OER-based Lifelong Learning for Older People
Rosa Navarrete
1
and Sergio Luján-Mora
2
1
National Polytechnic School, Department of Informatics and Computer Science, Quito, Ecuador
2
University of Alicante, Department of Software and Computing Systems, Alicante, Spain
Keywords: Open Educational Resources, OER-based Learning, Lifelong Learning, Digital Literacy, Web Accessibility,
Older People.
Abstract: The Open Educational Resources (OER) are becoming a promising contribution to the enhancement of
learning opportunities for all people worldwide. The OER involve educational digital content that have been
released under an open license for free use or adaptation. The use of OER in formal and non-formal
educational environments is known as OER-based learning. On the other hand, population ageing is currently
recognized as a global issue of increasing importance with many implications for the economic development
of countries. The access to learning by these people, in particular, the acquisition of the technical competence
for using information and communication technologies, can improve their social involvement. This research
aims to check the feasibility of using OER in lifelong learning programs for older people. Considering that
these people have disabilities due to ageing, this research conducted a searching and validation process to
verify the relevance and accessibility of OER to be used on a specific learning program oriented to digital
literacy for older people. Finally, this research presents an accessibility validation based on barriers that older
people face for using OER. Further, this work highlights the issues that hinder the OER-based learning
programs.
1 INTRODUCTION
Currently, there is an increasing interest in Open
Educational Resources (OER) as a complement to
enhance education and knowledge access worldwide
to all people. This inclusive vision requires
considering people with particular learning
requirements such as older people.
At the present, the proportion of people aged over
60 years is growing in almost all countries. The older
people experience a decreasing of their physical,
sensory and cognitive capabilities. Therefore, the
issues of impairment and disability will become
increasingly significant in all areas of human life,
including education.
In such context, this work explores the feasibility
of OER usage in a lifelong learning program for
digital literacy aimed at older people through a
process of searching resources and validating their
relevance to the educational purpose and their
accessibility characteristics.
The outcomes of this research highlight the issues
related to the use of OER to support lifelong learning
as well as the improvements required in OER design
to enable their use for older people.
The structure of this paper is as follow. Section 2
presents the theoretical framework; Section 3
addresses the process of searching OER and their
validation for relevance and accessibility; Section 4
presents the results of the searching and validation of
OER; and, in the final part of this paper, the outcomes
of this research are discussed.
2 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
2.1 OER-based Learning
The term OER coined at UNESCO (2002) refers to
any digital content with a teaching-learning purpose
that is released under an open license to allow their
free use or repurposing. OER can be full courses or
course materials in a diversity of formats such as
audio, video, text, PDF, or HTML (Atkins et al.,
2007).
The OER-based learning is the use of OER to
support learning in different educational
environments such as higher education, e-learning,
lifelong learning programs, and self-learning (De
388
Navarrete, R. and Luján-Mora, S.
OER-based Lifelong Learning for Older People.
In Proceedings of the 8th Inter national Conference on Computer Supported Education (CSEDU 2016) - Volume 2, pages 388-393
ISBN: 978-989-758-179-3
Copyright
c
 2016 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved

Langen and Bitter-Rijkema, 2012; OECD, 2007a).
2.2 Web Accessibility and Older People
According to the World Population Ageing report
(United Nations, 2013), the world's population is
aging at an accelerated rate. People over 60 years old
represent 12% percent of the current global
population, and by 2050, that number will rise to
21%. Older people experience age-related disabilities
such as decreasing of their physical, sensory and
cognitive capabilities (WHO, 2011). Consequently,
the impairments that hinder them from using the web
are related to gradual hearing loss; vision decline, loss
of color perception and contrast sensitivity;
restriction of hands movement or restricted hand
dexterity, and cognitive decline (W3C, 2008a).
The web accessibility enables that people with
disabilities can overcome the barriers to an effective
use of the web (W3C, 2005). The web accessibility is
achieved through the application of accessibility
guidelines. Currently, the Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines, WCAG 2.0 (W3C, 2008b) is the most
widespread standard for web accessibility. This
standard is a set of 12 guidelines structured under four
principles: Perceivable, Operable, Understandable
and Robust. Each guideline has a set of success
criteria associated with a level of conformance.
2.3 Lifelong Learning and Digital
Literacy
Lifelong learning refers to the learning that takes
place at all stages of life, preferably in adult life, in
both formal and non-formal environments (Green,
2002). Under the premise of lifelong learning, the
access to learning for older people becomes a
motivation for carry out intellectual tasks and
consequently to enhance their cognitive abilities
(Xavier et al., 2014).
