How accessibile is EDUNET contents?

Abstract

Since the mid 1990s many technologically advanced countries with the leadership provided by United States have started to institute and/or revise regulations regarding universal design, and is still striving to prepare legality of Web accessibility regulations or standards for better access to the Web. On the contrary, although Korea has enacted "Individuals with Disabilities anti-Discriminatory Act" in 2008, and is actively promoting and propagandizing the law, it is still at its infancy in comparison to other advanced countries in terms providing Web accessibility consideration for the recipients. Although the disability act was passed in April, 2008, and has been in legal force since the beginning of 2009, there still are many people who are having difficulties to obtain not only the Web accessibility but for obtaining telecommunication equipment and for access in general by e-learning content developers and managers. Since 2008, approximately 5.8 million primary and secondary students have been experiencing EDUNET through National Teaching-Learning Center and the Cyber Home Learning Systems.. This study, as a part of support service for instructional systems and instruction analyzed and evaluated the Web accessibility of Edunet for structure using FAE (The Functional Accessibility Evaluator) and for the styles of Web site using functional Web accessibility, which were based on the principles of the WCAG of the U.S. The study provided suggestions for improvement of instructional systems and instruction for Web access for Korean educational systems. The result of the evaluation of Edunet in the five (5) categories by FAE, there were many Fails for `Scripting` and in the `Text Equivalents,` there were many `Warns` and `Falls.` In other words, it was found that there were apparent problems with the use of alternate texts for all users (including disabled), use of mouse for onlink or onmouseover & onmouseout. This shows that there is an immediate need of improvement for educational web accessibility as well as improvements in the awareness of developers and digital contents providers. The implication of this study also point directions to further research and promotion to improve Web, digital contents, and e-learning contents accessibilities.