The development of accessibility practices in e-learning: new roles for learners and teachers?

Disability Discrimination Acts in several countries have charged those working with multimedia, hypermedia and telecommunications in the education with the responsibility of ensuring that electronic teaching materials can be accessed by disabled students. In an attempt to explore how these groups might develop practices to produce accessible electronic materials this paper will summarise a recent review of the accessibility literature; identify key issues that may influence the “accessibility” practices of learning technologists and interpret these emerging issues using Wenger’s theory of Communities of Practice (Wenger 1998). The implications of the review for the potential roles of both learners and teachers in developing “accessibility practices” will be highlighted and discussed