[nfbcs] MOOCS

[Deborah Armstrong]

In case you don't know about Massive Open Online courses (MOOCS) I wanted to bring attention to a sample listing of all MOOC courses starting this week.

See this page:
                http://us8.campaign-archive2.com/?u=c4e45e47176fffe244e832ba8&id=c5bf410558&e=a163fa9594
which is huge and will take a while to load, plus longer for a screen reader to parse.

However, this organization (Mooc-List) has the most accessible listing.

Courses are free, but you do have to pay if you want credit you can show as proof to a college or employer. That is, you can get the knowledge free of charge, but not the certificate.

You will see a large number of computer science courses in this listing. That's typical, though this week's list has more than usual. For younger people on this list,

Introduction to CSS and Coding
                https://www.mooc-list.com/course/introduction-css3-coursera?static=true&static=true

A Crash course In Data Science
                https://www.mooc-list.com/course/crash-course-data-science-coursera?static=true&static=true

and
Mastering the Software Engineering Interview
                https://www.mooc-list.com/course/mastering-software-engineering-interview-coursera?static=true&static=true

look particularly interesting. A new list is out each week, so it's good to check back often.

As for access for screen reader users, there is both good and bad news. My experience with taking MOOC courses is that about 50% are accessible. Coursera seems to be the most responsive; a real human replies to email about accessibility complaints and many were fixed based on my requests. But many of the computer science courses are indeed graphical, and without redesigning the entire course, it would not be possible for them to be made accessible.

Not that we shouldn't stop advocating, and in fact, taking a MOOC and then advocating for access is a great way to get the issue recognized without blowing your entire tuition budget fighting for this right.

So, the silver lining here is that when the course is free, you haven't shelled out funds to struggle with something that's not accessible. You can dip in and out, taking from each course what you can access and learn quite a lot. Also if you take the course without requesting credit there's no ethical reason you can't get help from a sighted friend. Though you have to pledge that all the work you complete is your own, if you and a sighted buddy take a course together, helping each other, the only time this pledge is important is if you are asking for a certificate of completion.

Though Coursera seems the most responsive to requests to fix access glitches, Canvas is by far the most accessible MOOC platform out of the box in my experience. It is not so much the LMS that determines whether a course is accessible as it is the content. Instructors who post image-only PDFS, or explain everything in terms of charts and diagrams can make the learning process very frustrating.

Another plus for a MOOC-based course, is the ability to nearly always download all the material. This happens because the courses are offered world-wide and in many countries the internet isn't as fast or reliable. So when you watch a video or a power-point in a MOOC, there's usually a download link so you can get it on your computer. This means if you need to get sighted help, it's easier because you don't need to be online. Most of the videos have transcripts too, so you can see how words are spelled.

The quality of MOOC courses is often higher than the same online course taught in college. For example, in courses I've taken, the instructor takes time to explain clearly in the video what a graph represents, because he knows that even for the sighted, his visual aids aren't always easy to see in the video. The videos are usually heavily edited by the instructors in a MOOC. This is unlike some impromptu lecture that has been recorded by an amateur and then put up on a website so the college can boast that the course is now online. And because you can enroll without paying you can track all the textbooks down before making any sort of time or financial commitment.

Lastly, for those in school, struggling through an inaccessible course, sometimes the MOOC version is more accessible. That's another good reason to know about them. I work with dyslexic students and when they struggle with anatomy and physiology, I often recommend they sign up for a MOOC on the topic. I recently took a history course that required too much dependence on maps for my comfort level. In the MOOC version, the instructor showed the same maps but pontificated more about what he needed students to see on those maps.

--Debee