Accessible Open Educational ResourcesOhio’s Scaffold to the Stars

Stephen R. Acker, OhioLINK/The Ohio Board of Regents

Ken Petri, The Ohio State University

Agenda

• Open Educational Resources (OER)- hybrid digital and print learning objects

• Ohio’s Scaffold to the Stars- a curricular tool that builds modules from OER

• Building accessible OER course packs– Iterative processes– The special case of math content

• Summary and next steps

OER and instructional content

• OER is gaining traction as individually contributed and “pro-packaged” (Flat World, Connexions, CK-12) materials.– In general, pro-packaged materials are addressing

accessibility needs– In general, individually-created OER are less often

accessible• Lack of creator knowledge• Lack of creator production skills

Ohio’s Scaffold to the Stars

• An Educause Next Generation Learning Challenge project• Modular math and statics resources• Tagged to Learning Objectives in a sequence of math

courses• Value-rated by students and faculty• Described with accessibility metadata field• Delivered through Drupal/HTML5 Platform

Building multiple modular curricula

• Each learning objective can be served by more than one learning module since the resources are offered at no cost in digital format

• Parallel curriculum of accessible content can be customized to serve learning needs and requirements

• Non-accessible content can also be converted to accessible format when alternatives don’t exist– MathJax

Stitz-Zeager LaTex and MathJax

• Ken demo

Google Analytics

Google Analytics

• Funnels– Web pathways toward goals

• Can be access- device or access-network triggered

• Multipath funnels– Different (comparable?) paths toward goals

• Goal (actionable end page of a web funnel)– Buy, request information, test-ready

• Conversions– User actions at goal

• Percentage or number of users who purchase, info seek, practice test)

• Revise based on feedback loop– Intelligence events and automatic alerts

Educause/I2 digital textbook pilot- Phase 2

• Phase 1 Educause/I2 pilot offered deeply discounted digital text on CourseLoad platform

• Student uses and accessibility evaluated and found lacking

• Contest between “author’s voice” and “audience ears.”– Parallel curricula of equal effort/equal outcomes

necessary.

Additional Resources

• OER and accessibility Partner Community– California State University, MERLOT, Open

CourseWare Consortium, and the National Federation of the Blind are founding members

Contacts

• Stephen R. Acker, Research Director– Ohio Digital Bookshelf-OhioLINK/The Ohio Board

of Regents– Acker.1@osu.edu

• Ken Petri, Director– Web Accessibility Center- The Ohio State

University– Petri.1@osu.edu