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Speaker 1: OTAN, Outreach and Technical Assistance Network.

Margaret Teske: Hi. This is a short video about submitting instructional materials to the new EL Civics Exchange. We're excited to have this library materials made available to agencies who need instructional materials to incorporate into their ESL classes. I'm Margaret Teske, a CASAS program specialist. To start, I'd like to point out a few necessary items. First of all, submitted instructional materials need to be original. We can't upload copyrighted materials on this website.

Second, the materials are to be licensed by Creative Commons. Creative Commons is a global licensing attribution for materials. And the materials are marked so that people know how they could use them. The Creative Commons licensing for this needs to be added as a footer to all materials. The correct licensing is CC BY-NC-BY-SA, or CC BY-NC-SA. And what does that mean? "CC," Creative Commons. "BY" is the attribution for the credit to the agency. "NC" is for non-commercial. And "SA" is for sharing alike, so using the same CC license for any remix.

Third, the materials need to be checked and corrected for any accessibility issues prior to submission. All of the materials will be accessible according to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act. That's a crucial part. I know that many of you are already making your materials accessible. But if not, you want to do that before submitting. This website allows access to many people in California, and also everyone across the country. And OTAN is offering training on both the licensing and accessibility.

Now, you're ready for submission. So let's go to the website. To begin, you need to obtain a login. That's up at the top. You'll click on Log In. And you create an account. You'll be asked to complete a short form, and then your login will be sent to you via email. Note that your agency must be a WIOA Title II-funded agency in California.

And when you're ready to submit, then you're going to go down below to the Begin the Instructional Materials Submission Process. That's the blue button. It's right above all of the instructional and material categories. Let's go to that. Assume that you've logged in. And it says Log Off. Mine is slightly different than yours. Well, you will see the same information in the text. You want to be sure to read the terms of licensing and submission requirements.

Make sure that you submit leveled packets, if you can. And you want to see an example if possible. There's a couple of examples there. And then the EL Civic Exchange materials rubric. Go ahead and read over that. Document formats should be Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, or PDF. And then you want to check the accessibility of each of those. And we say those types of documents because they have accessibility checkers in them. Photos can be JPEG or PNG.

Let's look at what is required in the submission. Hopefully, it pops up. And it's coming. I'm using Rolling Hills Adult School as an example. You'll need to put in your name-- hopefully, the whole name-- and what year the materials are from. We want them pretty fresh, if we can. A couple of years old, even three years old, is fine. You're going to have to check off the boxes, making sure that you agree and that your agency agrees.

Then you're going to choose a COAAP number, whatever it is. Automatically, competency area is checked, and the civic objective is included. Then you'll need to write the task titles. We're just going to copy those, just as an example. We're going to include two task types. Don't you love computers? OK. Then you're going to pick out levels. Maybe its beginning high, intermediate high, like that. And the type of assessment. This would be probably oral and written.

And then what kind of materials is it? Student-only, teacher-only, or teacher guide with a student packet? We're going to click student-only. Be sure, if it's student-only, that there are instructions to follow. You cannot upload any assessment materials. Practice assessment is fine, but not the actual assessment. In your teacher guide, don't include the assessment. Remember that. And then check the format. Is it for printing? Is it all visuals? Whichever.

Then any comments you want to make to the reviewer. You save and continue. After you submit your materials, there is a two-stage review process. And the first stage-- I'm going to stop sharing. It's not necessary to share any longer. There is a two-stage process. The first stage is that CASAS is going to look at the content. And we want to make sure that your content includes all four skills in the practice and that it follows the rubric.

There's not too much content on a page, font sizes appropriate for student use so that they can write on the pages, that kind of thing. We are assuming that you're probably going to print it out if you're another agency. If you do it online, then that's another consideration. If everything looks good in terms of content, then CASAS sends it off to OTAN.

And OTAN then reviews it for accessibility. And that's the second stage. That's the OTAN review. And again, there is training on accessibility, as well as resources for that. Remember that your instructional materials have been developed under a federal grant, WIOA Title II. So we really hope that you'll be able to share your materials without hesitation.

Another last note is to click the Resources link. Again, I can show you where that is. The Resources link is at the top of the page. And in the resources, we have several resources on accessibility, licensing, materials example. And we have EL Civic Exchange materials, the instructional materials rubric that we follow. If you need more information about civic objectives and pre-approved item, the list from CASAS, those are here as well. All of the links are there.

To go back to the main page, just click Exchange, and you're back on the front page again. All of this may seem a little overwhelming, but don't worry. Don't be too hard on yourself. It takes a while to understand it all. CASAS and OTAN certainly look forward to receiving more submissions and working with you to make sure they're ready for online publication. Contact your CASAS program specialist or OTAN support with specific questions. Thanks for listening.