accessing the learning materials in their preferred format.

If students are unable to access the learning materials that are required for their course, this could lead to poor grade, which might negatively affect the students’ morale. In some cases, some students might drop out.

This study analyses the accessibility of learning materials provided by a third party (journal publishers) and how they affect the student, something that is not usually given much importance when research in accessibility is carried out.

In this article, we highlight ways in which disability critical race theory (DisCrit) (Annamma et al., 2013), inclusive education and community-based participatory research (CBPR) can be used within professional development schools (PDS) to provide students with disabilities with more access to inclusive classrooms. At a grade 4–6 elementary school, we developed a model of a critical PDS to promote inclusive education and facilitate the transition of students of color with disabilities from self-contained to inclusive classrooms. We conducted semi-structured interviews and used action plan meetings with school administrators, teachers, professionals and students with disabilities and their parents to assess the impact of our critical PDS model. Findings suggest this model had a positive impact on administrators’ and teachers’ critical consciousness, ideological and instructional practices, students of color with disabilities’ social, academic and personal outcomes, as well as a schoolwide culture of inclusion and social justice. This study can inform tailored professional development efforts to improve educators’ inclusive practices.

We conducted semi-structured interviews and used action plan meetings with school administrators, teachers, professionals and students with disabilities and their parents to assess the impact of our critical PDS model.

The findings of this study suggest this model had a positive impact on administrators’ and teachers’ critical consciousness, ideological and instructional practices, students of color with disabilities’ social, academic and personal outcomes, as well as a schoolwide culture of inclusion and social justice.

This study can inform tailored professional development efforts aiming to improve educators’ inclusive practices.

We developed a model of a critical PDS to promote inclusive education and facilitate the transition of students of color with disabilities from self-contained to inclusive classrooms.

Disabled people are a neglected issue in criminology. This article discusses the extent of the population affected, social reactions to impairment and the disadvantages faced by disabled people, including higher risk of victimisation. Links that have been made between disability and offending behaviour are also critically assessed. Finally, some practical solutions to include disabled people in community safety strategies are outlined.

The evidence suggests that the current delivery of primary care to people with a learning disability does not adequately meet their needs. In particular, individuals do not access adequate health promotion, are not having treatable illnesses identified and are not having more complex needs addressed. This review examines this evidence, highlights barriers to the effective delivery of health care and assesses these barriers, pilot projects and the few intervention studies published. Effective response to health needs will need a change in the working patterns of primary, secondary and social care providers. The contracting system and the move to locality‐based purchasing may be the ideal catalysts for these changes.

In discussing some of the issues arising from the article by Angela Olsen and Catherine Carter, the purpose of this paper is to draw readers’ attention to the various support needs women with learning disabilities may have.

Critical analysis based on review of literature and the author’s research and practice-based experience.

Women with learning disabilities have similar support needs to other women who have experienced violence and abuse. However, in order to get their needs met, they need access to information, support from professionals and to share experiences with other women.

This commentary encourages readers to view the abuse of women with learning disabilities in a broad social context and to use all the knowledge available to protect and empower individuals, whilst at the same time demanding social changes to end discrimination and abuse.

Providing accessible and inclusive environments fulfils legislative obligations and creates financial benefits. Historic-listed buildings rely on heritage tourism for continued financial support. The purpose of this paper is to investigate how historic-listed buildings adapt to afford access to people with disabilities (PwD), through physical and non-physical interventions.

Using a case study approach of an historic property, research comprises of: an observational visitor survey, determining visitor demographic regarding visible disabilities; an access audit, determining current accessibility; interviews with the property’s Access Team; and desktop-based research.

The results depict the complexity, challenges and barriers in making historic buildings accessible for PwD. Through alternative training and inclusive initiatives, the findings reveal how historic buildings may support the multiplicity of individuals’ access requirements.

Further research incorporating longer surveying periods, wider demographic of interviewees and multiple case study analysis would provide richer, comparable data in understanding the intrinsic complexities involved in creating accessibility within historic buildings. The implications of this research could transcend management, conservation and adaptation of listed buildings in identifying the defined barriers and solutions to overcome them.

The originality of this paper relates to the use of alternative services creating access when physical changes are deemed “unreasonable”. A conceptual framework is developed depicting the complexity, challenges and barriers in making historic buildings accessible for PwD.

Recently, online learning and online environments have become even more important. Students' engagement, fear of missing out and Internet addiction are seen as interrelated components that affect students' online teaching and learning process. In this context, university students' engagement, fear of missing out and Internet addiction in online environments, the relationship among them and students' demographic characteristics, online environment usage status and Internet usage profiles as their predictors are examined in this study.

This is a relational study and is carried out with 179 university students. Personal information form, student's engagement, fear of missing out and Internet addiction scales were used as data collection tools. Descriptive statistics, t-test, one-way ANOVA, correlation, hierarchical linear multiple regression analysis are used for the analysis.

According to the results, variables related to students' demographic characteristics, online environment usage status and Internet usage profiles together significantly predict the students' engagement, fear of missing out and Internet addiction in online environments. When students think positively about taking courses online, their engagement increases accordingly and their fear of missing out levels decrease. Increase in student's academic achievement leads to decline in Internet addiction.

In practice, examining the related variables about students in terms of engagement to the learning environment, fear of missing out and Internet addiction could bring a new perspective to studies on problematic use of the Internet and technology such as nomophobia and digital distraction. The results of this study reveal how and which components to be focused on for increasing the university students' engagement, reducing Internet addiction and fear of missing out in online learning environments.

The findings of this study provide a versatile perspective with the variables of student participation, fear of missing out, Internet addiction and their predictors in online learning environments, which are becoming widespread and increasingly important today and shed light on future researches.