[Athen] FW: Call for papers: Accessibility of Open, Distance and e-Learning for Students with Disabilities

[Lissner, L S. (Scott )]

On Behalf Of Chetz.Colwell
Sent: Monday, April 07, 2014 3:51 AM
Subject: Call for papers: Accessibility of Open, Distance and e-Learning for Students with Disabilities

Dear Colleagues,

Please find below a call for papers for a special issue on Accessibility of Open, Distance and e-Learning for Students with Disabilities, for The Journal of Open, Distance and e-Learning (Open Learning). Anne Jelfs and I are the guest editors for this special issue and we'd be very pleased if you would consider submitting a paper or case study.

All the details are provided below, but if you have any queries please just get in touch.

Please also forward this call for papers to your colleagues and contacts who might be interested in contributing to this special issue.

Regards,
Chetz

Introduction

The 21st century brings a changing educational environment with greater emphasis on the use of technology in teaching and learning, which is particularly true for a lot of distance and open education providers. In this call for papers we are focusing on disabled students, especially those studying at a distance from the educational provider.  In 2012/13 approximately 10% of UK first year undergraduate and taught postgraduate students have declared a disability (HESA, undated).

Along with education providers' moral obligation to enable disabled people to participate in learning, in many countries there is a legal imperative to avoid discrimination against disabled people.  For example, the UK's Equality Act (OPSI, 2010) places a duty on Universities to avoid discrimination and provide reasonable adjustments for disabled students. Similar legislation exists in the USA's Rehabilitation Act and Americans with Disabilities Act which impact on what and how education is delivered. But that is not the whole story: How do students work with technology that is both liberating and possibly restricting their educational experience? Does the curriculum or pedagogy need to change to incorporate more disabled students? How do educational institutions manage the legislation? Plus many more questions, hence the need for this special issue which focuses on the following themes.

Themes
The purpose of this special issue is to advance understanding of the ways in which open and distance learning can increase the accessibility of learning for people with disabilities as well as enhancing their learning experience and academic performance, and the challenges in enabling this. We welcome papers on applied and developmental research and case studies in the following areas:
*        Technology; the accessibility of online learning and collaboration tools, the use of web 2.0 technologies for accessibility, technical barriers to learning and overcoming them.
*        Pedagogy:
*        curriculum issues including teaching students with disabilities in specific disciplines such as Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, Arts, Languages, developing particular tools to enable students in specific discipline areas
*        Assessment, attainment and retention of disabled students in distance and open learning.
*        Accessibility of Open Educational Resources (OERs) and Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).
*        Institutional change: increasing disability awareness; embedding accessibility in policy; policy evaluation studies
*        Disabled students' perspectives: results of surveys or evaluations.
*        Training and professional development for those who support or teach disabled learners
*        Technologies for teachers with disabilities
*        Cultural issues - such as attitudes of others: family members, fellow students, concepts of disability, negative discrimination
*        Working with other agencies to support students with disabilities

Research papers should be 5,000 -7,000 words and case studies 3,000 - 5,000.

References
Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) (undated) 2012/13 first year students by Disability [online] http://www.hesa.ac.uk/dox/dataTables/studentsAndQualifiers/download/Disab1213.xlsx (accessed 14/03/2014)
Office of Public Sector Information (OPSI) (2010) Equality Act 2010 [online] http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/contents (accessed 14/03/2014)
Deadline for submission of full papers: 1st July 2014

Submission process
For more information about this call for papers or if you are unsure whether your paper will be suitable for inclusion, please email the editors of the special issue: Dr Chetz Colwell Chetz.Colwell at open.ac.uk<mailto:Chetz.Colwell at open.ac.uk> and Dr Anne Jelfs Anne.Jelfs at open.ac.uk<mailto:Anne.Jelfs at open.ac.uk> with an outline or any other queries. Otherwise prepare your paper following the instructions to authors given on the Open Learning journal website at http://www.tandfonline.com/action/authorSubmission?journalCode=copl20&page=instructions, and submit it directly any time before the deadline.
When using the online submission system, please ensure that when you are asked to choose 'manuscript type', you select the option 'special issue manuscript' from the drop down menu. This ensures that your paper is allocated to the processing stream of papers being considered for this special issue.
All papers will be read by the editors of the special issue and then sent for double blind peer review. Authors will be informed of the editors' decision by the 1st August 2014 and any revisions must be completed to the satisfaction of the editors before the 1st October 2014.



Dr Chetz Colwell
Learning & Teaching Development Manager (Accessibility),
Co-chair of H810 Accessible online learning: supporting disabled students
(http://www3.open.ac.uk/study/postgraduate/course/h810.htm)

Institute of Educational Technology
The Open University
Walton Hall
Milton Keynes
MK7 6AA
01908 655772

The Open University is incorporated by Royal Charter (RC 000391), an exempt charity in England & Wales and a charity registered in Scotland (SC 038302).

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