1. Accessibility in the Spanish Law on the University System

Access to education is a fundamental human right according to the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948, article 26)². University has been, is and must be a source of knowledge, material well-being, social justice, inclusion, opportunities and cultural freedom for all ages, as expressed in the preamble of Organic Law 2/2023, of 22 March of the Spanish University System, hereinafter, LOSU in its Spanish acronym³.

The growing importance of accessibility is a fundamental corollary of citizens' right to education, especially inclusive education, where students with disabilities are served. Universities must guarantee people with disabilities not only universal access to buildings and their physical and virtual environments but also access to the teaching-learning and assessment process⁴.

First, accessibility refers to the degree to which an environment, service, or product allows access by as many people as possible, particularly persons with disabilities. This is based on the definition of “universal design” as found in article 2 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities⁵. The first international UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and its Optional Protocol (A/RES/61/106) was adopted on 13 December 2006, hereinafter, the UN Convention 2006, and was opened for signature on 30 March 2007. Accessibility requires taking measures to ensure access for persons with disabilities, on an equal basis with others, to the physical environment, to transportation and to information and communication (article 6 of the UN Convention)⁶. Moreover, article 5 of the UN Convention prohibit States Parties all discrimination on the basis of disability and guarantee to persons with disabilities equal and effective legal protection against discrimination on all grounds.

University environments must be accessible in accordance with the conditions and within the deadlines established in Law 51/2003, of December 2, 2003, on equal opportunities, non-discrimination and universal accessibility for people with disabilities and its implementing provisions. This Spanish LOSU takes up the baton from the "twenty-fourth additional provision" of the previous Organic Law 4/2007, of 12 April, which already established that all curricula proposed by universities should take into account that training in any professional activity must be based on the respect and promotion of human rights and the principles of universal accessibility and design for all⁷. Besides, its fourth additional provision foresaw adaptations in the teaching regime for people with disabilities⁸. Indeed, in our opinion, adaptations in the teaching regime are "reasonable accommodation" in the language of the UN Convention. The 2006 UN Convention defines “reasonable accommodation” as necessary and appropriate modification and adjustments not imposing a disproportionate or undue burden, where needed in a particular case, to ensure to persons with disabilities the enjoyment or exercise on an equal basis with others of all human rights and fundamental freedoms⁹.

Furthermore, it is a requirement to have plans that guarantee accessibility conditions and reasonable adjustments for people with disabilities for creation and recognition of universities in Spain¹⁰.

Lack of accessibility in college education can create significant barriers in the lives of students with disabilities. For example, the World Report on Disability of 2011 does not refer to University education of disabled persons but only to less access to primary and secondary school¹¹. However, University is the next step in education also for disabled students¹². They may feel unmotivated and isolated, which may prevent them from reaching their full potential if they can access University, but materials are not accessible for them. A duty for the teacher is to accept and promote individual development because the objective of education is to enable each student, the process of personal development, unique and distinct and it is a right of the student to be respected and promoted from his individuality (^{Grzona, 2014}).

For this reason, given the existing shortcomings revealed regarding accessibility of teaching materials in university teaching (^{Jaume Mayol, et al. 2019}, ^{Muñoz de Dios, et al. 2020})¹³, our work has been carried out to promote inclusion for diverse students through technology in the study of antitrust law. In the case of students with special educational needs, such as, for example, dyslexia or visual disabilities, teaching materials have been adapted in the legal subject taught, so that they can be more accessible to a diversity of students. Thus, fulfilling the right of equity and not discrimination¹⁴ against people with disabilities by promoting materials adapted to their abilities in university studies.

Diversity units of universities are in charge of coordinating and including in a transversal way the development of university inclusion and anti-discrimination policies in the set of activities and functions of university. In turn, these units must have a disability care service¹⁵. At the Complutense University of Madrid (Spain), the Office for the Inclusion of People with Diversity (OIPD) has on its website a Practical Manual to make texts accessible for students with functional diversity, which has been consulted for the development of our innovative teaching practice¹⁶.

The aim of this paper is pioneering in explaining some accessibility techniques than have been used in the subject on Commercial Law that the author teaches at the Employment Relations and Human Resources Degree at University to foster a more inclusive education. Law language is indeed very technical, so the whole experience is to describe a method to provide the student with accessibility skills for a subsequent improvement in their professionalism. The paper is structured as follows. First, it intertwines the specific teaching experience with some sustainable development goals. Second, it describes how the professor has created virtual materials that were inexistent before in the specific format that allows a more accessible education. Third, it analyzes some advantages of using this innovative teaching methodology, in particular portability of teaching materials. Fourth, it further develops a substantive law question on competition law that is changing in relation to sustainability agreements. These legal materials are incorporated under the technological methodology described previously. Therefore, it incorporated all the accessibility tools. Furthermore, the results of the teaching experience are discussed. Finally, some concluding remarks of the author close the paper.

