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 of the population.

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 of the population.

However, it is easy to see how the ideal—access for the broadest population possible—can become separated from practice, with access being impeded during content creation. Accessible design, for example, requires content creators to be aware of accessible design issues. If creators are not mindful, institutions must work to ensure accessibility prior to use, an effort which requires resources of people, technology, and time. If institutions don’t follow through, it falls to end users to report barriers as they are encountered, which requires time to make a formal complaint, and time to see it through. And if these end users lack the capacity or the will to advocate for themselves, the perpetuation of inaccessible learning materials and environments can flourish.

Unfortunately, even a quick scan of the legal landscape reveals a grim picture in which complaint after complaint highlight the same problems— learning systems, websites, and other digital materials that are not usable by those with disabilities. The problems persist, and higher education has been ill-equipped to provide the accessible digital environments and materials needed for equity. (EDUCAUSE, 2015).

When digital learning materials are not designed to be accessible, it takes time to create alternate formats each time a student requests a disability-related accommodation. This can lead to inequity, and can also come at a cost to institutions, each using resources to create accessible alternatives at the point of consumption. It is much more efficient and effective to work during the design stage to ensure a base level of accessibility.

There is a common belief in higher education that the disability-related accommodations will “level the playing field” to ensure equity. But as described by Refocus, a project aimed at shifting practice in higher education, our traditional reliance on the accommodation process can “give the illusion of equal opportunity, while in reality requiring disabled students to accept special treatment and take on burdensome responsibilities” (Funckes, Kroeger, Loewen, & Thornton, n.d, Examining Our Practices Section, para 4).

Consider the following quote published in the Journal on Postsecondary Education and Disability:

“Imagine if you will, a university where women or students of color are required to self-identify, provide documentation, and be made eligible to obtain textbooks, ­take exams, utilize technology, or participate in field trips. We would consider such an institution to be absurd and discriminatory in their attitudes and actions. So why, given the knowledge and technology we have available to us today, do we continue to require similar actions from disabled students?” (Haven, 2010, page 18).

One critically important part of this quote is the phrase “given the knowledge and technology we have available to us today,” because the truth is that we do know enough to do better. Well-established and internationally vetted standards have been in place for years (WCAG, 2013), including guidance in the form of “Dear Colleague” letters (U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Education, 2010), and free online training and technical assistance sources.

Design practices that can help ensure the accessibility of learning materials are readily available. They just aren’t always practiced, and this is where open education provides important new opportunities.

Design practices that can help ensure the accessibility of learning materials are readily available. They just aren’t always practiced, and this is where open education provides important new opportunities. Open educators are steeped in the values of sharing, and want to share the materials we create as broadly as possible. Our field’s initial focus on broad access through the use of open licenses gives us a framework for considering the ways in which open education can promote equity, not just through lower costs and greater accessibility, but through other approaches as well.

Open educators can choose to bring in voices that aren’t often heard. Students can be learners as well as producers. Primary sources can be cultivated from around the world, not simply obtained from commercial producers in the U.S. These producers have again and again failed to do right by students and faculty with disabilities. Open educators can reject the dominant practice, and do better (CCCOER, 2018).

By using workflows that ensure good alignment among materials, activities, and instructional goals, open educators can reduce barriers and promote equity. They can, for example, help faculty improve materials which were not created with a focus on accessibility, and reshare these materials. They can also make sure that metadata is used to track these improvements, so that future educators can more easily find the accessible versions.

Open education funding can be structured to explicitly address accessibility, as some grant initiatives have done. Even in the absence of an external motivator, however, we as educators can choose to address not just affordability, but cultural relevance and student voice. Open educators can choose to bring in and have learners generate socially relevant and personally meaningful connection points to enhance student engagement and the learning experience.

Universal Design

Universal Design (UD) has been explored and described in a variety of ways. Ron Mace, credited as the father of UD, described it as “Design that’s usable by all people, To the greatest extent possible, Without the need for adaptation or specialized design” (1985). It is a model that first gained ground in architecture, and has been expanded to the design of objects for daily living and of educational materials and spaces. Because education-related ideas focus on building flexibility into structures to support diverse learners, the ideas translate well to open education. UDI, or Universal Design for Instruction, adapts Mace’s original principles defined to the design of instructional offerings.

The Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST, 2015) has worked to promote Universal Design for Learning (UDL), leveraging neuroscience and framing UD in terms of three key ideas, as described in Table 1.

