Is Open Education Inclusive?

Is Open Education Inclusive?

Isabelle TurmaineInternational Association of Universities

OE Global 2016, Krakow (Poland)

International Association of Universities (IAU)

• Isabelle Turmaine, Director for Information Projects and Services at IAU,

• A Worldwide association of higher education institutions and organisations representing 120 countries,

• Created in 1950 by universities under the auspices of UNESCO and still in official partnership (Associate Status) with UNESCO.


My presentation will:

• Somehow question the inclusiveness of open education;

• Expose IAU’s reasons for joining the ICT for Information Accessibility in Learning Project;

• Briefly describe the main result of the project: Guidelines for accessible information for learning;

• Look at possible impacts;• Open the subject for discussion.


Not so long ago I would have said: YES!The Open education movement and Open education resources because they offer freely usable and adaptable learning content are considered a solution to reach out, especially when online.And they are.BUT do they reach out to all possible learners?What about people with a disability?Yet, according to WHO, they represent 15% of the world’s population.

ICT for Information Accessibility in Learning (ICT4IAL)

Context: More an more information for learning is created in an electronic format. Why not take advantage of this possibility to reach out to pwd? Rules and directives exist but they often are too complicated for non-computer scientists.

Aim: To develop guidelines for practitioners (including one of the main information for learning producers: universities (students, faculty and staff) to help them produce content that can be accessible to people with a disability as from its creation

IAU’s reasons for partnering

1. The right to education is a human right.

Universities are doing a lot:Disability services; one of the missions of open universities; high-level position in charge of pwd; research and study programmes.But at times of financial constraints, support is receeding.


2. Access to higher education for people with a disability is asked by government, regional and international organisations.

• UN Sustainable Development Goal 4 (Education) adopted by the UN General Assembly in September 2015: Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote life-long learning opportunities for all (including at HE level);

• UNESCO New Delhi Declaration on Inclusive ICTs for Persons with Disabilities acknowledges the right of pwd to access information and knowledge.


3. IAU Policy Statement on Equitable Access, Success and Quality in Higher Education comprises the following key principle:• Access to higher learning should be made possible to all

regardless of race, ethnicity, gender, economic or social class, age, language, religion, location or [dis]abilities.

It recommends that HEIs:• Facilitate access to learning, respond to diverse learning

needs and increase outreach by the appropriate and effective use of a variety of delivery modes.


4. To increase the number of people with a disability at higher education level (student and faculty).

– Disability Statistics managed by Cornell University : in the year 2013 only 13.5% of non-institutionalized persons aged 21 to 64 with a disability in the US have an educational attainment of a BA degree or higher, compared to 32.1 % for persons without a disability.

– in the UK, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), in 2013/2014, only 3.4% of full-time academic staff had a disability.

Partners

• Technical organisations:– Daisy Consortium– G3ICT

• Professional organisations:– European Agency for Special Needs and

Inclusive Education– European Schoolnet– International Association of Universities

• UNESCO

IAU’s role in the project

– To involve the higher education sector in the project and in the development and validation of the Guidelines• Some 15 IAU Member Universities in Porto

(development) and in Riga (validation)

– To trial the Guidelines• At the organization’s level on portals and

published and e-publications• At a university’s level (IAU Member) on online

courses–Open University of Catalonia, Spain

IAU’s feedback on the guidelines

Comments for improvementBUTEasier to use and implement than thoughtLess time consuming than expected– this should become more and more true with

experienceVery rewarding– At a time when higher education is expected to

reach out to more students, of open societies and lifelong learning

How are the Guidelines organized

• 2 steps for action:– Step one looks at types of information;– Step two at the medium used.

• Three levels of difficulty:– Easy: actions that can be completed with a

general knowledge of common software programmes;

– Advanced;– Professional.

• Checklists.

Examples of guidelines

• Basic features are easy to implement and can rapidly become automatic.

• No obligation to implement all from first try but an incrementing process has been observed.

• Of course, it produces less sexy documents.

• Point size of minimum 12.• Language of the document must be specified.• The size of images must be scalable as needed.• Alternate texts descriptions should be included.

Looking at the future

The Guidelines were launched in June 2015 in English and made available in 25 other languages in December 2015.They are available online and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike licence.They are in an accessible format (applying the Guidelines).

Future adaptations and additional translations are welcome and looked forward.

Looking at the future

Aim: Systematic use.

Barriers: Not yet known, Could be seen as additional task, Lifespan by definition short.

Need for dissemination, awareness raising, political support (and will), training, technical support, adaptation, sharing, community building, and cultural change.

Possible impacts

• ICT companies are looking at the market offered by people with a disability. There might soon be no need for Guidelines. Yet, these new tools would come at a cost, and training would be needed that might not be available to all pwd.

• Could increase quality of information provision for learning, less design offers more time for focusing on content.

• Changes benefiting pwd are benefiting all and not only at a time of lifelong learning (ageing students), temporary disabled persons, and marginalized populations.

Conclusion

• Open education is not always open to everyone.• ICT allows to provide more accessible content for

learning, but often taken care on an individual basis for some already available docuemnt only.

• Creating accessible documents from inception would be cheaper, more equitable and fair (economic and social justice).

• This can only be done if this can be done easily by the growing community of information producers: hence the Guidelines.

• I hope this presentation would be the beginning of more open accessible information for learning!

Let’s start the discussion

• Have you ever tested your open education production on people with a disability?

• Would you look at the Guidelines once back home and try to implement them in your daily production of content for learning?

• Do you think the Guidelines are timely, how else would you describe them?

• What additional support/ incentives would you need to systematically implement the Guidelines in your work?

Thank you

Isabelle TurmaineInternational Association of Universities (IAU)[email protected]

ICT4IALICT for Information Accessibility in Learning Project - Guidelineswww.ict4ial.eu

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.iau-aiu.net/

http://www.ict4ial.eu/