electronic Toolkit for eAccessibility in Higher Education Remote Settings Erasmus Project

Project Title

electronic Toolkit for eAccessibility in Higher Education
Remote Settings

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Partnerships for Digital Education Readiness

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2020

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: ICT – new technologies – digital competences; Disabilities – special needs; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

The European University Association (EUA-Sept 2020) survey on “Digitally enhanced learning & teaching” reports that 95% of the Higher Education Institutions (HEI) opted for distance learning during COVID crisis. According to the The Economist (25th July 2020) new scenario opens to new challenges for HEI and their technological readiness, financials and business model will require a deep assessment and a probable reshape. In this context, teaching will have to be readapted and redesigned based on the digital learning tools and their capacity to engage with students so to be attractive and to offer valuable content. Therefore, the provision of high quality digital learning materials and contents in an effective, attractive and engaging way will happen only if the whole digital education experience is inclusive, accessible and easy to understand and use by all students, regardless their abilities, digital readiness and cultural background.

The eTEACHERS project is going to develop a toolkit that will support and empower higher education teachers in building inclusive education materials, helping to reduce the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on students with disabilities and contribute to the digital transformation of education, making it inclusive and attractive, contributing to the changing and reshaping of the present models.

The objectives of the eTEACHERS project include:
– To analyse the current situation with regards to digital inclusive education readiness of higher education teachers.
– To identify, reuse and share good practices on innovative and open methods and tools for the provision of high quality inclusive digital education at university level.
– To develop an online toolkit with selected resources based on user needs, test and validate it.
– To develop a set of guidelines containing recommendations on inclusive digital education that can be scaled up to other European universities.
– To collaborate across sectors to disseminate project results and engage universities and other stakeholders beyond the partnership.

The project partners are European knowledge leaders in delivering digital inclusive education. The consortium is composed by three higher education institution with wide background on accessibility: JKU in Austria, UNED in Spain and MU in Czech Republic. For the market trends perspective and consiering its innovation capabilities, Funka Nu AB, a Swedish SME, market leaders in accessibility, completes the consortium.

The main activities that will be carried out include:
– Analysis of needs and requirements regarding digital inclusion competences for higher education
– Collection of relevant open educational resources and tools to foster high quality digital inclusive education
– Development of an online accessible toolkit for inclusive digital education
– Testing, evaluation and refinement of the online toolkit for high quality digital inclusive education in the 3 pilot sites (AT, ES, CZ)
– Elaboration of practical guidelines on how to foster inclusive digital higher education

The project will mainly target:
– Higher education teachers.
– Accessibility support services staff within in higher education institutions.
– National networks of accessibility support services.
– National public providers of assistive technologies (AT) to people with disabilities.

The project is expected to have an impact at the local, regional, national and European levels generating:
– Increased knowledge and capability of the HE teachers and accessibility support services on how to develop high quality digital inclusive education.
– More accessible teaching and learning materials that will directly benefit the students with disabilities at local and regional level.
– The provision of more inclusive training supported by selected knowledge and open resources (toolkit).

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 237144 Eur

Project Coordinator

UNIVERSITAT LINZ & Country: AT

Project Partners

• FUNKA NU AB
• UNIVERSIDAD NACIONAL DE EDUCACION A DISTANCIA
• Masarykova univerzita