Creating and Publishing Openly Licensed/Open Access Content
Creating and Publishing Openly Licensed/Open Access Content
Kaela Parks
by Kaela Parks, Portland Community College (bio)
Introduction
Affordability is a key factor in making educational resources accessible; if students cannot afford a given text or course material fee, they are not going to have access. If, however, we are able to ensure that cost is not a barrier, what else is necessary to ensure that resources are accessible and that students cannot only afford a given opportunity, but make good use of it?
This chapter explores how we can ensure that learning materials are not only affordable, but equitable for a diverse population. We start by discussing what it means to be accessible, then review connections to universal design. The chapter concludes with a case study of how collaboration and a focus on accessibility has helped Portland Community College lower costs for students taking math courses, lower institutional costs for remediation, and reduce delays in providing accessible formats for students with documented disabilities.
An Introduction to Accessibility
As defined by the University of Washington’s DO-IT program, “accessible,” “universal design,” and “usable design” can be roughly paraphrased as follows:
- Accessible design: design that is aligned with accessibility standards and guidelines to ensure independence for people with disabilities. There are specific dimensions and tolerances, for example, defined for the construction and renovation of the built environment (United States Access Board), and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines for online content (W3C, 2017; WAI, 2018; WCAG, 2018).
- Universal design: design made with a conscious, proactive attempt to minimize barriers so that environments, activities, programs, and offerings, like books and videos, are usable without the need for additional adaptation.
- Usable design: design that is end-user-tested—though testers don’t tend to be disabled themselves unless this demographic is purposefully included within the testing plan.
One definition of accessible from the Office of Civil Rights is often cited in compliance reviews and resolution agreements related to inaccessible digital resources, and is good for those working in open education to understand:
“Accessible” means a person with a disability is afforded the opportunity to acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same services as a person without a disability in an equally effective and equally integrated manner, with substantially equivalent ease of use. (Office of Civil Rights, Resolution agreement with South Carolina Technical College System, 2/18/13)
Open educational resources (OERs) are most often created and shared in digital formats, which can be accessible without being more expensive or difficult to make. By ensuring that digital materials conform to web content accessibility guidelines, they are made robust, flexible, and far more likely to be useful to a much wider segment