According to an official release on August 6, edX, a leading global online learning platform, is participating in the Teaching Accessibility initiative along with some of its peers in tech, academia, and advocacy — including Yahoo, Facebook, and LinkedIn. edX’s participation in this initiative is a reiteration of its commitment to valuing every learner and being a leader in expanding access to all, including learners with disabilities.
The group’s goal is to build global technology that can be used by everyone. The initiativeis aimed at growing awareness and understanding of accessibility and to support teaching about accessibility and universal design principles to computer scientists, designers and other disciplines that contribute to building global technology products.
edX offers individuals, companies and other organisations an open source tool they can use to help achieve this goal while promoting best practices.
edX has been continually improving the way itplans, designs and buildsits products by developing policy, training programmes and development workflows that result in more intuitive and accessible products. It recognises the need for talented designers and engineers with experience building accessible products if it wants to deliver a universally accessible experience to learners across the globe.edX is therefore excited to work with its partners in this effort to develop a standardised job description language that promotes the hiring of individuals with accessibility knowledge and experience.
To learn more about the accessibility working group’s principles and objectives, visit www.teachingaccessibility.com.