AQD Learning and Teaching Newsletter (January 2016)

LEARNING & TEACHING

New Year 2016

NEWSLETTER

Learning & Teaching Fest 2015 (overview) Curriculum Design and Accessibility Changes to the Disabled Students Allowance Tips for Academic Staff - Students with Disabilities Competence Standards & Reasonable Adjustments Accessibility and your Digital Resources HEA & JISC Resources on Accessibility

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Learning & Tea NEWSLETTER

January 2016 ..................................................................................................................................

Jess Robinson

(AQD Head of Service)

W

elcome to the Autumn/ Winter edition of the Learning and Teaching Newsletter. 2015/16 has already been a very busy academic year and as ever we find ourselves preparing for changes that will very soon be upon us for the next academic cycle.

While we may not yet know the full extent of the impact of the Green Paper on Higher Education, one of the central changes that we do know will have an impact on Learning and Teaching at the University of Cumbria will be the revised funding arrangements for disabled students.

For this reason we have focused this edition of the Newsletter on Accessibility and Supporting Disabled Students.

This edition starts with a review of our highly successful University Learning and Teaching Fest and signposts the date and theme for our event in 2016.

Save the Date Learning & Teaching

FEST 2016

Thursday 30th June 2016

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Welcome and Introduction

aching

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Learning & Teaching FEST June 29th 2015

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Curriculum Design & Accessibility

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Changes to the Disabled Students Allowance

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Tips for Academic Staff - Students with Disabilities

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Competence Standards & Reasonable Adjustments

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Accessibility & your Digital Resources

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HEA & JISC Resources on Accessibility

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The majority of the publication is given over to a range of articles from those colleagues across the institution who have experience of working with and supporting students with disabilities.

We have suggestions relating to how decisions taken at the curriculum design stage can deliver an inclusive and supportive curriculum to all students and some practical solutions to reasonable adjustments for existing curricula which can also be beneficial to all learners.

Learning Technology can also be supportive and assistive to disabled students; there is an article which provides guidance on making digital resources accessible and links to further guidance from specialists at JISC and the HEA. Hopefully you will find the information within this newsletter helpful, many of the articles provide you with links or contacts to follow should you require further information.

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Dr Esther Jubb

(Principal Lecturer in Academic Development)

Learning & Teaching Fest June 29th 2015

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organisations.

he Learning and Teaching Fest 2015 took place at the University’s Fusehill Campus on Monday 29th June, 2015. The event attracted 130 attendees from across the University and its partner

The day was kicked off with a welcome from the Vice Chancellor where he highlighted the diversity of innovative practice in learning and teaching across the University.

As in previous year’s the UCSU’s ‘Lecturer of the Year’ was invited to speak to the conference. Verna Kilburn (Institute of Education) provided an entertaining and thought provoking reflection on her 30 year career in higher education, as Verna

Lecturer of the Year 2015 - Verna Kilburn

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Learning & Teaching Fest June 29th 2015

retired from the University in July 2015, she left the audience wanting more!

The theme of the event was ‘Supporting Diverse Students’ and our keynote

As the Fest is a celebration of all things learning and teaching we also took the opportunity to formally present the Vice Chancellors Excellence Awards to the successful individuals and teams.

Helen Beetham

speaker was Helen Beetham who spoke on the topic of ‘Who is the 21st Century Student?’.

Helen is an internationally renowned researcher, writer and developer in the area of technology enhanced and digital education. She challenged us to consider who the 21st Century student is and what their needs are.

The majority of the programme was dedicated to parallel sessions across 5 themes with every area of the institution represented.

The day was closed with a plenary session with our Deputy Vice Chancellor, Professor Sandra Jowett, which discussed the challenges of the 21st Century University.

Feedback from the Fest was extremely positive and AQD are already working hard to plan for next year’s event (30th June 2016).

A call for papers around the theme of the Research-Teaching Nexus will be circulated in early 2016.

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Inclusive Curriculum Curriculum Design

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ne of the main ways to ensure inclusiveness in teaching and learning is through curriculum design.

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) is a set of principles and techniques that ensure that ALL students can access the curriculum via the creation of accessible classroom experiences and learning materials.

