Educational content using Blind/Deaf Communications API

Abstract

Massive and Open Online Courses (MOOCs) provide an opportunity to reach the target audience widely. To maximize its potential, a pedagogical model of MOOC in Educational Technologies was implemented at Instituto Superior de Engenharia do Porto (ISEP) to satisfy deaf and blind communities. These communities face many communication barriers, not allowing them to integrate within the larger intellectual communities as most tools used for information dissemination remain inaccessible to them. The Blind/Deaf Communications API (BDC-API) proposed framework, translates digital educational content for the deaf and for the blind, who otherwise would be unable to get access to that content, leading to lack of information which may be essential for a more consistent and complete education.