UVA, IHE Accessibility in OER Implementation Guide
Overview
Preliminary goals to improve accessibility in OER at the University of Virginia, developed by a team of faculty and support staff during the IHE Accessibility in OER Academy.
May 11 - Section One: Landscape Analysis for Accessibility in OER in Local Context (Work on during May 11th implementation)
Part One: Initial Thoughts and Initial Goals
- navigating options – this feels more complicated than a 1-person job
- How to take all this work and manage it, make actionable
- How to approach OER and accessibility knowing it’s not going to be ‘done’ at any time
- Understanding the needs of our faculty
- Going practical and concrete: captions, other concrete and doable steps
- Would be nice to have some easy references like “I’m using an Instagram post, how do I make this accessible?”
- Compiling and signposting the resources we have, and connecting them to a person who could provide additional support – getting this info out to all
- Taking a broad approach – considering UDL applications to a unit/book, not trying to make every piece of content “UDL-perfect”
- What small steps could we each be doing in our own particular projects, in the next 6mo for ex?
- Accessibility and images, or video
- Applying a particular principle across a wider curriculum
Part Five: Faculty learning and engagement
- Drop-in time, similar to open hours, to answer (and/or collect?) questions, to offer work time and support & guidance
- In person, face to face accountability, real time
- Accessibility meter in Canvas (Ally) raising awareness, culture shifts
Part Six: Final Probing questions
What is our current goal for Accessibility in OER and why is that our goal?
Who have we not yet included while thinking about this work?
- SDAC, students, other fields, other accessibility colleagues on grounds, administrators
What barriers remain when considering this work?
Time, labor, materials that require more work to make accessible
What would genuine change look like for our organization for this work?
Student accessibility board, faculty support around accessibility and student experience of accessibility; students as end users
Sharing data and experience
Section Two: Team Focus (Finish before May 25th to share during Implementation Session Two)
Identifying and Describing a Problem of Practice
- Implementation Goal:
- How can we bring awareness of accessibility to our colleagues? --> offer opportunities to experience inaccessibility
- Checklist/steps
- Sharing of SLIDE with other OER users/creators/adopters
- In our OER projects: descriptive links
- Evaluation of accessibility using tools like Andi
- Contributing an accessible remix of an existing OER
- Possible timeline: Fall 2023
- Possible support groups: LDT, Library, Academic Accessibility Coordinator, SDAC
- Voices that are not yet included: students, administrators, other colleagues
- Feedback Question: What has worked well for you in getting this out to a wider audience?
Section Three: Team Work Time and Next Steps (Complete by the end of Implementation Session Three)
Sharing and Next Steps
What was your redefined goal for this series?
What does your team want to celebrate?
Tools and new information!
Celebrate the group itself—discussion and upcoming changes with hope for “rippling effect.”
Hearing from faculty to better understand challenges related to creating/retroactively addressing accessibility in materials design.
Information was presented in an accessible way. Ability to approach changes one thing at a time.
The time was well-spent and the series well-structured.
What did your team accomplish? If you have links to resources, please include them here.
Realization of UDL as a pathway to learning for everyone.
Creation of a supportive community of faculty and IDs interested and invested in accessible content & learning environments.
What are your team’s next steps?
Continue these conversations.
Set aside work time/time to share progress.