UDL encompasses a flexible curriculum that has: Multiple means of representation Multiples means of expression Multiple means of engagement

Dr Amanda Chapman

(Programme Leader for PgLTHE (AQD))

and Accessibility:

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Inclusive Curriculum

Taking these in turn:

beforehand?

Multiple means of representation is about giving learners a variety of ways to access information and knowledge.

Technology enhanced learning can help here.

You may have included an exam as part of your assessment regime. Think about the possibility of a pre-release exam or seen case study, which offers both a lower anxiety option as well as deeper learning.

Think about recording your lecture, using Camtasia Relay. Write up your notes so you can also include a transcript. Students can then access your learning materials in a number of ways and importantly, revisit the material as many times as they need.

You may also want to consider how you give feedback to your students. Oral feedback and tutorials are very useful for dialogue and more in-depth discussion but encourage your students to record your conversations (smartphones are particularly good at this).

As with the lecture, this means they can revisit your feedback and take notes.

Multiple means of expression looks at offering learners options when demonstrating their knowledge.

Take another look at your module descriptor form (MDF) and the learning outcomes. How much flexibility have you allowed for different varieties within an assessment? e.g. A presentation as an assessment is very useful for developing communication skills but can cause debilitating anxiety in some students.

Think about the practicalities. Do the students present in front of the rest of the cohort? Could this be recorded

Multiple means of engagement is about getting to know your students and what motivates them.

Find out about their interests and hobbies and make the topic relatable to them.

They need to be able to contextualise your teaching into something they recognise.

Think about international students if you have any in your cohorts. Internationalise your curriculum by choosing a wide variety of international examples and case studies in your teaching. You may also need to check your reading list for international authors and journals.

By adopting some or all of the UDL principles into your curriculum design you are improving the learning environment for all your students.

The flexibility UDL encourages means you can adapt the learning environment, materials and techniques to suit your students’ needs. It is essentially a framework for GOOD TEACHING. AQD provides a workshop on UDL: Lancaster, 6th July 2016, 10-3pm, DBg18 Carlisle, 7th July 2016, 10-3pm, SKF04 Please use the AQD booking system (login to Blackboard first) (opens in a new window)

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Margaret Weaver (

Director of Library and Student Services)

Changes to the Disabled Students’ Allowance

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HEI’s are expected to clearly state their anticipatory reasonable adjustments to inform the DSA assessment process.

n the Summer Special Edition we highlighted the significant changes that would be occurring to the provision of Disabled Students’ Allowance and how this may impact the experience of students and staff.

The changes will be implemented over the next couple of academic years: 2015/16: where purchase of computer equipment is specified through the DSA process students will be required to contribute £200 towards the cost and Apple computers will no longer be recommended or supported.

2016/17: HEI’s will need to increase their baseline level of anticipatory reasonable adjustments irrespective of their being students with declared disabilities on the course.

Funding will likely be withdrawn for: Note taking, practical support in labs, studios or similar settings Examination support Provision of materials in alternative formats A Task and Finish Group has been established with key University stakeholders to identify our approach to providing the required support for students in the future. link to the DSA webpage on the University website (opens in a new window) These legislative/regulatory changes are likely to impact all staff to teach and support learning at the University.

Further news and updates on the impact of these changes will be available in the New Year.

(Dr Esther Jubb - AQD)

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Changes to the DSA

Disabled Students Allowances (Margaret Weaver - LiSS)

Jo Smith’s article in the last AQD Newsletter, outlined the change agenda for disabled student support outlined

by BIS. The University has since set up a working group to consider and plan for the government changes which will affect 2016-17 disabled entrants to universities and colleges in the UK. The current proposals affect students funded by Student Finance England which is 70% of our disabled population, around 816 students. It is thought that other funding agencies, for example the NHS, may follow suit.

The drive behind the changes is concerned with both statutory duty and economics, building on the inclusive support systems already in place in HE, and the further mainstreaming of anticipatory reasonable adjustments, as required by the Equality Act. Providing those adjustments as efficiently as possible will be necessary to enable continued student success. From 201617 each institution has to construct a published statement of its baseline provision which will be incorporated into all teaching, learning and assessment and support functions. It is likely that disabled applicants will use this statement to differentiate between universities and their offer.

