Arab Online Courses and the Disabled: An Automated and User-Testing Approach

Abstract

There is a significant increase in the adoption of Learning Management Systems (LMSs) by higher education institutions worldwide and Saudi universities in particular. These pedagogical tools empower teaching and learning by providing access to online learning materials. However, all university students, including students with disabilities, encounter countless instances of inaccessibility that negatively impact their learning experience. In order to offer equal access to all students, it is of paramount importance to enhance the accessibility of LMSs and remove such barriers. The purpose of this case study is to evaluate an online course in the LMS Blackboard (Bb) using an automated and end-user evaluation approach. First, automated testing was carried out by Ally software. Second, end-user testing was conducted using a think-aloud protocol to understand the actual learning experiences. Data from the think-aloud protocol was examined to extract accessibility issues. The findings from the automated testing indicate that the online course is highly accessible in terms of the course materials. However, students were challenged by several accessibility obstacles that surfaced during the think-aloud Bb tasks. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study that incorporates Bb Ally as an automated checker to test an online course for disabled Saudi students. KEYWORDS Think-aloud protocol, Ally software, Blackboard, Web content accessibility guidelines (WCAG 2.1), World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), Blind and visually impaired (BVI) students