Publications of José R. Hilera

En este trabajo se presenta una ontología para describir reglas que expresen la forma de evaluar requisitos de accesibilidad que debe cumplir el software, incluidas las páginas y aplicaciones web. Se ha tomado como referencia la futura recomendación del World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) denominada "Accessibility Conformance Testing (ACT) Rules Format ", y se propone un vocabulario creado con tecnologías de la Web Semántica para poder formalizar reglas como las creadas por el Auto-WCAG Community Group del W3C, que permitirá enriquecer los informes de evaluación de accesibilidad representados mediante el lenguaje EARL del W3C, mediante la incorporación del detalle de las reglas que fueron aplicadas al realizar la evaluación.

La accesibilidad para personas con discapacidad es una característica cada vez más demandada en las TIC. El estudio de su aplicación en la web ha sido el más extendido en el ámbito del software. Con la aparición de nuevas tecnologías como los smartphone, el foco de la accesibilidad debe desplazarse para cubrir estas necesidades en aplicaciones restringidas a cada plataforma. El software no web cobra cada vez más importancia. Para ello, se han adaptado estándares y legislaciones, y se han elaborado algunas guías de ayuda a los desarrolladores. Este trabajo estudia un caso de ejemplo presentado como parte de la Guía de accesibilidad de aplicaciones móviles, publicado por el Ministerio de Hacienda y Administraciones Públicas de España.

CASE tools are a main feature of supporting technologies involved in developing and maintaining software systems. In choosing them, one has to keep in mind technical and management aspects. This paper aims to discuss the ALCATEL-Spain experience: processes and activities in order to adopt a corporative CASE tool. It deals with the preparation, evaluation and selection processes (objectives, set of structured requirements, technical evaluation, candidate tools) and also the pilot project process. The paper ends testing the guidelines defined in the ISO/IEC 14102:1995 Information technology - Guideline for the evaluation and selection of CASE tools, with a real experience.

Computer-aided tools can be built to give support to different usability evaluation techniques, reducing some of their costs. These tools are complementary to existing fully automated ones, which are limited to the evaluation of external attributes. In this work, a generic model for questionnaire-based usability evaluation is described, along with the tool that implements it, which allows for fuzzy linguistic aggregation of opinions and provides support for results prediction based on similarity measures. Our tool is aimed at the exploitation of a growing database of evaluation facts with the help of various knowledge discovery and machine learning tools. Specifically, some preliminary applications of clustering and association mining techniques are described.

We describe an approach to extract knowledge from large repositories of usability evaluation facts by using artificial intelligence techniques. Specifically, we have applied fuzzy linguistic aggregation, clustering, association mining and classifiers to different aspects of usability questionnaire analysis and design. The extracted knowledge has proven useful in computer-aided tool driven evaluation settings.

En este trabajo se presenta una interfaz de programación de aplicaciones (API) basada en tecnología RESTful, que ofrece de forma remota, a través de la Web, un subconjunto de la funcionalidad de la API Apache Jena para el procesamiento de modelos de conocimiento basados en tecnologías de la Web Semántica. La ventaja de esta nueva Web API es poder exponer las funciones de Apache Jena a cualquier tecnología y lenguaje en el que se desarrolle cualquier aplicación que necesite de este framework, sin la necesidad de utilizar el lenguaje de programación Java, en el que está codificado Jena. También se muestra un ejemplo de utilización de uno de los servicios creados para combinar informes de evaluación de accesibilidad web, describiendo la transformación de una aplicación previa que utilizaba directamente Jena, para que ahora realice la misma funcionalidad de forma remota a través de la API Web desarrollada.

The algebraic theory of formal concept analysis can be quite helpful in recovering information concerning semantic structures from unordered information sets. In the case of binary object relationships, it is possible to associate them to a network tree. Such a process reveals the structure of the information. In the present paper, we apply the concept analysis to the identification of the conflicts resulting from effects due to changes in the information configuration brought forth along the successive document versions.

