Accessibility issues in MOOCs: potential services for people with special needs

The challenges and options that appear along with recent innovations in online education make researchers to reflect on the barriers that still exist for learners with special needs. In case of vulnerable learner groups, MOOCs seem to include special benefits for them, such as openness, low cost, ubiquity, social learning and the possibility of acquiring knowledge, new competences and develop professionally. This is the main objective of present doctoral work: to provide an adaptive model for developing a recommendation system dedicated to people with special needs. The system will help these vulnerable users to find best MOOCs that suit their professional needs and that are more accessible for each learner. Both accessibility of eLearning platforms and content is analyzed, therefore the system should adapt its interface to each assistive technology and also the graded list of recommended MOOCs to best fit each user’s device and accessibility requirements.