Universal Design Principles Website Launched to Minimize Barriers and Maximize Learning

In the summer of 2016, the University of Guelph was successful in receiving funding from the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities through eCampusOntario, as part of their Faculty Supports Project. The proposal, submitted from Open Learning and Educational Support (OpenEd), focused on the assessment of a variety of Universal Design (UD) lenses in order to develop a set of best practices for creating online learning opportunities that meet the needs of as many learners as possible.

The goal of the OpenEd project was to develop a publicly accessible website that distills Universal Design (UD) principles into easily understood and readily applied strategies that faculty and instructional design teams can reference.

“The project team wanted to explore the common best practices across the UD models and synthesize those into key principles that are manageable for practitioners to digest,” says Natalie Green, associate director, Distance Education.

Looking at three key models—Universal Instructional Design (UID), Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Universal Design for Instruction (UDI)—with an eye for any overlapping and complementary principles, the team found that all three models are valuable frameworks for applying Universal Design to educational environments.

“Understanding the commonalities and differences between the models makes the overall concept of Universal Design more accessible to practitioners and its application less restrictive,” notes Richard Gorrie, associate director, Educational Technologies.

The final stage of the project was to create a list of key best practices that are common across the models and organize them according to the various stages of an online course: design, development, delivery, and evaluation. The Universal Design – Best Practices for Online Learning website was designed around these stages and includes academic literature and a variety of support materials.

“By making these resources available to instructors and design teams, we’re hoping to minimize barriers and maximize learning for all students,” concludes Green.