Questionnaires are a commonly used instrument for diverse purposes in the context of educational technology. Applications of questionnaires range from student's assessments to evaluations of teaching, and include also the evaluation of the learning contents, and even of the technology that delivers them. Although the IMS QTI specification addresses the interchange of questionnaires and their results, the scope of its information model is primarily oriented towards conventional student's knowledge or ability evaluation. In consequence, it requires extensions to represent some information elements needed for other uses, and additions are also needed to describe certain item characteristics that are used in adaptive testing. In this paper, an abstract model called QM is described, which is intended to provide the foundation for a more comprehensive questionnaire information model. Extensions of the IMS QTI XML data structures are sketched to show how QM can enrich existing specifications with extended semantics for a wide range of applications.

Resumen Se presenta una experiencia real basada en la utilización de prácticas con gráficos animados en tres dimensiones en la enseñanza de la programa-ción orientada a objetos, indicando los resultados obtenidos tanto en relación al aprendizaje como en la motivación de los alumnos.

Questionnaires are nowadays widely used usability evaluation instruments, and several generic usability questionnaires are available. But these generic artefacts are not always appropriate to evaluate a given setting, and constructing a questionnaire from scratch is a complex task requiring both expertise and resources, so that discount-usability approaches to questionnaire-based evaluation can make a good option in many cases. In this work, a novel knowledge-based approach to design Web usability questionnaires is described. The questionnaire model comprises different ontologies including concepts regarding questions and questionnaires, the different measures that can be obtained and the tasks that have to be carried out by users in order to evaluate a specific kind of Web application. As a proof of concept for the model, a prototype questionnaire design application is also described. The application demonstrates how facts can be gathered through a guided dialogue with the user, and how the system can use this information to tailor the resulting questionnaire to the concrete situation.

Se analiza la especificación IMS-Learning Design (LD), que permite el diseño de procesos de enseñanza-aprendizaje en forma de modelos registrados en archivos xml fácilmente reutilizables. Se valora la utilidad del estándar de modelado de sistemas denominado UML (Unified Modeling Language) para establecer meta-modelos en la especificación IMS-LD, así como para elaborar modelos dinámicos que reflejen la organización de las actividades de un proceso de enseñanza-aprendizaje. Finalmente, se justifica la necesidad de disponer de herramientas informáticas para el diseño y ejecución de los procesos, de forma similar a como ocurre con los sistemas de workflow.

Until the introduction of the method for evaluation of stemming algorithms based on error counting, the effectiveness of these algorithms was compared by determining their retrieval performance for various experimental test collections. With this method, the performance of a stemmer is computed by counting the number of identifiable errors during the stemming of words from various text samples, thus making the evaluation independent of Information Retrieval. In order to implement the method it is necessary to group manually the words in each sample into disjoint sets of words holding the same semantic concept. One single word can belong to only one concept. In order to do this grouping automatically, in the present work this constraint has been generalized, allowing one word to belong to several different concepts. Results with the generalized method confirm those obtained by the non-generalized method, but show considerable less differences between three affix removal stemmers. For first time evaluated four letter successor variety stemmers, these appear to be slightly inferior with respect to the other three in terms of general accuracy (ERRT, error rate relative to truncation), but they are weight adjustable and, most important, need no linguistic knowledge about the language they are applied to.

In this chapter, the state of the art on the use of ontologies in software engineering and technology (SET) is presented. The chapter is organized into four parts. In the second and third sections, serving as a supplement to Chap. 1,29 a wide review of the distinct kinds of ontologies and their proposed uses is presented respectively. In the fourth section, we offer a taxonomy for classifying ontologies in SET, in which two main categories are distinguished: (1) SET domain ontologies, created to represent and communicate agreed knowledge within some subdomain of SET, and (2) ontologies as software artifacts, with proposals in which ontologies play the role of an additional type of artifact in software processes. On the one hand, the former category is subdivided into those ontologies included in software engineering and those referring to other software technologies. On the other hand, the latter category is subdivided into development time and run time proposals according to the moment when ontologies are used. Then, in the last section, we analyze and classify (based on our taxonomy) a large number of recently published works. We also comment on and classify works which will be presented in later chapters of this book.

