Accessibility in OER - Spring 2024 Cohort

• What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big!
  • At our institution, we wish we had more "top-down" support for implementing and promoting accessibilty and OER at our institution. So this could be something like faculty grants to develop accessible OERs, premade trainings for OERs to give to faculty, etc. We have a small team of accessibility advocates on campus, and more resources would support them.
• What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series? 
  • I, unfortunatley, don't have a lot of concrete resources to offer others. However, personally, I do a lot of graphic design and art projects on the side. A lot of the resources that I do make for faculty and staff is visually appealing (but still accessible), so I'd be happy to offer that to other members of this series. 

• What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big!

I would love to work with an accessiblity mentor when building OER courses so I can understand building a fully accessible course step-by-step.

• What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series? 

I have extensive experience with developing and publishing OER in Pressbooks. If anyone wants to chat about using Pressbooks, I'm here!

I *LOVE* the idea of a mentor program! I love that this work requires professionals from a wide variety of backgrounds to produce the best resource possible - and every individual's talents and experience can shine throughout the process.

Happy to stay connected if you ever need an accessibility sounding board! :)

• What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big!
  • How can we convince upper mgmt that they need to add more resources to address web accessibility rather than expect existing faculty/staff to do it in addition to everything else they've been doing
• What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series? 
  • better understanding how accessibility impacts instrucitonal learning (I work in IT)

• What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big!
  • I would love to have a much larger presense in accesibility at our institution. I want peolple available to help faculty and staff get documents and videos accessibile to all without going above and beyond their normal job duties.
• What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series? 
  • Unwavering support.

Request: I'd love for continuted contact to allow for an external check/review. In writing classes we always tell our students that having someone else look at your work is the mark of professional/serious writers, and having someone with experience available to look at a publication through "Accessibility Glasses" before we put it into classrooms would be valuable. 

Share: Not yet, but eventually, we hope to have a relatively concise and practical set of guidelines to creating accessible documents for faculty who are writing instructional materials. We'd be happy to share that with you (and everyone else through OER commons) once it is ready. 

To have a process in place at our institution to make sure that every course has accessiblity. Not just the training side but also the verification side. I feel that you can train all day long but if it is not implemented on campus by everyone, it falls short.

Some tricks that I have learned about making sure your course covers accessibility and student privacy.

• What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big!
  • I would like to see more technology available for faculty.  Our lead, Kate, received a grant for an accessible scanner - but that is one instrument for the entire school.  It would be wonderful if each department had one.
  • I would like to see us upgrade our browsers so we can use their embedded AI assistive technology
  • I just wrote to our Tech Support to get ePub installed on my computer
• What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series? 
  • I appreciated the work time with other members of our group and especially enjoyed working with other institutions this afternoon - that perhaps could be done during other sessions, but not for as long a period
  • The cohort sharing was also very insightful
  • I think our sessions were well organized and very clearly-communicated; the passion and drive of everyone to work towards greater accessibility for all was very obvious and inspiring!

What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big!

To get more involved in how I can participate in getting the university to include accessibility as a routine in the development of their course work and campus wide. From the top down. 

What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series? Continue to have these cohorts on a regular basis. They were engaging and enlighting and I took several nuggets that I plan on sharing in my community. 

Thank you!

• What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big!

Concrete accessibility standards and who is responsible for meeting those standards (instructor, course designer, etc.), as well as stronger support for enforcement of standards from top-level administration. 

• What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series? 

Support and idea generation for how to work around barriers, since many of us seem to be facing similar ones. 

• What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big!

Ideally, creating an accessibility-first university, without faculty pushback, and with upper management support, would be the dream.

• What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series? 

Unfortunately, I do not have much experience to offer with regard to OER.

• What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big! . That play is apart of learning, and that extends into our professional world.
• What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series? Kindness and Gratitude :)

I am not sure I have much to share with the community; I am a novice to accessible OER.  

I want to keep accessibility at the forefront.  I would like to know about any other series or training.  :)

A request would be grant resources that could offset/compensate individual expenses for the work they undertake related to accessibility implementation/transformation.

