The DLO Perspective
National Forum on Provision of Accessible Materials
Students with Print Disabilities
Sondra Wibberley
Disability Services Co-ordinator
Macquarie University Counselling and Health Service
Over the past 15 or so years there has been growing awareness among staff in universities of the educational support needs of students with a range of physical, sensory, learning and psychiatric disabilities. As we all know, Australian universities are bound by anti-discrimination legislation and accept the principle of 'reasonable adjustment' for students with disabilities. In applying this principle teaching and administrative staff must take in to account a student's disability and make appropriate adjustments to the learning environment to reduce the impact of their disability on educational performance whenever it is necessary, possible and reasonable to do so.
As a step toward implementing this broad principle, most universities have developed policy and procedures relating to students with disabilities to assist them through the provision of services and appropriate equipment for use at the institution. Some have gone even further by developing codes of practice or principles to govern the provision of support services to be adhered to by staff assisting students with disabilities.
A number of universities have also developed DDA action plans for lodgement with the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission which provide a blueprint for the provision of students with disabilities over a specified time frame.Most universities now also employ personnel with direct responsibility for co-ordinating the provision of support services for students with disabilities who play a major role in implementing university policy and procedures in relation to this growing section of the student population. These staff are known by various titles including: disability advisors; disability liaison officers; disability services co-ordinators; or equity officers.
For the purposes of this paper, these staff will be referred to as disability liaison officers or DLOS - a term generally recognised by disability service practitioners in Australian universities.
Generally speaking, the role of disability services personnel is to provide advice and assistance to students with disabilities in order to overcome practical problems associated with their university studies. In co-ordinating the provision of necessary support services it is often necessary for these staff to liaise extensively with academic and administrative staff, university management and external agencies providing assistance to people with disabilities in the general community. With respect to meeting the needs of students with print disabilities, it is often necessary for DLOS to follow a series of processes necessary to accommodate individual students, justify the need for material to be provided in different formats to those available to students who do not have such disabilities and ultimately account for expenditure of university funds devoted to providing reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities.
This paper focuses attention on the challenges faced by disability liaison officers in accommodating the information access requirements of students with print disabilities. In so doing it provides an outline of issues faced by DLOs in servicing individual students and concludes with some recommendations designed to allow DLOs to co-ordinate the provision of accessible tertiary material to students with print disabilities more effectively.
Acknowledgments
This paper was prepared following consultation with disability liaison officers currently working in universities across Australia. I thank those staff who were able to respond to my request for information within the time available for doing so based on their experience in providing support to students with print disabilities.Terminology
The term "print disability" will be used in accordance with the definition adopted by the Round Table on Information Access for People with Print Disabilities.
"Accessible Format" is the term used to define the provision of information in a range of media such as large print, braille, audio tape, computer disk, e-mail or cd-rom. This is the currently accepted term which is considered to be flexible and positive. It is inclusive of a greater range of formats with the flexibility to allow for specialist production of material where it is needed.
"Assistive technology" will be the term used to refer to computerised equipment or software that has been designed or modified to enable people who are blind to meet their information/communication needs. Like the previous term, it is inclusive of a greater range of hardware and software and is philosophically acceptable to people with print disabilities given its positive emphasis.The Issues
Funding
A major challenge for DLOs is securing required funding needed to meet the cost of transcribing unit texts and other essential readings in to accessible formats - particularly braille.
Universities must comply with the Commonwealth Disability Discrimination Act (DDA) while being under constant threat of funding cuts due to current financial constraints faced by the higher education sector. Overall, the percentage of total university budgets allocated to funding services for students with disabilities is small. However, demand for these services continues to grow as a direct result of increasing numbers of students with various disabilities entering the higher education sector from the school and VET systems. Consequently, this can create significant problems for DLOs when attempting to mobilise resources needed to adequately assist students with print disabilities. In summary, there are moves in a number of universities to reduce both funds and staffing levels which is placing additional stress on an already tight budgetary situation.
Provision of funding for accessible format materials for use by students with print disabilities can also be delayed as a direct result of a significant number of DLOs not having budgetary authority. Consequently, they are required to seek approval from line managers to commit expenditure on behalf of their institutions to provide support for high cost students.
Significant time delays may be experienced in obtaining such approval. This situation can often be worsened when line managers are devoid of information relating to budgets for their areas. Indeed, information of this nature may not be known until well in to a semester by which time students will have missed out on vital material needed to complete their course of study.Responding To Competing Needs
A related issue is the problem for disability liaison officers in meeting the competing needs of growing numbers of students with disabilities who have high support needs. It is often necessary for a DLO to have to make a decision which involves choosing between, for example, providing course material for a blind student in braille and funding an interpreter for use by a deaf student in lectures and tutorials given the high cost of providing these services to individual students. Disability services staff are often placed in very difficult situations here, often being caught between a rock and a hard place in having to decide who gets what and when. The recent decision by the National Information and Library Service (NILS) to provide transcription services to universities on a full-cost-recovery basis has not helped this situation. Indeed, it has only served to compound it.
