Moving Beyond the Page or Screen

Interactive elements

For the most part, the engagement seen in OER adoptions that were part of this project centred on using H5P interactions. In some instances, resources, lessons, and workbooks were created to support learners and users. There were also discussions about funding and time that would have allowed for more interactive elements as part of the adoption process.

Examples of other accessible interactive possibilities include:

• Use of drama-based pedagogy in tandem with an adopted resource to increase application.
• Using creative elements such as art-based practices to relate information to other learners and build communities.
• Allowing learners to demonstrate how knowledge acquired from the adopted OERs can be represented in different multimodal ways (audio, video, images, infographics).

Some H5P elements are not accessible to screen readers or cannot be tabbed through using a keyboard. For instance, the use of interactive timelines may be considered. Recognizing that content featuring sequential dates and important events may benefit from a timeline format, this is likely the most accessible way to organize the information. More support, work, and conversations are needed to make all H5P interactive elements accessible since many OER adoption and creation teams do not have members who have undergone training to know if an interaction is accessible. This resource will revisit the training gap at the end of the Pressbook by highlighting some prompts and providing a checklist of considerations for this work.

Accordion menus are something to consider in relation to accessibility. Employing too many accordion menus can result in an overwhelming approach to interactions with content on a single page. However, some pages with an overabundance of content can be excessively long and difficult to navigate if no accordion menus are employed. Therefore, this is a contextual consideration when a lot of content is placed on a page, especially if the content is text-only.

Accessibility of the Tools Themselves

Most of the discussions from the project centred around using Pressbooks as a container to curate open educational resources that were adopted or created. The conversations about accessible adoption also necessarily meant that discussing the accessibility of Pressbooks is a requirement. Many wished for more embedded accessibility features in Pressbooks. For example, issues around colour contrast errors, flagging lack of alt-texts when the images are not decorative, flagging errors in heading settings, and more diversity in how users navigate content using assistive technologies. Having many accessibility considerations, as noted in this resource so far, is essential; however, equally important to this endeavour is recognizing that accessibility falls in tandem with how the information is searched for and shared. This includes deliberations on the tendency to use website overlays, which are often framed as tools that support accessibility, but in fact can create additional barriers to assistive technology users, instead of reviewing the accessibility of websites and tools from the backend to support accessible navigation and search.

Discussions highlighted the need for a more collaborative approach to accessible adoption between instructors, teaching and learning centres, educational technologists, instructional designers, and those who administer both the tools used, and the library of open resources where material is housed.