Inclusive MOOC Supported by Assistive Technology

Abstract

The deaf and blind communities often struggle to communicate. In scenarios such as academia, these communication challenges prevent these communities from progressing within the wider intellectual communities, as most digital content and tools used for disseminating information remain inaccessible to them. Our work aims to revamp the learning experience of deaf and blind students by granting them access to education in their first language and through proper effective channels. Massive and Open Online Courses (MOOCs) provide a new opportunity for education. MOOCs are easily accessible; however, their availability tends to be non-inclusive. The aim is for them to be viewed broadly, even though minority groups, with needs for specific channels and languages, such as deaf and blinds, are usually not considered. To maximize the potential of these courses, an inclusive MOOC was developed, a broad pedagogical model with technologies that enable deaf and blind people to access digital educational content.

1. Introduction

According to the World Health Organization [1], at least 2.2. billion people have a vision impairment and over 1.5 billion people globally live with hearing impairments. One of the impacts of visual and hearing impairment is the failure to easily communicate and access information. Deaf students often face communication challenges in educational settings. This happens due to the fact that almost every information tools remain inaccessible to them, which often limit their opportunities for academic and professional success, as well as their full integration in the academic community. In fact, digital information and most educational materials are only available in spoken languages, either in its written or audio form, which makes them unavailable to deaf students who do not understand spoken languages.

As an expected consequence, by using different mother languages, that differ in all aspects, including phonology, morphology, vocabulary, and syntax, users of sign language and users of spoken language struggle to communicate among them. While spoken languages are linear, sign languages are visual and make use of spatial dimensions. This means that a deaf student who is comfortable with communication in sign language may or may not be able to read a spoken language fluently, just as a person who is used to communicate in a spoken language may not be able to understand its sign language counterpart.

According to Ziadat and Al Rahmneh’s research [2], deaf individuals face several educational challenges; the need for a sign language translator, difficulties in understanding scientific subjects, and a lack of competent teachers with sufficient knowledge to effectively teach these students are some of these challenges.

However, technological developments have enabled the emergence of tools to include deaf and blind communities within the learning process. Nonetheless, they often involve expensive hardware and related services, including training. These questions often prevent educational institutions from adopting inclusive measures, hindering the integration of blind and/or deaf individuals in their courses.

Despite the daily challenges, the number of students with hearing and visual impairments enrolling in higher education has been rising considerably, raising the need to devise strategies of inclusiveness that enable access to information and educational content, improving learning.

For this purpose, this article presents an innovative approach to developing digital content for deaf and blind people, based on an inclusive learning approach, using web tools that allow any person with minimal computer expertise, regardless of their abilities, to improve their knowledge in a given topic. An inclusive massive online open course (MOOC) and a pedagogical model were designed specifically to address hearing and visual impairments.

Finally, the quality assessment of the inclusive MOOC is explained. Evaluation results are presented and discussed. In this process, performance indicators from the quantitative evaluation framework (QEF) [3] were applied, and two questionnaires for gathering the users’ perceptions were produced.

1.1 Background and related work

In the past, institutions offering courses on Portuguese sign language (LGP) were primarily located in Setubal, Portugal. However, this has shifted in recent years and, since 2005, higher education programs in translation and interpretation of LGP have become available both at the Polytechnic Institute of Coimbra and the Polytechnic Institute of Porto. Their offer is mostly of undergraduate degrees in education and pedagogical sciences, focusing on sign language teaching and training sign language translators, interpreters, and teachers [4]. A significant portion of the technical literature on the subject has been developed only in Portuguese, and deaf students are therefore dependent on the interpretation provided in class without having access to study materials in sign language [5].

The presence of sign language interpreters in the classroom is a result of the lack of appropriate didactic materials and bilingual teachers. This contributes to the effective exclusion of deaf students from the academic community. Most interpreters do not have the same academic qualifications as the teachers and therefore struggle to understand the concepts being discussed in class. This can directly affect the translation process from Portuguese to sign language, leading to a vague understanding of the information by deaf students [6]. Furthermore, schools and universities often lack the necessary physical infrastructure and teaching methods based on sign language and deaf culture [7]. These factors illustrate how poorly implemented public policies of inclusion can result in ineffective education for deaf individuals, as they do not provide access to learning in sign language.