2. Innovation teaching experience related to sustainable development goals

The chosen teaching practice focuses on several of the objectives of sustainable development goals. Sustainable Development Goals were presented as one of the great challenges of the 21st century and proposed by the United Nations on 25 September 2015¹⁷. They are currently conditioning de facto all state and autonomous community policies in many countries. From a legal perspective, these SDG are not legal norms¹⁸ because they are ideas for a better planet. Its incorporation is alien to the rule of law and to the channels of legal rules creation. Thus, there is no justification for defending its mandatory application at the expense of the rule of law (^{Lambea Rueda, 2023}).

However, institutional actors are a necessary collaborator to reach the ideal 2030. In the case of universities, it must be mentioned that SDGs only refer to the word “University” within the 4 SDG in relation to ensure equal access for all women and men to affordable and technical quality, vocational and tertiary education, including university. It is relevant that article 18 of the LOSU expressly refers to SDG, specifically, as such: Universities will encourage the participation of the university community in activities and projects related to the promotion of democracy, equality, social justice, peace and inclusion, as well as the Sustainable Development Goals. Thus, we have followed several targets of SDG as an indication for our improvement in ensuring equal access to university and in particular, accessibility following international treaties mentioned in the previous chapter of this work.

In our practice we have chosen to focus on two specific SDG to materialize an innovative teaching method with the objective to build an inclusive and effective learning environment for students within quality education. First, SDG 4 deals with quality education, and second, SDG 10 regarding the reduction of inequalities.

First, quality education means to eliminate gender disparities in education and ensure equal access to all levels of education and vocational training for vulnerable people, including persons with disabilities, indigenous peoples and children in vulnerable situations¹⁹.Therefore, it is necessary to build and adapt education facilities for disability and gender-sensitive, and that provide safe, non-violent, inclusive and effective learning environments for all.

Second, reducing inequalities means by 2030, enhance and promote social, economic and political inclusion of all people, irrespective of age, gender, disability, race, ethnicity, origin, religion or economic or other status²⁰. In such regard, to ensure equality of opportunity and reduce inequality of outcome, including by eliminating discriminatory laws, policies and practices and promoting appropriate legislation, policies and measures²¹.

In our example we have selected the topic of antitrust law, where the restrictive practices of companies that are contrary to free competition are explained using technological means.

Use of technology implies a step beyond ICT, information and communication technologies, (^{Lozano, 2011}). We delve into the LKT methodology, learning and knowledge technologies. LKT involves the use of these technologies as instruments to facilitate learning and disseminate knowledge as research has shown that ICTs alone do not create knowledge (^{Gómez-Trigueros, Ruiz-Bañuls & Ortega-Sánchez, 2019}). Therefore, its objective is to build knowledge where the professor becomes a guide, providing students with basic skills that allow them to be informationally autonomous. LKT allow attention to diversity and inclusion in this regard. Therefore, in this experience of teaching innovation, an attempt has been made to make the educational content in the subject of “Commercial Law” accessible to all students, regardless of their abilities.

First, the SCORM package has been used to make content materials easy to read and understand, provide subtitles and transcripts for videos and images, and make graphics accessible to people with visual impairments. Thus, this type of methodology promotes social and territorial cohesion, as it is based on the values of student inclusion, so that their learning at the University is improved.

Second, regarding the international mobility of the university community, the LOSU incorporates, for the first time, a title dedicated to internationalization²², which intends that both teachers and students can benefit from mobility programs as a source of exchange of knowledge. For the implementation of the internationalization of the university system, the development of accessible teaching materials promotes double degrees between Spanish universities and foreign universities whose native language is different. ICTs favor the bilingualism of these excellence programs since the contents can be translated automatically by inserting a translator into the computer tools.

3. Creation of virtual learning materials

Virtual materials can be tailored to the individual needs of each student, providing them with a personalized learning experience. Our focus is within the shift from learning “of” technology to learning “with” technology. We started from our own Power Point presentations that I reworked using the eXe-Learning tool to create the virtual learning materials. This content editor is free, open source and it is available for downloading on the exelearning.net website. The eXe Learning project is funded by the New Zealand government and coordinated by the University of Auckland (http://www.auckland.ac.nz/). Groups of collaborators from all over the world also participate in the project, such as the Department of Computer Languages and Systems at the University of Alicante (http://dlsi.ua.es/) (^{Mifsud, 2009}).

One important characteristic of eXe-learning is that it allows offline development, that is, without the need to be connected to the Internet. This makes the professor's task easier since he/she does not depend on the characteristics of his/her Internet connection to carry out his work. It can be created and updated locally at convenience.