Nowadays, the implementation of virtual campuses is a reality, both in academic settings and in the workplace. However, there are several challenges associated with the implementation of effective learning outcomes via e-learning. In this chapter in particular, the use of e-learning to reach students with disabilities and the barriers that they may have will be presented. In this sense, e-learning solutions adopted by several institutions are encouraged to validate and promote accessibility in a virtual campus. A large myriad of research related to accessibility in distance education systems is available in literature, and the most relevant studies and standards are presented in this chapter as a starting point for education institutions looking at improving the accessibility in their own virtual campuses. This work is intended to be relevant both to teachers and lecturers who use e-learning for their courses, and to those involved in the design, setup, and maintenance of e-learning systems, whether from a pedagogical or technical perspective to take into account the accessibility for students with disabilities. This work will explore on the accessibility of the basic stone of the e-learning process, the learning objects. An analysis of the IMS AfA v3.0 specification will be presented as a starting point to develop an accessible and adaptable online course, based on the student’s preferences, within an accessible virtual campus.

The m-learning (mobile learning) is propounding as an alternative and as a support method for both traditional and electronic learning (e-learning). Even though, in this new scenario there is a lack consensus regarding norms, rules, policies and techniques to be applied (from both technological and educational points of view). This fact is being aggravated by the actual heterogeneous kinds of devices and technologies available. The aim of this paper is to define an architecture that fully supports the m-Learning process. We are going to empathize in the design of the learning object repository (the learning object warehouse), attempting that both, the learning objects and the repository, were independent and able to be accessed from a multiple bunch of devices, independently of its individual and special features. To achieve our objectives, previously we are going to review the state of the art of m-learning. After that, the architecture that solves the most common situations, including the challenges proposed, is established. Finally an implementation of the architecture is exhibited for discussing about the results.

Active development in the field of e-Learning has led to multiple organizations and specifications that try to provide some interoperability to systems, tools and learning contents. The great amount of specifications, exacerbated by its intrinsic complexity, has resulted in many commercial tools that agree specific norms or even subsets of one specification. Therefore, few actual systems have implemented proposed reference models. This paper exposes the experience from the University of Alcala TIFyC research group that, through several years and research, has developed an e-Learning applications' set which conforms current specifications and which implements one of the existing reference models, namely the IMS Global Learning Consortium reference model.

Current e-learning applications should provide universal access to educational information, regardless of the standards, protocols or programming languages used. This would maximize the reuse of learning objects and help this technology to gain its place as a fundamental and, in some cases only, support tool for present day educational systems. To achieve this, it is necessary that standards are adopted that guarantee, both the development of learning objects and the search systems that provide access to the repositories that contain them; this being the only way to guarantee universal access. In this article the effects produced by one of the standards attempting to guarantee universal access are studied. The main features of the principal systems that execute it are identified, as well as its more notable advantages and disadvantages. The integration of the SQI (Simple Query Interface) standard in a reusable learning objects system, previously developed by the authors, is put forward, describing the conclusions of the process.

This paper presents a technical solution to improve accessibility in e-learning platforms. The guidelines for the solution were concluded from the analysis of literature with the goal of achieving scalable, reusable, and easily manageable platforms. The method has been tested through a case study conducted on Moodle where a sample of the target population experimented it through several Engineering Education courses resulting in a high degree of perceived usefulness. We also found out that deaf students encountered less problems accessing the information than blind students due to different reasons.

The International Organización for Standardization has decided to develop a new metadata standard for learning resources. This standard claims to enhance the compatibility, flexibility and focus on the user requirements. This article presents the new ISO/IEC MLR standard, describes it and compares the MLR data elements to those defined in Dublin Core and in LOM.

