Publication

Abstract:
Information and Communication Technology ICT is increasingly becoming a cornerstone of both work and daily lives for many people. Everyone should then be able to access and use ICT at the same level as everyone else, including individuals with disabilities and the elderly. Even so, many forms of technologies and services are still not being designed with accessibility in mind. Several factors are yet hindering ICT accessibility including, among others, the scarcity of adequate ICT accessibility learning and training programs, as well as the lack of integration of ICT accessibility courses into curricula, which means that most of graduate students do not acquire knowledge and skills on how to make technology accessible. This paper presents a novel open ICT accessibility and inclusive design ICT-AID competency framework with a view to support individuals, and education and training institutions on delimiting the required relevant ICT accessibility competencies, and to fostering accordingly the integration of accessibility into curricula. The proposed framework, as a new standard featured on the open educational resources OER Commons platform, can also be availed for locating, aligning and sharing accessible OER serving globally learners and educators, toward closing the ICT accessibility training and knowledge gap.