Jisc is leading the field in learner analytics. It’s never been easier to track and record every detail of a student’s journey, their successes and challenges, their interest and engagement. In this blog post Julia Taylor argues that we must not forget that the aim of learner analytics is to continually improve the student experience – for everyone. […]
A missing half million? Half a million dyslexic students may have missed out. According to the 2015 figures for England[1] the overall entry for GCSEs in summer 2015 was 4,916,000. Given the demography of dyslexia we could expect 10% of students benefitting from exam papers in accessible digital format, using inbuilt or third party assistive […]
Text to speech is great but not everyone gets on with it. What other ways can we deliver words to eyes more efficiently? What about people who want to read with their eyes but have visual or other difficulties that make scanning normal pages tiring or inefficient? What about those who need bigger fonts but […]
The University of Chester has been actively preparing for the changes to disabled student allowances. In this guest post by Pete Scorey – Assistive Technology Officer for Learning and Information Services – Alistair McNaught invites Pete to explain his approach to benchmarking accessibility. There has been much talk of ‘reasonable adjustments’ recently, along with the […]
Funding changes in Scottish FE sector prompt Margaret McKay to reflect on the wider opportunities for colleges to embrace digital inclusion in widenening participation… A review of funding to support disabled students in FE colleges in Scotland was undertaken last academic year (2015-2016). Engaging with a wide range of stakeholder groups, the Scottish Funding Council […]
We’ve talked before about the inclusivity benefits that are hidden in the tools and technologies that we use every day and are often overlooked. This blog by Margaret McKay and Rohan Slaughter describe ways of (i) taking advantage of the Ease of Access features in Windows (ii) how Roaming Profiles set up by the IT […]
Fieldwork is often the high point of a course but for many learners it is also most challenging, taking them beyond their comfort zones. Stepping up to – and overcoming – the challenges often contributes to the sense of personal achievement the learners gain. This is especially the case with disabled learners. Alistair McNaught explores […]
Many things influence the accessibility of a learning platform. Here, Alistair McNaught gives some pointers to the main issues. And – as we see below – it is not just about technology; the way you use it matters too. This overview looks at four key areas; users, resources, activities and browser choices. Users Usability of […]
Julia Taylor on Having an inclusive ‘Vision’ for ILT Widening participation is crucial to business development and therefore essential when considering your ILT strategy. Technology can play a significant role in reducing the cost of widening access. Your organisations ILT strategy should reflect how inclusive practice is becoming key to improving student satisfaction, retention and achievement, and reflect how […]
A recent question on the Assistive-technology Jisc mail list (https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/cgi-bin/webadmin?A0=ASSISTIVE-TECHNOLOGY) sparked some interesting debate. Alistair McNaught thought the debate was worthwhile enough to summarise as a blog post. In the process he discovered some weird and wonderful things about redeeming inaccessible PDFs… How are PDFs good for accessibility? If a PDF document has been created […]