Better Object Descriptions to make Education more Accessible

Liddy Nevile, Adjunct Associate Professor, Applied Computing Research Institute, La Trobe University, Kingsbury Drive, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia, Liddy.Nevile@motile.net,

Edgar Smith, Pro Vice-Chancellor Information Technology, La Trobe University, Kingsbury Drive, Bundoora, Victoria, Australia, pvcit@latrobe.edu.au

Keywords

accessibility, metadata, Dublin Core, education, learning objects

Abstract

Currently users looking for educational objects, resources, services, do so with no clear way of identifying and matching any special needs they may have. Such special needs may be the consequences of disabilities or, equally often, a consequence of the circumstances in which the user will want to access the object. As technologies improve, the opportunity to customise information and services for users increases. This paper is about how the use of descriptions of objects can increase the potential for customisation and thus accessibility of Web objects, in particular, and other digital objects in general. It is proposed that emerging technologies will increase the benefits of this approach. The paper reports on work being undertaken in several international forums in which increased accessibility is the goal.