We are All Learners and Collaborators

Our students come to us from many different backgrounds, and those of us at community colleges and other open enrollment institutions know we serve a critical role: making a space for people to change their trajectory. We need approaches that are built for diversity, and that can ensure greater equity.

In approaching the problem of inaccessible curricular materials, it is important to remember that administrators, educators, student support staff, and instructional support personnel are all learners as well. It is thus essential to start with an understanding of the characteristics of adult learners. While a combination of policies, politics, organizational structures, and leadership shape institutional practices, the practices are implemented by people, who are themselves learning and/or reinforcing those practices on a daily basis.

In approaching the problem of inaccessible curricular materials, it is important to remember that administrators, educators, student support staff, and instructional support personnel are all learners as well.

Effective teaching and learning depends, in part, on being responsive to learners (Davis, 1993; Gadbow, 2002; Hiemstra, 1990). In talking about teaching ourselves how to align with standards and reconsider workflows, we must see faculty and staff as learners. Andragogy, defined as the education of adults, was described by Knowles as being distinct from Pedagogy, with adult learners tending to be defined by five characteristics: self-direction, reliance on experience, identification with social roles, problem-centered approach, and internal motivation (Hiemstra, 1990; Knowles, 1970; Pratt, 1993). An adult accumulates a growing reservoir of experience, which is a rich resource for learning (Hiemstra, 1990; Knowles, 1970; Kolb, 1984; Pratt, 1993).

Adult educators who are drawn to open education may also be self-directed problem solvers who are motivated toward social justice. The motivation to lower costs for students is a motivation to address a barrier. This same principle can drive us to make sure the high-quality, low-cost materials we create, adopt, revise, and cultivate can be used by the full range of learners eligible to participate.

The problem of inaccessible curricular offerings cannot be addressed solely by focusing on students in the classroom, but must first be understood in terms of the mechanisms by which we equip our faculty members, instructional designers, librarians, technologists, procurement officers, and support staff. Too often, we hire people into roles that require participation in the offering of educational opportunities without providing them the chance to gain practice and experience with the process of ensuring accessibility. If progress is to be made, it will be through the development of a greater sense of shared responsibility (Vance, Lipsitz, & Parks, 2013).

Multiple Means of Engagement

Educators who use and share open resources apply to these resources the arts of teaching and learning. By cultivating materials and activities in ways that are both reasoned and creative, they provide connection points that make sense, that challenge and support their students. With open practices the educator can utilize the best resources, not just those easiest to find.

Crafted and cultivated collections of open materials and activities can ensure that educators align these resources with course goals, and do so in ways that explicitly acknowledge and bring focus to socially relevant applications. Open educators can provide students with multiple means of engagement, connecting course content to their actual lives, and moving conversations from the abstract to the real world.

Multiple Means of Expression

Students need different ways to demonstrate what they are uncovering, questioning, and learning along the way. Open educators can be thoughtful and eclectic in terms of allowing more student-led participation that is not pre-scripted, but is instead created and evaluated within the flow of each individual course.

Students may, for example, be assigned to work in groups to create something that demonstrates their learning during the course. They may choose to create one of any number of things, with each group learning from the others as well as from the process of creation itself. Selected artifacts could become content for future classes, allowing students to learn from each other over time, using and being inspired by previous work.

Multiple Means of Representation

Videos and music, charts and arts, physical spaces and virtual realities—educators can use these resources, and more, to expand the traditional classroom world of written material, lectures, and discussion, and to expand student exposure to a course’s core ideas and concepts.

Ideas and concepts can be represented verbally, narratively, numerically, symbolically, graphically, and physically. They need to be explorable in different formats because different representations will resonate in different ways for different learners.

Case Studies: Partnering to Ensure Accessible OERs

Two case studies of partnerships between math faculty, librarians, and disability services at Portland Community College (PCC) help illustrate how accessibility and UD can be embedded within open education. The first details use of an open homework system called WeBWorK, while the second looks at a partnership for a developmental education math course.

Recommendations

Courses using open systems allow for a greater sense of community among learners. Everyone can use the same materials, and there is no difference in access related to the ability to pay, or see, or use a mouse.

Open education can provide learners, both educators and students, with opportunities to grow, to cultivate and create, and to share and enrich. With a focus on equity, and with an approach informed by universal design, we can make sure that materials are not just affordable, but also accessible, socially relevant, and engaging. Below are recommendations for open educators to consider.

With a focus on equity, and with an approach informed by universal design, we can make sure that materials are not just affordable, but also accessible, socially relevant, and engaging.

