study materials

							Design of Accessible Study Materials
Attachment A: Disability Types, Their Implications For DE Study and Some
Possible Accommodations
Attachment B: Adaptive Technology That Is Commonly Used
Attachment C: References and Resources


THE BACKGROUND
   1. CSU Policy for the provision of accessible study materials for students with
      disabilities
CSU is committed to providing timely, accessible study and administration materials to
students with disabilities. Every reasonable effort will be made to provide the materials in
the format requested by the student. The provision of accessible study and administration
materials will be seen as a normal part of the service provided to students.

   2. What is discrimination?
It is a requirement of the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 that Universities are to
provide accessible materials to students with disabilities. In accordance with the DDA,
CSU will not discriminate against a student on the grounds of a student’s disability by
denying the student access, or limiting the student’s access to any benefit provided by the
University, or by subjecting the student to any other detriment.
More generally, discrimination means treating a person with a disability less favourably
than a person without a disability would be treated under similar circumstances (direct
discrimination). Discrimination also exists where there is a condition or requirement
imposed which may be the same for everyone but unfairly excludes or disadvantages a
person with a disability. This latter type of discrimination, called indirect discrimination, is
the most important consideration when designing study materials and assessment
requirements. See References for more detail.

   3. Other Guidelines
The Code of Practice for Tertiary Institutions: Students with Disabilities describes in more
detail what is required of universities, for example in the following sections.
3.8 Making reasonable adjustments: "Tertiary education institutions provide reasonable
adjustments to enable students with disabilities to participate in their course of study on
equal terms with other students. An equitable learning environment is created by taking
into consideration all aspects of the learning process: students, teaching staff, physical
aspects of the environment, the curriculum, delivery strategies, assessment strategies and
access to support services."
The three sections of the Code of Practice that address teaching and learning issues are:
G1 To ensure academic programs are accessible to students who have a disability, staff
implement appropriate teaching and learning strategies;


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G2 To ensure programs are accessible to students who have a disability, institutions make
reasonable adjustments to course content, delivery and assessment methods without
compromising the standards or essential components of programs; and
G3 Institutions implement policies and practices that address reasonable adjustments to
academic assessment provisions for students with disabilities. The Code gives examples of
best practice under each of these headings.
http://www.qut.edu.au/pubs/disabilities/national_code/code_4.html#anchor347194

THE CHALLENGE
Sometimes we have advance notice that students with particular disabilities are enrolling in
a course (ie before or at time of enrolment); sometimes they notify "when the crunch
comes" and they realise they are falling behind; sometimes they do not notify at all. There
is no obligation for them to do so, and ideally the subjects will be structured and presented
so that no disability access problems arise!
The two most common difficulties with access to DE subjects are: students with some form
of print handicap – whether vision impaired or learning impaired – who find that they
cannot read all the text. If they are blind, they will have asked for the learning resources
either in electronic form, so that their screen reader programs can read it to them, OR they
will request that it is put on audio tape or to braille by Vision Australia (formerly the Royal
Blind Society). Increasingly students are using screen readers, and these currently present
some problems with access to materials that have been scanned and sent in PDF graphic
format. At present screen readers can only read TEXT. This means they can’t read PDF
graphic versions of text, but they also cannot read pictures, diagrams, many tables and
graphs.
See Attachment A for more detail on how particular disabilities affect a student’s study.

The concept of essential or inherent requirements of the course/subject
An important wider issue: what are the essential requirements of a course or subject? If a
student is refused an accommodation for the subject/course, then staff must be able to
show that this is for a good reason, which would be "requirement X is an essential
requirement of the subject/course". Focus on what skill or competence is being required: is
it just for assessment purposes or does the student need this to proceed through the course?
For example, is it essential that a student actually performs lab experiments, or is it enough
for her to know how to do it? Does a student physically have to visit a site, or can they
work from secondary materials? Does a student have to be able to write academic prose to
a certain level? Does a student have to be able to spell unaided?
Note that recent court decisions have affirmed the right of universities NOT to compromise
their academic standards when accommodating students with disabilities. For more
information go to the inherent requirements section of this website.

THE SOLUTIONS – BEST PRACTICE
Universal design
It is a truism that a resource that is well-designed for students with disabilities is "well-
designed". The concept of universal design is that


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       "The design of products and environments to be useable by all people, to the
       greatest extent possible, without the need for adaptation or specialised design."
In practice, the most important thing is to ensure flexibility and choices in assessment. If
there is not to be flexibility in forms of assessment, then there needs to be a clear rationale
as to why a particular form of assessment is considered an essential requirement of that
subject or course.
It is also important to bear in mind the limitations of technology which students may be
using. Therefore supply embedded descriptors for any non-text material. Be careful of
tables of text. Provide good signposting. Wherever possible, source good quality learning
resources preferably available in electronic format, and to flag an electronic source in the
Readings.
If you need more information about how to make material meet the web accessibility
guidelines, go to the CSU style guide section on web accessibility.
[http://www.csu.edu.au/webpublishing/styleguide/13_access.htm]




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ATTACHMENT A
Disability Types, their implications for DE study and some possible Accommodations

Vision Impairment          Accommodations

Varying inability to       Use of screen reader for text – in what format?
access printed material    Textbooks as well as mail packages may need scanning if it
                           is not available in e-format already eg journals
                           Screen readers/braillers may be unable to ‘read’ diagrams,
                           tables, maps, cartoons etc
                           May require extra time for assignments.

