Accessibility can be defined as the practice of making your resources usable by as many people as possible. If an open resource is not accessible to potential users who need assistance to work around the challenges that they face (e.g., dyslexia or visual impairments) can the resource be truly said to be open? If you're using or adapting or creating an OER, you should think about how accessible it is.
As many OERs are web-based, good OER accessibility practices draw from web accessibility best practices which are described below.
When you create anything, e.g., a web page, document, or presentation, make sure you create a meaningful title for your item. Titles are important because screen readers announce titles whenever they load the content - page, document or presentation. Titles also help orient users to the layout of the content. Titles should be short, informative and unique.
A well-organised and structured layout will help users orient themselves and navigate the content efficiently and effectively. Specifically:
To elaborate on headings, don't create your own headings, use those provided by the tool you are using. For example, in Microsoft Word, use the heading styles in the 'Styles' section of the 'Home' menu tab and in HTML use the header (<h1>, <h2>) etc tags. Screen readers can see under the hood of the document and recognise headings; making something bold and increasing the text size will not be recognised as a header by a screen reader
Use of colour can make your site look more aesthetically pleasing, however for readability it is important to use contrasting colours (the font colour and its background). Black on white is contrasting, light grey on white not so much. May people can't read text if there is insufficient contrast between the font colour and its background.
It is also important to not use colour as the only way of communication - e.g.,web links are blue and underlined, nor just blue
To be better understood and contexualised by screen readers, links should have meaningful names. "Click here", "This" "Here" etc do not provide any information to screen readers, so each link you provide should have a meaningful name.
Always avoid using the URL of a site as the link to it; would you like long web addresses read out to you?
All images should be accompanied by alternative text ("alt-text") that provides a meaningful description of the image. Alt-text makes images and graphics visible to screen readers and help provide context to keyboard and voice recognition navigation software. Alt text should describe the content and function of the image.
Transcripts and captions will make your video accessible to a wider audience. Video captioning improves understanding and retention of information. YouTube provides automatic captioning, but being automatic, it will not be free from error. Other captioning service are available.
No matter who you are writing for you should try to make your writing as clear as possible, educational resources - open or closed - that are not easily understood are not much use. To make your writing more accessible, try the following:
If someone wants to use your resource then they will need to be able to open the file on their device. However, some file formats require specific closed, proprietary software to open. Saving your resource in an open file format will give your learners, and other users, more options for accessing your resource.
Closed file formats include:
More modern Microsoft Office formats, such as .docx, .xlsx. and .pptx, are still proprietary formats but can be opened, edited and saved by software such as Google Docs and Open Office. However, opening such a closed file format, can lead to formatting - and other - issues.
Open file formats include:
MP3 is technically an open file format but has been subject to patent disputes in the past.
While open formats are desirable, you need to think about how your intended primary audience will access your file. If they have access to, for example Microsoft Office 365 through their educational institution, or are more passive users of ICT, then it is more realistic to use proprietary formats. Open file formats are good and something to be aimed for, but audience access may paradoxically be enhanced by using a proprietary format.
