Accessible and Inclusive Higher Education: The ESVI-AL Project

The paper discusses the work done, processed and resulted in by ESVI-AL project (Educación Superior Virtual Inclusiva – América Latina) for accessible and inclusive higher education. The project was funded by the ALFA III programme of the European Commission to improve the accessibility of educational programs in virtual modality by institutions of higher education, especially in Latin America, understanding accessibility to concern environments and e-learning services to make them understandable, operable, usable, and practicable for all people. The fundamental global needs and challenges to improve accessibility in higher education are the concerns of United Nations, European Council and various national bodies in many countries. Many countries are adapting their legislation to offer accessible and inclusive education to all people. There is a variety of educational materials in engineering education, which makes it a challenge to present information and offer education so that people with disabilities or other functional diversity can access it. The sixth CDIO standard (Engineering Workspace) highlights student-centered learning and the accessibility of learning workspace. The ESVI-AL project partners are seven Latin American universities and three European universities. Also four international collaborating institutions are participating. They are World Organization of people with disabilities (DPI), the Latin American Blind Union (ULAC), International Association for Social Security (ISSA), and Virtual Educa. ESVI-AL project looks for multiplying the results through creation, implementation and validation of methodologies that establish a working model for the fulfilment of accessibility requisites and standards in the context of virtual education, which represent a set of good practices and success stories, as well as quality standards to follow that can be implemented by other HEIs of the region. This multiplying effect will be reinforced through the cooperation network which invites HEIs from LA and EU to participate in piloting and accessing the material and methodologies of accessibility in virtual spaces in their own institutions. Additionally, an Observatory of Accessibility in Virtual Education and Society was created, to support HEIs in the process of implementation, management and evaluation, as well as a definition of diagnostics that facilitate the elaboration of audits that validate the accomplishment of accessibility standards in education in virtual campuses. The main results of the project are: • Cooperation Network about Accessibility in Virtual Education and Society, with all the publications of the project are available in electronic format. Any HEI, company, interested and compromised organization with the virtual inclusion of people with disability will be admitted to become a partner of the Network. • Cooperation Observatory about Accessibility in Virtual Education and Society (Action of all partners of the project in their different regions.. The services of the Observatory may be used by any user from any part of the world, existing the possibility to participate in forums and activities from the observatory • Virtual Educa: This organization will offer their experience in collaboration with HEIs from Ibero-America, thanks to their broadcasting channel available with more of 40 member HEIs. • Advisory: The methodology of accessible virtual education and the guidebook on good practices allows spreading the results of any HEI. The partners of the project can advise other HEI to spread the results in their institution. • Research: A possibility to do research and doctoral thesis about Web accessibility and virtual education will be offered as a result of the project, to graduates from HEIs in LA and EU, in universities from the project.

Proceedings of the 11th International CDIO Conference, Chengdu, China, June 8-11 2015