It is important that all staff in the financial aid office be familiar with accommodation options to assist students with special needs. It is best if online forms are fully accessible to individuals with disabilities. To explore ways to make forms directly accessible to students who have visual impairments, consult How can I develop accessible web-based forms?
The U.S. Department of Education has funded demonstration projects at postsecondary institutions nationwide to help faculty make their courses accessible to students with disabilities. A list of the postsecondary institutions that received funding to develop these projects, the project descriptions, and contact information can be found under Demonstration Projects to Ensure Quality Higher Education for Students with Disabilities.
It is important to design the facility for users with a wide range of abilities and disabilities (e.g., visual, mobility, and hearing impairments; learning disabilities). Getting input from students with various disabilities about how to set up the computer lab can help ensure that specific student needs are met. Make sure that the computer lab offers access to equipment and software and to electronic resources. It is also important that staff are trained to work with students who have disabilities and understand how to use adaptive technology within the lab.
The Described and Captioned Media Program freely loans over 4,000 educational and general-interest open-captioned titles (on videotapes, CD-ROMs, and DVDs) to people who are deaf or hard of hearing, teachers, parents, and other individuals. In addition, several hundred titles are available for viewing online. No rental, registration, or postage fees are charged.
First, the financial aid office can assure that the facilities are safe for a student who is blind or a student with low vision to navigate. Make sure that walking paths in public areas are unobstructed; minimize clutter and protruding objects. Second, make publications, forms, and applications used in the financial aid process available in accessible formats, such as large print, Braille, and an accessible version.
As increasing numbers of people with disabilities pursue educational opportunities at all levels, the accessibility of student organizations and events increases in importance.
My name is Maria and I am a distance learning instructor at a community college. A student who is blind enrolled in my course and told me that some of the content was inaccessible.
Specifically, the student pointed out that some course content was embedded in graphics images that she could not access using her text-to-speech system.
I added text descriptions for all of the graphics images in my course.
This case demonstrates the following:
The Online Learning Consortium, previously known as the Sloan Consortium (Sloan-C), is a consortium of institutions and organizations committed to quality online education. The Online Learning Consortium shares effective practices in order to promote quality education that is accessible and affordable for anyone, anywhere, at any time. The Online Learning Consortium recognizes practices with the following characteristics:
Yes. There are many tutorials on how to create accessible websites. A few popular free web-based tutorials are listed below.
My name is Keisha and I am a student at a small Midwestern college. I am blind. My college converted from a telephone registration system to an online registration system. They determined that it was not economically feasible to maintain both systems and discontinued the phone system.
The web-based system my college chose is not accessible to screen readers. Without the phone system I had no way to register for my classes.