Research on Web Accessibility in Higher Education
| Title: | Research on Web Accessibility in Higher Education (ID: CSD3312) | | Author(s): | Terrill Thompson (University of Washington), Sheryl E. Burgstahler (University of Washington) and Dan Comden (University of Washington) | | Topics: | Access for Persons with Disabilities, Web Accessibility | | Origin: | Community Contributions (2003) | | Type: | Bibliography | | Abstract: | Several studies have used the automated tool Bobby in evaluating the accessibility of postsecondary educational institutions' websites to people with disabilities. However, determining many aspects of web-content accessibility requires human judgment. With the present study, two web accessibility "experts" manually evaluated critical web pages of 102 public research universities using a 5-point rating scale that focuses on each site's "functional accessibility," i.e., whether all users can accomplish the perceived function of the site. The results of each evaluator approximate a normal distribution, and the evaluators' results are positively correlated with one another (r = .597), suggesting that the procedure has inter-rater reliability. Also, the evaluators' combined results are positively correlated with those obtained by using Bobby on the same sample (r = .595). Using these evaluations, the researchers were able to identify a distinct cluster of promising practices in web accessibility. | | View this resource: | |
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