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OER Publishing Style Guide

Accessibility and equity in OER

Accessibility is central to the development of OER at Deakin. The majority of resources created will be in a digital format and an intentional approach to design can ensure the production of accessible and reusable resources that support equity, diversity and inclusion. Format choices and the software used in resource creation influences an OER's ability to be reused and adapted. Language and image choice can support the social justice side of open education, ensuring that resources are inclusive of our diverse learners. Thinking about accessibility, inclusivity, diversity and equity at the planning and design stages of your OER development results in a quality resource reflecting Deakin's values. This page gives an overview of considerations for equity, representation and accessibility in OER. The following pages of this guide look at different formats in depth with accessibility tips for each format.

Supporting EDI with OER

EDI is an acronym that includes the three interrelated concepts of equity, diversity, and inclusion. When examining these concepts together, we can say that equity is described as fairness, sameness, and appreciating diversity and inclusion. Diversity is often perceived to be about points of view, representation, and supporting inclusion. Inclusion is about creating environments open to feedback, supporting diversity, and being transparent and flexible. Each of these can be reflected in your developed OER by thinking about these during the design process.

Equity

While equality refers to equal treatment for everyone, equity refers to treatment that creates an equal playing field for everyone. Equity is a process that ensures everyone has access to the same opportunities, appreciating that privileges and barriers exist and that, as a result, we all don’t start from the same place. Equity in OER can be reflected in having multiple formats.

Diversity

Diversity reflects the presence of difference within a community, such as individual physical traits, age, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, religion, background, and abilities. Diversity in OER can include selecting images and examples that reflect various ethnicities, what a family looks like, etc. or it could be including diverse voices in authoring the content of the resource.

Inclusivity

Inclusion means welcoming everyone, acknowledging and valuing differences by design to avoid creating barriers. In designing OER, inclusion can be using gender inclusive language or using names that culturally reflect the users of the resource.

Text adapted from What is EDI? by Darla Benton Kearney CC BY 4.0

Developing accessible OER

A key component of equity in OER is ensuring that the resource you develop is as accessible as it can be. As most OER are digital, digital accessibility is an important component of resource development and so the best approach is to design with accessibility in mind. The Accessibility Champions Project at Deakin University developed an Everyday Accessibility Basics (EAB) reference tool for best practices in creating accessible online learning content that can also be used in OER. Have a look below for some basic tips to increase accessibility:

The accordion content was adapted from OER Accessibility Toolkit, Open UBC, 2021 CC- BY- SA

Accessibility statements

When developing larger more extensive resources such as textbooks, it can be good to include an accessibility statement with the resource. This can be in the form of a statement in the front matter of the book or an accessibility statement in the description of a resource where it is hosted or discoverable.

Examples of accessibility statements can be found in these resources:

Evaluating OER

There are rubrics and frameworks available to help with evaluating OER for accessibility, equity, inclusivity and diversity that can be useful to use when developing your OER. These include:

  • Last Updated: May 12, 2025 1:24 PM
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