In June 2015, 5 organisations released Guidelines for accessible information for learning. The origins of the guidelines relate to the following observation that:
(1) More and more information for learning is provided online;
(2) Governments, international bodies, and …human rights are asking that access to education is provided to all (ie the newly adopted SDG4);
The Open Education movement and Open Educational Resources by providing freely usable and adaptable learning content is often considered as the solution to reach out to more students at the time when they want to study.
Yet, not all OER are accessible to people with disabilities, hence not to all. Therefore, according to United Nations Enable, they leave behind 15% of the world’s population who live with a disability.
Hence, there was a need for a user-friendly and simple tool – the Guidelines – to help individuals and organisations to address the issue of providing online information for learning that is accessible to all.
The drafting of the Guidelines benefited from funding from the European Commission and took on board both technical organisations (Daisy Consortium, G3ICT), professional ones (European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education, European Schoolnet, International Association of Universities), and UNESCO, which, together, addressed the issue of equity in online educational provision in today’s world.
The presentation will focus more specifically on IAU’s participation in the project with a focus on online higher education provision for and with people with a disability and will give some examples of easy-to-implement practices for creating more accessible online content. Believing that it is easier for practitioners (in this case teachers but also students) to implement change when they have the support of their hierarchy, the session is open to everyone interested in making Open Education for All.