Our proposal is a geography educational gaming application aimed to mobile devices. More in depth, it is a game that instructs users in the learning of geography. It helps to exercise the users' memory, produces an enhancement in the user geography knowledge and lead to these benefits trough exercises that are interesting and challenging, in the boundaries between gaming and studding. The game we present can be considered as a brain training game but we shall avoid the use of this name in particular because of its commercial implications. These kind of games are meant for casual gaming, when the users have time to spare, like when travelling on train or bus, on breaks during work, and such. On top of that, certain studies have proved that regular play of brain challenging games can contribute to brain health. Just like a muscle can keep fit when it's used regularly, brain can be also kept health by performing simple exercises, just like our game does, also including the additional benefit of knowledge increase and versatility and interesting contents. The type of game is not complicated to play at all. A map is given to the user, as well as the name of a country, or the name of a country capital, and it will invite the user to click on the map in the place where they think the actual country is. This game is easily upgradeable; a option is given to the user to download new maps, and new types of questions. For instance, instead of supplying the name of a capital to the user, it can show the name of an historic event, or the name of a famous person, then the user should click on the place where the event took place, or the person was birth. In order to do this, a distribution platform was also created. This platform allows user to download learning contents like games, manuals, updates for such games, etc. This platform adapts itself to the device characteristics, so users can only download suitable content for their phones, pdas, etc, which are part of what is known as ubiquitous communication (Nyiri, 2002). Our work is part of the TIFYC research group works at the Computer Science Department of the Alcala University. We focus on e-learning and ubiquitous computing. Also, one of the main research areas, m-learning (also known as mobile learning), surge from the joint of these two research fields and comprises the work we are presenting.

This paper presents the University of Alcalá attempt to join computer science and information engineering with other fields (business, law, pedagogy, nursery and humanities) in a Master's Program. The main objective of this approach is to attract graduate students to computer science offering them an alternative way to join its own knowledge and competencies with those in computing skills which are closely related.

This paper presents the University of Alcalá attempt to join computer science and information engineering with other fields (business, law, pedagogy, nursery and humanities) in a Master's Program. The main objective of this approach is to attract graduate students to computer science offering them an alternative way to join its own knowledge and competencies with those in computing skills which are closely related.

La globalización no sólo influye en las perspectivas sociales y económicas de la Sociedad. Supone también un reto para los profesores de educación superior. En el caso de las titulaciones universitarias de informática, los conocidos modelos y propuesta de curricula han permitido disminuir la incertidumbre en cuanto a los conocimientos y habilidades técnicos. Sin embargo, buena parte del éxito en entornos profesionales multinacionales en tecnologías de la información dependen mucho del despliegue de capacidades no técnicas (también llamadas soft skills) que deben promoverse entre los estudiantes para que alcancen los mejores resultados una vez que se gradúen. Pero ¿qué competencias no técnicas son más importantes para el estudio y el trabajo en entornos multinacionales? Este trabajo presenta los resultados de una encuesta entre expertos y estudiantes desarrollada para determinar el conjunto de habilidades recomendado para el trabajo multinacional de los estudiantes y que debería ser desarrollado por los profesores a través de actividades específicas. Introducción Las soft skills son consideradas como un factor clave para el éxito en el mercado de trabajo en Informática y están ganando progresivamente mayor importancia en todas las áreas de la informática (aunque originalmente eran más valoradas en ciertas funciones como la de soporte de usuarios) (Lee et al., 1995). Diferentes estudios han subrayado la necesidad de una mezcla adecuada de competencia técnicas y habilidades no técnicas para ciertos puestos de las tecnologías de la información (TI) (Wade y Parent, 2002) en de forma general (Seymour et al., 2006), cuando nos referimos a ciertas localizaciones geográficas (Lee, 2006) o en general (Landry et al., 2000). La razón subyacente paar todo esto reside en que, para ayudar a identificar los empleados más " apropiados " para los distintos puestos profesionales (es decir, quienes son más propensos a contribuir a los resultados organizativos), las organizaciones están adaptando sus criterios de reclutamiento y selección hacia la evaluación de capacidades interpersonales y de comunicación como factores clave una vez que se comprueba un mínimo nivel de cualificación en habilidades (Sullivan, 1995). Además, incluso los estudiantes están a favor de que se empleen las habilidades no técnicas o soft skills coomo un requisito básico para los profesionales de la informática: por ejemplo, en (Chinn, yVanDeGrift, 2008) se refleja la importancia que alcanzan las habilidades no técnicas para los estudiantes cuando se les pide que adopten el rol de responsables de reclutamiento y contratación de profesionales de las TI: en concreto, un 88% de los casos cuando se trata de seleccionar a jefes de proyecto y un84% en el caso de los

