1. Carla De Winter, AccessCapable
Co-authors : Una Daly, College Open Textbooks
Alice Krueger, Virtual Ability Inc.

2. Introduction
 Open Educational Resources:
 openly licensed,
digital materials.
 available at low cost.
 Open Textbooks:
 converted from
“All Rights Reserved” From the Creative Commons store
to “Some Rights Reserved”.
 In line with the UN Convention article 24: State
Parties shall ensure an inclusive education system at all
levels.

3. The project
 Accessibility evaluation of 60 textbooks for College of
Open Textbooks.
 In-depth, consistent and quantitatively comparable
scoring:
 For 17 subject areas, from history to mathematics,
published on websites (56 %) or as PDF (42 %).
 Using 26 metrics according to WCAG and Section 508
(US) guidelines, in total 999 relevant evaluations.
 Done by a trained project team of disabled and impaired
individuals.

4. Metrics
 A textbook must be:
 Perceivable,
 Operable,
 Understandable, and
 Robust.

5. Issues of Website Structural
Accessibility
 Three types: pre-set formats (platforms),
wikimedia and self-developed websites
 For pre-set formats:
 Issues with colour contrast.
 Issues with structural markup.
 Issues with in-page navigation.

6. Issues of Website Structural
Accessibility: colour contrast

7. Issues of Website Structural
Accessibility
 Common Website Structural Problems:
 Structural Semantic Organizers.
 Tables (headings and attributes).
 Fixed Width Page.
 In-Page Navigation.

8. Issues of Website Structural
Accessibility: fixed width

9. Issues of Website Structural
Accessibility
 Common Website Structural Problems
(cont.):
 Use of Flash and Javascript.
 Non-Mouse Operation.
 Use of Frames.

10. Issues of PDF Accessibility
 PDFs download from website.
 PDF accessibility features:
 Tagging and reading order.
 Fonts allow character extraction to text.
 Non-mouse navigational aids.
 Alternative text for images and interactive form
fields.

11. Issues of PDF Accessibility
 Tagging and reading order.

12. Common Issues in Both Formats
 Visual Appearance.
 Content Organization.
 Variable Vocabulary.
 Author’s Voice.
 Consistency.
 Missing Alternative Texts.
 Comprehension Level.

13. Positive Findings
 In many textbooks:
 Appropriate Readability Level.
 Visual-Semantic Organization.
 Format Consistency.
 Good Presentation Style.
 Lack of Clutter.
 Presence of a Glossary.

14. Quantitative results
 From 1 (not accessible) to 5 (perfectly accessible):
Format Average
Score
Connexions (pre-set format) 4
Flat World Knowledge (pre-set format) 3
Open Learn (pre-set format) 4
Open Learning Initiative (pre-set format) 2.4
Wikimedia 4.1
Other Web-based textbooks 3.5
PDFs 2.7

15. Conclusions of the review
 Most issues are related to the
delivery mediums.
 BUT: Operable and Understandable
are within author control.
 Authors need:
 Awareness,
 How-To Knowledge,
 Professional Assistance, and
 Incentives.