Moreover, the European Parliament and the
European Council, in their Recommendation on key
competences for lifelong learning (2006), emphasizes
that digital literacy should be extended to older adults
to improve their quality of life.
Digital literacy refers to the acquisition of the
technical competence for using information and
communication technologies for employment,
learning, self-development and participation in
society. It also implies the ability to perform tasks
effectively in a digital environment (Jones-Kavalier
and Flannigan, 2006).
For the scope of this research we have adopted the
common skills of digital literacy at basic level
(UNESCO, 2011) which correspond to these topics:
 Basic Computer Skills. This topic refers to the
fundamentals of computing, explains the
components of a computer, and explores
operating system basics.
 Internet and World Wide Web. This topic explains
how to connect to the Internet, use search engines,
browse web pages, use e-mail, and register on a
website.
 Productivity Programs. This topic explores the
most common productivity software applications
(word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation
software) at basic level.
3 PROCESS FOR SEARCHING
AND VALIDATING OER
Some studies highlight the potential of the OER-
based learning as an efficient way to promote lifelong
learning (Kumar Das, 2011; Misra, 2012; OECD,
2007b). However, another study argues that
compared with other educational sectors, adult
learning is the sector with the lowest level of OER
development (Minguillón et al., 2009), while a study
of European Commission points out some obstacles
related to the applicability of OER in adult education
(Falconer et al., 2013).
In this work we propose a process for searching
and validation of OER that enables the selection of
suitable resources to be used by older people in a
digital literacy learning program. The outcomes of
this work could contribute to the discussion in this
context.
3.1 Searching OER
The searching of resources can be a time consuming
activity because of the vast amount of available OER
repositories (Hatakka, 2009). Considering that the
scope of this research is related to the accessibility of
the resources, we have selected two of the large-scale
OER websites that have made major strides in this
field: “MERLOT” (https://www.merlot.org/) and
“OER Commons” (https://www.oercommons.org/)
(Navarrete and Luján-Mora, 2013; Navarrete and
Luján-Mora, 2015).
In addition, it is important to define the main
parameters for searching: the topics and the format
of the resources. The search has been based on
various terms related to the topics proposed above in
section 2.3 Digital Literacy. Regarding the formats,
this research has prioritized HTML due to the
OER-based Lifelong Learning for Older People
389

richness of multimedia resources that can be included
in web pages and its independence of a specific
software for visualization.
3.2 Validating OER
The validation covers the relevance of the resources
for the purpose of the digital literacy program as well
as the accessibility of resources that enable their use
for older people.
3.2.1 Relevance Validation
The relevance of a resource is related to quality
aspects that impact on its educational purpose
(Camilleri et al., 2014). For this work, we have
considered that the relevance of OER relies on these
aspects:
 Educational value that includes the relevance of
the content concerning the learning purpose, the
accuracy and the up to date content.
 License restrictions about the use and reuse of the
resource. The reference adopted is the open
licensing framework “Creative Commons” (CC)
which is used by MERLOT and OER Commons.
These copyright licenses provide a standardized
way to give the public permission to share and use
the resources, therefore, it is possible to know
whether the resources can be used for free or can
be reused if required.
3.2.2 Accessibility Validation
The accessibility validation is performed through a
heuristic evaluation of the accessibility of the
resources to be usable by older people, supported by
the “Barrier Walkthrough” method (Brajnik, 2006).
This method is based on the identification of the
possible barriers that people with disabilities faced in
web design depending on their disability, the type of
assistive technology being used, the failure mode
(that is the activity/task that is hindered and how it is
hindered), and the design characteristics that produce
the barrier. Furthermore, this method proposes some
potential barriers for different disabilities.
In order to define the barriers for older people, this
research has also reviewed the set of
recommendations on designing web pages to be
usable by older people, proposed by the project Web
Accessibility Initiative: Ageing Education and
Harmonisation (WAI-AGE, 2009) from the European
Commission and theW3C.
Based on the above, Table 1 presents the
accessibility barriers for older people that have been
considered in this research. The table also includes for
each barrier: its cause, the failure mode, and the
guideline or success criteria corresponding with
WCAG 2.0 concerning to this barrier. Because of the
lack of space, only the most common barriers for
older people are included.
Further, the accessibility evaluation has been
performed by means of using automated tools
complemented with expert human judgment,
according to what has been done in a previous work
of the authors (Navarrete and Luján-Mora, 2015). The
accessibility evaluation has verified the presence of
these barriers in the resources.
