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 […]
Tag: accessibility
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 […]
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 […]
People are different. Personally, I loathe icons. I am a words person. I hate working with wordless IKEA self-assembly booklets or icon driven tablet and phone screens. Even after 3 months daily use I stare at my Mac screen trying to differentiate between email and word processing symbols because icons are just a jumble of […]
With cuts to disabled student allowance (DSA) it is imperative that organisations become more inclusive, learning how to reduce barriers at source. Dr. Jennifer George, Academic Lead for Learning Technologies and Digital Media at Anglia Ruskin University, explains their approach to ensuring some of the key content students encounter has good accessibility credentials… Introduction Staff […]
Creating an Accessible Organisation starts with policy but this must then translate into accessible practice in order to ensure that support for leaners is delivered effectively. Accessible Organisations should have well-designed systems and clearly documented procedures that efficiently identify, monitor and deliver appropriate support to both students and staff with additional needs. Inclusion goes across the whole […]
We’ve already blogged on supporting reading and using built in browser tools but a question we often get is “What’s the difference between screen reading and text readers (or ‘text to speech’ technology)? Often the terms are used interchangeably but, in reality, they are two different kinds of technologies used in different ways. Margaret McKay helps […]
It’s easy to think that new publishing formats like EPUB3 have made accessibility issues a thing of the past. James Scholes – an expert screen reader user and ebook tester – suggests there’s still a long way to go… It’s no surprise that the eBook revolution has been a boon to many visually impaired people. For […]
Recording of Lectures: examples from Higher Education (HE) Margaret McKay presents a synopsis of different approaches to recording lectures by different HE institutions. It also explores how some organisations have dealt with resistance to recording lectures – an important consideration because lecture recording may be deemed a reasonable adjustment under the Equalities Act 2010. “Lecture […]
Alistair McNaught considers the arguments for and against large scale lecture capture as a disability solution. A jewel in the crown or a cuckoo in the nest? Crowns. Lecture capture is being increasingly seen as a jewel in the crown of accessible mainstream practice. Many organisations are looking at lecture capture as a way of […]