Firstly, the content can be structured in the form of a tree and include interactive videos, so that students answer interspersed questions as they watch the video²³. For example, we have included in our materials a video about the CNMC (National Commission of Markets and Competition) leniency program, and we have enriched it with questions that punctuate the video as it is played. Therefore, students must be attentive to answer them, and they automatically know if they have selected the correct answer.

Secondly, it also allows to include hyperlinks. In our case we have included the website of the most important authority in Spain on the matter, which is the National Commission of Markets and Competition and hyperlinks to significant cases of the Court of Justice of the EU within the subject as well. Thirdly, we have also included student assignments in both the virtual materials and the videos, as well as T or F questions, multiple choice questions, and fill-in-the-gap questions. Fourthly, the used methodology has been to include a script as a way to eliminate disparities among the most vulnerable people, including people with disabilities, within the educational content created.

Among the possibilities allowed by the script that we have placed in “Properties/HEAD”, there are the following:

These properties can be seen in the next image (Figure 1).

Figure 1 Script of accessibility 

A no less important aspect of the creation of virtual materials is metadata. Metadata is a word composed of the Greek preposition “meta”, which means “beyond”, and the Latin word “datum”, singular of data, which means the “thing given”²⁴; so, its meaning would be equivalent to “data about the data itself.” We are interested in the content we create appearing with a title, general description, objectives of the subject, whether prior knowledge is a requirement, authorship of the content, type of license authorised, type of educational resource, students to whom the content is addressed, place of use (in the classroom or outside the classroom) and modality of use (in-person, blended or remote).

These properties can be seen in Figure 2.

Figure 2 Metadata 

Our teaching materials are addressed originally to students of the third year of the Law Degree at Complutense University²⁵. However, these materials can also be used in other degrees, such as the Business Administration Degree, the Economics Degree or the Employment Relations and Human Resources Degree. These university degrees are composed of “Commercial Law” subjects in their curricula and different law courses like Economic Law or Business Law introduce the concepts of Antitrust Law. Therefore, this structure of materials provides universal accessibility aimed at both future lawyers and non-lawyers.

4. Portability of the designed learning materials

The content created in Exe-Learning has been exported in the SCORM format, which is a referenced model of shareable content objects²⁶. This allows the content to be accessible from different content management platforms. Specifically, we have exported it in an “educational standard” file; SCORM 2004 and we have taken that zip file to the Complutense University virtual campus or learning platform. Two characteristics of the SCORM package that are very convenient for the professor must be highlighted.

The first one is that the content created can be reusable in different courses, which allows them to be improved or adapted in various contexts. In our case, we teach the topic of antitrust law in different subjects in various university degrees.

Secondly, the SCORM package can be exported in different formats to facilitate its viewing from any device such as an e-Reader. In that case, the e-pub file extension option would be chosen because it can be viewed better on tablets and smartphones since the content adapts automatically to the size of the device's screen.

Another interesting option for the professor may be the file with an .elp extension to save the content package on the drive and to be able to make relevant and necessary updates at any time.

5. Antitrust law and sustainable development goals

The Horizontal Guidelines on the sustainability agreements of the year 2023 of the European Commission are studied from the substantive perspective of the antitrust subject²⁷. The justification is that is the first time that the EU Commission clarifies that antitrust regulations do not hinder agreements between competitors that pursue a sustainability objective. These guidelines contain a broad definition of sustainability inspired by the United Nations SDG objectives. In the European Commission opinion, competition policy must be used to support the green transition: the emissions reduction target of at least 55% by 2030, compared to 1990 levels, has become a legally binding commitment with the entry into force of the European Climate Law²⁸. Competition policy can complement the regulatory framework by ensuring strong and competitive markets that send the right price signals for the necessary investments to flow into the necessary technologies for transition, while keeping costs down for taxpayers. It can help set the right incentives for companies to use resources efficiently, avoid stranded assets and innovate their production processes towards greater sustainability.²⁹

Therefore, agreements between competitors are not prohibited if the specific agreements carry out awareness campaigns or ensure compliance with requirements or standards established in international treaties or agreements. For example, an agreement by which several competing companies agree not to import products prohibited by a regulation. It should be noted that other behaviors, mainly decisions of an association of companies or concerted practices, would also be included, just as the European block exemption regulations do when referring to the term "agreement" (^{De la Vega, 2022}).

Besides, these agreements are not prohibited if they create databases with general information on suppliers that have sustainable value chains, for example, suppliers that respect labor rights or pay living wages or that use sustainable production processes.

Nevertheless, analysis of sustainability agreements is still required where the main object of the agreement between competitors is a sustainability objective, and there is no suspicion that it conceals a serious restriction of competition, the agreement will not generally be treated as a "by object" restriction (the most serious). Therefore, it requires an evaluation of the effects and efficiencies generated.

