Evaluation of Web Accessibility of Higher Education Institutions in Chile

Abstract

The aim of this study is to assess the web accessibility concerning the websites of Chilean universities which are listed in The World University Rankings.
 
 Web accessibility is a fundamental factor in achieving a true educational inclusion. It is especially important in the light of the current trend of expanding not only the online content, but also online learning. What makes this even more essential is the Chilean legislation which under Law 20422 establishes the regulations regarding equality of opportunity and social inclusion of people with disabilities. 
 
 The analysis has been conducted on the basis of the international standard set by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), version WCAG 2.0. Evaluation methodology called WCAG-EM created by the same entity, has been applied in the analysis. Various automatic web accessibility evaluation tools have also been used, apart from manual verifications. 
 
 The study reveals that the websites of Chilean universities have hardly complied with the regulation and that there are barriers and difficulties of access for the elderly and/or people with disabilities.

A Systematic Review of the Literature Concerning the Accessibility of Library Websites

“…Ten studies [(Gonçalves et al, 2013) (Abu Shawar, 2015 (Ahmi & Mohamad, 2016) (Agangiba et al, 2017) (Pendergast, 2017) (Acosta-Vargas et al, 2018) (Carvajal et al, 2018) (Laufer Nir & Rimmerman, 2018) (AlMeraj et al, 2020 and (Carvajal et al, 2021)] were covered under this subtheme and reviewed to establish the trends of website accessibility implementation in educational institutions websites. The selected Web sites had hurdles to information access and that these issues are exacerbated for people who use assistive technology.…”

University students experience the COVID-19 induced shift to remote instruction

“…At the same time, students with a variety of disabilities report preferring online learning (Ilgaz & Gulbahar, 2017 ; Kent et al, 2018 ), despite the preference of most students for face-to-face classes. Nevertheless, international analyses of online learning accessibility in general has found learning materials and sites wanting (Alsalem and Abu, 2018 ; Boateng, 2016 ; Carvajal et al, 2018 ; Massengale & Vasquez III, 2016 ).…”

Evaluación de accesibilidad web de las universidades chilenas

“…Estos resultados presentan similitudes con el trabajo anterior más relacionado, que fue llevado a cabo por Máñez-Carvajal et al (2018) en el que se analizaron 13 instituciones de educación superior chilenas utilizando distintas herramientas de evaluación de la accesibilidad web. En ambos estudios, se testeó la gramática HTML empleada en las páginas web mediante los validadores de código diseñados por el W3C.…”