Last week, we presented a synopsis of our findings to the DPSI community. We went over some of the legal considerations for MOOC (Massive Online Open Course) providers as well as our meeting with the Harvard Disability Services Office.

Our presentation went pretty well and we were able to get some good feedback from the audience. Our two main questions for the audience were:

• Given Harvard’s decentralized governance structure, what are some incentives (besides money!) that would encourage professors who develop MOOCs to consider and apply best practices for accessibility upfront?
• We originally started thinking about MOOCs broadly, but have since focused our efforts on accessibility of Harvard’s MOOCs. Would a better final product be Harvard-focused (e.g., helping Harvard encourage its own MOOCs to apply accessibility standards upfront) or should we broaden to a work product that may be more broadly applied by other universities?

If anyone has thoughts on these two questions, please feel free to drop us a comment!

A big piece of the puzzle that we are missing is getting a soup to nuts overview of how a MOOC is developed.

We are hoping to set up a meeting with a MOOC provider soon!