Gerry Hanley, MERLOT Executive director, announced the launching of MERLOT’s OER and Accessibility Teaching Commons at the Sloan-C Emerging Technology for Online Learning conference held two weeks ago in Las Vegas. Co-presenting with Mark Riccobono, National Federation for the Blind and Una Daly, Community College Outreach Manager at OCW Consortium, he described the new site as an open community of practice for those involved in OER and accessibility to find and share expertise. The presentation stressed that although OER is intended to expand access to education, its all too common lack of accessible design can marginalize learners with disabilities. Mark implored higher education to prioritize accessibility by establishing clear policies on accessibility compliance. He pointed the to Oregon State University disability office and their clarity of expectations for all educational programs, website, and interactions to be accessible.
The conference had many presentations and panel discussions regarding Open Educational Resources and Accessibility. Dr. Joel Thierstein, former Executive Director of Connexions, at Rice University opened the conference with an appeal for restoring the civic mission in higher education through open educational resources, alternative credentialing, and civic engagement. Education Technology blogger Audrey Watters made compelling parallels between the nutritional outcomes of fast food and the learning outcomes of some “not-quite-ready” educational technology. Smart History creators Drs. Beth Harris and Steve Zucker who joined Khan Academy last year enlightened us on how growing the education commons with high-quality openly licensed digital materials makes it possible to educate the world for free.
An excellent student panel on increasing online success for students with disabilities was organized by Dr. Kristin Betts, Armstrong Atlantic State University. Four students from Drexel University with sight, hearing, speech, and physical disabilities discussed how seeking help from their office of disabilities and online faculty made it possible for them to find accommodations and successfully complete their education.
Pennsylvania State Instructional Designer Elizabeth Pyatt presented on How to Identify and Repair Accessibility Barriers in Online Course Materials. She reviewed current accessibility guidelines and techniques for addressing common barriers found in online course content including websites and other instructional materials citing WCAG 2.0 and Section 508 Standards. Elizabeth is also co-editor of the Penn State Access Ability Website at http://accessibility.psu.edu
Cathy Swift, Director Partner Services at MERLOT, with several co-presenters shared Partnering MERLOT and Universal Design for Learning to Increase Student Success. They are curating a MERLOT collection on Universal Design for Learning.
Community college librarians Sheila Afnan-Manns, Scottsdale College and Kandice Mikelsen with Professor Reyes Medrano, Paradise Valley College, presented OER as Content, OER as Pedagogy: Empowering Students as Partners in Learning. In a course on information literacy utilizing team projects and peer learning, students compiled open educational resources on selected topics and shared the information with their fellow students.
Instructional Designer Amy Sugar and Dr. Baiyun Chen from University of Central Florida lead an interactive and informative session on Integrating Open Educational Resources into Higher Education. Sharing best practices for faculty development in use of OER, they also included live polling of attendees on their OER practices through text and web messaging.