I think it might seem small, but encouraging faculty/staff to search for internal or external funding sources to offset costs for OER that are not free but fall under "low cost materials" can still go a long way toward reducing costs to students while maintaining commitment to quality resources for coursework.

What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big!

• I would love to have more folks I can contact to ask questions or seek opinions about accessibility.  Right now, I rely so heavily on the folks on my project team (who are amazing!).  In addition to building my own expertise, I would love to have more folks I could bounce ideas off of so I don't overtax my project team members.

What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series? 

• Our project team is working on a how-to resource aimed at faculty at our own institution.  I hope we'll be able to share it out more broadly as well!

What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? - To have our Accessibility Team become an advocate for accessibility and a means by which the university's awareness and commitment to accessibility continue to grow.

What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series?  Our team is creating an accessibility commitment statement that faculty can use in their syllabi to invite students to have a discussion with faculty of any accessibility needs they may have and raise both faculty and student awareness.

Request: I will download the application that you introduced us to during this training next week. 

               Search and learn more about how I can start the conversation with faculty and staff to       

               make accessibility in their routine. 

               I would like to know about any other series or training. 

Offer : I prepared a lot of resources for the faculty and staff and infographics for digital accessibility. I would be happy to offer that to other members of this series.

1. More institutional support (especially staff/faculty time) for creating OERs and implementing universal design. 
2. A librarian's perspective/knowledge of OERs and resource accessibility. 

• What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big!

I would love to see the real time before and after examples for materials.  Like a no heading in a table and then with heading and explanation of benefits.

How to change a pdf to accessible docs - the easy way. 

• What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series? 

We need to be discussion UDL and Accessibility a lot more and I will present this at conferences and on my campus.

• What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big!

Institutional resources (time and money), collaborative space, and top-down support for accessibility and universal design for learning. We have amazing pockets of folks throughout our institution that are doing remarkable work, but I would love to see a cohesive effort that is broadly reinforced by key institutional leaership. I would love to see us truly live out a shared responsibility... but that's not going to happen by asking people to do the work without additional resources.

• What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series? 

I am thrilled our project team will produce something practical and tangible to help folks understand the what and why behind accessibility - without just pushing technical standards that are frustrating to understand unless you are a developer.

I am also always interested in collaborating on disability and accessibility work. I am totally blind and do quite a bit of technical accessibility training, consultation, and advocacy. Please do not be a stranger!

• What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big!
  • Adoption of OERs seems to be encouraged, but the creation of OERs tends to fall by the wayside. It'd be great to have a system of support that encourages the creation and maintenance of OERs through either institutional mini-grants, release time, and/or a platform on which these OERs could be developed. 
• What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series? 
  • Many Academic Libraries have access to Open Access and other Library resources that can be used to compliment OERs. It's often helpful to remind educators to check with their libraries to see what's available for their subject areas. 

Request - Continued community to glean ideas from and learn from.

Offer - I love helping faculty locate OER and other free resources for their courses. 

• What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big!

The WRLC's TAWG (Textbook Affordability Working Group) representatives who have participated in the program will be using the resources to inform a DA Workshop for an OER Adopt stipend program we are currently managing. It is our hope that the OER profressional developmment workshop will provide a robust introduction to DA , reference material faculty can keep on hand and an opportunity to put theory into practice with an interactive component using their updated OER courseware. 

• What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series? 

Outside of unwavering support and a deep appreciation for the abundant knowledge sharing, our group is fairly new to this discussion. However, once the DA workshop has been completed, all associated material will be provided a CC BY license and it is our hope that it is used as often as possible by anyone who finds it useful. 

• What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big!
  • I would love system-wide training to be given to all instructors on SLIDE (as a starter). And an emphasis at our colleges on how much easier it is to start from the ground up by building accessibility into content from the start than it is to go back and remediate inaccessible content. 
• What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series? 
  • We have created a resource guide for one of our large current projects, and I plan to add information from this course into that document, especially the SLIDE information.

