March 2-6, 2026 is the 15th annual Open Education Week! Open Education is a movement to make learning free, accessible, and flexible for everyone. The goal is to remove barriers to high quality learning and resources through sharing, adapting, and building upon the work that others have done. Open Education Week serves as a global town square to learn more about open education by connecting with others at one of the many events happening this week.

One of the main benefits of approaching education through an open lens is the ability to make learning more accessible. Let’s take a closer look at some of those different aspects of accessibility.

Price

Almost half of students receive some sort of financial aid which often does not cover course materials or fees, and while students do often look for used copies, older editions, or other cost cutting options, a 2023 study showed that over half of students have taken fewer courses or not registered for a specific course because of the cost of course materials (Mowreader, 2024). Providing free materials allows students to take courses without an additional financial hoop to try and jump through.

Perpetuity

As a part being open and freely available online, students will have access to the materials immediately and will be able to refer back to them long after the class has ended when they would otherwise have sold back a traditional textbook. See our Open Educational Resources guide to get started looking for open textbooks and other course materials.

Flexibility

The licenses on open materials allow you to remix and reuse the materials to adapt to the specifics of your course. You can piece together different materials and add the most relevant examples for your students. You can learn more about the specifics of Creative Commons Licenses here.

Digital Accessibility

An additional benefit of digital open materials is that it is easy to build in accessibility for students with disabilities from the start. Some simple items to keep in mind while making or finding materials to ensure they are as accessible as possible for everyone include:

• Videos should include closed captions or transcripts
• Images should include alt text or captions describing the image
• Using headings in Word and other similar programs to allow students to navigate through the documents easily
• Use high color contrast for text and images
• Links should be hyperlinks rather than the long string of the URL from the address bar

Learn more about digital accessibility from this series of videos from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights and the Web Accessibility Initiative.

References
ADA National Network. (2022). OCR web accessibility video series. https://adata.org/ocr-videos

Creative Commons. (n.d.). About CC Licenses. https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/cclicenses/

Henry, S.L. (2026, February 3). Introduction to web accessibility. W3C Web Accessibility Initiative. https://www.w3.org/WAI/fundamentals/accessibility-intro/

Mowreader, A. (2024, August 26). Cost of course materials impacts student success. Inside Higher Ed. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/student-success/health-wellness/2024/08/26/college-students-avoid-courses-high-textbook-costs

Open Education Global. (n.d.). Open Education Week 2026. https://oeweek.oeglobal.org/