In summary, the inclusion of specific content related to sustainability is analyzed within the area of antitrust law because technology is not only a mean to learn but it should also be a mean for a more sustainable planet where companies can coordinate, and their collaboration may enjoy exemptions of traditional competition law.

6. Results of the teaching experience

These virtual learning contents have been worked on in the face-to-face class, although all the contents have been available on the subject's website within the university learning platform, for the students to have access them, to facilitate their review, their study, and above all, improve their accessibility. Obviously, these contents could also be used for a distance education modality. It could also be very useful for students who live in remote areas or are unable to attend in face-to-face lessons. We have used these precise materials for the subject of Commercial Law in the second year of the Employment Relations and Human Resources Degree. The results of the use of these virtual materials for the topic of Antitrust law have been highly satisfactory from the students of the academic year 2023/2024 first semester. Universal accessibility has been provided to future professionals.

This learning method is aligned with the Complutense University of Madrid's commitment to Universal Accessibility and Design for all people. Design for all aims to make it possible for all people to have equal opportunities and participation in every aspect of society³⁰. To achieve this, the built environment, everyday objects, services, culture and information must be accessible and useful to all members of the society and consistent with the continuous evolution of human diversity. Universal accessibility consists of designing products, environments, programs, and services that can be understood and used by all people, to the greatest extent possible, without the need to make adaptations (^{International Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, UN, 2006}).

This innovative teaching tries to ensure that tertiary education is accessible to all students. It requires the collaboration of both professors and universities, whose work together can help students reach their full potential, regardless of their varying abilities. It allows students to access virtual learning materials and resources from anywhere, provides them with a personalized learning experience and can be engaging, up-to-date and interactive.

Students have been assessed using the virtual materials and showing satisfaction in face-to-face class of having an additional resource to the physical book for studying some content of the subject. They valued the fact that some questionnaire was added at the same time they were visualizing the content. In particular, it has been very useful for students who suffered from dyslexia, who was a minority in the class, but later they achieved good results on written exams. All students have internet connection at home and in-class at Complutense University, so there was not a problem in that regard.

One of my students that suffered from dyslexia in the Law Degree gave me remarkable feedback of this experience. Here I translated her answers to English.

Q- Have you found the materials more accessible?

Without a doubt, it has been a discovery to know that this format exists.

Q- Why?

By being able to change fonts, and even a specific one for dyslexia, it makes it possible to understand everything in less time and in a single reading, by reading it all continuously without needs.

Q- What problem do you have?

I currently suffer from ADHD and confuse several letters and words that contain those letters.

Q- How has this virtual content helped to alleviate your problem?

A- Having a dyslexia-specific font, it makes it "paint" or "highlight" certain parts of the letters I have dyslexia with certain parts of the letters that tend to be more difficult to read (for example, lowercase B and D, which I confuse very often) and improves as much as possible the reading can be done continuously, without pauses and, therefore, with the same conditions as peers.

Q- Do you think your academic performance will improve with this visualization of legal content?

Without a doubt yes, since it gives people with similar conditions the same opportunities. It makes it easier than the traditional format.

Q- Write any suggestions that with respect to the topic you think are appropriate.

A- As a suggestion I would propose that all professors implement it at least once in their academic life, since they would notice the results, and also without eliminating the traditional format, they could gradually include it in the CV by administrators or managers, facilitating to professors this tool, courses on it, or trying to implement a program that automates texts in this format.

7. Concluding remarks

Within the UN Sustainable Development Goals, the chosen teaching practice focuses on several of the targets of goal 4 on quality education and goal 10 on the reduction of inequalities. Antitrust law is a topic taught in different universities degrees. The restrictive practices of companies that are contrary to free competition are explained with technological means. Specifically, the SCORM package has been used due to the benefits it brings to the learning process and its management. The tool to create the SCORM package has been eXe-Learning since this editor allows the creation of educational content without the need to be an expert in HTML or XML language.

With this methodology used by the content editor, social inclusion of people with some type of disability is enhanced, contributing to the University's goal of reducing inequalities. One of the ways to eliminate disparities for the most vulnerable people, including people with disabilities, and to build an inclusive and effective learning environment for students within quality education, has been achieved by implementing accessibility elements, for integration of students from other cultures, through a script that includes a language translator. Likewise, a zoom has been incorporated to facilitate visual accessibility; a text reader to facilitate auditory accessibility, a text adapter for students with some type of dyslexia and several interactive videos have been included, as well as hyperlinks.

Finally, from the substantive perspective of the subject, the EU horizontal guidelines on sustainability agreements are studied, which clarify that competition defense regulations do not hinder agreements between competitors that pursue a sustainability objective.