 Welcome to the second session in day three of the OER 22. I'm really pleased to welcome our speakers today, Chloe Beattie, James Brompton and Sophia Pallara. And they are going to be talking about improving accessible and inclusive teaching and learning practices for online higher education students. And they're all from Dublin City University. If you have any comments or questions, please leave those in the comment box. And without further ado, I'm going to hand over to our speakers for our session. Thank you very much. Thank you everyone. I'm going to start us off. Just myself and Chloe and Sophia are going to be presenting today on our efforts to improve accessibility and inclusion on online open education psychology modules, but like broadly in our online programs that we have here in DCU. Chloe, we go to slide two, please. So just to give a little bit of context, DCU Connected is the brand that DCU has for all of our off campus programs. But the programs that we work on are specifically a set of online open education programs. So built on a kind of traditional open education access philosophy, anyone over the age of 23 to date has been able to just come along and apply for a place and get a place on one of our programs. Students between 18 and 22, there's minimal entry requirements. So a very open access policy with a strong kind of widening participation remit. So our programs are not, they are designed as off campus online programs. You know, they were previously kind of traditional distance education programs. So not lecture based, not, you know, sort of built to be online. Students when they come in, the model is, you know, that they have, they study online learning materials that we create, or that we curate from open educational resources. They interact with each other and the teaching staff in discussion forums, and then they have periodic online classes. So it's that kind of fully online model. In terms of accessibility and inclusion, up until this academic year, we would have said that we were, that we had a good understanding of universal design for learning principles. You know, we had our own kind of local learning design guide that included, you know, discussion or content on access, how to make material accessible and inclusive as we were creating it as we were creating these online learning materials. And, you know, within the institution, as kind of accessibility tools were introduced, you know, we were always putting ourselves forward as a guinea pig, because we have so much online content, we wanted to know, have, you know, what aren't we doing right, you know, what do we need to fix. And the accessibility tools usually gave us a really good score and maybe just highlighted some things that needed updating or needed fixing. We did need to fix, you know, we didn't have good all text for images and figures and things like that. When these tools came along first and we learned from that and we fixed that. We had kind of an established way of supporting students that are registered with our disability and learning support service in the university. So we kind of had a good solid method already for, you know, giving or supporting students with exam accommodations with assessment accommodations. We would sort of try to be as proactive as possible in terms of contacting those students at the start of the year and making sure they know who they can contact and that they can contact us if they're registered conditions or impairments were causing them to not be able to get their assignments done on time. And that kind of thing. And that was that was the story up until this academic year, which is kind of the it's the the reason that we were talking to you is at the in the first part of this academic year, we ran into some issues where where we realized we had to take a step back and reflect and look a bit more of what we were doing and how we were doing it. So I'll hand over to Sophia for this slide. I can take it from here. Thanks, James. And yeah, so as James was saying, you know, we did have and we have a good understanding of UDL principles. And we did have a good communication system with the support systems available in DCU for our students with registered conditions or impairments. And but obviously some feedback from the students and ongoing conversations with the students shed light on some areas that still needed a bit of work. And really just highlighted for us the gaps in our own knowledge around Universal Design for Learning and also how we can improve our modules overall to increase that level of accessibility and inclusion for our students. And in terms of what James was saying, we already did have a good understanding of alt text and using alt text to make sure that all of the videos that we provided had subtitles. But once these conversations started happening at the beginning of this academic year, there were other changes that needed to be implemented before undertaking some of the bulkier work that Sophia is going to be talking about towards the end of this presentation. So some of the implemented changes that we did is we created kind of a handbook for teaching staff around accessible and inclusive online learning experiences for the students. We included far more information around UDL in this sort of handbook, even though a lot of the staff who would have started with us would have been provided kind of introductory training when they started working with the DCU connected programs. So in this handbook we looked at inclusive teaching practices. So for example, the most of our contact areas of the students are via Zoom. So in terms of making the Zoom room inclusive, obviously you want to be turning on those closed captions for students with any hearing impairments. But also just to allow multiple ways for the students to engage during the Zoom tutorial. So if you are asking students to put stuff in a chat box, make sure that you also allow for the opportunity to have an oral discussion about it, or perhaps maybe throw up the blackboard for them to write on as well. So that there's always various ways that they can engage during class time. And then in terms of the asynchronous material, how can we make that more inclusive? And how many ways can we get them to engage in terms of the asynchronous stuff? And again, that kind of leads into what Sophia is going to be talking about later on. But developing accessible documents, so all the kind of basic stuff around how to ensure that your Microsoft Word documents are accessible, that