• What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big!
  • At the smallest level, I hope for (and expect) continued support from my institution and a growing awareness of accessibility issues among faculty. On a larger scale, I hope for expended awareness within other organizations that develop OER materials for widespread adoption. It always pains me to find a resource that I want to use or remix but decide against because it does not conform to basic standards of accessibility.
• What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series? 
  • I can offer my continued support as we try to make things better one step at a time. Any resources I create and share will allways be open and available for others to use and adapt as they find necessary.

What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big!

• Changing our university's culture so that accessibility is baked in, rather than bolted on.

What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series?

• Encouraging others on our campus to expand their knowledge and understanding. I think this cohort helped me connect with some other likeminded indivuduals on my campus, so that will help get the message out faster and more easily!

What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big!

I would love options for next-level training.  I learned a lot in this training, but I often feel that in other places when I sign up for training, I don't get farther than SLIDE.  Slide is great, and I feel that this training provided a lot of resources I can use to teach others.  However, I think the trainers sometimes need a deeper knowledge so we can handle the advanced issues that come up. 

I would also like training that breaks down information by specific LMSs because I suspect they don't always have the same background processes as documents.  IE. Should I or shouldn't I use a title in Blackboard Ultra?  I guess they have already made the page title heading 1, and their heading is heading 2, but I don't know. 

What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series? 

I am signed up for advanced accessibility training with the International Association of Accessibility Professionals.  I plan to study for and take the Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies (CPACC) exam in the next six months.  I would happily host a study group for others who want to level up their skills. 

• What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big!
  • I would love some kind of follow up or "check" in the event my institution achieves one of its goals (making an OER book for our basic writing course) with feedback to further develop and improve what we make
• What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series? 
  • I'm not sure other than perspective: it was humbling and valuable to listen and really feel like a student and learner for a change. Grateful for that opportunity. 

I agree

1. An entire office dedicated to Accessibility and OER! Having the budget to really transform our learning materials.

2. I can offer more insight about accessibility, before I did not have a lot of knowledge.

I'd love to see more support at our college, especially in getting staff and faculty involved. It would be great to have their time and support for making Open Educational Resources (OERs) and putting universal design into action. We currently have an OER Faculty Learning Community that allows faculty to adopt OER and gives them release time to redesign their course using UDL principles. I'd love to see this program grow and incorporate the new things I've learned through this series. 

What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big!

Support from administration.  Accessibility should not be optional.  No excuses!  Make training a requirement.  Make it easy to participate, but promote action rather than just familiarity.  Include in professional development.  Establish train-the-trainer opportunities.  

What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series?

Have patience.  There are those who will enthusiastically embrace accessibility to promote student success.  More, however, will consider it a "chore" that they are afraid to attempt and would rather respond to a problem than proactively create solid accessible learning experiences.  Turn those who embrace the process into advocates so that they can share their experiences with their colleagues.  Patience.  

* I would like there to be more focus on accessibility at my college. I would like to see administration invest in training teaching faculty in accessiblity practices in online education.

* I am committed to finding, promoting, and participating in continuing educaiton topics focused on accessiblity. I plan to make accessibility a key issue in the new OER Task Force that I am founding at my college. 

What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big!

• My request would be that the Colorado Community College System and Pikes Peak State College would be as excited about OER and accessibility as I am. I want them to understand how OER can really help our faculty and students as we share on this journey as educators. Accessibility should become a given if we train them right to always think about SLIDE and POUR when we create any electronic material going forward.

What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series? 

• I feel that we are all at a spot of needing a community of practice more than anything else. We need that safe space to land and bounce ideas off of each other so that as we progress as the early pioneers, we can boldly and proudly carry on our work of sowing the SLIDE and POUR seeds on our journey. We can make it better for all that are a part of State of Colorado.

My request:

More faculty buy-in on focus on accessability. So many of our own colleagues, students, and community members have hidden disablities and being accessiable without them having to ask can remove some of their burden. As well as just being better for all!

