A Universal Design Approach to Links

This post was contributed by Amy Hofer and Veronica Vold. It excerpts content from the Open Curriculum Development Model, licensed under CC BY 4.0.

This post shows how authors can practice universal design moves with their external links that will make their work more accessible to all students.

To see how these concepts are applied to a three-year curriculum development project, visit Applying Universal Design for Learning to Your Chapter Draft [Website]. Additional posts on a universal design approach to accessibility:

• A Universal Design Approach to Figure Captions [Website]
• A Universal Design Approach to Accessible Figures [Website]

Considerations for Links

Authors often find they want to link out to lots of online content in a chapter. However, in an open textbook it is best practice to pull in content rather than linking out.

• Pull in content: your chapter offers students everything they need in order to meet the learning objectives without needing to visit a different website. No need to check links before teaching to see whether content has changed or disappeared.
• Link out to content: if you ask students to turn their attention elsewhere with an external link, be explicit about what you want them to do or understand about the new point of focus. This is called framing content. Part of framing content is telling students when it is essential to visit external content, versus when it might be interesting, but optional.

Being explicit about essential content is an equity consideration. Students often have limited study time due to job commitments and care responsibilities. They need to know how to prioritize the time available to them. Pulling in content instead of linking out, and clearly framing content when you point to external content, helps students focus on the information that is most important and relevant.

Pulling In

If you are pulling in, look for an open license on the linked content to determine whether you have permission to copy and paste it into your chapter. When you copy and paste openly licensed content, add an attribution statement right away so that you don’t lose track of where it came from. Visit our Attribution Style Guide [Website] if you need help writing attribution statements.

If content is under all-rights-reserved copyright, then follow standard academic practices to summarize, paraphrase, or quote, then add a reference list entry right away.

Linking Out

If you are linking out, determine whether it is required or optional for students to follow the link. You can signal required content with direct instructions to students, like “Watch this [title of media] and pay attention to the [use of a chapter concept].” You can frame optional content with phrases like, “If your time allows, visit [name of website] for more information on [related subject].”

Make sure students are sent away with a clear idea about the purpose of their visit to the linked content. Model the kind of engagement you want to see from students in explaining how information from external sources fits into the chapter’s argument.

How to Write Descriptive Link Anchors

Links must be anchored by text that describes the topic or purpose of the link. This is important because people using screen reader software might have their screen reader set to read out the text for each link on a page as a list. The link anchor must describe the content of the link when taken out of context from the surrounding paragraph. While link anchors such as “click here” or “read more” will make sense to sighted users, they mean nothing when read on their own.

Here are three examples to illustrate this point:

1. Click here for information on Open Oregon Educational Resources.
2. You can find more information on Open Oregon Educational Resources at openoregon.org.
3. Visit Open Oregon Educational Resources [Website] to learn more about what is happening across the state.

While the first two examples make sense in the context of the sentence, neither link anchor describes the purpose of its link. While the second example is better than the first, having the web address as the link anchor still does not make the purpose of the link clear. The third example is the most accessible.

It is best practice to include the format of the link destination in the link anchor. This ensures that users know where they are going. It also helps users to decide if they want to select a link at a given time. A streaming video, for example, may require too much bandwidth for their present internet speed and they might save it for later. Users also may choose not to download a linked file given the device they are currently using. Adding this information helps users make the most of their learning experience.

Here are the formats for link destinations that we recommend using:

• Streaming Video
• Online PDF, JPG, PNG, etc
• Download PDF, JPG, PNG, ZIP, etc
• Website
• Podcast
• Google Folder, Google Doc, Google Sheet, etc.

Aside from Google, we recommend avoiding the names of companies (Pressbook, Canvas, YouTube, etc.) Here are a few examples of what descriptive link destinations look like:

• Designing with Open and Equity-Minded Images by Heather Blicher [Google Slides]
• Tiny Survival Guide [Online PDF]
• OER Basics from Open Oregon Educational Resources [Streaming Video]

Our team does not include the format of the link destination in reference list entries or attribution statements.

Example: Optional Resource List

In each chapter of Changing Society, author Aimee Krouskop designed “Going Deeper” sections to include linked resources that are interesting but not essential to understanding each chapter. Each resource is shared as a descriptive link. This means that instead of the URL alone, Aimee uses the name of the link’s destination as the link anchor. To help students make the most of these resources, Aimee annotates each link with details about its relationship to chapter content. We’ve reproduced how she did this in the blockquote below; to see what a “Going Deeper” section looks like in Aimee’s book visit Section 1.3 The Art of Sociology [Website].

Going Deeper

• For more connections between French colonialism and current life in France, watch this 13:59-minute video: “France’s Colonial Past and Race Relations Today” [Streaming Video].
• To learn more about the staged images of women in Algeria, see Zara Choudhary’s article “Unveiling the Algérienne: French Colonial Photography” [Website].
• To read more on how the visual arts imagined Black Europeans during the 19th century, see “The Black Figure in the European Imaginary” [Website].
• To hear more about Kehinde Wiley and his work, watch “Kehinde Wiley: A New Republic” [Streaming Video].
• For more on Rawdah Mohamed’s story, see her Instagram page [Website].
• To learn about the resistance efforts of Algerians during the Algerian War (1954 – 1962) which led to Algeria’s independence, watch “The Battle of Algiers” [Streaming Video].

The text before the “Going Deeper” section addresses how France’s colonial history connects to present-day laws banning religious head coverings. Aimee follows this discussion with a box containing descriptive links and explains how each resource relates to elements of the chapter. By dedicating a chapter section to non-essential but related content, providing descriptive links, and adding a detailed explanation, Aimee helps students manage their time. In this example, optional resources support but don’t overshadow required content. This is an example of the Universal Design for Learning principle of offering multiple means of engagement.

Conclusion: Consider Online and Offline Access

Keep in mind that while open textbooks are published online, many students will choose to print their chapters or use an eReader. Students may have unreliable or limited connectivity or student devices and browsers may be out of date. Link destinations themselves may have long or delayed loading times due to heavy user traffic or lots of ads and plug-ins.

This is why it’s a best practice for textbooks to include transcripts for linked videos, print-friendly versions of H5P questions and answers, and other offline access to interactive chapter elements. You can build multiple means of representation into a chapter and rest assured that students can access an equitable learning experience online or offline.

Funding

Our grants drew from Governor’s Emergency Education Relief funding and the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) in the U.S. Department of Education (eighty percent of the total cost of the program is funded by FIPSE, with the remaining twenty percent representing in-kind personnel costs funded by Open Oregon Educational Resources).

The contents of this post were developed under a grant from the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education, (FIPSE), U.S. Department of Education. However, those contents do not necessarily represent the policy of the Department of Education, and you should not assume endorsement by the Federal Government.

Licenses and Attributions

“Going Deeper” excerpt is from Changing Society by Aimee Samara Krouskop, licensed under CC BY SA 4.0.