Open to Inclusion

I have been working with Prof. Shirley Williams, professor emerita University of Reading and Prof. Andrew Adams, Meiji University Japan on a book chapter for the past couple of months. The chapter is titled Open to Inclusion: Exploring openness for people with disabilities and it is for the book Ecologies of open: Inclusion, intersections, and interstices in education edited by Dr. Dianne Conrad and Prof. Paul Prinsloo.

Working with Shirley and Andrew is always a pleasure but this was more so as we had unfinished business of a paper on Open Educational Resource for Higher Education. So when I saw the call for proposals I wanted to make sure we utilize the work we have done already and build upon that using my recent experience of accessiblity work at UCEM.

Inclusive Society

The chapter, explores the ideas of open and how they have been fluid over time: for example globalisation opening barriers for capital flow; Open Universities opening up educational opportunities. We show that though things have been progressing it is yet to be inclusive.

The chapter introduces fictitious learner personas of students with disabilities: Khalid, Sophie, Arun and Chamari and invites the readers to explore with them the obstacles they face in accessing open resources, the educational materials that are made available with permission for re-use and re-purposing.

Using our international experience of working and living in various countries, we investigate whether the difficulties these learners encounter may differ had they happened to live elsewhere in the world. In this, we look at five different jurisdictions including in both developed and developing countries: Ghana, Japan, Sri Lanka, the United Kingdom and USA. These countries have been selected to illustrate the diversity of legal protection for disabled individuals in different regions of the world ranging from strong protection to nominal protection.

The chapter presents the case for inclusion and accessibility, including legal considerations in selected jurisdictions. While highlighting the importance of raising awareness in enabling inclusion, the chapter explores the potential of open content to create “inclusive openness.”

The manuscript is under review and a copy can be made available if you are interested in this work.