Publishing Open Educational Resources

In this ongoing series of posts, part of my involvement in the course Open Educational Resources from the University of Manitoba, I am asked to comment on the following:

"An interesting perspective to accessibility is the US's America with disability Act Section 508. Is there as similar act in Canada? Do we need a similar act or are existing laws sufficient to address the disabled? What would these laws be? How does this apply to your own context?"

What I will first take into account is the discussions provided as a part of this week's content. In the section Share, the first step towards the publishing of content is the decision to use Self- or Third-Party Publishing. There are of course pros and cons offered with regards to these two options. 

Third-Party Publishing is often quick, easy and free to use. However, when you place content on their website you lose control and have to adapt to the terms of use that the hosting website already has in place. Lost content (abruptly) and advertisements on your site may be some of the risks you will take when going this route. 

Self-Publishing allows you to be completely in control of all aspects of OER deployment (and responsible). You will need to pay for the site to be hosted and you are also afforded the additional duty of having to update and maintain the site. 

I imagine you would not, easily, be able to allow others to Revise and Remix content within the site. One could allow for this rather easily if he or she published using Third-Party Publishing (for example: http://www.wikispaces.com). 

The advice is given that ones technical skills and abilities would often determine the route he or she went. It is often easier for someone who does not possess certain technical skills to travel the Third-Party Publishing route. In a previous post I wrote of the mental block experienced when trying to use FileZilla (a tool used for Self-Publishing). As such, using Third-Party Publishing would be the quicker (more efficient) route for me at this time. 

My reaction after spending time reviewing some of the tools available to promote accessibility via Section 508 (see: tools and resources). My initial skim through some of these tools reveals that they will require a higher technical ability from the user. Higher than what is required for someone to publish via the Third-Party Publishing route (although some Third-Party Publishing tools have these tools built in). 

The Section 508 Standards are useful and a certain level of standardization is of course important to allow everyone equal access to online learning resources and content. Perhaps it comes down to education. Are we informed or possessing enough technical skills to ensure that these standards are met? My initial thought is that we are not and most may not even be aware these standards exist. 

Apparently there are no laws in Canada that would force a content creator to comply to any standards when making his or her content accessible (taken from www.cippic.ca). A shift of mindset is required in order to ensure that content is truly accessible to all. This could start with educating users to meet the W3C guidelines, and other suggestions are welcomed.