THANK YOU TO Sakarya University for organizing this conference and to the Technische Universitat Wien for hosting us! TOPICS • Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, United Nations, Articles 20 and 24; • Web accessibility; • United States laws governing accommodations for students with disabilities • Sections 504 and 508 • Americans with Disabilities Act; • Wheelchair Stations; • Assistive Listening Systems; • Demonstrations of students using Assistive Technology; • Favorite Tools of Our Students; • Resources. • Our results. WHAT IS ACCESSIBLE TECHNOLOGY? • Assistive technologies refer to computers or rehabilitative devices, promote greater independence for students with disabilities by changing how these individuals can interact with technology to participate in college courses; • For example, speech recognition software allows users with hand mobility issues to interact with computers using voice commands rather than through manipulating a mouse and keyboard; • Additional assistive technologies include alternative input devices, screen magnifiers, and screen reading software. ADDITIONAL BENEFITS FOR ACCESSIBILITY? • Increasing accessibility can improve the usability of content for all students; • Captions help all students focus on a presentation and understand the professor more clearly; • Accessible documents allow for more flexible student use; • Students, staff, and faculty with temporary injuries benefit from elevators, ramps, and etc.; • Accessible web sites are more usable for all. VIDEO DELETED DUE TO STUDENT PRIVACY LAWS VIDEO DELETED DUE TO STUDENT PRIVACY LAWS TESTING CONTENT FOR ACCESSIBILITY • Automated testing tools can identify up to half of accessibility issues; • Manual testing with assistive technologies (JAWS, NVDA*, or Dragon Naturally Speaking) is recommended to uncover additional problems not readily detected by automated tools; • For example, if an image has an alt tag that does not provide a useful description of the content of that image, the problem will not be found during an automated scan, but will be found when testing with a screen reader; * NonVisual Desktop Access—a free screen reader. It can convert materials to Braille if a “Braille display” is available. WCAG 2.0 • Web Content Accessibility Guidelines, Version 2.0 covers a wide range of recommendations for making Web content more accessible; • WebAIM provides a simple WCAG 2.0 checklist for HTML documents. UNITED NATIONS CONVENTION ON THE RIGHTS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES AND OPTIONAL PROTOCOL, ARTICLE 24: EDUCATION • 1. c. Enabling persons with disabilities to participate effectively in a free society; • 2. a. Persons with disabilities are not excluded from the general education system on the basis of disability...; • 2. d. Persons with disabilities receive the support required, within the general education system, to facilitate their effective education; ARTICLE 24: EDUCATION (CONT.) 3. States Parties shall take appropriate measures, including: • a. Facilitating the learning of Braille, alternate script, augmentative and alternative modes, means and formats of communication and orientation and mobility skills, and facilitating peer support and mentoring; • b. Facilitating the learning of sign language and the promotion of the linguistic identity of the deaf community; • c. Ensuring that the education of persons who are blind, deaf or deaf/blind, is delivered in the most appropriate languages and modes and means of communication for the individual. ARTICLE 20: PERSONAL MOBILITY States Parties shall take effective measures to ensure personal mobility with the greatest possible independence for persons with disabilities, including by: • a. Facilitating the personal mobility of persons with disabilities; • b. Facilitating access by persons with disabilities to quality mobility aids, devices, assistive technologies and forms of live assistance and intermediaries; • c. Providing training in mobility to persons with disabilities and to specialist staff working with persons with disabilities; • d. Encouraging entities that produce mobility aids, devices and assistive technologies to take into account all aspects of mobility for persons with disabilities. SECTIONS 504 AND 508: REHABILITATION ACT Section 504 covers qualified students with disabilities who attend schools receiving federal financial assistance (including Pell Grants, Stafford loans, NSF grants). A student must be determined to: (1) have a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities (manual tasks, walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, learning, and working); (2) have a record of such an impairment. 