DEST will now make some funding available to assist universities in meeting the high costs associated with providing services to students with disabilities, including those with print disabilities. This is a welcome move. However, it is understood that universities will only be able to claim a percentage of the cost incurred in meeting the needs of these high cost students.
Furthermore, institutions need to meet the direct costs associated with providing necessary support before being able to make application for partial reimbursement during the following semester.Predicting Service Demands
It is often quite difficult for DLOs to predict the necessity to secure funding needed to provide course material in a suitable format for students with print disabilities in a given semester.
This is particularly problematic prior to the beginning of an academic year. All too frequently, disability services personnel are not advised regarding the intention of individual students with disabilities requiring this form of support to enrol at their institution until the enrolment period or on the commencement of classes. Consequently, there is insufficient lead-time needed to assess the student's information access requirements, make application for funding from the university to facilitate the provision of material in one or more accessible formats and set about arranging provision of necessary course material - often with assistance from external producers.
Universities engage in activities designed to encourage early identification of students with disabilities to assist with planning for the provision of timely support services. While these activities have resulted in some success, a number of students with print disabilities still do not make their needs known early. Consequently, it can be too late to reasonably have material made available to these students in accessible form prior to course commencement.
Student Expectations
Disability liaison officers often have to respond to situations where individual students with print disabilities are unaware of what is involved in arranging for the timely provision of course materials in accessible format. It is not uncommon for students with print disabilities to contact a university during the first week of a course requesting immediate access to information in a suitable format. Those coming from the school or VET system are used to somebody else, namely a support teacher or teacher/consultant, having to think about and deal with such issues. Those attempting tertiary study having acquired a print disability after completing previous courses have clearly not had to consider such matters at all. Furthermore, students with no prior experience of university have little (if any) understanding of reading requirements associated with degree courses, resource constraints within their institution or lead-times and complex processes involved in producing material in various formats.
The end result is that the expectations of students with disabilities are not realised. They are immediately placed at a disadvantage in completing their course and disability liaison officers can end up bearing the brunt of complaints - often having to spend time responding to grievances lodged by students and/or the wrath of university management and/or external bodies.
Educative Challenges
DLOs cannot co-ordinate the provision of accessible format materials to students with print disabilities without co- operation from academic staff. It is essential that course co-ordinators and lecturers provide advanced access to reading lists, course outlines/study guides course readers and other material (handouts and assignment/examination questions) to facilitate the making of arrangements needed to ensure timely access to necessary materials in accessible format.
Many DLOs find it necessary to repeatedly remind teaching staff regarding both their need to provide course material prior to or at the commencement of semester to allow for its production in accessible format and make material available that is of an appropriate print quality. Despite their best efforts, DLOs are often frustrated by academic staff not being appointed to teach individual courses until just prior to the commencement of a given semester, difficulty in establishing contact with course convenors and other academic staff during semester breaks and, in many cases, disorganisation on the part of some academics making advanced access to necessary course material impossible to obtain. Hostile attitudes toward both disability services staff (in their capacity as a perceived arm of the university administration) and students with disabilities can also frustrate a DLO's attempts to increase awareness among teaching staff regarding their responsibilities and those of tertiary institutions under the DDA. While many academics accept their responsibilities and co-operate in providing advanced access to course materials on request, many are extremely overloaded, an increasing number are employed on a casual or contract basis and there are some who hamper the process by adopting attitudes which indicate that what's acceptable for 99% of the students enrolled in a course should be good enough for students with print disabilities who are, after all, in a minority.
With regard to the quality of some course material provided by some faculties schools or departments, the short time frame which often occurs between the preparation of materials and the commencement of a semester is a contributor to the poor quality of some material. Often, a lot of material has to be photocopied at the one time with the result that administrative or academic staff take far less care when photocopying such materials given the time constraints they are under.
Under such circumstances it is hardly surprising that characters are missing from some lines of photocopied material and/or black lines appear all the way down the left or right margin - thus interfering with the printed text. Clearly, such poor quality photocopies create horrendous problems when attempting to scan material on to computer disk for braille transcription. They can also be problematic for readers or narrators who have been assigned the task of recording the material onto audio cassette.
Disability services staff must work through these issues with teaching staff. However, progress can be slow and delays in getting suitable quality print material unduly lengthy.
The above difficulties will only worsen with the introduction of more semesters in any one year. These semesters are shorter with material delivered at a much faster pace. As a consequence, lead-times needed to co-ordinate provision of accessible course materials will be further reduced and employment of a greater number of teaching staff on a sessional basis more common.
Unfortunately, this will mean more frustration for students with disabilities and staff with responsibility for co-ordinating their support provisions.
Skills Acquisition for Disability Liaison Officers
There has been much comment in recent times regarding the lack of skills possessed by disability liaison officers considered necessary in assessing the needs of students with print disabilities. While some DLOs have a sound knowledge of issues facing students with print disabilities in a university environment such as vision impairment and skills necessary to assess their needs, others do not. Expertise in understanding and providing appropriate assistance to students with print disabilities varies among DLOs for the following reasons:
· DLOs come from a variety of professional backgrounds such as social work, nursing and teaching. Consequently, they have not had professional training in fields relevant to providing support to students with disabilities such as vision impairment - especially in an education setting.
