Challenging Current Ways of Evaluating and Documenting the Accessibility of Educational Digital Resources

Abstract

The accessibility of digital educational resources is a key issue in order to provide “all” students with equal educational opportunities. Teachers and educators need adequate help and support to choose and adopt in their school practice those products that are fully accessible by “all” their students; this entails both that they should receive adequate training and that they may access reliable specific information (i.e., that the accessibility of digital educational resources is carefully assessed and documented and that related information is made available for them through appropriate documentation systems). This paper refers on how the authors, during a field experience, tackled the issue of evaluating, documenting and spreading information about the accessibility of educational digital resources. The methodological framework adopted for evaluating the accessibility of educational digital resources is outlined and a concrete example of how this was implemented in a nation-wide dedicated documentation system is described.