The UDL Reporting Criteria were developed between Sept 2017 and April 2018 by a workgroup of the UDL-IRN Research Committee. These criteria are intended to provide guidelines for researchers and practitioners who design and report on UDL implementation.
Development of Reporting Criteria
During the pre-conference session of the UDL-IRN Annual Summit 2017 in Orlando Florida, a UDL-IRN Research Committee workgroup convened to discuss operationalization and application of UDL. The workgroup identified the need for criteria to establish a UDL claim. To say that a practice or intervention is UDL-based, it is useful to report some basic information on how UDL is applied and what components of UDL are being used.
The workgroup met online in 2017-2018 to discuss the development of the reporting criteria and to establish what these criteria should include. The workgroup considered the following reporting standards developed for various related purposes in the fields of health and education. Booth (2006) describes the Standards for Reporting Literature Searches (STARLITE) for health technology assessments and for the conduct of systematic reviews in this field. The Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) standards, developed in 2009, are a minimum set of standards for reporting of systematic reviews and meta-analyses in all fields. In the field of education, several sets of quality indicators guide the development and reporting for research (e.g., Council for Exceptional Children (CEC), 2014; What Works Clearinghouse (WWC), 2014; Gersten et al., 2005, Horner et al., 2005).
These UDL Reporting Criteria:
- define the essential elements of UDL application (for example, how UDL was taken into consideration during the planning or design phase, which guidelines/checkpoints are being applied).
- provide a guideline for describing essential elements of a UDL-based application and are not intended to be prescriptive or to standardize how UDL is used
- support clear reporting of key components in relation to UDL
Translated Versions
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The UDL Reporting Criteria were developed a UDL-IRN Research Committee Workgroup:
- Kavita Rao, University of Hawaii, Professor**
- Sean J. Smith, University of Kansas, Professor**
- Dave Edyburn, University of Central Florida, Associate Dean of Research
- Christine Grima-Farrell, University of New South Wales, Lecturer, Leader of Special Education Services
- George Van Horn, Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation, Director of Special Services
- Shira Yalon-Chamowitz, Ono Academic College, Dean of Students
**Workgroup co-chairs
Validation for the Reporting Criteria
Rao, K., Ok, M. W., Smith, S. J., Evmenova, A. S., & Edyburn, D. (2020). Validation of the UDL reporting criteria with extant UDL research. Remedial and Special Education, 41(4), 219-230.
More on the Creation of the Reporting Criteria
Smith, S. J., Rao, K., Lowrey, K. A., Gardner, J. E., Moore, E., Coy, K., … & Wojcik, B. (2019). Recommendations for a national research agenda in UDL: Outcomes from the UDL-IRN preconference on research. Journal of Disability Policy Studies, 30(3), 174-185.