The accessibility of education has seen significant progress in recent years [8]. While many authors have addressed this topic, few have focused specifically on the development of MOOCs for individuals with hearing and visual impairments. Gupta and Fatima [9] are among the few who have proposed ideas for developing MOOCs for people with hearing impairments. McKeown and McKeown [10] have identified barriers such as the lack of Sign Language support in learning management systems and difficulties with communication and course materials as challenges faced by deaf learners in e-learning environments.

Other studies in e-learning systems with accessibility for deaf and hard of hearing individuals are scarce. Alcazar et al. [11] implemented a speech-to-visual approach in an e-learning system for teaching English in the Philippines, which proved to be beneficial for deaf students in terms of comprehension and individualized instruction. Batanero et al. [12] redesigned a Moodle platform to include accessible learning objects for deaf, deaf-blind, and blind engineering students, resulting in their improved academic performance. Esdras and Galasso [13] developed the first bilingual virtual learning platform with tools such as mental maps and bilingual forums. Batanero-Ochaita et al. [14] evaluated the accessibility and usability of a learning platform prototype for deaf, deaf-blind, and blind students, finding a positive response from all students. These studies demonstrate the potential of digital accessibility for deaf and blind students.

1.2 Purpose of the study

Deaf students, who are comfortable with communicating using sign language, often face challenges when accessing information in spoken languages, which can negatively impact their academic performance. Providing digital content in sign language can be of great benefit to these students, allowing them to study and learn using materials in their first language.

In this paper, it is proposed a pedagogical model for delivering inclusive educational materials to deaf and blind students through Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs). As proof of concept, it is described a course on digital literacy for schoolteachers that was developed using this proposal. Our model has the potential to improve the academic performance of deaf students by providing them with access to materials in their first language, as well of blind students.

2. Methodology

The development of an inclusive Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) requires the collaboration of multidisciplinary teams in order to create an accessible and innovative educational environment. The inclusive MOOC discussed in this article is designed for deaf individuals in Portuguese-speaking countries and Portuguese and Brazilian people around the world. Each MOOC follows a common model that is based on a specific pedagogical structure and incorporates adapted technology to ensure consistency across the post-graduation degrees offered through these courses. The content production for each course must consider five key factors: structure, length, pedagogical design, content production, and validation [15, 16]. Each course is a short, online learning unit, that follows a set of specifications to ensure coherence among MOOCs.

These specifications include: (1) prerequisites and learning objectives; (2) supporting content for the lesson; (3) evaluation strategies; (4) the interaction model to be adopted, including pedagogical tools for deaf individuals; and (5) an introductory welcoming video [17].

The authors of this article have taken on the challenge of applying a pedagogical model to create inclusive and innovative MOOCs. Their goal is to promote the inclusion of deaf individuals in higher education through the development of technical equipment, software, and strategies that allow the MOOC model to be adapted to a multilingual environment that includes Portuguese, Brazilian Portuguese, LGP, and Libras. The planning and development of these courses involves all relevant professionals in order to meet the objectives and ensure a consistent development process that produces courses that are suitable for deaf individuals (Figure 1).

Figure 1.

Stages in the inclusive MOOC approach and respective roles [18].

The use of sign language in these MOOCs is facilitated by the VirtualSign technology, an automatic bidirectional translator of sign and spoken languages. The computer team is responsible for developing the VirtualSign application [19, 20], which allows deaf individuals to access digital content, as well as creating a sound environment that makes the same digital content accessible to non-deaf individuals.

As mentioned, VirtualSign is a bidirectional translator that can convert LGP into written Portuguese and written text into LGP. The translation from spoken to sign language is performed by a 3D avatar that reproduces the corresponding animations for the text. This supports the intended interaction model for the MOOCs.

The design of the MOOCs is the responsibility of the graphic design team, who use storyboards to guide the recordings of the lessons in order to avoid errors in task performance. The design team is also responsible for video recording, image editing, animations, and graphics integration, following the input from the teacher.

The provider is responsible for disseminating the MOOCs through their network, and the “students” are the users of the final educational product. The teachers are responsible for planning and developing the content, including written texts, images, and videos. The UC Coordinators team validates the lessons, with the design team overseeing any necessary corrections or adjustments to the audio. The research team (“investigators”) is responsible for researching the specific needs of deaf individuals in order to enable intuitive interaction. Finally, the project management team oversees the planning and provides technological and scientific support for the successful development of the MOOCs.