your PowerPoints are accessible, and PDFs as well, because we would use a lot of PDFs with the students in the modules. And again, all of this stuff is going to be created by the teaching staff themselves, as opposed to the learning materials that are already been provided. And that would have been kind of new information for these staff members. Loop is our virtual learning environment, so how can we create accessible content in Loop? And again, as I said, they're about Zoom. And the last part there in the handbook is just supporting students on the autism spectrum. And for this, we got a staff training from our OT in DCU. So there's a little image there of our training with our OT. And again, these are just little changes that we were implementing throughout the year to try and incorporate the informal feedback that we were receiving from the students as a way to support our students while we were undertaking this research project as well. So that brings us to the current study, and I'll pass over to Sophia for this. Thank you, Chloe. So as James and Chloe have outlined, you know, there were a number of aspects within our modules that were really pointed out to us from our students in the form of feedback. And this is where our current study stems from. The feedback was really spontaneous from our students, and it was, you know, as some aspect that would already be mentioned there, but one of the issues that was outlined or pointed out to us was an issue around assistive technology, not being compatible with some of the features, for example, on Zoom or better, that our, the way we were using Zoom was not compatible with those assistive technology, meaning that some students were really left out or were not able to fully participate in the synchronous activities. But there were other issues, for example, around the asynchronous activities such as they use the forums and for some students, in particular students, neurodiverse students, the use of these forums, which would be one of the most important ways our students and our part-time staff interact for these students using these forums would be too overwhelming. The amount of information shared of these forums would be too much, and also the way it would be organized within them would be too much. And another thing that would be pointed out to us was around the way certain activities would be structured, or even how much structure these students were looking for or needing. So this then led us to pose and reflect really on the way, on our ways, and really question what we were doing. And our first step was really that then design the study and go look for further feedback in the form of interviews and focus groups. So we conducted a number of interviews with our students, with our staff, and also with a member of staff that we might call friends within the university. So staff from DLSS, for example, or other stakeholders that would be able to help us in the current study. And the way that we see them as stakeholders is really as co-designers of the online learning material, of the structure, and of the problems as well. So if you want to move on to the next slide, thank you. So our preliminary findings so far, and also then the implementations that we are in the process of getting out. One of the things that we were doing is the incorporation of a weekly schedule at the beginning of the academic year. So, and this is really to address the issue that pointed out to us by some of the students around the need for more structure. So this was, again, part of the feedback that we received. The other thing that we are implementing is creating a separate module communication, a module discussion area within the module page separate from the forums. So our, as I was saying, the forums are the most, one of the main ways our students and staff communicate with one another, but this can be a bit well. And so what we then proposed to implement was that of creating an alternative mode of communication where the important information is simply streamlined. So the students don't have to necessarily engage with the forums when it becomes a little bit too much for them. Another implementation is that of providing information about student services available on all the assignment briefs. And this is something that we received as feedback from students themselves. And what they found was that sometimes it was difficult for them to find information. So on our side, we thought that we were providing lots of information and that we were providing it in a very clear way that this information was easy to find. So students actually pointed out to us that this information should be made available kind of everywhere, including on all the assignments briefs so that they don't have to go looking somewhere else when they are, for example, preparing for assignments. And along with that, we're also including this information about accessibility and inclusion and about the services that are available on every page of every module on the loop courses. So again, this is the idea or the need that is addressed there is that of making this information really easily, more easily accessible for students. But also as some of our neurodiverse students pointed out to us is also to normalize the discussion about accessibility and inclusion amongst all students, not just neurodiverse students or students with these difficulties. So these are some of the implementations that were carried out based on the findings so far. So, and on that we would like to then open really open this as a conversation really we would like to get some feedback and thoughts from from all of you based on your experience on with accessibility and inclusion, including the issues that you are facing or maybe facing and possibly some of your solutions that you have come up with or that you have implemented. And just on that note as well. Thanks, Sophia. I know that people are going to be, I suppose, commenting from YouTube as well. So if anybody wants to throw in their feedback or thoughts or your own experience with accessibility and inclusion through your own practices, feel free to. And I suppose in the meantime, I can kind of just quickly recap on on some of the, the, I suppose, unique points in terms of what we do here in DCU, because these these implementations are work really well in our learning model. Well, we hope they will anyway. And that's because, you know, what our learning model is quite unique in the sense that we don't have those weekly lectures. So of