Dive Brief:
- The U.S. Department of Justice last week announced a settlement with edX over its online course platform’s accessibility accommodations.
- The agreement requires modifications to the edX website, platform, and mobile applications to allow students who are blind, deaf, or otherwise disabled to participate, Reuters reports.
- The settlement will bring edX in line with the Americans with Disabilities Act in the estimation of the DOJ and does not include any fines.
Dive Insight:
MIT and Harvard teamed up to form edX in 2012 to offer massive open online courses in collaboration with a number of universities worldwide. The Department of Justice alleged the edX site was not fully accessible to students with certain disabilities. The settlement requires edX to make its online operations fully accessible within 18 months and also allows for partner universities to make their own content accessible in the following 18 months, among other provisions.
The Americans with Disabilities Act prohibits discrimination by “public accommodations,” of which the Justice Department has decided these courses are. The goal of edX, a nonprofit, was to offer MOOCs to anyone with an Internet connection worldwide. Watch for the ripple effects of this settlement throughout the industry.