From Syllabi to Textbooks - Accessibility in Open Educational Resources for Institutions of Higher Education

A series of 3 no-cost intensives designed to build capacity in IHE teams

ISKME and CAST’s National AEM Center invite teams of faculty to learn how to use accessible Open Educational Resources (OER) to make learning more equitable and bust the barriers to learning that millions of learners experience every day. 

The Accessible OER Academy series is provided at no-cost to faculty at Institutions of Higher Education (IHE) and will introduce cohorts to how openly licensed resources are key levers for both adapting existing resources to increase digital accessibility and designing resources that are accessible for learners with disabilities from the start. Participants will also gain an understanding of how accessibility relates to Universal Design for Learning (UDL). 

We invite educators from the same Institution to form a cohort. Throughout the six-week series, cohorts will receive access to a curated set of high quality resources to review and adapt for use in their own settings. Institution cohorts that complete all six sessions will be invited to present at a national summit alongside CAST and ISKME. Each individual participant of the Academy will receive a certificate of completion. Each team will submit one application.

We encourage cohorts of 3-5 faculty to represent a diversity of lived experiences, classroom expertise, and current educational roles. Consider building your team with representatives from full-time faculty, part-time faculty, disability services, ed tech, assistive technology, library media, and administration. Your team will produce resources that can be used with and to benefit all learners, so consider building a team that can collaborate for instructional purposes. The cohort will explore modifying a variety of resources - with a focus on syllabi and entire textbooks.

The series will consist of three 90-minute webinars with three 90-minute implementation sessions between each. All sessions will be at 1:00pm ET/10:00am PT.

• 101 - Collaborative Questioning and UDL - on May 4th and Implementation Session May 11th

• 201 - Adapting and Creating Accessible OER on May 18th and Implementation Session May 25th

• 301 - Curating and Evaluating OER for Accessibility on June 1st and Implementation Session on June 8th

Apply as a team by May 1st. If you have any questions, please contact Joanna Schimizzi (joanna@iskme.org) or Alison Driscoll (adriscoll@cast.org).

1. Create the assessment, whether test or assignment
2. Enable the settings via the Respondus Lockdown Browser dashboard for the specific assessment
3. Select Respondus Lockdown Browser for the assessment
4. Save the settings

DoIT and Student Disability Services hosted a "Candid Conversation on Enhancing Accessibility" on March 15th. The session highlighted ways that course accessibility benefits all students and results in inclusive learning and working environments. Student Disability Services and DoIT's Instructional Technology team collaborate to provide resources and support to enhance course accessibility. Proactively designing and teaching a course with accessibility in mind not only supports students with documented accommodations, but also supports Universal Design for Learning (UDL) principles and best practices in course design. In the session panelists shared several key recommendations and resources that are available:

Key recommendations for course design and delivery

• Use Blackboard Ally to check the accessibility of course content, get guidance on remediating content, and to access alternative formats of course materials.

• Videos about Ally

• Alternative Formats in Bb Ally 

• Which Alternative Format is Best to Use? 

• Student FAQ - How do I download an alt format file generated by Ally? 

• Use live captioning in online course meetings, either with Webex or Google Chrome browser live captioning enabled.
• Caption video recordings with automatic captions in Panopto or VoiceThread.
• Upload a Video to Panopto
• Add time limit and due date accommodations in Blackboard.

Accessibility Resources

In addition to the tools noted above, the following resources also support accessibility:

• Create accessible documents with Office 365.
• Review the Google Workspace guide to accessibility.
• Explore SDS assistive technology resources.
• Review assistive technology resources available at the AOK Library.
• Review SDS Information for Faculty.

Technology Highlight: Class

UMBC will be piloting Class, a synchronous web conferencing platform built on Zoom's infrastructure. Class provides support for the following:

• Live transcription. All students in a Class session can view captions.
• Multiple video displays while sharing content, including support for sign language interpreters with a dedicated Sign Language Camera.
• Notes, an upcoming Class feature, will allow students to highlight text from the meeting transcript and add notes.
• Screen reader compatibility and keyboard navigation.

Instructional Technology is pleased to offer the following Ultra workshops in March:

March 2 (12 PM) - Ultra Essentials IV - Tests & Assignments

March 7 (12 PM) Ultra Essentials V - Grading & the Gradebook

March 13 (12 PM) - Ultra Course Orientation for Faculty, TAs & Course Builders

March 17 (12 PM) - Deliver Effective Assessments with Ultra Question Banks

March 29 (12 PM) - Ultra Design Clinic

Note: This self-paced course has been retired due to changes in available resources from Blackboard. We encourage faculty interested in Ultra training to access the following resources:

• Attend an upcoming training

• Recordings in our Panopto training folder

• Please review the FAQs, including the What's New with Ultra page, and myUMBC for additional information about Ultra. 

• Connect with an Ultra Ambassador!

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In support of the final completion of the Ultra migration by SP2025, Instructional Technology is pleased to offer a self-paced course, Ultra for Instructors. 

This course is designed to introduce instructors to Blackboard Ultra, including general navigation, content management and creation processes, assessment creation and settings options, and gradebook management. Ultra for Instructors should provide a starting point to help you design your courses in Blackboard Ultra and offers opportunities to apply what you're learning as you navigate the course. 

The course includes reference materials, links to resources, videos, and "Try It" activities to apply in your own Ultra courses. Depending on faculty interests, available time, and needs, the course can be approached in one of the following ways:

• Complete all modules, beginning with the Welcome and sequentially completing Modules 1-7.

• Complete certain modules of interest.

• Complete selected units within particular modules.

• Refer to the course as a reference guide, as needed.