LibGuides: Open Educational Resources (OER): Accessibility

Defining OER Accessibility

Accessible websites are designed to be usable by anyone, regardless of device, language, culture, location, or physical or mental ability. Specifically, web accessibility is a set of practices, choices, and standards aimed at making websites that people with a diverse range of hearing, movement, sight, and cognitive abilities can easily navigate and use.

Web accessibility should be an integral part of any web project, and all web content should conform to existing Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 and standards.

OER Accessibility

Accessible Web Design Resources

A11Y Project
A community-driven effort to make web accessibility easier.
Affordable Learning Georgia
An excellent tutorial on how to create your own OER and adapt others' OER to your course.
BCcampus Open Ed
by the British Columbia Minister of Advanced Education in 2012 to develop, advance and support advanced pedagogies.
MERLOT
Established in 1997 through California State University Center for Distributed Learning, provides access to curated online learning, support and content creation tools, led by an international community of educators, learners and researchers. FREE membership requires only adding content to the collection.
Open Education Database (OEDb)
OEDb [Open Education Database]. 80 open education resource tools for publishing and development initiatives.

Legally, online course materials are required to be accessible to all students [ see WebAIM's overview of United States Laws]. Section 508 requires that all website content be accessible to people with disabilities. This applies to Web applications, Web pages and all attached files on the intranet, as well as, internet. Everyone benefits from clear and accessible web design.

National Center on Disability & Access to Education

One page accessibility resources developed to assist anyone creating accessible content. FREE and catered to less-technical individuals, faculty and staff.
Open Author

OER Commons publishing tool and cheatsheets.