Reaching Students Where They Are: Ensuring Universal Accessibility in Online Instruction

Since 2010, the librarians at the Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law have been teaching a required, for-credit legal research class fully online. Over the intervening three years, we have noticed a shift in technology from the basic PC/Mac divide to a more diverse array of devices that include many mobile operating systems and manufacturers. This has made the development and delivery of online instruction more challenging. In particular, the inability to use Flash® for video delivery in the iOS® environment has prompted us to explore new options for content creation and delivery. How do we ensure that our online instructional content is accessible to every student regardless of device or operating system? What Learning Management Systems (LMS), authoring tools, or innovative presentation technologies should faculty and technologists be using in order to reach students?  Possible answers include HTML5® and specific applications such as those provided by Canvas®, Blackboard®, Adobe®, and Articulate®.
In this session, we will discuss technological innovation and creating online course materials for universal access from both a librarian’s and technologist’s point of view. Our discussion will be specific to the context of legal research education in the online environment, though the lessons we have learned can be extrapolated to other environments. We will look particularly at the use of the Canvas® LMS platform as well as Articulate Storyline® in our efforts to bridge the gap between IOS®, Android®, and other mobile operating systems while making learning engaging and responsive to the needs of law students.
Susan deMaine, Research & Instruction Librarian, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law
Edward Finn III, Instructional Technology Specialist, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law

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