[Open-education] Making OERs more accessible was Re: How can we get more discussion going on the Open Education list?

Marieke Guy marieke.guy at okfn.org
Fri Apr 25 10:08:36 UTC 2014


Thanks Tore for embracing the challenge!

With regard to accessibility I think you have highlighted a two pronged 
approach:

*Firstly *ensuring that the provision of content and services is 
'available in a manner most suitable to the user, no matter what 
disability they may have, in order for them to fully participate with 
it'. We now have something about this in the handbook 
<http://booktype.okfn.org/open-education-handbook/_draft/_v/1.0/is-open-content-accessible-to-those-with-disabilities/> 
courtesy of Terry McAndrew from JISC TechDis. The suggestions is that 
"accessibility is not a process of fine tuning, it's a design principle" 
- so you need to take steps early on. Some ideas include thinking about:

  * Challenges: What would challenge those with visual or hearing
    impairments, motor difficulties or print impairment? How might
    alternatives be provided?
  * Issues: How were disabled people included in user testing? What were
    the situations that arose that required consideration and the
    decisions made to ensure the resources remained accessible? Did
    user-testing give valuable feedback?
  * Benefits: How did accessibility improve during the project? What
    wider benefits might this bring (e.g. accessing on a mobile device,
    or benefits to ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages)
    students, or enhanced usability)?

*Secondly* the idea of thinking of OER as data (which I really like) - 
so here you are touching on the Open Educational Ideas 
<http://www.idea-space.eu> work - thinking about repurposing by sharing 
ideas early in the design process " this process will create a 
fundamentally different uptake of OER by creating Emotional Ownership of 
OER."

I wonder how we can take the idea of OER as data one step further? You 
mention the open data community - we have people involved on the list 
maybe they have ideas?!

Incidentally did people spot that P2PU have just released data from 
their MOOC <http://info.p2pu.org/2014/04/08/beware-data-on-the-loose/>s, 
one of the first to do so I think.

Marieke


> I like your Friday challenge, Marieke!
>
> Today I'm attending a Norwegian conference on digital learning 
> resources organised by the  Directorate for Education and Training - 
> and the OER perspective is badly missing, I have to say. The pretext 
> for this conference is concerns for the small subjects and small user 
> groups that need government support to publishers to develop 
> educational materials. Up till now, the money has gone to commercial 
> publishers, with closed resources as a result.
>
> However, also OER can be closed, seen from an accessibility 
> perspective. In the conference, a student with a hearing problem asked 
> for notes, manuscripts, anything that could make it easier to text 
> video clips. Oobs, here we have a lever that could be used to break 
> the closed resources and improve OER. And in addition also help 
> adoption of OER in small languages and cultures. To achieve this, we 
> need to have a hard talk on tools and infrastructures for authoring OER.
>
> I have blogged about it on www.nordicoer.org 
> <http://www.nordicoer.org> 
> http://nordicoer.org/adopting-oer-less-used-languages-need-hard-talk-tools-infrastructure/ - 
> and I will use this a input to my short intervention in the LangOER 
> meeting in Oslo on Monday 
> http://nordicoer.org/international-workshop-policy-oer-less-used-languages/
>
> My conclusions are the following:
>
> /From a technical point of view we should start to look at OER more as 
> data than as finished learning objects. We need access not only to the 
> semantics encapsulated in the distributed files; we need access to the 
> raw data. Then we should look outside the box and see what the Open 
> Data community is doing to support exchange of source files to 
> whatever interesting stuff you find in analysis and reports./
>
> Have a nice weekend!
>
>
> -Tore
>
> -----
> Tore Hoel
>
> Head Advisor, Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences
> www.hioa.no <http://www.hioa.no>
> Tore.Hoel at hioa.no <mailto:Tore.Hoel at hioa.no>
> +47 48189005
> Skype: odintorloke
> Twitter: @tore
>
>
> Coordinator NordicOER - Creating a network for sharing Open 
> Educational Resources in the Nordic countries
> nordicoer.org <http://nordicoer.org>
>
>
>
>
> On 25 Apr 2014, at 10:39, Marieke Guy <marieke.guy at okfn.org 
> <mailto:marieke.guy at okfn.org>> wrote:
>
>> Hi Everyone,
>>
>> It would be great to start having more discussion on the Open 
>> Education Mailing list - especially on a Friday!
>>
>> I was wondering if people have any ideas on ways we can do this...
>>
>> So for example we could have a Friday question. Here are some 
>> possibles from the Open Education Handbook 
>> <http://booktype.okfn.org/open-education-handbook/_draft/_v/1.0/why-write-an-open-education-handbook/>.
>>
>>   * Is traditional education not open?
>>   * What affect does open education have on education?
>>   * Who is meant to benefit from open education?
>>   * Must a resource be in an open format to be open?
>>   * Is a MOOC an OER?
>>   * What examples of open learning and practice methods are there?
>>   * What is the difference between open education and open learning?
>>   * What is open education data?
>>   * What open source open education tools are there?
>>
>> Or Friday could be our day when everyone posts an update about a 
>> project they are working on, or an initiative they are involved with. 
>> Or even reposts interesting stuff from other working groups. 
>> Naturally it doesn't just have to be Fridays!
>>
>> I'm sure you all have some great ideas. This is your working group 
>> and it would be great if we could all get talking more!
>>
>> Any thoughts?
>>
>> Marieke
>>
>> -- 
>>
>> Marieke Guy
>> LinkedUp <http://linkedup-project.eu/> Project Community Coordinator 
>> | skype: mariekeguy | tel: 44 (0) 1285 885681 | @mariekeguy 
>> <http://twitter.com/mariekeguy>
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>
>
>
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-- 

Marieke Guy
LinkedUp <http://linkedup-project.eu/> Project Community Coordinator | 
skype: mariekeguy | tel: 44 (0) 1285 885681 | @mariekeguy 
<http://twitter.com/mariekeguy>
The Open Knowledge <http://okfn.org/>
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