6 accessibility review of open educational resources
1. Carla De Winter, AccessCapable
Co-authors : Una Daly, College Open Textbooks
Alice Krueger, Virtual Ability Inc.
2. Introduction
Open Educational Resources:
openly licensed,
digital materials.
available at low cost.
Open Textbooks:
converted from
“All Rights Reserved” From the Creative Commons store
to “Some Rights Reserved”.
In line with the UN Convention article 24: State
Parties shall ensure an inclusive education system at all
levels.
3. The project
Accessibility evaluation of 60 textbooks for College of
Open Textbooks.
In-depth, consistent and quantitatively comparable
scoring:
For 17 subject areas, from history to mathematics,
published on websites (56 %) or as PDF (42 %).
Using 26 metrics according to WCAG and Section 508
(US) guidelines, in total 999 relevant evaluations.
Done by a trained project team of disabled and impaired
individuals.
4. Metrics
A textbook must be:
Perceivable,
Operable,
Understandable, and
Robust.
5. Issues of Website Structural
Accessibility
Three types: pre-set formats (platforms),
wikimedia and self-developed websites
For pre-set formats:
Issues with colour contrast.
Issues with structural markup.
Issues with in-page navigation.
9. Issues of Website Structural
Accessibility
Common Website Structural Problems
(cont.):
Use of Flash and Javascript.
Non-Mouse Operation.
Use of Frames.
10. Issues of PDF Accessibility
PDFs download from website.
PDF accessibility features:
Tagging and reading order.
Fonts allow character extraction to text.
Non-mouse navigational aids.
Alternative text for images and interactive form
fields.
11. Issues of PDF Accessibility
Tagging and reading order.
12. Common Issues in Both Formats
Visual Appearance.
Content Organization.
Variable Vocabulary.
Author’s Voice.
Consistency.
Missing Alternative Texts.
Comprehension Level.
13. Positive Findings
In many textbooks:
Appropriate Readability Level.
Visual-Semantic Organization.
Format Consistency.
Good Presentation Style.
Lack of Clutter.
Presence of a Glossary.
14. Quantitative results
From 1 (not accessible) to 5 (perfectly accessible):
Format Average
Score
Connexions (pre-set format) 4
Flat World Knowledge (pre-set format) 3
Open Learn (pre-set format) 4
Open Learning Initiative (pre-set format) 2.4
Wikimedia 4.1
Other Web-based textbooks 3.5
PDFs 2.7
15. Conclusions of the review
Most issues are related to the
delivery mediums.
BUT: Operable and Understandable
are within author control.
Authors need:
Awareness,
How-To Knowledge,
Professional Assistance, and
Incentives.