This system comes up as a result of the increase of e-learning systems. It manages all relevant modules in this context, such as the association of digital rights with the contents (courses), management and payment processing on rights. There are three blocks: - A normalized application following the worldwide accepted standards or recommendations (SCORM, IMS, IEEE, etc.) containing the courses and implementing the organization of users and their subscriptions in the courses. - Another application will be in charge of managing the digital rights of the courses following ODRL [1]. It considers the creation of these courses, its offers with different costs and its requirements. - In order to negotiate the digital rights it is necessary another application implementing a device to manage and make payments using the secure payment methods currently used in the network.

The latest estimates of the World Health Organization point that approximately 5% of world’s population presents disabling hearing loss (328 million adults and 32 million children). This situation becomes very complex in developing countries, where children with hearing loss and deafness rarely have access to schooling. On those grounds, in this paper we present an intelligent system to automatically generating video-summaries and captioning in sign language with the aim of creating accessible learning objects for children and youth with disabling hearing loss. Through our intelligent system, we propose a methodology that allows performing agile consumption of educational content (Learning Accessible Objects) that use videos. With the aim of determining the real feasibility of our proposal, we have performed a preliminary experiment with 7 educational videos of history, natural sciences and mathematics for deaf children and youth from 8 to 12 years. A team of 6 experts in sign language has evaluated several aspects our proposal (coherence of the summaries and captions, quality of the synchronization between the explicative elements in sign language and video execution, possible lost keywords/meanings, …).

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In this paper we propose a system that allows to adapt educational contents to learners, based on the knowledge of a learner who is conducting the training through his mobile device, contents will also be tailored to the features of the device and to the context where the learner is at the present moment. Keywords-m-learning; adaptation; learning objects; mobile devices

The process for creating learning contents using reusable learning objects (LOs) can be broken down into two sub-processes: LO finding and LO sequencing. Finding can be automated by the use of federated search engines along with gap analysis techniques; however, sequencing is usually performed by instructors, who create courses targeting generic profiles rather than personalised materials. This paper proposes a novel technique for courseware engineering that aims to solve two recurrent problems in this area: automation of the instructor's role and personalised course building. Simultaneously, e-learning standards are promoted in order to ensure interoperability. Competencies and metadata are used to define relations between LOs so that the sequencing problem turns into a constraint satisfaction problem and a genetic algorithm is designed and implemented to solve the sequencing problem. The proposed agent is tested in real and simulated scenarios. Results show that it succeeds in all test cases and that it handles reasonably the computational complexity inherent in this kind of problem.

