IHE Accessibility in OER Implementation Guide
Overview
In this section, you and your team will engage in a Landscape Analysis to uncover key structures and supports that can guide your work to support Accessibility in OER. You may or may not answer all of these questions, but this is an offering.
May 11 - Section One: Landscape Analysis for Accessibility in OER in Local Context (Work on during May 11th implementation)
In this section, you and your team will engage in a Landscape Analysis to uncover key structures and supports that can guide your work to support Accessibility in OER. We encourage to explore some of the questions from each category. You may or may not answer all of these questions, but this is an offering. We ask that you complete Parts One, Two and Six of this Section.
Part One: Initial Thoughts
What is your team's initial goal for this series?
To identify an OER currently being used by Kirkwood faculty, and make concrete changes to improve accessibility in at least one chapter.
Part Two: Introductory probing questions:
What does accessibility look like in our organization? How do we measure accessibility?
In our LMS we have the ALLY tool embedded in all courses which identifies basic accessibility problems. Focusing on accessibility is on our "must have" list as instructional designers as we review new online and hybrid classes. Our instructional designers also offer professional development to faculty for working with her one-on-one to assess and implement accessibility improvements. In this way the college is beginning to address the importance of making all student resources accessible. We also have our own resource created in Pressbooks where faculty can review their own course materials and learn how to make the improvements themselves.What does OER look like in our organization? How do we measure access to OER?
We have more and more faculty adopting OER each year, with our heaviest adoption among our high school/concurrent enrollment classes. The college provides support to faculty adopters through instructional designers and librarians, as well as from faculty colleagues.
Part Three: Clarifying questions for accessibility:
What are the organizational structures that supports accessibility?
For new and online courses, there is a "must have" checklist for course materials. This includes an accessibility check.
There are Accommodations Services and VITAL programs which support accommodations for student accessibility to course materials.
The ALLY tool is embedded in our LMS.
We have a flatbed scanner which saves directly into a PDF or Word file with OCR.
On-demand professional development courses on different aspects of accessibility.
We have a Pressbook Faculty Training which provides guidance to faculty on making course materials accessible.
Who generates most of the accessibility structures/conversation in our organization?
THe AISD team (Academic Innovation, Strategy, and Design) and Accommodations department.
Where do most educators get support with accessibility?
Our IT department supports software issues. AISD provides the most help to faculty.
What content areas might have the largest gaps in access to accessibility?
Some disciplines seem to use more scanned materials and load on our LMS that are simply images, and aren't accessible. These might be the biggest hurdle to making all materials accessible.
Part Four: Clarifying questions for OER:
What is our organizational structure that supports curricular resources?
Each academic department supports their own faculty.
What is our organizational structure that supports OER?
The Library and AISD (Instructional Designers) do the most, but there isn't an official structure supporting OER
Who generates most of the curricular resources in our organization?
There isn't a central place, each academic department does their own thing.
Where do most educators get support with curricular resources?
From their department, their colleagues, bookstore, library (especially supplemental resources).
What content areas might have the largest gaps in access to curricular resources/OER?
Math resources aren't sufficient; industrial tech are difficult to find; nursing as well.
Part Five: Clarifying questions for Faculty learning and engagement:
What Professional Learning (PL) structures have the best participation rates for our educators?
Required professional development days; programs tied to professional renewal
What PL structures have the best "production" rates for our educators?
Unsure.
What incentive do we have to offer people for participating in learning and engagement?
Professional renewal credits, which add up to pay raise for full time faculty. The college also provides stipends and grants for attending outside conference or other PD activities.
Who are the educators that would be most creative with accessibility and OER?
Any faculty who has time and support could be creative with this.
Any faculty with a personal relation to a disability will be more motivated and passionate.
Who are the educators that would benefit the most from accessibility and OER?
Any faculty could potentially benefit from accessiblity and OER.
Part Six: Final Probing questions:
What is our current goal for Accessibility in OER and why is that our goal?
Providing feedback and specific steps for improving an OER authored by one of our faculty, "Writing World Englishes".
We will build on this experience to bring more faculty awareness to these topics, and provide more faculty support in the form of documentation and workshops/training.
Who have we not yet included while thinking about this work?
We haven't talked much about administrators' possible roles in supporting and promoting this work.
What barriers remain when considering this work?
College culture; time; lack of dedicated staffing; funding for grants. These conversations are fairly new to the college.
What would genuine change look like for our organization for this work?
Seeing accessibilty included in our "KPI" college-wide strategic priorities. Seeing more courses and whole programs and degrees with all-OER. Seeing more faculty interest in OER workshops, bookfairs, etc. Hiring staff dedicated to OER work.
Section Two: Team Focus (Finish before May 25th to share during Implementation Session Two)
Identifying and Describing a Problem of Practice
The following questions should help your team ensure that you are focusing your collaboration.
**This section does not seem to apply to our work for this session.
What is your Team’s specific goal for this series? You may consider using AEM Quality Indicators for Creating Accessible Materials to help add to or narrow your work.
What other partners might support this work?
What is your desired timeframe for this work?
How will you include diverse voices and experiences in this work?
Please create a Focus Question that explains your goal and provides specific topics that you would like feedback on. This is what you will share in your breakout groups for feedback.
(Save for during March 14th's session.) What feedback did you receive from another team during the March 14th Implementation Session?
Section Three: Team Work Time and Next Steps (Complete by the end of the series)
Sharing and Next Steps
What was your redefined goal for this series?
Identify an OER currently being used by Kirkwood faculty, and make concrete changes to improve accessibility in 3 chapters.What does your team want to celebrate?
Gaining lots of knowledge and resources, as well as a better understanding of what's involved in increasing accessibility of OER. Also gaining experience in evaluating and adapting an existing OER.What did your team accomplish? Please link to or attach at least one resource you have created/adapted.
We have assessed an existing OER and provided a list of suggested changes for the author.What are your team’s next steps?
We will build on this experience to bring more faculty awareness to these topics, and provide more faculty support in the form of documentation and workshops/training.
We will work to include administrators more in supporting and promoting this work.