Publications

Barriers and facilitators for students with disabilities: Results of semi-structured interviews in Swiss universities

Published in European Journal of Inclusive Education, 2024

Purpose: This paper investigates the following two research questions: What are the barriers and facilitators for students with disabilities while studying at Swiss universities? When do these barriers and facilitators occur for students with disabilities? Research on barriers and facilitators encountered by students with disabilities at higher education institutions in Switzerland is still scarce. Identifying when and how to include persons with disabilities could enable Swiss universities to uphold their commitment to the inclusion of people with impairments. Methods: 31 qualitative semi-structured interviews were conducted with students with diverse impairments who were enrolled in French- and German-speaking Swiss universities. Interviews were analyzed thematically in a deductive and inductive manner. Results: The study demonstrates that students with disabilities experience many barriers before and throughout the term, as well as during examinations. Awareness of disability and accessibility among staff and peers was revealed to be a key issue, both as a major barrier where awareness was lacking and as an important facilitator where awareness was high. Awareness levels were also shown to be connected to other aspects of accessibility. Factors such as access to accommodations for exams, advanced access to study materials, and digital accessibility, arose as important issues for students with disabilities. Key Message: This study underscores the crucial role of awareness, both as a barrier when lacking and as a facilitator when present. Exam accommodations also emerged as a critical issue, again both as a barrier where experiences were unsatisfactory and as a facilitator where accommodations were received. The interviews emphasize the importance of providing study materials in advance, as well as the impact of course formats on inclusion, particularly the positive effect of online learning. The presence of barriers and facilitators before the start of lectures suggests that support should be offered even before the start of the semester.

Recommended citation: Köferli, S., Pierrès, O., Sethe, R., Manning, J., Darvishy, A. (2024). Barriers and facilitators for students with disabilities: Results of semi-structured interviews in Swiss universities. European Journal of Inclusion Education. Vol. 3 No. 1. 200-216. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7146/ejie.v3i1.143437

PDF accessibility in international academic publishers

Published in ICCHP Conference, 2024

Academic articles are commonly published in Portable Document Format (PDF). However, for many people with visual impairments, PDF formats present significant accessibility issues. This study addresses two research questions: 1) To what extent are PDFs in prominent academic repositories accessible? and 2) To what extent are accessibility issues in academic articles known and addressed by repositories? To answer these questions, 8,000 PDFs from four prominent repositories (Springer, Elsevier, ACM, and Wiley) were retrieved and were automatically analysed according to accessibility criteria based on the Matterhorn Protocol. Additionally, a quantitative content analysis was performed on the submission guidelines of repositories to determine the degree to which accessibility is considered in document creation. Results suggest that most PDFs were not tagged in spite of the fact that some repositories included accessibility in their general author guidelines. This paper concludes with recommendations to improve the accessibility of papers in academic repositories.

Recommended citation: Pierrès, O., Schmitt-Koopmann, F., Darvishy, A. (2024). PDF Accessibility in International Academic Publishers. In: Miesenberger, K., Peňáz, P., Kobayashi, M. (eds) Computers Helping People with Special Needs. ICCHP 2024. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14750. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-62846-7_5

Could the use of AI in higher education hinder students with disabilities? : a scoping review.

Published in IEEE Access, 2024

Literature reviews on artificial intelligence (AI) have focused on the different applications of AI in higher education, the AI techniques used, and the benefits/risks of the use of AI. One of the greatest potentials of AI is to personalize higher education to the needs of students and offer timely feedback. This could benefit students with disabilities tremendously if their needs are also considered in the development of new AI educational technologies (EdTech). However, current reviews have failed to address the perspective of students with disabilities, which prompts ethical concerns. For instance, AI could treat people with disabilities as outliers in the data and end up discriminating against them. For that reason, this systematic literature review raises the following two questions: To what extent are ethical concerns considered in articles presenting AI applications assessing students (with disabilities) in higher education? What are the potential risks of using AI that assess students with disabilities in higher education? This scoping review highlights the lack of ethical reflection on AI technologies and an absence of discussion and inclusion of people with disabilities. Moreover, it identifies eight risks associated with the use of AI EdTech for students with disabilities. The review concludes with suggestions on how to mitigate these potential risks. Specifically, it advocates for increased attention to ethics within the field, the involvement of people with disabilities in research and development, as well as careful adoption of AI EdTech in higher education.

Recommended citation: Pierrès, O., Christen, M., Schmitt-Koopmann, F., & Darvishy, A. (2024). Could the Use of AI in Higher Education Hinder Students With Disabilities? A Scoping Review. IEEE Access. DOI: 10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3365368

The state of scientific PDF accessibility in repositories: A survey in Switzerland

Published in Learned Publishing, 2023

This survey analyzes the quality of the portable document format (PDF) documents in online repositories in Switzerland, examining their accessibility for people with visual impairments. Two minimal accessibility features were analysed: the PDFs had to have tags and a hierarchical heading structure. The survey also includes interviews with the managers or heads of multiple Swiss universities’ repositories to assess the general opinion and knowledge of PDF accessibility. An analysis of interviewee responses indicates an overall lack of awareness of PDF accessibility, and shows that online repositories currently have no concrete plans to address the issue. This paper concludes by presenting a set of recommendations for online repositories to improve the accessibility of their PDF documents.

Recommended citation: Darvishy, A., Sethe, R., Engler, I., Pierres, O., & Manning, J. (2023). The state of scientific PDF accessibility in repositories: A survey in Switzerland. Learned Publishing. Volume 36, Issue 4. pp. 577-584 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/leap.1581

Gauging awareness of accessibility in Open Educational Resources

Published in ICCHP-AAATE Conference, 2022

Open Educational Resources (OERs) have been widely promoted in the higher education community in recent years. However, the accessibility of OERs for people with disabilities has received relatively little attention. This paper presents the results of interviews carried out with people at higher education institutions worldwide who are involved in the creation and implementation of OERs. The goal is to gauge the awareness of accessibility issues in OERs. This paper raises the following research questions: How much do OER creators know about accessibility? What measures are needed to ensure accessibility in OERs? Results suggest that OER creators are aware about some issues around accessibility, but they still need further training on how to solve them. OER creators lack time, skills, and awareness to create accessible OERs. Support from specialists and colleagues and hands-on trainings can help cope with these challenges.

Recommended citation: Pierrès, O., Darvishy, A. (2022). Gauging Awareness of Accessibility in Open Educational Resources. In: Miesenberger, K., Kouroupetroglou, G., Mavrou, K., Manduchi, R., Covarrubias Rodriguez, M., Penáz, P. (eds) Computers Helping People with Special Needs. ICCHP-AAATE 2022. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 13342. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-08645-8_39