Paying Attention to Accessibility When Designing Online Courses in Technical and Professional Communication

Abstract

Roughly 1 out of 10 students in our classrooms has some form of disability, and now that a growing number of technical and professional communication (TPC) courses and programs are offered online, scholars need to adequately address accessibility in online course design. Calling on the field to “pay attention” to this issue, the authors report the results of a national survey of online writing instructors and use Selfe’s landmark essay as a way to theoretically frame the results. They conclude by offering strategies for TPC instructors to design more accessible online courses.

Reimagining Work: Normative Commonplaces and Their Effects on Accessibility in Workplaces

“…This study answers calls in business communication for more theoretical knowledge of interpersonal communication (DeKay, 2012;Hynes, 2012;Robles, 2012) by demonstrating how ableist assumptions about work are often implicitly reinforced in interpersonal communication. While critical technical and professional communication scholars have utilized disability studies to rhetorically examine and teach ableist constructions of technical and professional texts and pedagogies (Larkin, 2013;Meloncon, 2013;Oswal & Hewett, 2013;Oswal & Meloncon, 2014;Palmeri, 2006;Pass, 2013;Walters, 2010;Wilson, 2000), findings from this study suggest that technical and professional communication students and practitioners need to learn how to critically examine and reimagine widely accepted, defining features of work and working bodies in order to promote accessibility in workplaces.…”

Using Multimedia for Instructor Presence in Purposeful Pedagogy-Driven Online Technical Writing Courses

“…Instructional video promotes an “ideology of inclusion” which emphasizes the process of participation as the center of course design rather than series of tasks and checklists (Oswal & Melonçon, 2017, p. 73; see also Oswal & Melonçon, 2014). While viewing and hearing yourself on screen might seem painful, students appreciate the direct instruction to help them navigate the course and effectively complete assignments.…”

Disrupting the Past to Disrupt the Future: An Antenarrative of Technical Communication

“…But, as Walters (2010) noted, TPC's investments in questions of disability "have tended to focus on specific disabilities or specific contexts" (p. 429). Yet scholars have argued that TPC requires more robust and expansive frameworks for understanding disability (Oswal & Meloncon, 2014;Palmeri, 2006;Spinuzzi, 2007;Walters, 2010;Youngblood, 2013). For example, scholars pointed out our field's complicity in exclusion by revealing implicit messages of deviance and abnormality in medical models of disability, messages that are often uncritically accepted and reproduced in TPC (Gutsell & Hulgin, 2013;Palmeri, 2006).…”

“…Recent scholarship picks up Palmeri's initiative to address issues of disability and accessibility, promoting concrete practices to teach undergraduates (Pass, 2013;Youngblood, 2013) and instructors (Oswal & Hewett, 2013) about the important legal and ethical ramifications of ableist approaches to design. Reporting a national survey about online writing instruction, Oswal and Meloncon (2014) encouraged scholars and teachers in TPC to "think about how power and privilege could impede accessibility and accommodation" (p. 273). As noted by Gutsell and Hulgin (2013), language plays a key role in constructing power and privilege, highlighting the importance of "understanding language and the representation of disabilities, and its connection to cultural meaning and the associated challenge to support inclusion through technical communication" (p. 84).…”