course, bringing in a weekly schedule at the beginning of the year would feel like almost too much if you're in a situation where you are providing weekly classes, or there is some sort of schedule already made into made into the module. Whereas, you know, as Sophia said, our tutorials tend to kind of be a bit more sporadic, spread out throughout the year. So it can be very difficult for students, neurodiverse students, but also our other students as well to have that schedule in mind and to be disciplined enough to make sure that they're doing the readings in between the classes. So something like this, perhaps in their first year at a foundational level, I think was something that came up to be quite beneficial. And then in, in terms of separating the module communication from the module discussion areas. And this year, I think that was quite problematic, simply because of the sheer numbers of students that were taken in some of the modules. So if, if we do have a neurodiverse student who is trying to keep up with various conversations on a forum, where there are over 150 students registered on this. And this is their way of communicating with their with the teaching staff between classes. You can imagine how much traffic is starting to generate on these forums as well. So that kind of just provides a bit of a background to, to why these were coming up as problems in the first place. It's funny, it's funny because like I can see that Rob, like that works in the OU where they have 3000 students on a module was there as well. But like they have different ways of organizing that stuff. But you know, but Rob's question there, like what we were talking about again was we had some neurodiverse students who were saying there was just too much noise. There was just too much activity going on in the discussion forums and they weren't, they felt like they couldn't really go in there because it was just too much happening. Now, from the data that we've collected, some of that is seeming like this is a first year, first few months issue, that it was just the overall overwhelm. You know, and once they kind of get used to that, it's, I think they have less of an issue and it's actually, it's a bit more nuanced and complex. What we were, what we were talking about was, and when we talk to the occupational therapist that works in DCU and we were talking about some of the issues the students were communicating. And we just started talking, but she was like, OK, so tell me about the discussion forums and we were saying, well, the discussion forums is where a lot of the activity happens. And she was like, what activity? And then we started naming all the different types of activity, staff talking to students, students talking to students, students sharing resources, staff talking about, you know, this is the, this is what's coming up in the tutorial, this is what you should be studying. And it was just basically the too many, too many things. She was like, that's a lot of different things all happening in the one place in the one kind of tool. And so we started thinking about that. And one of the things the students were saying was if they remember that there was some information communicated about the progress of the module, it's somewhere in the discussion forum. But then they're spending time going through different posts trying to find it. So what we were saying was that we would try to take out these sort of communications about what is happening in the module, you know, and we were going to put that more in the announcements forum. The students can't reply to those. So it would be easier to go there and see this is what's going on without having to go into the discussion forum where there's all sorts of different discussions happening. And the discussion forums will be kept for where you're actually wanting discussion and that we would make a distinction between those kinds of communications, like telling people what's going on and actually seeking discussion. So that if a neurodiverse student is feeling overwhelmed by what's going on in the discussion forums, they at least could go to the announcements area and just see what's going on. That's kind of connected to the schedule as well. That like we're just trying to see how can we provide more explicit structure or explicit communication about like this is the flow of the module. Because the way we have it now we're expecting students to find information or follow information in certain ways. And some of the students were saying that that is that is not that's causing that's not working for them. So that's what we were trying to we were trying to solve that there. Oh, we've got another question from Kate or it's not a question that's a comment. Yeah. Yeah, that came that came up as well. I think in the overall tweaked package that we would be given to the staff on, you know, this is how we're thinking of tweaking the use of the discussion forums, the weekly wrap up would be something that we would advocate for as well. And because like again, we've seen that in the extra work that we've been doing, looking at the literature, looking at other people's toolkits, looking at best practice guides, that seems to be something as well, you know. And we have another comment from Rob here for you. Keep those keep those comments coming. Yes, sorry. The noise to signal concept is interesting, probably a good principle for all learners. I had a question about the structure and I was just wondering, did that comment about structure come up in other aspects of online learning or was it just about the communication and forums. The structure was and the structure was a neurodiverse student who needs to have a sense of a lot of organization for where they're going. They they wanted more of that and I in the past we've taken more of an approach of trying to give the students all the tools and then trying to get them to do it themselves and actually used to be part of a first assignment but that's kind of gone over time. But really at this point we kind of were looking at that and going, you know, we actually do do it in some of the later modules that are more complex, but, you know, we should. Okay, at least in the foundation modules. I think we need we do need to do that we do need to sort of say, here's at least an exemplar that you can follow if you like optionally, or else you hear here's the tools and you can do it yourself to suit your kind of the way you want to do it. But here is the here is our kind of one idea about how you