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iLRN ILLUMINATORS FORUM #8

The weekly scanning forum supporting the iLRN Immersive Futures — State of XR & Immersive Learning 2026 report

Episode Title

Accessibility as Infrastructure: Governing Interoperability and Designing for All


(If access fails at the platform layer, who is actually excluded?)

YouTube Recording link: [To be added]

Purpose

To convene educational leaders and immersive learning professionals around a structural shift in the field:

Accessibility is no longer a downstream accommodation. It is becoming a design baseline — a systems requirement shaping interoperability, governance, and institutional strategy.

Evidence of these structural frictions is visible across multiple layers of immersive delivery pipelines — from hardware and platform architecture to content design, identity systems, analytics, and institutional procurement frameworks.

This episode situates accessibility within platform architecture, co-design philosophy, and emergent cultural practice — advancing disciplined sense-making in support of the 2026 State of XR & Immersive Learning report.

Date

[Insert Date]

Time

11:00–12:00 PM Pacific / 2:00–3:00 PM Eastern / 7:00–8:00 PM UK

Media

Live webinar + recording + Codex forum discussion

Host

Jonathon Richter, Ed.D.

Narrative Frame

Across education, access barriers are rarely singular. They are structural:

  • Platform incompatibility

    • and
  • data

    Costportability barriersgaps

  • Hardware inequities

    and

  • Bandwidthbandwidth limitations

  • SensoryContent design and cognitive loadinteraction mismatches

  • Identity and profile fragmentation

  • Institutional procurement and policy constraints

  • Cultural misalignment

When immersiveImmersive systems failthat todo not account for these variables,variables risk exclusion isby not incidentaldesign — ita ispattern engineered.documented in accessibility research across XR modalities and instructional contexts. XR accessibility scholars note that barriers can arise in content development, assistive technology support, hardware deployment, and instructional integration cycles unless deliberate design frameworks are applied.(RTL Berkeley)

The iLRN Circle of Scholars’ 2025–2026 iLRN signal cardslandscape identifyidentifies a clear inflection point:shift:

Accessibility is moving from accommodation to canon.

Not as rhetoric. As infrastructure.

Special Guest

Noah Glaser

University of Missouri

Dr. Glaser’sGlaser brings design research experience in immersive learning systems, video games, AI, and VR grounded in interdisciplinary inquiry and practice. His work centersspans oneducational accessibleinterventions gamethat support cognitive, engagement, and identity-based variability across learner populations.(College of Ed & Human Dev)

In this session, he will help frame accessibility not as an add-on, but as baseline design developedlogic, throughparticularly where co-design models engage creators with queer and disabled creators. His approach positionsdiverse lived experience as design contributors — not merely subjects of study. This approach aligns with emerging inclusive design frameworks that treat accessibility as casea study,systems butoutcome asrather designthan intelligence.a compliance hurdle.

Importantly,Questions thiswe conversationwill isexplore not framed around deficit or remediation. It is about:

  • Designing immersive systems that assume variability

  • Shifting authorship toward those historically constrained by design norms

  • Building environments that reduce structural friction for all learners

For institutional leaders, the implications are strategic:include:

  • What does it mean to treatembed accessibility asin qualitythe assurance?architecture of learning ecosystems?

  • How does co-design alterdisrupt procurement andtraditional production models?pipelines?

  • HowWhat doevidence wesuggests measurethat “access”generalized beyondaccess compliancebarriers metrics?appear at multiple levels of XR delivery?

This sessionconversation introducesinvites theresearch-informed contours of this workdialogue without pre-emptingscripting conclusions — inviting dialogue grounded in research, governance, and practice.conclusions.

Signal Volley #1

Interoperability & Platform Governance

AccessibilityAccessible learning collapses ifwhen platforms cannotdon’t interoperate.

WhenFragmented immersiveidentity toolssystems, operatecredential insilos, silos:

and
    inconsistent

  • Credentials do not transfer

  • Identity systems fragment

  • Assistiveassistive configurations resetdegrade learner continuity.

  • Data portability disappears

Governance questions follow:

  • Who is responsible forensures continuity of learner access across platforms?systems?

  • How do standards bodies and institutions align?align around interoperability?

  • What procurement policies reinforce or undermine inclusive ecosystems?

Accessibility at scale requires interoperable architecture.architecture supported by shared standards — not isolated feature add-ins.

Signal Volley #2 (2025 Trend)

Innovation in Unregulated Spaces

XR tools are now deployedappear in environmentscontexts where regulatory frameworks didnever notanticipated previously existthem — informal learning networks, decentralized creator platforms, hybrid AI/AI-XR spaces.hybrids.

When regulationinnovation lagsoutpaces innovation:

governance,

  • Accessaccess norms become platform-dependent

  • Safety and privacyvariable. standards vary

  • Educational institutionsInstitutions must decide how to engage without— formaland oversight

    what
    • norms
to

Theadvocate absencefor of— governancein doesenvironments notwhere meanstandards neutrality;are itemergent redistributesor risk.absent.

Signal Volley #3 (Early 2026 Horizon)

Emergent Cultures & Plural Ontologies

Immersive environments arecultivate cultivating newdistinct participation norms and micro-cultures.cultures that shape engagement patterns, interaction heuristics, and shared meaning-making.

Accessibility intersects here as well:too:

  • Who feels welcome?

  • WhichWhose interaction norms become default?

  • How does design encode cultural assumptions?

  • What assumptionsnew about embodimentontologies are encodedforming in design?XR spaces that influence learning pathways?

Emergent cultures can expand educational pluralism — or unintentionally narrow it.

Educational leadershipleaders requiresrequire cultural literacy alongside technical literacy.foresight.

Why This Episode Matters

For immersive learning professionals, the question is not whether accessibility is important.

The question is whether it is:is treated as:

  • TreatedRetrofit asor retrofitbaseline

  • EmbeddedArchitectural inlogic architectureor feature

  • ReflectedGovernance inresponsibility governanceor optional practice

  • Or measured as institutionalInstitutional performance metric or compliance checkbox

Accessibility as infrastructure aligns with interoperability, procurement policy, platform governance, and quality assurance.

It is not a special-interest issue.
It is a systems design issue.

🗓 [Insert Date]
⏰ 11:00am Pacific · 2:00pm Eastern · 7:00pm UK

🎙 Illuminators’ Forum – Episode #8
🎓 Special Guest: Noah Glaser

This forum convenes researchers, designers, institutional leaders, and practitioners committed to disciplined collective scanning and responsible field-building.

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