504 (CONTINUED) Section 504 requires recipients of funds to provide to students with disabilities: 1. appropriate educational services designed to meet the individual needs of such students to the same extent as the needs of students without disabilities are met; 2. appropriate education for a student with a disability under the Section 504 regulations could consist of education in regular classrooms, education in regular classes with supplementary services, and/or special education and related services. SECTION 508 Section 508 expands 504 to include technology. For example, all university web sites must: • Be accessible, including availability without color; • Alert the user and provide more time when a timed response is required; • Allow students using assistive technology to access information in electronic forms; • Identify row and column headers of data tables; • Provide equivalent alternatives for any multimedia presentation, such as, synchronized captions. AMERICANS WITH DISABILITY ACT (ADA) Most ADA requirements address buildings and public venues, such as, wheelchair ramps, signage, curb cuts, doors, parking and loading zones, and ground and floor surfaces, but the Act also addresses classroom design. OLDER BUILDINGS PROVIDE ADDITIONAL CHALLENGES IN FOLLOWING ADA ADA (CONTINUED) Classroom Wheelchair Accommodations No. of Seats Required Number of Wheelchair Locations 4 - 25 1 26 - 50 2 51 - 150 3 150 - 300 4 Over 500 6, plus 1 additional space for every 100 extra seats HTTP://WWW.ADA.GOV HTTP://WWW.ADA.GOV TRANSLATION TRANSLATION BOOTH BOOTH AV BOOTH ADA (CONTINUED) ASSISTIVE LISTENING SYSTEM (DEVICES) 1. Induction Loop • Accessible to students wearing a hearing aid; • Most suited to renovation and new building projects; • Only available to students who wear T-Coil Hearing Aids. 2. FM (least expensive option) • Uses FM radio frequency; • Some privacy and interference issues (can be heard outside of the room). 3. Infrared • Uses IR Light System; • Signal remains within a classroom; • Strong sunlight may effect system; • Line-of-sight (cannot be heard outside of room). ADA-ALS (CONTINUED) Room Size No. of Required Receivers <50 with a sound system 2 51 – 500 2, plus 1 per 25 seats over 50 (for example, 6 for a room with 150 seats) 501 – 1,000 20, plus 1 per 33 seats over 500 TEXTBOOK ACCESS Electronic text production and Braille Production: • Scanning, flat bed or sheet feed scanner; • PDF Files (Adobe Acrobat): • Use Optical Character Recognition in Adobe Reader to Make Documents Searchable; • Electronic Text: • For students who use text to speech, such as, Kurzweil or TextAloud: • Math: • Export from ABBYY FineReader (user interface easier than OmniPage) and insert equations with MathType; • Braille: electronically or on paper. WHAT A BLIND STUDENT SEES OF YOUR PRESENTATION AND A DEAF STUDENT HEARS VIDEO DELETED DUE TO STUDENT PRIVACY LAWS CREATING BRAILLE MATERIALS Once the files are exported from ABBYY FineReader, materials intended for Braille receive additional formatting, such as, headers. We use Duxbury Systems to convert text to Braille and we deliver both electronic Braille files (.brf) and embossed Braille. We emboss our Braille on a ViewPlus TigerPro Embosser with an ink attachment. • http://www.duxburysystems.com/default.asp (language support for many languages and Braille standards) • https://viewplus.com/braille-printers/ • https://viewplus.com/product/vp-elite/ TACTILE GRAPHICS PRODUCTION PROCESS • Simple steps involved in producing such graphics include: • Edit graphics (such as Photoshop), thicken lines, remove text and replace with editable text; • Convert all text to Braille using Braille font; • Print on laser printer using thermoform or capsule paper; • Run through Tactile Image Enhancer (heat roller)—use in well- ventilated room. TACTILE GRAPHICS SCANNING TO CREATE ACCESSIBLE MATERIALS • Some books, such as rare or valuable books, are scanned on a flatbed scanner; • The binding of most books, such as textbooks, are “chopped” and scanned with our sheet feed scanner; • Our sheet feed scanner is a Canon DG-G1100 (and it can scan a simple paperback in about 10 minutes). https://www.usa.canon.com/internet/portal/us/home/products/details/scanners/d ocument-scanner/imageformula-dr-g1100 (We use Capture Perfect-software that comes with the scanner) http://www.canon- europe.com/For_Work/Products/Document_Imaging_Systems/High_Speed_Docume nt_Scanners/CapturePerfect/ NOTE TAKING TECHNOLOGY Pulse Smart Pen (ADHD, dyslexia) • Records audio synchronized with writing; • Student can use written notes to navigate recording; • If students miss a portion (inattention, etc.) of a lecture, they can fill-in the notes later; • Students must use a special notebook or paper with the pen; • A pen can store up to a full semester of four courses (use four separate notebooks); • http://www.livescribe.com/en-us/.