Gerry Hanley, Merlot; Una Daly, Open Courseware Consortium; and Mark Riccobono, National Federation for the Blind present on the importance of designing in accessibility for OER producers and consumers.

1. Accessibility and OER:
Status and Issues for Higher
Education
Gerry Hanley, MERLOT and Cal. State University
Una Daly, Open Courseware Consortium
Mark Riccobono, National Federation of the Blind
Sloan-Merlot 2012 1

2. Gerry Hanley, Ph.D.
Executive Director, Merlot
Senior Director, Academic Technology
Services
California State University, Office of
the Chancellor

3. Una T. Daly, M. Ed.
Community College Manager
Open Courseware Consortium

4. Mark A. Riccobono, M.S. Ed.
Executive Director, Jernigan Institute
National Federation for the Blind

5. Agenda
• Digital, Accessible, and Open is Now
• Existing Efforts with OER & Accessibility
• Building the Community
• Issues to Resolve & Call to Action

6. Digital Information Age

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

8. Characteristics of OER
• Digital
– Free distribution
– Easy to customize
• Open License
– Reuse, Revise, Remix
• Low cost
– Expand access to education

9. 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 knowledge
Creative Commons CC-BY license, Dr. Judy Baker 9

10. 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

11. 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

12. Diverse Learner Challenges
• Cognitive learning disabilities
• Sensory & motor
impairments
• English language deficits
• Lack of engagement
Image: Kersti Nebelsiek CC-BY
Source: cast.org

13. OER and Accessibility
Projects
• FLOE Project Image: Tom Richardson CC-BY
• Community College Open Textbooks
• Benetech’s Bookshare Project
• Diagram Center
• UK Higher Education Academy/JISC

14. 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

15. 100 Open Textbook Accessibility
Reviews
Textbook: Collaborative Statistics
Accessibility reviewed by: Virtual Ability, Inc.
http://collegeopentextbooks.org

16. 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.

17. Building a Community of
Practice
• Opportunity to collaborate with others
interested in OER & Accessibility
– Find Accessibility Information
– Share Accessibility Expertise Image: Happy Rower CC-BY
– Contribute to Online Collection of Resources

18. OER & Accessibility
Teaching Commons
• in partnership with Merlot, OCW, and NFB
– 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

19. MERLOT Collection
Curation
• Meta-data scheme for contributing
accessibility tags for OER
– Allows contribution of expertise, freely and easily
with attribution
• Curates collection of accessible OER with a
variety of tools and processes
– Supports faculty looking for accessible OER
http://oeraccess.merlot.org

20. Where do we go from here …
• Higher Education’s role in making OER
accessible
• Eliminating barriers to good accessibility
practices
• Call to action

21. What can Higher Ed do?
• Articulate business case
for accessible OER
• Establish effective strategies for
driving accessibility

22. 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

23. 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.

24. Digital Guidelines & Law
• World Wide Web (W3C), WCAG 2.0
– Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, Robust
• Section 508 Electronic & Info Technology
• Universal Design for Learning

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:
3/11/2010 25

26. 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

27. 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

28. 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.

29. 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

30. User Feedback:
Closing the Loop
• Students need to be asked
what works and faculty, too!
Image: Daniel Steger CC-BY
• Organizations outside higher education can
offer support
• Faculty and staff need to be intentional in
supporting accessibility

31. Open Dialogue
• Everyone is responsible for accessibility not
just the offices of disability.
– Communities of Practice
• 23 CSU Accessibility Officers share info informally
– Shared Governance Strategy
• All stakeholders participate in establishing accessibility
criteria and self-evaluation

32. 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

33. 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.

34. Comments/Questions
http://oeraccess.merlot.org
John_C_Abell_CC-BY-NC-SA_Flickr
• Contact Info:
– Gerry Hanley, ghanley@calstate.edu
– Una Daly, unatdaly@ocwconsortium.org
– Mark Riccobono, MRiccobono@nfb.org