Funding and the Necessity to Require Line Items for Access Reviews and Remediation

Open educators might find themselves in a position to serve on an advisory board, work group, or committee tasked with establishing criteria for funded projects. It can be very helpful to voice  the need for line items for accessibility reviews and for remediation or other technical assistance needed to bring quality up to standards. If not explicitly called for, these items can often be overlooked and opportunities can be missed.

Metadata and Other Means of Communicating to Users

It is important to make end users aware of the specific strategies being used to ensure accessibility of the resource.

Collaboration

The key is to success is to bring individuals together from different areas; we should not limit ourselves to traditional academic partnerships. Bringing academic affairs and student affairs together with facilities and IT, for instance, can be incredibly productive.

Rulemaking

Ideally, conformity with web content accessibility guidelines (WCAGs) can be written in as a requirement of funded projects to ensure alignment. This has been done at federal, state, and institutional levels, with good success.

Conclusion

As educators, we need to be committed not only to lowering costs, but to removing barriers. We need to ensure that our students can afford to participate, but also that the materials we bring into focus put content into context. We have to be certain that materials are not only affordable, but accessible in equitable ways. Universal Design helps ensure that more people get a better experience, and a better shot, more of the time. After all, open education isn’t open if it isn’t accessible.

References

CAST. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.cast.org/

CCCOER (2018). Equity, diversity, inclusion, & openness: Vera Kennedy, Kaela Parks, Lauri Aesoph, Tonja Connerly. Retrieved from https://www.cccoer.org/2018/04/10/on-equity-diversity-inclusion-and-open-education

Davis, B. G. (1993) Tools for teaching. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

DO-IT (2017). What is the difference between accessible, usable, and universal design. Retrieved from https://www.washington.edu/doit/what-difference-between-accessible-usable-and-universal-design

Funckes, C., Kroeger, S., Loewen, G, & Thornton, M. (n.d.). Refocus: Viewing the work of disability services differently. Retrieved from http://www.projectshift-refocus.org/index.htm

Gadbow, N. (2002). Teaching all learners as if they are special. In J.M. Ross-Gordan (Ed.), Contemporary Viewpoints on Teaching Adults Effectively (pp. 51-61). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Haven, T. (2010). Professional perspective. Journal on Postsecondary Education and Disability, 23(1), 18.

Hiemstra, R., & Sisco, B. (1990). Individualizing instruction. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Knowles, M. S. (1970). Modern practice of adult education: Andragogy versus pedagogy. Chicago: Follett Publishing Company, Association Press.

Kolb, D.A. (1984). Experiential learning:  Experience as the source of learning and development. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Parks, K. (2015). The Intersection of accessibility and open educational resources. Open Oregon. Retrieved from http://openoregon.org/the-intersection-of-accessibility-and-open-educational-resources/

Pratt, D. D. (1993, Spring).  Andragogy after twenty-five years. In Merriam, S.B. (Ed), New directions for adult and continuing education: An update on adult learning theory, number 57 (pp. 15-23). San Francisco:  Jossey-Bass

Resolution Agreement. (2013, February 28). South Carolina technical college system OCR compliance review No. 11-11-6002. Retrieved from https://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/docs/investigations/11116002-b.pdf

United States Access Board. (n.d.). Building and sites. Retrieved from https://www.access-board.gov/guidelines-and-standards/buildings-and-sites/

U.S. Department of Justice and U.S. Department of Education. (2010, June 29). Joint dear colleague letter: Electronic book readers. Retrieved from: http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/letters/colleague-20100629.html

Vance, M., Lipsitz, N., and Parks, K. (Eds.). (2013) Beyond the ADA: Inclusive policy and practice for higher education. Washington, DC : NASPA.

W3C. (2017). World wide web consortium standards. Retrieved from https://www.w3.org/standards/

WAI. (2018). Web accessibility initiative of the W3C. Retrieved from https://www.w3.org/WAI/

WCAG. (2018). Web content accessibility guidelines of the W3C. Retrieved from https://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/wcag

Author Bio:

Kaela Parks is the Director of Disability Services at Portland Community College. She has been active in professional associations, serving as national chair of the Disability Knowledge Community with NASPA, co-chair of the Standing Committee on Technology within the Association on Higher Education and Disability, and past-president of ORAHEAD. She is also co-editor of the publication titled “Beyond the ADA: Proactive Policy and Practice for Higher Education” and is a frequent presenter at both regional and national conferences. She has taught courses on assistive technology and universal design, college survival skills, disability in society, disability in film, and accessible multimedia.