4 RESULTS
The OER websites do not have a unique standard for
content categorization, which implies that the
searching of resources is particular for each one.
Therefore, to get a preliminary approach to the
potential OER that meeting the needs of this research,
the search has based on “keywords” or “exact
phrases” related to topics described previously.
Further, to improve the searching results, the
“software products”, have been also included in the
searching. Only the Microsoft software products have
produced results, as presented in Table 2. This table
also presents the list of keywords or exact phrases, the
number of resources obtained from each OER website
(“# resources” column), and the number of resources
that have been validated as relevant for this project
(“# relevant” column).
These websites have presented some issues in the
search interfaces. For example, the lack of pagination
to display the results, and the inability of setting the
number of results to be displayed per page. These
problems could become barriers for older people.
4.1 Results of Relevance Validation
As presented in Table 2, after the evaluation of the
relevance of the resources based on their educational
value and license restriction, the number of suitable
resources has been reduced significantly.
The resources that were qualified as relevant had
HTML format combined with PDF documents or
video material.
These have been the main problems with respect
to the educational value:
 The content of the resources was not intended to
teach the use of a software product, instead, it was
about the application of the software to another
purpose (e.g. the use of Excel in medical statistics)
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Table 1: Barriers related to web accessibility for older people.
Barrier Cause Failure mode
WCAG 2.0
Success criteria and/or
Guideline
Text cannot be resized
Use of absolute units in CSS to
specify font size.
The user might not be able to
increase the font size of the text.
1.4.4 Resize text
1.4.8 Visual Presentation
Color is necessary
The color is used as the sole mean to
distinguish two or more different
information items.
The user has inability to perceive
colors (as those users with normal
vision capabilities).
1.4.1 Use of color
Insufficient visual
contrast
The colors used for foreground
material against a background have
insufficient contrast.
The user experiences problems
recognizing the foreground items.
1.4.3 Contrast (Minimum)
1.4.6 Contrast (Enhanced)
Functional images
lacking text
The page contains functional images
(clickable links, form buttons, image
maps) that do not have alternative
equivalent text.
The user would not be able to
enlarge the images (if not using a
screen magnifier). He would not be
able to interpret them.
1.1.1 Non-text content
1.4.5 Images of text
Dynamic menus in
JavaScript
When the user moves the focus of
interaction with an element, a menu
drops down in a given area of the
page.
The menu could easily be located
outside the visual field of the user,
who will not be able to use it at all
(when using a screen magnifier).
2.1.1 (2.1.3) Keyboard 4.1.2
Name, Role, Value
Too many links
The page contains too many links that
are not well organized in clearly
labelled groups.
A large number of links requires
that users perform a scanning them
all before deciding if there is one
that is worth following.
2.4.10 Section headings
Skip links not
implemented
The page does not allow the user to
jump directly to the content (skipping
over breadcrumbs, search boxes,
global navigation bars).
The user has no way to quickly set
the focus of interaction on the page
content.
2.4.1 Bypass blocks
Ambiguous links
The links with labels are ambiguous.
The same text is used to represent
different URLs.
The user could activate the wrong
link by mistake.
2.4.1 (2.4.9) Link purpose
Mouse events
The page is based on JavaScript
functions invoked through event
handlers (mouse-oriented).
It is probably that user prefers using
the keyboard rather than the mouse.
2.1.1 (2.1.3) Keyboard
Keyboard traps
The page contains components that
lock the user once moves the
keyboard focus on them.
The user cannot use the keyboard
rather than the mouse for certain
activities.
2.1.2 No Keyboard Trap
Forms with no label
tags
The page contains a form whose
controls are not marked up with
LABEL tag and FOR attribute.
Some controls (radio buttons and
checkboxes) have a clickable area
that is very small. The user will
struggle to hit them correctly.
2.4.7 Focus visible
1.3.1 Info and relationships
Video with no captions
A multimedia file with a video or an
animation that has no caption (or
textual description).
The older people have problems to
perceive the auditory information
because of their hearing loss.
2.4 Time-based Media
Missing
synchronization
The caption or textual description are
not synchronized to the video.
The user has difficulties to perceive
the information.
1.2.2 Captions (Prerecorded)
Complex text
The text is complex to read
(complexity of the sentences,
acronyms).
Older people require great effort to
understand the text.