2.1 Sign language technological framework

The MOOCs incorporate an automatic translation system that can convert text to sign language and sign language to text, based on the VirtualSign technology, in order to support bilingual content and interaction. Figure 2 in the original article presents the pedagogical model, which integrates the content for deaf students and identifies each element: the digital content repository (DB), where the digital materials for a course are stored; the content experts (teachers), who can use various tools to provide the content (e.g., Word, PowerPoint, video, audio); the Kinect and sensor gloves, which allow the LGP specifications to be read by the computer; and the avatar, which translates written text into sign language. This system allows educational content to be automatically translated for both teachers and students without requiring them to have programming skills or be familiar with nonnatural communication channels.

Figure 2.

Design solution of the MOOC for the deaf [18].

In addition to the sign language translation capabilities, an audio add-on that converts text to speech was also included in the MOOCs to enable blind individuals to benefit from them as well. While this feature is not the focus of the current work, it is a proof of concept that the authors are interested in evaluating. The MOOCs must be clear and user-friendly for all deaf students. The participants are provided with an environment that allows them to interact with the content and successfully complete the tasks. The architecture of the sign language components is described in the next section.

2.1.1 API translator architecture

It is well known that deaf individuals use visual and spatial representations to communicate, while non-deaf individuals are used to spoken languages. These differences require different methods of communication for each group. The Assistive Communication for Education (ACE) architecture [21], shown in Figure 3, addresses these distinct communication needs, particularly in educational settings, by using a model that considers the specificities of both deaf and non-deaf individuals.

Figure 3.

Translator architecture.

Figure 3 shows the two main modules that perform the steps required for translation. The text recognition module converts written text into signs, which are animated by a 3D avatar. The second module translates sign language into text. This process uses two devices: the Kinect for motion recognition and data gloves for the recognition of static hand configurations.

2.2 Participants

The inclusive MOOC was evaluated using the Quantitative Evaluation Framework (QEF). The study sample consisted of 23 users, including 8 deaf participants and non-deaf students, with age ranging from 18 to 30 in both groups.

The participants were asked to provide their education level in order to be able to infer the results on the content quality (Figure 4).

Figure 4.

Respondents’ characterization concerning the education level.

2.3 Evaluation

The assessment procedure for the proposed architecture and the MOOC content was implemented in two stages in order to test their efficiency and effectiveness, as well as their usability and accessibility features. Questionnaires were used to collect end user feedback and generate the inputs required by QEF. The aim was to determine how the proposed model might improve access to educational digital content and to identify factors that could facilitate or hinder its effectiveness.

2.4 The QEF approach in general

QEF is being used to assess the quality of educational software products during their development cycle for the past 30 years. QEF has been shown to ensure consistency and coherence throughout the assessment procedure, which computes the product’s quality and its evolution during the development cycle. It enables to assess the compliance of the proposed MOOC with the needs of deaf students. Blind students were also involved in this process in order to evaluate the suitability of the course for this group, although the features of the MOOC that are specifically designed for blind individuals are still in the early stages of development.

QEF uses performance indicators that are based on the ISO 9126 and SCORM standards and provide a quantitative representation of product quality in an orthogonal space [3, 22]. For educational software products, three dimensions are used: pedagogical, ergonomic, and management (Table 1).

