A Needs Assessment Of The Accessibility Of Distance Education In The California Community College System

If distance education was once the wave of the future, it is now here to stay and is improving rapidly. As technology advances--providing more opportunities for people to access material from almost anywhere on various devices in any number of formats--distance education is becoming increasingly complex. While the opportunity for students to take classes at any time of day or night provides a great convenience for those enrolled, it also presents a new range of challenges for instructors. They have more options than ever before for presenting material in an engaging format. These advances in technology, however, must benefit anyone enrolling in distance education (DE) courses--including students with disabilities. People with disabilities are entering college in increasing numbers. This report, commissioned by the California Community Colleges System Office, is Part I of a systemwide needs assessment of the accessibility of online distance education. The report focuses on Web-based courses because this delivery method has increased exponentially in popularity and now accounts for 82% of all DE courses (CCCSO, 2008). (Video-based telecourses, computer-assisted instruction, correspondence courses, and other DE formats are still offered but in far fewer numbers than Web-based courses.) Part I of the needs assessment, represented here, provides information on how many Web-based courses at California community colleges are currently accessible and what helps or hinders campuses in making all online courses accessible. (Contains 27 tables and 22 footnotes.).