EU4ALL “European Unified Approach for Assisted Life Long Learning”, (EU4ALL project website: http://www.eu4all-project.eu; informative video on the project: http://www.youtube.com/eu4allproject) is a partially funded European project which is developing a generic framework and an open service platform focused on accessibility and customization to support the needs of higher education students with disabilities. After making one of the largest studies on known user needs on this project, specifications have been defined and practices and standards have been implemented by services of general interest in order to consider the various roles involved: students, teachers and administrative personnel. Currently, services are being evaluated on a large scale, involving hundreds of students in different countries supported by the responsibility for providing services (teachers, specialists, office workers).
EU4ALL results are expected to provide guidelines and ICT services that guarantee that people with functional diversity enjoy equal opportunities, face no discrimination and are given more accessibility options.
Guided by the needs expressed by users, and according to the methodologies of student-oriented design, the services to be validated relate to the following aspects of university life. These services require the participation of different actors from the university environment and society in general: students, professors, administrative officers, engineers in the production of materials, public officials, user organizations, ICT companies, etc.
- The EU4ALL Project: An introduction (Jesus Boticario, UNED)
- Accessibility in Higher and Further Education: From the Physical to the Digital and Back Again (Helen Petrie, YORK)
- EU4ALL Services portfolio (Israel Rodriguez, ATOS)
- EU4ALL Scenarios at the Distance Education University in Spain (Alejandro Rodriguez, UNED)
- Technical considerations: Ontology, Device Model, eServices Server, Metadata repository, Authoring tools, ... (Jaroslav Pullmann & Israel Rodríguez, FIT & ATOS)