Resumen. En este articulo se presenta un estudio sobre la accesibilidad en los dispositivos móviles de últim a gener ación: los llam ados Sm artphones. Este estudio está orientado hacia el uso de estos dispositivos para que personas que tengan alguna discapacidad puedan acceder a contenidos e-learning. Para ello se comprobarán todas las características de accesibilidad, tanto hardware com o software. Palabras clave: Smartphones, accesibilidad, lectores de pantalla, e-learning. 1 Introducción En los últimos años el u so d e d ispositivos m óviles h a au mentado en g ran m edida. Esto se debe a que est e tipo de dispositivos han ido evolucionando de tal manera que ya no se centran en realizar sólo una función, sino que están pensados y desarrollados para realizar muchas más funciones. Debido al aum ento del uso de est e t ipo de di spositivos, hay m uchos más grupos sociales que hacen uso de ellos. El grupo social que nos atañe aquí es el de las personas con discapacidad. Este grupo social hace un uso in tensivo de este tipo de dispositivos ya que les ayudan a superar m uchas de l as barreras que hay instauradas en la sociedad. En consecuencia, los usuarios de pl ataformas e-learning están comenzando a usar estos dispositivos para acceder a los distintos contenidos disponibl es en este tipo de plataformas, pero para que una pers ona discapacitada pueda acceder a estos contenidos desde un dispositivo móvil, éste tiene que ser accesible. Al hablar de accesibilidad en dispositivos móviles se está haciendo referencia tanto al diseño del dispositivo com o a las aplicaci ones para el m ismo, ya que am bos van a permitir q ue estas p ersonas p uedan p ercibir, en tender, navegar e interactuar con el dispositivo sin ningún tipo de barrera. En la actualidad hay en el mercado concretamente un tipo de dispositivo móvil que ayuda a mejorar la accesibilidad a plataf ormas e-learning: los Sm artphones. Un Smartphone combina las funcionalidades de un t eléfono y de un ordenador de m ano Calidad y Accesibilidad de la Formación Virtual

This paper presents a semiautomatic evaluation method of usability in websites. Expert review is done in this case using a template based on the ISO 9241-151 guidelines that provides numerical and graphical results. Such results permit to observe the aspects of usability that are missed on the evaluated website. This template has many applications as it can be used both to evaluate websites and to teach heuristic evaluation method for students who are studying subjects of usability.

The assessment in e-learning systems is a basic element to successfully complete any formative action. In this article we present a generic, flexible, interoperable and reusable language for design assessments, and its implementation in the EDVI Learning Management System. This language is based on XML and we have used XML Schema technology. We also describe the language attributes required to set the assessment plan based on our practical experience in e-learning courses. The main purpose of this language is to make the assessment design interoperable among systems in a simple and efficient way. An adequate implementation will also reduce the time required to configure assessment activities, simplifying and automating them. © 2009 Wiley Periodicals, Inc. Comput Appl Eng Educ 19: 770–776, 2011

Nowadays, experiences with massive open online courses (MOOCs) are being part of modern engineering degrees, thus providing practical interactive activities to improve teaching-learning strategies with online courses and social community learning with peers from different countries. Additionally, this MOOC movement is being identified as a valuable tool to provide engineering education to all students, including students with disabilities that for different reasons cannot be part of a face-to-face session and, naturally, have the rights to make use of this myriad of teaching-learning strategies. In this sense, if a teacher wants to develop aMOOCcourse or to recommend a course to his students, it is imperative to identify the best accessible platforms in order to provide inclusive learning strategies. The aim of this study is to analyze the accessibility of a selection of eight popular MOOC platforms: Coursera, edX, Udacity, MiriadaX, UNED COMA, Udemy, Futurelearn and NovoEd. To this end, three automatic accessibility evaluation tools have been used: eXaminator, FAE and Tingtun. Hence, it has been checked the degree of conformance of these platforms with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) created by the World Wide Consortium and adopted by ISO as an international standard. The study has been complemented with a heuristic evaluation by experts in order to have a holistic perspective ofMOOCaccessibility. The idea behind this study is that the stakeholders in the teaching-learning process will be able to identify and select the most inclusive platform based on the international standards. Moreover, the technical staff in educational institutions will be provided with a procedure to identify accessibility issues in other platforms and engineering teachers will be aware of the potential obstacles that students with disabilities may experience. The results of this study identify edX and Futurelearn as the best MOOC platforms. Finally, conclusions and future work ideas are presented.

Software testing is the commonest technique for software quality assurance. It is present in every development project and concentrates a large percentage of effort, there are still not many studies which address the real practice of individuals and organizations. Anyway, practitioners usually agree with the idea that software testing efficiency and effectiveness in their organizations might be improved. Two previous studies in Spain have revealed implemented testing practices in organizations and individual performance of software professionals when designing test cases should be improved. This paper presents the results of a survey designed to know if 23 factors determined by a panel of experts in 2007 may explain this situation of testing practice. Data collected reveal that none of the factors is clearly rejected as a negative influence for testing although some of them are not generally accepted. Exploratory statistical analysis reveals relations between certain pairs of items as well as a new grouping in factors.