                           Early packages required

                           Forums and chat rooms may be inaccessible.
                           Need to arrange email version of forum.
                           Some applications such as OASIS may not be accessible to
                           screen readers. Need to check before making their use a
                           compulsory requirement ie provide alternative
                           learning/assessment tasks

                           Need for early and prioritised reading lists

Inability to visually      Res school activities need to provide alternative
observe                    Res school information needs to be in preferred format

Notetaking may be          At res schools, may use tape recorder/notetaker/laptop
difficult

                           Exam variations – enlarged, oral, reader/scribe, use of
                           computer or braille

Can be difficulties with placements

Functional learning
disability

Difficulty reading large   Early and prioritised reading lists
amounts of material        Material in alt formats such as disk; audio tapes
Difficulty with
spelling/expression        Provision of readers/scribes
                           Allowances in assessment

Difficulties with          May need alternative assessment [note recent HREOC
particular format of       decision] eg change from multiple choice to oral Q and A

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assessment

Writing essays              Make sure the grading criteria and aims of the assessment
Difficulty with             task are clearly stated
sequencing and              Consider using evaluation sheets which differentiate between
structure                   content knowledge and communication skills
                            Specify what are acceptable levels of performance on the alt
                            assessments

Can be difficulties with placements

Medical disability          Accommodations

Concentration               Well-laid out resources with clear goals and signposts and
Fatigue                     timelines
                            Early reading lists, with priorities clearly stated
Lack of confidence
                            Alternative format resources eg audio or screen reader to
                            reduce amount of reading time
                            Emphasis the positive in feedback on assignments
                            Positive forum etc
                            Join a study group

Chronic and                 Flexibility – information about steps to get extensions, GP.
unpredictable illness       Reduced study loads
                            Exam variations
                            May need alternatives for Res school activities

Difficulties with           Negotiate part-time placements
placements

Physical

May be access               Ensure that buildings to be used eg at res schools are
problems                    accessible to wheelchairs and to mobility impaired walkers

Lack of manual              May need assistant eg in laboratory work
dexterity

Inability to sit for long   Ergonomic furniture and breaks may assist
periods

May experience difficulties with placements

Deaf/Hearing

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Impairment

Most impacts will be        Clear and well sign-posted resource material
indirect eg diminished
language skills

If unable to hear or lip-   Interpreter/notetaker will be needed
read, eg at Residential     Use of FM amplifier may be useful
schools
                            Audio tapes or videos will need written version/subtitles
                            Print all handouts and instructions

Can be difficulties with    Note that a university successfully pursued an anti-
placements                  discrimination case against a placement provider who did not
                            accommodate a deaf student doing a counselling placement
                            (under NSW legislation)

Psychiatric                 Accommodations

Stress, lack of             Well-designed, clear resources; flexibility in assessment
organisation, difficulty    tasks
meeting deadlines

At res. schools, may be stress associated with working in groups

Can be difficulties with placements

Note that these are very general comments about a wide variety of psychiatric illnesses
                                    and symptoms.




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ATTACHMENT B

            ADAPTIVE TECHNOLOGY THAT IS COMMONLY USED
Following is an outline of the sorts of adaptive technology that students may be using,
copied from the product promos on the web.

   1. Screen magnification
       ZoomText Extra is an extremely powerful magnification program for Windows
       95/98, Windows 3.x and DOS. With the first release of ZoomText Xtra, Ai Squared
       revolutionized accessibility software, by combining screen magnifier with a screen
       reader. ZoomText Xtra family of software consists of two product levels: Level 1 is
       the most advanced screen magnifier on the market! Level 2 offers a fully integrated
       magnifier and screen reader – designed specifically for the low-vision computer
       user.
       http://svc149.bne055u.server-web.com/products/zoomtext.htm