Dimensions	Factors	Requirements
Pedagogical	Learning	Contents must be hierarchically and sequentially planned
		Contents must be divided into several knowledge stages, always starting in the least complex stage
		Contents, the course unit core, must reflect the best scientific or pedagogical evidence available concerning the subjects to be handled, and must be internally coherent, i.e., the considered subjects must be clearly linked and interconnected
		In each lesson/video class, the interaction with the participant/attendee must be considered by including content-related questions directly addressed to the participant/attendee
		A course unit must provide constructive feedback
		A course unit must be prepared for participants with different profiles/disabilities
	Evaluation	A course unit must provide problems to be solved in a short period of time
		The activities proposed in the course unit must consider the participants’ collaborative work skills
		The course unit must propose critical reflections about its contents and developed assignments
		The course unit must allow the participants to choose their path while attending it
		The course unit must promote interactions and foster teamwork
		The Special Education course units (deaf and blind) comprising specific scientific and pedagogical contents must be validated by experts in these fields
Ergonomic	Usability	The participant must be able to start and conclude each lesson when he/she wishes it
		The course unit provide help through complementary material
		The lesson’s complementary material must be of easy and intuitive access
		The course units must consider a uniform help pattern
		The course unit must have various audios available, compliable with the participant’s needs (including the blind participants)
		The course unit must allow the participant to configure the audio
		The deaf must have access to the digital content by means of an automatic bidirectional translator which translates the Portuguese written language into the Sign Language
		The system must have an avatar to foster the interaction with the deaf participants
		A help button must be available for the deaf/hearing impaired
		A help button must be made available for blind/visually impaired
		The lesson must use of visual resources such as images and icons, to help transmitting the content better
		The lesson must consider human perception, i.e., must be prepared for the diverse participants’ physical abilities/capabilities (deaf/blind)
		The course must enable the participant to receive feedback in a forum
	Video/Audio	The course is supported in digital video classes
		Video class must have 8 to 10 minutes-length, corresponding to each lesson
		Each course unit must have a brief introduction to the lessons
		In the video edition, the use of images, graphics, and animations must be specifically prepared for the blind/visually impaired by a detailed audio description
		The video must include captions
		The audio is recorded in Portuguese
		The whole text is presented in linear and concise form
		The text included is written in Portuguese
	Text	The lesson title must be clear, objective, and appropriate to the content
		The content must be written following the Portuguese spelling agreement
		Whenever references are used, these must be included in the bibliography
Management	Content Management	Contents are created by team of certified experts in the field of knowledge
		There is a previous and appropriate content planning to assure the course homogenous features
		Content must be validated by the course unit’s responsible teacher
		Contents addressing the blind/visually impaired must be validated by experts in the field
		Contents addressing the deaf/hearing impaired must be validated by experts in the field
	Adaptability	The course is adapted to be attended by the deaf/hearing impaired by integrating the 3D avatar
		The course is adapted to be attended by the blind/visually impaired by audio analysis and processing

Table 1.

Quantitative Evaluation Framework (QEF) [3].

The Quality of Experience Framework (QEF) is a method for evaluating the performance of a product. It is based on three dimensions: pedagogical, ergonomic, and management. Each dimension impacts the overall performance of the product. In order to use QEF to assess a product, a quality scenario must be designed specifically for that product. The pedagogical dimension of QEF focuses on the relationship between the subject, the participant, the object, and the technological instrument. This dimension is used to evaluate the effectiveness of different technological procedures for achieving educational objectives. The pedagogical dimension is made up of two factors: learning and evaluation.

The ergonomic dimension of QEF is concerned with the scientific knowledge and conditions that affect the technical, ergonomic, and social aspects of a learning scenario. This dimension includes three factors: usability, video/audio, and text. The management dimension of QEF reflects the quality of the product from a functional and implementation perspective. This dimension consists of two factors: adaptability and content management.

QEF uses the Euclidean distance between a real product and an ideal product to compute the quality of a product. The coordinates of the real product are determined using a weighted average of the values of the corresponding factors within each dimension of the framework. The value of each factor is determined using a weighted average of the percentage of fulfillment of the product features that contribute to the factor. The percentage of fulfillment of each feature is assessed using appropriate techniques such as questionnaires or direct input from sensors. The perceived quality of a product at each evaluation is inversely proportional to the distance between the coordinates of the real product and the ideal product.

2.5 QEF approach

This study included 29 participants, 6 of whom were blind, 8 of whom were deaf, and 15 of whom had no sight or hearing impairments. These participants provided input for the study and also completed evaluation questionnaires.

In the evaluation of the pedagogical domain using the Quality of Experience Framework (QEF), the learning factor scored 82%, while the evaluation factor scored 32%. In the ergonomic domain, the evaluation results for the three factors (usability, video/audio integration, and text integration) were all 100%. Similarly, in the management domain, both the content management and adaptability factors scored 100%.

2.5.1 Testing with the users: Usability questionnaires approach

In order to assess user satisfaction, a group of 23 users, including 8 deaf individuals, were given access to a lesson in an inclusive MOOC prototype. After interacting with the lesson, the users completed an online questionnaire using a five-point Likert scale to evaluate the usability, adaptability, and content quality of the MOOC. A total of 23 questionnaires were collected, including 8 from deaf users who specifically focused on the usability and adaptability of the model (as shown in Table 2). All participants, both deaf and non-deaf, were asked to provide their education level, and the survey procedure was the same for both groups.