A learning design is the result of the description of a teaching-learning process. It implies the consideration of aspects such as the context in which teaching is being developed, the most suitable teaching method in this context, the necessary resources, the contents of the training activity, or the assessment criteria. IMS-LD is a specification which provides a containment framework of elements that formally describe any teaching-learning process design, and for this reason it supports the description of learning designs using specific authoring tools. It is common to create Activity Diagrams, using the Unified Modelling Language (UML) notation, to represent with a model the sequence of learning activities involved in a learning design and it is done using a visual UML design application. In this paper, a method and software application (based on XMI and XSLT technologies) that ensure interoperability among UML modelling tools and IMS-LD editors are presented.

This paper presents XSL source code to automatically produce a Unit of Learning manifest with a standard IMS-LD format, from the activity diagram with UML format that represents its workflow. Besides, a complementary XSL source code that performs the reverse process, namely to automatically obtain the activity diagram from the unit of learning manifest, is presented; so re-engineering of learning processes is also facilitated. KEYWORDS

Nowadays, the digital register process of electrocardiographical signals (ECG) constitutes a common practice for the diagnosis and controlling of patients suffering from cardiac disorders. In this paper we study the usefulness of Artificial Neural Network (ANN) for clinical diagnosis through the detection of arrythmias and the reduction of the large spaces occupied by ECG records.

Nowadays there are a lot of standards, specifications and recommendations developed by different organizations, which the aim of providing a common framework in order to regulate the various aspects related to the development and use of e-learning environments. This paper provides a compilation of major e-learning standards that exist today, and all of them have been classified in twelve different categories, according to their main area of application.

This article describes a study conducted to evaluate the accessibility of the contents of the Web sites of some of the most important universities in Spain and the rest or the world, according with three international rankings. Universities included simultaneously in “Academic Ranking of World Universities”, in “Times Higher Education Supplement” and in “Webometrics Rankings of World Universities” have been selected. The accessibility assessment has been carried out to check compliance with accessibility guidelines for Web content established by the World Wide Web Consortium recommendation in WCAG 2.0. We have tried to determine whether universities with greater academic prestige have been concerned to provide accesible information about the university through its website so that it can be accessed by everyone (teachers, students), regardless of whether or not the user has a disability. Unfortunately the results have not been as good as expected from universities as important. En este artículo se describe un estudio llevado a cabo para evaluar la accesibilidad de los contenidos de los portales Web de algunas de las universidades extranjeras y españolas más relevantes según tres rankings universitarios publicados. Se han seleccionado universidades incluidas simultáneamente en “Academic Ranking of World Universities”, en “Times Higher Education Supplement” y en “Webometrics Rankings of World Universities”. La evaluación de la accesibilidad se ha realizado comprobando el cumplimiento de las pautas de accesibilidad de contenidos Web establecidas por el World Wide Web Consortium en la recomendación WCAG 2.0. Se ha tratado de determinar si universidades con prestigio a nivel académico ofrecen la información sobre la universidad a través de su Web, de tal forma que pueda ser visitada por todas las personas (profesores, estudiantes), independientemente de si tienen o no algún tipo de discapacidad. Desafortunadamente los resultados no han sido tan buenos como cabría esperar de universidades de tanta importancia.

The Web was created as a universal network of knowledge. It represented a huge qualitative and quantitative leap in terms of acquisition and processing of information. However, even today, significant barriers make difficult the access of a large number of citizens to the web, including disabled users and old people with diminished skills as an effect of age. Accessibility is the feature which facilitates access to and successful usage of a web site or service for as many people as possible, regardless of their personal limitations or limitations imposed by their environment. This article reviews the main aspects of web accessibility and its future, passing through the effective implementation of guidelines known as 2.0, which ensure compliance with existing legislation at national and international level.