Putting Educational Innovations into Practice.

Research Related to Accessibility of OER

What research examples are there to inform us regarding accessibility and open/affordable content?

From 2010-2011, the College Open Textbooks Collaborative contracted with Virtual Ability, Inc to develop a process for reviewing college-level open textbooks regarding accessibility. The criteria used for the reviews were drawn from US accessibility legal requirement expressed in Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, and international accessibility guidelines of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)’s Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG).

Accessibility criteria for open texts can be grouped under the acronym POUR (Perceivable, Operable, Understandable, and Robust). The attached report is a good summary of how 60 online open texts, web and pdf, were reviewed for accessibility ad what main challenges remain.

Are there other good examples to share that may inform our work in this area, whether we are developers or adopters? Either way, advocates!

Attachments:

Accessibility_review_of_open_texts.pdf, 187 KB

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Permalink Reply by Anna Gruszczynska on June 28, 2012 at 8:25am

You might be interested in research taking place in the context of UK Higher Education institutions - first of all, I undertook a research project funded by SCORE (Open University Support Centre for Open Resources in Education) which focused on barriers and enablers regarding the creation and re-use of accessible teaching resources; for more information about the project, including a research report see project wiki Open Educational Resources and accessibility project. Secondly, the Accessibility Challenges and Techniques for Open Educational Resources looks at examples of best practice when it comes to accessible OERs and should shortly provide the community with more information and guidance on overcoming any obstacles to creating and re-using accessible teaching materials.

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Permalink Reply by Brett Christie on November 4, 2012 at 6:37am

Latest newsletter from Open Courseware Consortium (OCW) focuses on OER & Accessibility. Multiple articles, including from California State University and California Community College efforts. http://goo.gl/7VapO