3.1.3 Unusual word
3.1.5 Reading level
Complex site
The website has a complex
organization (content grouping and
content relationships)
Older people require great effort to
understand the content and in
navigating through it.
2.4.5 Multiple ways
 The content of these resources was aimed at
computer professionals, so, these were not
appropriate to a basic level.
 The content of these resources did not correspond
to current technologies.
 The content of these resources did not correspond
to the associated keywords.
With regard to the licenses of the resources, some of
them were not qualified as relevant because their
licenses did not allow the free use. For example, some
resources, mostly online courses, required payment
for student registration. The accepted resources had
Creative Commons licenses based on these
conditions: BY (Attribution), NC (NonCommercial),
SA (Share-Alike), and ND (No Derivative works) and
with these licenses (CC BY, CC BY-SA, CC BY-NC-
SA), or a declaration to allow their free use.
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Table 2: Number of resources in OER websites.
Keyword or
exact phrase
for searching
Number of resources
OER Commons MERLOT
# resources
#
relevant
# resources
#
relevant
Digital
literacy
87 2 74 1
Basic
computer
skills
50 3 15 1
Using the web 0 0 66 2
Word
processor
5 1 26 0
Spreadsheet 246 1 113 4
Presentation
software
5 0 13 0
Microsoft
word
51 1 102 1
Excel 441 2 278 0
Power Point 356 3 126 0
Additionally, the searching results showed that
some resources were available on both websites, OER
Commons and MERLOT. Also, some resources
included more than one of the topics of interest.
4.2 Results of Accessibility Validation
Due to the lack of space, the results of the heuristic
accessibility validation of each resource cannot be
exposed. However, the most important general results
are presented below.
 We have found two resources accessible for older
people. Fortunately, these web courses encompass
almost all the content required for this program on
digital literacy.
 All resources that include videos have failed for
accessibility because they did not have captions or
transcripts. The subtitles for all videos hosted in
YouTube have been produced by the speech
recognition technology of YouTube. Therefore,
these were not accurate. Thereby, the older
people who experience hearing loss could have
understanding issues of the content exposed in
videos.
 None of the resources in HTML format enables
text resizing as a user preference. This restriction
can hinder that older people with vision
impairments be able to read the content.
 In some resources, the HTML pages contain
mouse-oriented events. The people who use the
keyboard, instead of the mouse for interaction,
cannot detect these events. This can be the case of
older people with hand dexterity issues that prefer
the use of the keyboard.
 In some resources, the HTML pages have issues
of color contrast. For older people, their loss of
color-contrast perception could hinder the
recognition of the foreground items.
5 DISCUSSION AND FUTURE
WORK
A frequent criticism for the adoption of OER in
learning programs is their lack of adjustment to
context-specific needs. Indeed, the biggest obstacle
to the adoption of OER in the learning program
proposed in this research has been finding the
resources that meet the requirements, regarding
contents and particular needs, for example,
accessibility of the resources.
The searching of resources has been exhaustive
and has demanded the verification of a large set of
“keywords” and “exact phrases” to achieve
significant results. After this, it has been necessary to
review the relevance of several hundreds of resources
for this learning program. A major issue has been the
inconsistency between the content of the resources
and the keywords or phrases associated with them.
Moreover, we have found that some online courses
did not correspond to the “open” philosophy because
they demanded a registration payment.
Also, the interfaces for browsing the searching
results, in OER Commons and MERLOT, have been
inefficient for several hundreds of results. For
example, in OER Commons, the pagination of search
results is not enabled; although, it is possible to
establish the number of results to be displayed
(maximum 100). The page shows the option “load
more” to see more results, so, the visualization with
the vertical scroll of the page becomes a problem.
After the selection of relevant resources and their
accessibility validation, we have found two resources
that cover almost all the topics for the digital literacy
program and are suitable to be used by older people.
These resources are web-based courses provided by
DigitalLearn.org and the Connecticut Distance
Learning Consortium.
Based on the outcomes of this research we can
argue that despite the broad availability of resources
and the inclusive vision of OER initiatives, the
accessibility characteristics have not been addressed
as quality requirements of these resources.
As a final reflection, the most significant barrier
to wider adoption of OER in this type of learning
programs is the user perception of the time and effort
required to find and evaluate the resources. If a user
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is an older adult, the task of search and selection of
resources can be discouraging.
In our future work, we will plan to develop a
process to search resources for specific needs that
include accessibility characteristics. This process
will consider the perspective of older people and
people with mild disabilities to increase the reuse of
OER.
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