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The digitalisation of higher education presents opportunities for designing more inclusive learning experiences. To ensure that all students can access and benefit from digital resources, institutions must include accessibility as a core component of their digital strategy. During a ɫ��ֱ�� webinar, held in partnership with VitalSource, a panel of experts explored how accessibility standards have evolved in recent years and the role of digital innovation in improving the learning experience for students.

“As expectations around the nature and purpose of higher education have become an increasingly volatile conversation, it’s becoming more important for us to be intentional as to how every student has access to the resources we offer,” said Trey Conatser, assistant provost of teaching and learning at the University of Kentucky in the US. “We want to have standardised resources that our faculty and staff can use, such as course templates that already have accessibility features built in.” 

Accessibility can have different definitions, said Elisha Allen, director of online strategies and academic technologies at the University of New Mexico in the US. “Providing features such as closed captions not only helps the student who has difficulty hearing, it also helps those who have other cognitive issues, where reading text captions can provide additional support,” said Allen. “It helps students who may not recognise that they have any kind of disability or those who have time constraints.”

As a provider of learning materials, a key focus for VitalSource is ensuring students have the certified accessible resources they need. Rick Johnson, co-founder and vice-president of solutions engineering and accessibility at VitalSource, emphasised the value of metadata, which offers essential information about books and other publications to identify, describe and distribute them. “We have worked with the World Wide Web Consortium and other institutions to create a guideline for how to express metadata that publishers create around their learning materials in a way that’s easy to understand,” Johnson said. 

Georgios Kormpas, director of the Teaching, Learning and Development Center at Al Yamamah University in Saudi Arabia, spoke about how technological tools must focus on the relevance of the content and anticipate the needs of diverse student cohorts. “We work with the edtech partners to make certain that the material is appropriate. The language is extremely important,” said Kormpas. For example, the university can adapt content to different levels of English proficiency. “It makes the material more accessible and meaningful to the student,” he said. 

Carol Damm, head of digital education at Constructor University in Germany, said the shift towards online learning prompted by the Covid-19 pandemic allowed for improvements in accessibility. “It quickly became clear that students would have difficulties accessing the learning content unless we had tools in place.” While technology has enabled this progress, making sure that students know about the available tools is crucial, she added.

Johnson spoke about the alignment of accessibility standards under guidelines regulations such as the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines and the European Accessibility Act, which make it easier to evaluate and improve accessibility. “Legislation around the world is aligning, so there are clear standards to evaluate accessibility measures on their effectiveness,” he concluded.

The panel:

• Elisha Allen, director of online strategies and academic technologies, University of New Mexico
• Trey Conatser, assistant provost of teaching and learning, University of Kentucky
• Carol Damm, head of digital education, Constructor University
• Rick Johnson, co-founder and vice-president of solutions engineering and accessibility, VitalSource
• Georgios Kormpas, director of the Teaching, Learning and Development Center, Al Yamamah University
• Sreethu Sajeev, branded content deputy editor, Times Higher Education (chair)

about VitalSource.