Questionnaire on usability and adaptability of the inclusive MOOC for the Deaf and Blind
Deaf	Blind
The possibility to choose when to start or finish the lesson is very good The contents are interesting and well structured For the deaf, the access to the contents using the automatic bidirectional translator, which translate text and sound into the Sign Language, is effective. The interface with the avatar makes the interaction with the contents easier for the deaf trainees. The use of colors, graphs, and images are appropriate. The visual resources such as images, icons, and diagrams help structuring and understanding the contents. The lesson contents are formally prepared to be accessed by a deaf individual.	The possibility to choose when to start or finish the lesson is very good The contents are interesting and well structured For the blind, the access to the contents using the available audio system is effective. The interaction with the contents is clear and user-friendly for blind users. The audio resources available in the lesson are clear and helpful for blind users to access the content. The lesson contents are formally prepared to be accessed by a blind individual.

Table 2.

Questionnaire focusing on deaf and blind users’ satisfaction.

Regarding the interaction you have just had with the prototype of a lesson developed following the inclusive MOOC pedagogical model, classify the items according to your level of satisfaction, from 1 to 5, considering: 1-strongly disagree; 2-disagree; 3-neutral; 4-agree; 5-strongly agree.

3. Results

The results of the questionnaire on deaf users’ satisfaction were grouped and analyzed according to the responses from eight deaf users. These responses focused on the usability and adaptability of the model. Of the 23 total respondents to the questionnaire, the majority were positive about the seven items, with an average of 70% of respondents choosing “strongly agree” as their response. None of the respondents had any negative responses (Figure 5).

Figure 5.

The questionnaire results showed the satisfaction level of deaf users.

The questionnaire was completed by 21 people, six of whom were blind. The majority of respondents expressed satisfaction with the items, with scores ranging from 57.1 to 66.7% “strongly agree” responses (Figure 6). None of the respondents expressed any negative responses.

Figure 6.

The questionnaire results showed the satisfaction of blind users.

4. Discussion

The results of the QEF evaluation show that the overall product quality is 82%, which, in addition to being very encouraging, suggests that this approach has potential to create more inclusive and accessible educational content. However, there is still room for improvement: the evaluation factor in the pedagogical domain and the usability factor in the ergonomic domain are areas to consider.

From the perspective of the users, both approaches were well received, with features that addressed the needs of both blind and deaf individuals when accessing digital content. Over 57% of respondents “strongly agreed” with the statements that the lesson content is prepared to be accessed by blind and deaf individuals. Previous research has emphasized the importance of developing virtual learning models for the deaf.

In terms of the main objective of the research, it was found that several studies have suggested the development of strategies and tools for web-based education for the deaf. Additionally, there is a need for an e-learning system with a user-friendly interface. Despite the various models that have been implemented in previous studies, including assessments, architecture, and design, only one LMS for communication between deaf and non-deaf people has been developed at the National Institute of Education for the Deaf in Brazil [13].

The process of creating multilingual courses in Portuguese/Brazilian Portuguese and sign language involves the use of visual-spatial aspects of sign language in a digital context. A team of educators, designers, screenwriters, interpreters, and specialized studio staff work together using project management methodologies to develop the learning objectives and activities. The visual language used is designed to engage deaf students conceptually and humorously. The role of the educational designers is to create an effective learning experience that aligns with the goals of the lecturers for each course [7].

These findings have encouraged researchers and practitioners to design and develop specific models with bilingual tools that will benefit both deaf teachers and deaf students.

5. Conclusion

In this article, we present an innovative MOOC designed to expand digital educational options for deaf individuals and provide a simple approach for blind students. Deaf individuals often face disadvantages in education due to their condition, which restricts their ability to communicate with others and limits their access to digital content and information, which are critical factors in education. The proposed pedagogical model and inclusive approach are designed to promote the development of inclusive and interactive learning environments. The aim is to reduce barriers to accessing educational content, allowing individuals with different needs to work together while using the same educational materials. This will enable bidirectional communication in any language, which can be used in classrooms to create inclusive learning environments, in the case of deaf students.

To assess the quality and potential of the MOOC to provide access to digital educational content, we used the QEF (Quality Evaluation Framework) framework, which follows the development of digital content and monitors its production throughout the entire cycle. The results of the evaluation showed the positive potential of this model, although there are still improvements that can be made, particularly in the areas of evaluation and usability. In conclusion, the proposed pedagogical model breaks the traditional, ineffective process of communication between different communities and promotes inclusion and access to information and educational content in every student’s first language, supported by an automatic bidirectional sign language translator for the deaf and a sound environment for the blind.

Acknowledgments

This research is being supported by GILT R&D Unit (Games, Interaction and Learning Technologies).