· By and large, DLOs are not given the time or opportunity to participate in staff development activities aimed at increasing their awareness of issues of direct relevance to students with print disabilities or technological and other solutions available to assist them. These staff have very high case loads which continue to increase, are often employed on a part-time or casual basis, can be poorly remunerated for their work and are required to provide support to students with a complex range of disabilities. Furthermore, there is often only one DLO per university with some being required to service students across several campuses. As a consequence, these staff do not have the time or inclination needed to undertake training courses designed to enhance there knowledge and skills in this area despite recognition of their importance among practitioners in the sector.
· A related issue is the challenge for DLOs in keeping abreast of advances in assistive technology which can be of significant benefit to both the students needing to use it and the institution. Disability liaison officers often struggle to gain detailed knowledge of functions of various computer operating systems and programs and difficulties faced by students with some print disabilities (including vision impairment) across various applications while trying to service increasing numbers of students. Furthermore, they do not have a detailed understanding of available assistive technology including knowledge regarding its strengths and weaknesses. As a consequence, advice based on outdated information regarding specific technology items can be provided to both the student and the university – often leading to the purchase of inappropriate equipment or software packages by the student or the institution at which they are enrolled.
· Disability services personnel often are required to educate academic and IT staff regarding issues associated with making electronic information accessible for students with print disabilities. This requires regular liaison with teaching technical and administrative staff involved in the development of individual courses, assessment tasks and the design of web sites on which an increasing amount of course material is placed for access by all students. This is an ongoing and often time-consuming process with the necessity to be vigilant to ensure that electronic material is prepared using appropriate file formats and web pages remain accessible.Technological Literacy and Students with Print Disabilities
A significant number of students with print disabilities, e.g. vision disability, do not have or wish to acquire skills needed to derive maximum benefit from using assistive technology as an important information access tool. Disability liaison officers continue to find that students making the transition from school to university are totally dependent on others to accept responsibility for meeting their information access needs.
They also often lack the skills that would allow them to avail themselves of appropriate technology and increase their access to resources - including study material. Consequently, access to timely information which could be usable by these students may be denied them.
Recommendations
In view of the above challenges it is clear that a variety of measures are required in an effort to make the job of disability services staff in co-ordinating the provision of accessible tertiary materials to their students more manageable and efficient which will be of ultimate benefit to all parties.
1) Regardless of whether a national approach to the production of accessible materials is favoured or universities decide to accept full responsibility for producing materials in-house, it is strongly recommended that significant funding be injected in to the higher education sector in order to meet the 'real' costs of providing accessible information to students with print disabilities in formats appropriate to their individual needs and specific course requirements.
2) Given the important role of disability liaison officers in co-ordinating the provision of support to students with print disabilities, budgetary authority and real decision-making capacity for these staff necessary for determining the format in which material is to be provided to students with print disabilities is urgently recommended.
3) In view of workload and other issues relating to how disability services staff are required to perform their duties, it is recommended that their work is taken seriously by senior management in universities and employment conditions of these staff across the higher education sector are improved.
4) The recommendation by the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission regarding establishment of a properly funded mechanism for development of training for disability liaison officers in Australian universities in accessibility issues related to tertiary study is supported. Further, both provision of relief to DLOs and staff development opportunities needed to acquire core competencies is highly recommended to provide incentive for them to acquire useful working knowledge of assistive technology and other relevant issues.
5) It is strongly recommended that consumer organisations, print disability agencies and university personnel work collaboratively to develop guidelines to assist disability liaison officers in determining which materials can reasonably be provided in accessible format to students with print disabilities.
6) In view of the necessity for academic staff to work in co-operation with disability services personnel, it is recommended that universities require these staff to make every possible effort to provide advanced access to course materials of suitable quality to ensure its timely access by students with print disabilities. This should be done through establishment of a formal process in each university to ensure that co-operation of academic staff is forthcoming.
7) That disability service agencies and other sectors within the Australian education system advise students with print disabilities regarding both their rights and responsibilities and make a concerted effort to encourage them to make early contact with universities to facilitate forward planning related to the provision of accessible course materials. Further, that these organisations encourage students to make greater use of enabling technology and, where possible, provide students with print disabilities training in its use.
8) Recognising the benefits which can be derived from utilising enabling technology, e.g. screen-reading software, it is recommended that DLOs have input in to any initiatives designed to develop a set of suggested technological competencies for students with disabilities wishing to undertake university studies.
I hope this paper has provided to you a comprehensive overview of the diverse challenges facing disability liaison officers in meeting the information access requirements of students with print disabilities enrolled in Australian universities. Now, more than ever, we must work collaboratively if the battle to achieve equality of access to tertiary materials for students with print disabilities in both a cost-effective and time-efficient manner is to be won.