Preface

Motivation

Education is a necessary means through which we address societal needs, tackle complex challenges, foster personal and professional growth, and pursue knowledge and connections that push us closer to what we were made to accomplish in this world. We cannot have an equitable and democratized education without full and equal access to the information, resources, and methods upon which knowledge, collaboration, and community are built. Accessibility is at the heart and soul of ensuring everyone can pursue opportunities and success – and each of us plays a vital role in championing this aim.

You are reading this text because you design, develop, or distribute materials for students to use along their educational journeys. We believe accessibility is more than just another checkbox on your list of things to accomplish before publishing that book or course, but rather an imperative to ensure that all we create, curate, and cultivate can be used by the broadest population possible – including those with disabilities. This book catalogs practical accessibility guidance for those publishing open educational resources, which is comprised of tips, tricks, and techniques assembled through personal and professional experiences working with disabled individuals and studying, testing, and implementing accessibility in the work we do.

Why did we write the book?

During the Spring 2024 semester, the authors of this text participated in the Accessibility in Open Educational Resources Academy sponsored by CAST and the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education (ISKME), who have partnered to develop more robust resources to promote accessibility and inclusivity in OER. The six-week series provided an in-depth exploration of accessibility, universal design for learning, and methods for incorporating these concepts into educational resources. As we had thoughtful discussions about the information provided, we knew this was content and guidance we needed to share with our colleagues and partners actively developing educational resources and materials at Texas A&M University.

While initially discussed as a deliverable for an event, this book has become a culmination of expertise and experience from institutional partners committed to full access and participation for all students – including those with disabilities. We have invested considerable time and attention to this resource because OER offers tremendous potential to support students from all contexts, backgrounds, and access modalities in ways that traditional educational materials simply have not achieved.

We know developing educational materials can be a demanding experience and when accessibility is mentioned, it is easy to feel this is yet another hurdle to jump in an already time-consuming process. Through this text, we hope to demystify accessibility concepts and practices in such a way that readers no longer see this work as an obstacle to their process, but as a critical component to the thoughtful design, development, and distribution of their work. Accessibility should not feel difficult and the techniques necessary to achieve its aim should not seem out of reach.

How to use this book?

This book was developed to be a resource to tackle specific issues throughout the process of developing OER in whatever context you find yourself. It is not intended to be read from start to finish (though you are more than welcome to do so). We anticipate you will have seen, heard, or been exposed to some of the accessibility concepts presented in this text, and may choose to dive into the areas where you are less familiar.

We separated the information into content specific to the three stages of developing OER – before, during, and after writing. While each phase has its own unique considerations, accessibility practices should be kept in view and continuously assessed each step of the way. For example, while we may do a comprehensive review of descriptive link text when doing final edits and revisions before publication, we should also review our link text for clarity and accessibility as we finish drafting each part of our resource.

We have organized the material into the following three main categories:

1. Before Writing
2. During Writing
3. After Writing

The primary best practice for developing accessible instructional materials is to plan for and build in accessibility from the beginning. However, we understand that many of you are coming to accessibility after possibly decades of teaching. Therefore, we designed the After Writing section to help you make your existing materials more accessible.

About the Authors

Dr. Gia Alexander (she/her/hers) was born legally blind and thus has used accessibility tools and affordances throughout her academic and professional endeavors, which now include over 20 years of teaching and almost 35 years of work as a technical communication professional, predominantly in engineering. She holds Ph.D. and M.A. degrees in English from Texas A&M University and a B.A. in English from Northwestern State University of Louisiana. She currently teaches engineering technical communication in the Harold Vance Department of Petroleum Engineering at Texas A&M. In 2018, she published a book chapter titled “My Tech Writing Teacher Has Low Vision: Teachable Moments for Accessibility and Diversity in the Technical Communication Classroom” in Routledge’s Teaching with a Disability: Student and Teacher Experiences of Disability in the Classroom, edited by Michael Jeffress, Chapter 9, pp. 321-39. She currently serves as the accessibility editor for all OER textbooks published by the Texas A&M University Department of English and is the current instructor for Accessibility in Digital Environments at the Digital Humanities Summer Institute (DHSI).

Dr. Kalani Pattison is the coordinator for the first-year writing and research (Composition and Rhetoric) course at A&M. She has a B.A. in literature from Point Loma Nazarene University and a Ph.D. in English with a concentration in Religion and Literature from Baylor University. She has always been especially interested in the teaching side of academia — pursuing further higher education as she was interested in teaching, but not necessarily teaching children. She grew up overseas attending an international school with a U.S.-based curriculum and has maintained interest and concern with how people have access to information and learning in a variety of ways. She has contributed to and participated in a number of OER published through Texas A&M’s English Department, both in content and through style/Pressbooks formatting.

Justin Romack is an Assistant Director with Disability Resources at Texas A&M University, where one of his responsibilities is to provide consultation, training, and support for assistive technologies and digital accessibility of course materials. After losing his eyesight completely in 2008, Justin has worked in a variety of accessibility roles, including the development of training curricula on assistive technology, technical accessibility auditing, and presentations at conferences on the national and regional levels regarding practical guidance to support content creators and developers in their work to promote accessibility throughout the product life cycle. He has a B.A. in Communication, holds the distinction as a Certified Professional in Accessibility Core Competencies with the International Association of Accessibility Professionals, and is currently pursuing a M.S. in Educational Administration with an emphasis on higher education from Texas A&M University.

Sarah LeMire is a librarian by training and a professor in the Texas A&M University department of English.  She has been involved in campus OER efforts since 2018 and has collaborated with English department faculty on three OER textbooks: Informed Arguments: A Guide to Writing and Research, Howdy or Hello? Technical and Professional Communication, and Surface and Subtext: Literature, Research, Writing.