Accessible data visualization in higher education

Many aspects and courses that are part of the higher education system can be quite challenging for many students. Courses such as programming have been reported to be difficult by many students worldwide. In the modern age many courses that encompass new directions in science and professional work such as big data or data mining have emerged. These courses present new challenges for all students and are particularly challenging for students with disabilities, especially for visually impaired students. In this paper, the challenges of visually impaired students regarding higher education and visualization of data are presented and means and technologies for aiding visually impaired students in data visualization are discussed and elaborated. The research results about the usage of these technologies are also presented along with conclusions and comments about the possible future research directions in this area.

I. Introduction

Many courses that are part of higher education can be quite challenging for many students. Courses that deal with programming have been reported as being difficult to understand by different students for many years and animation and other visualization techniques combined with interaction have been reported as one of the steps that can be incorporated into programming education in order to make this kind courses easer for students [1]. However, the means of creating more comprehensive course environments that will be effective or partially effective for an average student are in many cases not suitable for a number of individual students. This is especially true when talking about visually impaired students that deal with programming courses. Visualization techniques that will help other students can in the case of visually impaired students become just another obstacle that needs to be resolved.