   2. Screen readers
       JAWS is one of the most popular and well supported Computer Screen Readers
       available. It can work in all Windows platforms including NT. Special "scripts"
       have been written for most of the popular Windows applications to fine-tune the
       way JAWS provides information in speech or Braille feedback - for example Status
       Line information in MS WORD, cell references in MS Excel, email programs and
       many others. A great deal of work has gone into making JAWS work exceptionally
       well with Internet Explorer 5, allowing the Blind user to reformat complex Web
       pages into a columnar layout that is easier to read, and see a list of Hyperlinks that
       is easy to navigate. For more information about JAWS, check out the Henter-Joyce
       website at http://www.hj.com
       Kurzweil 3000 is software that runs on a standard multimedia Pentium computer,
       acquiring documents via a standard scanner. Designed for people with a print,
       learning or vision disability, the system presents a magnifiable image of the
       scanned document (eg textbook, magazine etc), exactly like the original in Full
       Colour including text layout, diagrams, photographs. As the text is spoken out loud,
       it is tracked by a coloured highlight. This combination of graphic image and spoken
       text is of proven benefit for people whose reading / comprehension speeds are
       below normal literacy. http://usrwww.mpx.com.au/~terryk/kurz3000.htm#start

   3. Scanners and OCR software
       In order for students to use the above software such as JAWS, they have to have the
       material in electronic format that is "readable" by the software. This means that if it
       isn’t already on a disc as, say, a Word file, then it needs to be scanned.
       Unfortunately at present there is a difficulty with reading material that has been
       scanned into a graphics PDF format; what needs to be done is for the material to be
       scanned and then run through an OCR (optical character recognition) program so
       that it becomes editable text. OCR programs such as OmniPage do this. Because of
       this problem, subject designers need to be aware of whether they are referring
       students to material eg on the internet is not in editable text format.



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       The people at Adobe are working on this problem and we are hopeful it will be
       overcome soon.

   4. Document Magnifiers (often referred to as CCTVs)
       These can be used by people with vision as low as 1%, enabling them to read print
       and handwriting, as well as labels on medicines, foodstuffs and so on. Magnifiers
       can be either integrated desktop units or portable units, or separate camera /
       monitor combinations that allow interfacing either to large screen TVs or
       computers. There is a CCTV in each of the main CSU Libraries, and they are good
       for low-vision students who need to view hard-copy material. The material is
       placed on a carrier under the camera and the image is then transmitted onto the TV
       screen, magnified to whatever level is required, and can be reversed ie white
       writing on black screen.

   5. Voice recognition software
       The most commonly used seems to be Dragon Naturally Speaking. You can dictate
       right inside your applications and on a wide variety of desktops and portables. It is
       fast and accurate. You can use it totally hands-free or flexibly combine it with input
       from your keyboard and mouse. The integrated text-to-speech capability will read
       your dictation, selected text, documents and e-mail aloud on command.
       http://www.voicerecognition.com.au/dragon_systems_software.htm
       Text editors and word-prompt programs such as Read & Write
       [http://www.spectronicsinoz.com/product.asp?product=6533] (previously called
       Texthelp)
are used by people with dyslexia and some find them very helpful. The program provides
help with the mechanics of writing by providing useful additions to currently used word-
processing programs. These additions include:
      providing students with a choice of (a) immediate help for spelling of work in
       progress or (b) checking paragraphs after composing where TextHELP Read &
       Write identifies misspelled words and words that have more than one meaning
      predicting words as letters are typed that users might want to use
      reading words as they are typed and rereading the sentence on completion.


The very large ADCET site has a whole section of FAQs and Fact Sheets about Assistive
Technology
http://www.adcet.edu.au/ResourceList.aspx?catid=17#factsheet




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ATTACHMENT C

REFERENCES AND RESOURCES
There is a large amount of material relating to decisions involving the DDA and the DDA
standards:
http://www.hreoc.gov.au/disability_rights/index.html#information
Report and Workbook for Guidelines and Procedures to Assist Universities to Examine the
Inherent Requirements of their Courses
http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:oms1Na1x5WgJ:www.ecu.edu.au/student/student-
equity/docs/IRreport.pdf+Curtin+Report+Guidelines+Procedures+Universities+Examine+t
he+Inherent+Requirements+of+their+Courses&hl=en&gl=au&ct=clnk&cd=1


A group of academics in the UK have produced guides for fieldwork; the overview is in
Issues in Providing Learning Support for Disabled Students Undertaking Fieldwork and
Related Activities, at
http://www2.glos.ac.uk/gdn/disabil/
Problems on fieldwork excursions is the subject of
A good discussion of how the different disabilities may pose barriers for students with
especial reference to computer mediated material is at Challenges to Learning on the UK
website
http://www.skillsforaccess.org.uk/challenges.php
The concept of universal design is from the Center for Universal Design at North Carolina
State Uni. They have a section on graphic design:
http://ncsudesign.org/content/index.cfm/fuseaction/page/filename/graphicDesign.html
 The ADCET site has many fact sheets and resources relating to accessibility and
education.
http://www.adcet.edu.au/ResourceList.aspx?catid=20#factsheet
ADCET also has information on specific types of disabilities
http://www.adcet.edu.au/ResourceList.aspx?catid=23


At CSU, for further information and discussion contact one of the DLOs.




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