can progress through the module. Now that student was actually doing it themselves but looking for validation of what they had done. And but but again in the data collection it was more complex and and it did seem like it was because everything was so new there was so many different things at the start of first year. They needed that then, you know, so that they didn't have, you know, so that they could actually get going. Whereas it seems like in next year, they wouldn't need that level of explicit sort of this is what you should be doing week to week or they'll do it themselves and they won't feel as challenged by doing that. Now that they understand the system and they understand how everything works. So I think we will initially focus that those efforts on first year modules. And if I can add something there is really, you know, for our students. And again, this is James was saying, but there's more to first year students. It's really also the learning on how to relate to not just all the amount of information that goes on etc. But also how to approach the learning material because the amount of synchronous activities is limited over the academic year. So it's really up to the student to engage with the learning material. And for us, as James was saying, on one end, we, you know, we used to provide to encourage students to develop their own structure around this, especially in the form of an assignment kind of really a study schedule and build a study schedule for themselves. But then there was also the idea, well, they should also be independent and we should let them do their own thing. But as James was saying, for first year students were alive, especially them from your other students, this approach is just to becomes overwhelming. It's just too overwhelming. So helping them to give them an idea of how they might break down the learning material in chunks that are actually manageable week by week. So that's where the weekly schedule really comes in. But as James was saying, we also are aware that we need to provide flexibility around this because our students have all different lives and work families etc. So we also need to make sure that we provide that flexibility where everybody feels that they can actually work freely without schedule. Without that schedule becoming overwhelming for them. So it's going to be a fine line there in terms of, you know, providing structure for the structure that is manageable at the same time. Thank you very much. We could go another half hour talking about some other bits and bobs there. Well, we don't have any other comments or questions at the moment. So can I sneak in a question just about the staff experience of this because, you know, sometimes when staff are. This is my experience is that showing staff the sort of assistive assistive technologies that are available is not only transformative sometimes to this. What the staff are producing but also the staff's own experience of using IT and things like that. And I just wondered if anything, if you got comments from the staff on how this has changed their way of working or teaching. It was Sophia, do you want to do answer that first because I don't do frontline teaching and Sophia does. Well, I mean, so far, not much has changed in terms of IT especially. I mean, you know, the implementations that we that have the concern that, you know, our, our teachers so far been, you know, relatively limited to, you know, turning on automated captions and zoom, you know, things like that. So, and the response has been quite positive. I mean, our, our, you know, each and stuff is quite responsive to, to, to this, to this request, but also they're very used to providing students with support as much as possible. So they're very open to all of this. And, you know, it doesn't mean a struggle as such, you know, now some of these implementations like bringing in, for example, the weekly or wrap up or, you know, summarizing points on the forums, these implementations are still, you know, we're still working on them. I mean, you need to see how that might work out, but I'm expecting that that will not be be an issue will not be a problem. You know, so, yeah, I think, I think there's, for me, I'm seeing less things around technology. We were already sort of like advanced users of zoom background settings, you know, like really getting in there is like what if what causes problems if you turn this on how do you need to have everything set up to have the recording come out the way you want it with the transcript and everything. And for me it's been more about from for myself and I've seen it with others in terms of challenging some aspects of our mindset even first like I've been sold on UDL for years but still, you know, you're going through the UDL course and it's kind of like, okay, why were we resisting giving exemplar essays, you know, or giving exemplar example, you know, we had some pedagogical argument for X, Y or Z, but when you go full till and look at what UDL is recommending, UDL is recommending doing that. And it's kind of like, okay, let's take a step back and try and examine what pedagogical assumption that is coming for the resistance to that was coming from, you know, and again, like even some of the stuff we're talking about. We resisted giving a week by week example now again it's because of the flexibility is because of you could study in different ways but, you know, at a point you have to go we're going to have to drop that idea and maybe just go with what the UDL advice is saying, you know, and take that as the way to go. So I think for a couple of people, like people struggle with, if we're saying we're going to give additional direction, like how much direction is too much direction, you know, how much direction is not allowing the student to do X, Y and Z, you know, like trying to find that trying to feel comfortable in there. And, you know, this is a world where there's no black and white, you know, it's not black and white, it's just a world of gray, but it's learning to be comfortable in there, and just keep doing keep doing our best, you know. And I think that's a great place to end the session. I just wanted to thank our presenters today, Sophia, Deans and Chloe. Chloe was having some issues. Yeah, so we lost her at the end, but please thank Chloe as well and I want to thank everyone for your questions and you can continue the chat on Discord server. But for now, that is us for this session. So sorry, thank you so much, Sophia and Deans. Thanks, everyone.