Introduction
The idea for this Accessibility Toolkit for Authors of OER came out of a 2023 summer institute hosted by ISKME and CAST that was focused on accessibility in OER. Our Cleveland State University team consisted of a librarian, an eLearning staff member, and two faculty members, all of whom are members of CSU’s OER Committee. After spending six weeks learning about promoting, designing, and evaluating accessibility in OERs, we decided that our action item from the institute would be to create an accessibility toolklit for CSU faculty who receive our textbook affordability grants.
Why an accessibility toolkit for authors of OER?
Through 2023, the CSU Pressbooks collection included a resource on best practices in accessibility in online course design. However, we did not have a resource specifically for creators of OER who want to ensure that their audio, video, textual, or visual content within their Pressbooks text meets accessibility standards.
We created this resource primarily for faculty who are recipients of Cleveland State University’s Textbook Affordability Small Grant, which is funded by CSU’s Michael Schwartz Library. All Textbook Affordability Grant recipients whose work involves the creation of new content will be directed to this resource to help them design with an intentional focus on accessibility.
Beyond CSU, we hope this text is a useful resource for all faculty who want to ensure and/or enhance the accessibility of their OERs. The suggestions we provide in this text are intended for the non-technical user. If you are looking for more technical descriptions about how to make your work accessible, review the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines).
Our Accessibility Toolkit: A Remix
To create this text, we have built on the wonderful work of the BC Campus Accessibility Toolkit — 2nd Edition as well as the Cleveland State University Pressbooks-hosted resource Best Practices in Accessible Online Design.
Our remixed version of the BC Campus Accessibility Toolkit — 2nd Edition includes the following significant changes:
- We tried to put less of a focus on the “why” of accessibility in OER and more of a focus on the practical step-by-step instructions on how to make OERs accessible
- In trying to make this toolkit feel like a user guide, we aimed to shorten the chapters
- We added content on accessibility and Panopto, which is part of the LMS we use at CSU
- We chose to remove the personas from each chapter, although we recognize that the use of personas is a great way to develop empathy and awareness in designing for accessibility. Below are the “Redesign or Accommodation?” activities that informed BC Campus’ use of thoughtfully developed personas:
What is Pressbooks?
In addition to providing general strategies for ensuring the creation of accessible content, our Accessibility Toolkit for Authors of OER includes specific instructions on how to achieve accessibility requirements in Pressbooks. Pressbooks is an online authoring tool based on WordPress, and used by CSU to create and modify open textbooks. (See the Pressbooks Guide.)
Please see Pressbooks’ accessibility statement
