Abstract:

This article presents a comparative study of three learning management systems (LMS) Moodle, Sakai and a platform developed by a University. The study was made to evaluate the levels of accessibility of the mentioned platforms according to their users. These users can be elderly or disabled people. It is important to remember that the access to education must be a common right applied without any discrimination based on the equalty of opportunities, which is possible through the online learning system or E-learning.This kind of system is an opportunity to increase knowledge, therefore, educational institutions should ensure that the platforms that support to E-learning, don’t be a barrier for students to quit. Consequently, the lack of accessesibility in the services and functions provided by LMS, comes to be a determining factor to an effective learning process, which could avoid people from quiting study due to mainly technological reasons. It is also important to consider that on E-Learning, the motivation, autonomy, critical capacity, student’s responsability, as well as the digital material, tools, teaching, and methodology used by the professor, are as important as the accesibility factors on the E-learning process.
For this investigation we chose two open source systems, Moodle and Sakai, that are being used on universities from different countries worldwide. The features of accessibility of two off-the-shelf platforms vs in-house platform developed in Ecuador. This platform has not shown studies of accessibility so far.

We have considered Ecuador due to the fact that this country stablishes regulations about web accessibility based on the international standard ISO that will be in forced from August 2016.

The comparison was made by applying a questionnare of 138 questions considering the accessibility criteria. The results show that inspite that the off-the-shelft has to improve its levels of accessibility, it has better features than in-house platform, by which according to the regulation in forced in Ecuador, it will have until 2018 to incorporate in its design and implementation, accessibility criteria that follows the level of compliance “A”.

Keywords:

Accesibility, e-learning, learning managment system, Moodle, open source system, Sakai, virtual learning system.