What I can give:

Be a sounding board. A colleague on the journey. A cheerleader for this work.

• What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big!
  • Learning how to make math more accessible using other programs and tools. I work in InDesign and the plugins they have for math are blocked by my institution.
• What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series? 
  • Guidance on better utilization of UDL.

1. I'd like to have more interactions with our accessibility department or people who have disabilities so I can understand more of the "Why" certain components of accessibility are necessary especially when it comes to things like assistive technologies. I've learned a lot more about what to do to make something accessible, but I haven't had much experience seeing the end users use what I've made accessible. 

2. I want to find more opporunities to learn more about what our department and what our college is doing in regards to accessibility and OER. I also want to find more opportunities to share what we're doing and brainstorm with other colleges on how we can improve. 

• What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big!
  • I don't think we have a formal accessibility officer at my institution. It would be nice to have someone to review our work for accessibility - to provide a second set of eyes but really know what to look for in terms of accessibility.
• What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series?
  • I feel I can help others with finding OER. 

• What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big!
  • I want our campus to be as accessible as it can be, so any continued resources people have and want to share, would be amazing!
• What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series?
  • I feel I learned quite a bit about OER and accessibility, especially the learning about using "Title" in a Word document.  That one still boggles my mind that it is not actually accessible!

Request: networking and research

Offer: experience in publishing open peer reviewed OER

What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big! 

• Learning how AI can benefit students needing accessibility assistance and making those possibilities avaialble on the free versions of AI.

What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series? 

• Designing accessibility from a backwards design approach may assist in creating more accessible lessons. Thinks about the final product and how to get the students prepared on how to create this final project. Then think about the barriers and challenges to their learning through technology access, capabilities, and accessibility challenges.

• What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big! Request funding from college administration for the CAST and ISKME staff to have a Accessibility in OER IHE virtual conference for Palo Alto College OR have our college bring the CAST/ISKME to San Antonio, Texas. We have wonderful Mexican food!
• What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series? OER professional development support

My request is please don't use AI or other "automatic image describers" to create alt-txt for images. I can offer lived experience of actually using accessibility features to give valuable feedback to my colleagues.

My request/hope is for our institution (well, really all institutions) to fully integrate accessibility best practices into all aspects of the college. I think this will require better understanding and support from upper administration. For me, part of this involves working to better incorporate a variety of accessibility practices and OER into the first-year program and writing center (which I direct). 

In terms of what I can offer - I certainly do not have much expertise in these areas or any tangible resources, but for folks who are particularly interested in what this work might look like for writing centers, I would love to continue the conversation! 

• What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big!

My request would be for accessibility tools and initiaves to be more customer/user friendly. There are too many legalities that act as barriers in place that discourage students from accessing what they need. The burden placed on them has too much potential to hinder their progress.

• What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series? 

A friendly reminder to reach out to your institution's librarians for help finding information. Even if they don't provide a service or have accessibility expertise, they can find who does and get you in touch. 

In an ever-evolving technological landscape, I believe I need to engage in regular training sessions to consistently update my understanding of accessibility. Relying solely on instructional designers and accessibility specialists isn't sufficient to guarantee accessibility in course materials. It's imperative for faculty to undergo training and be mandated to create accessible course materials.

We are happy to offer insights into our Open Educational Resources (OER) implementation plan.

• What is a request that you have for continuing your accessibility journey? You can dream big!
  • Time and money! :) We have knowledgable people at our school who can help with checking and converting resources to make them accessible but time is a challenge.
• What is something that you feel you can offer to the members of our community from this series? 
  • I am still working on my journey but I would love to participate in more groups like this to brainstorm and expand our resources.

• I would love to stay connected with the other colleagues in my cohort to continue collaborating and knowledge sharing.
• I can offer a bit of how-to support around accessibility, though I still have a lot more to learn!

Request: I'd like access to 10-15 minute mini sessions, like "Did You Know..." and follow with a quick tip.

Offer: Since I post on our college's social media accounts, I can make sure the graphics and text are accessible.