| By Lindsey Gervais, Digital Learning Manager |
Gale, here for everyone. It’s not just a slogan, it’s the way we’re inspired to ideate, create, develop, and share our products. As the world becomes increasingly digital in the way we teach and learn, it has become essential that we provide research, teaching, and learning resources that are accessible and create equitable opportunities for a wide array of individuals. From the K–12 teacher instilling information literacy skills through database research projects to the graduate student building their thesis to the business owner seeking resources on how to better develop their business plan—we are here for everyone.
But the question is, How? The binding ingredient across our product objectives is to ensure that no matter where or who you are, you have the ability to learn with our products. Why? Because at Gale, we value personal growth and your ability to have access to resources that inspire critical thinking and career readiness for the decisions you must make and the future you seek to pursue. Our products are built with best practices for learning experience and instructional design in mind, ensuring that our users have the ability to make sense of the content, search process, and its application as they use our products—to learn by doing.
Learning experiences that bring research for everyone.
Accessible for everyone. The standards of universal design and accessibility are always at the forefront, so all learners can use our products. Through this ongoing commitment, Gale continually ensures our products and resources are universally accessible and user friendly. We strive to make sure all products are in full alignment with the requirements of the Rehabilitation Act Section 508 Standards and Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) Level A and AA success criteria.
Resources for everyone. We prioritize casting a wide net toward offering a depth and breadth of content that provides users with multiple perspectives on the topics they care about. While also supplying tools that allow learners to make sense of what they’re doing and seeing within that content. Our focus on reducing bias for equity in content also speaks to our priority of ensuring resources are meaningful for all learners.
Our learning tools increase outcomes in digital literacy by allowing learners to access our content through discovery services, develop connections across content (check out our topic finder tool), annotate and cite sources, and integrate straight into research projects through a workflow that’s explicit to the learning of how research should be performed.
Teaching for everyone. Our team is built with experts like you—former teachers and learning designers who recognize the core components necessary to facilitate effective learning. Our commitment to a seamless integration for teaching is represented through our collaboration and learning management system integration tools, to help ensure our resources are within the learning environments that are most relevant to their classes. Along with this, products like Gale In Context: For Educators, Gale Digital Scholar Lab, Gale Case Studies, and Gale Literature Criticism support our K–12 and academic instructors with subject-focused curricular content and plans that help to explicitly integrate the use of primary source materials into the classroom. Our public libraries also have access to e-learning and digital resources that expand the reach of learning opportunities for learners entering, during, and after the traditional school experience.
Providing opportunities across all spheres of influence in learning.
By focusing on these important ingredients within the learning experience, we can help to ensure there are opportunities for everyone. We acknowledge the importance of developing critical skills that allow learners to thrive in the next steps of schooling or their careers.
To learn more about how Gale is here for everyone, visit our Expand Access and Increase Discoverability page and gale.com/everyone to take a deep dive into our opportunities for K–12, academic institutions, public, and government markets.
Meet the Author
Lindsey Gervais is a Digital Learning Manager at Gale where she assists in the learning design and development of Gale’s Digital Scholarship Program. With a doctorate background and research recognition in the field of Cognition, Instruction, and Learning Technology, Lindsey is helping to elevate the instructional framework of Gale’s Digital Scholar Lab. She is a graduate of UCONN and taught Educational Psychology and Research Practicum for undergraduate and graduate students for 6 years. She also prides herself on her creativity, being a coffee “snob”, and endless devotion to the performing arts.