Sustaining Accessible OER at Any Scale

Access to learning has a multi-faceted meaning at The American Women’s College (TAWC). The college began by adopting an OER-first strategy in course design processes in support of its mission to expand access to low-cost, high-quality education. Through this work, 4000 coursetakers of diverse socioeconomic backgrounds annually have benefited from an average of $100 in savings for each proprietary book replaced with OER. Recent adoption of Universal Design for Learning principles and the Quality Matters course design rubric has brought a new meaning for access to TAWC. One way that the college ensures that learners of diverse abilities have representations of learning that meet their needs (Meyer, Rose, &, Gordo, 2014) is through the promotion of digital accessibility. Serving as a framework in that regard has been the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.1. These standards have driven a variety of practices such as providing text-based alternatives for media, using distinguishable text, and creating robust and consistent navigation elements. Meeting guidelines is a holistic challenge that TAWC has addressed through training, work processes, and systems. Covered in the session will be examples of each, ranging from faculty/subject matter expert onboarding modules to job aids, quality evaluations, and content management. Attendees should leave with an understanding of how such measures could be translated into practice to benefit students at any scale and model of OER adoption. References Meyer, A., Rose, D. H., & Gordo, D. (2014). Universal Design for Learning: Theory and practice. Retrieved from http://udltheorypractice.cast.org