Accessibility and OER:Status and Issues for Higher

Education

1

Gerry Hanley, MERLOT and Cal. State University

Una Daly, Open Courseware Consortium

Mark Riccobono, National Federation of the Blind

Sloan-Merlot 2012

Gerry Hanley, Ph.D.

Executive Director, MerlotSenior Director, Academic Technology ServicesCalifornia State University, Office of the Chancellor

Una T. Daly, M. Ed.

Community College ManagerOpen Courseware Consortium

Mark A. Riccobono, M.S. Ed.

Executive Director, Jernigan InstituteNational Federation for the Blind

Agenda

• Digital, Accessible, and Open is Now

• Existing Efforts with OER & Accessibility

• Building the Community

• Issues to Resolve & Call to Action

Digital Information Age

Origin of OER: As Public Good(2002)

• The open provision of educational resources, enabled by information and communication technologies, for consultation, use and adaptation by a community of users for non-commercial purposes

• Digitized materials offered freely and openly for educators, students and self-learners to use and reuse for teaching, learning and research

7Creative Commons CC-BY license, Dr. Judy Baker

Characteristics of OER

• Digital– Free distribution– Easy to customize

• Open License– Reuse, Revise, Remix

• Low cost– Expand access to education

Examples

Includes –

• Course materials• Modules or lessons• Open CourseWare (OCW)• Open textbooks• Videos• Images• Tests• Software• Any other tools, materials, or techniques used

to support ready access to knowledge9Creative Commons CC-BY license, Dr. Judy Baker

OER Expands Access

• Access is a core value of open education– OER producers need training

• Support all Learners– Life-long– Developing Countries– Regardless of Disability

Post-Secondary Students

• U.S. enrolled students with any disabilities– 707,000 students (2008-09)

• 50 percent attend public 2-year colleges.• 30 percent attend public 4-year colleges

• CSU students enrolled with disabilities– 10,500 students (2011-12)

U.S. Dept of Ed., Students with Disabilities at Degree-Granting Postsecondary Institutions., June 2011

Diverse Learner Challenges

• Cognitive learning disabilities• Sensory & motor

impairments• English language deficits• Lack of engagement

Image: Kersti Nebelsiek CC-BY

Source: cast.org

• FLOE Project• Community College Open Textbooks• Benetech’s Bookshare Project• Diagram Center• UK Higher Education Academy/JISC

OER and Accessibility Projects

Image: Tom Richardson CC-BY

FLOE Project

• Inclusive Learning Design

– Providing resources needed to enable inclusive access to personally relevant, engaging learning opportunities for the full diversity of learners and content producers

Textbook: Collaborative StatisticsAccessibility reviewed by: Virtual Ability, Inc.

http://collegeopentextbooks.org

100 Open Textbook Accessibility Reviews

Bookshare & Diagram Center• Largest accessible online library– Expanding reading options for print disabled– Membership-based, free to qualified students– Expanding choices of access technology• Now available on eReaders and smart phones

• Diagram Center– Office of Special Education (DOE)• Focus on faster and easier creation of accessible image

descriptions for students.

Building a Community of Practice

• Opportunity to collaborate with others interested in OER & Accessibility

– Find Accessibility Information– Share Accessibility Expertise– Contribute to Online Collection of Resources

Image: Happy Rower CC-BY

OER & Accessibility Teaching Commons

• MERLOT, California State University, OCW, and NFB working in partnership to help you– Find centers and organizations for consulting services– Find OER on accessibility topics

• Tools, Training, Policies, Strategies, Universal Design for Learning

– Find OER with accessibility information– Find members with accessibility expertise

http://oeraccess.merlot.org

MERLOT Collection Curation

• Meta-data scheme for contributing accessibility tags for OER– Allows contribution of expertise, freely and easily with

attribution http://oeraccess.merlot.org/contribute_expertise/evaluation.html

• Curates collection of accessible OER with a variety of tools and processes – Supports faculty looking for accessible OER– http://oeraccess.merlot.org/finding_materials/index.html

Where do we go from here …

• Higher Education’s role in making OER accessible

• Eliminating barriers to good accessibility practices

• Call to action

What can Higher Ed do?

• Articulate business case for accessible OER

• Establish effective strategies for driving accessibility

Business Case • Equal access to programs, services, or

activities is required by federal law.

• Faculty need awareness, training and tools to select and create accessible OER

• Save time and $$ by designing accessible OER instead of retrofitting it

Digital Promises Accessibility

• Misconception that because something is "digital" it is "accessible”

• Accessibility needs to be designed into digital learning materials

• Accessibility standards ensure materials work with assistive technology.

Digital Guidelines & Law

• World Wide Web (W3C), WCAG 2.0– Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust

• Section 508 Electronic & Info Technology

• Universal Design for Learning

3/11/2010 25

Universal Design Principles

• Designed to be used by everyone (no adaptation)

• Benefits all ages & abilities– Curb cuts in sidewalk– Close captioning video– Screen readers Image: colorblindPicaso cc-by--nc:

Document Formats• ePUB3 document standard– Converts directly to DAISY– Reflows for mobile devices

• PDF often inaccessible– Structural markups missing– Primarily print format– Does not reflow

Higher Education Strategies

• Establish institution-wide policies & practices• Support strong standards• Provide faculty training • Establish chief accessibility officer• Validate products being used or purchase• Share knowledge & expertise across institutions

Oregon State University• Commits to ensuring equal access to all University programs,

services and activities provided through information technology (IT). Unless an exemption applies … all colleges, departments, offices and entities will:

– Use University web page designs that are consistent with the W3C’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0 (WCAG) Level AA. For further information … visit the University’s Information Technology Accessibility website.

– Disseminate electronic documents and multimedia on web pages that are consistent with this policy.

Barriers to Accessibility

• Rate of adoption of OER• Lack of open dialogue• Educational materials created and funded

outside of higher education• Lack of good accessibility meta-data and

testing rubrics• Feedback from users – closing the loop

User Feedback:Closing the Loop

• Students need to provide feedback on what works

• Organizations outside higher education can offer support

• Faculty and staff need to be intentional in supporting accessibility

Image: Daniel Steger CC-BY

Open Dialogue

• Everyone is responsible for accessibility not just the offices of disability.

– Communities of Practice• 23 CSU Accessibility Officers share info.

– Shared Governance Strategy• All stakeholders participate in establishing accessibility

criteria and self-evaluation

Call to Action

• Accessibility needs to be a priority for OER creation and adoption.

• Higher Education Community drives accessible OER thru policies and strategic funding.

• Contribute to the Open Dialogue

Thank you for coming• CSU, MERLOT, OCWC, NFB, and others are committed

to openly sharing so other institutions can improve their delivery of accessible education to all.

• Participate in OER-Accessibility Community– Become a member so others can find you– Contribute materials so others will find them – Reach out with questions and responses to your

community of friends– Invite your colleagues to a social learning community.

Comments/Questions

– http://oeraccess.merlot.org

• Contact Info:– Gerry Hanley, ghanley@calstate.edu– Una Daly, unatdaly@ocwconsortium.org– Mark Riccobono, MRiccobono@nfb.org

John_C_Abell_CC-BY-NC-SA_Flickr