Whilst we expect that individual reasonable adjustments and funding will continue for more complex needs, it is likely that fewer of our disabled students will qualify for individual

Disabled Students Allowances in the future, with the responsibility for that support being passed on to higher education institutions as a core activity, without the funding. We think this will affect particularly those students with needs in the area of practical support due to the overhaul of the non-medical help framework, which includes students with specific learning difficulties (eg. dyslexia).

The group which consists of the Deanery and Professional Services, is collectively documenting current learning and teaching and support highlighting best practice, and is actionplanning to include the identification of strategic investment and enhancement areas; these are centred on inclusivity, and with a three year planning horizon to feed into Business Plans 2016-19.

The implications emerging from the group to date, which will underpin the plans will touch all areas of the university and be concerned with providing: Common formats in learning and teaching for example learning resources and teaching materials Inclusive academic practice/universal design for learning IT tools, assistive technology support and infrastructure An accessible physical estate/teaching and learning spaces, libraries Inclusive programme design and delivery Clear policies and processes

for admissions and enrolment, placements Digital skills acquisition and support Specialist interventions for specific client groups Comprehensive training and awareness raising and written/verbal guidance for all staff Further, BIS consulted stakeholders in September 2015: https://www.gov.uk/government/ consultations/disabled-students-inhigher-education-funding-proposals

(opens in a new window)

(which we have responded to) and we will need to analyse the outcomes which are due at the end of December.

If you have any feedback on this area of work, or wish to input - please contact: Jo Smith, Disability/SpLD Manager, Library and Student Services.

Joanna.smith3@cumbria.ac.uk Your University Library is changing for the better - OneSearch to access the entire library content!

You told us you wanted an easier way to search for library resources: we listened!

On the 7th January, OneSearch will be your new route to library discovery.

Replacing the current library catalogue it will enable you to access all physical and digital content from the same interface.

Click for more information on OneSearch

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Top Tips for Academic Staff Regarding Students with Disabilities

Nicky Meer

(Academic Developer (AQD)

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Direct discrimination

urrent UK legislation recognises the disadvantages and social exclusion experienced by many disabled people. To encourage a socially inclusive approach to disabled students, academic staff need to respond to their needs.

This includes ensuring that staff: have appropriate knowledge and training to review their own practices and adopt more inclusive learning, teaching and assessment understand their duties to make reasonable adjustments are aware of the advice and support services for disabled students within UoC

This applies where a student is treated less favourably, because of their disability eg. if a visually impaired person is refused a place on an art course by assuming they won’t complete the course because they can’t see. Direct discrimination can never be justified.

Reasonable Adjustments The duty to make reasonable adjustments applies where a disabled person is substantially disadvantaged in comparison with others. This may result from course provisions and practices, admissions criteria or the premises and we, as an institution, must make reasonable adjustments to remove the disadvantage.

What is and is not reasonable depends on the circumstances, however, we must think ahead about what adjustments we need to make to include students with a range of impairments, and keep our policies under review.

If you have a student with disabilities on your course, the disabilities office has the primary responsibility for reasonable adjustments and for giving advice and

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Top Tips for Academic Staff Regarding Students with Disabilities

guidance on how these can be met.

Disclosure and confidentiality

Course teams should meet to discuss and enable these adjustments.

All staff need to be trained in the confidentiality of processes and procedures relating to a disabled student’s disclosure of a health condition or impairment. Once one staff member, within UoC, knows about a student’s impairment or condition, we won’t usually be able to claim there is no duty to make reasonable adjustments for that student because we did not know of their impairment.

Best practice recommendations are that, wherever possible, learning, teaching and assessment practices should be designed to be accessible from the outset so that only minimal adjustments need to be made for individuals.

Disability-related discrimination This is a tricky concept and applies where a student is treated less favourably than others because of a reason related to their disability. for example, a refusal to allow a student who uses crutches, to attend a visit because of concerns about their safety.

The refusal is not directly due to the student’s impairment, but to concerns about safety relating to the impairment.

Whether or not this disability-related discrimination is lawful would depend on whether it can be justified in the circumstances. Think carefully about decisions to include or exclude, and involve the student in the decision-making process wherever possible.

We have clear processes in place to regulate how, and in what circumstances, information about a student’s disability is shared throughout the institution. A disabled person has the right to request that the existence or nature of his or her impairment or condition be treated as confidential. In these circumstances, when determining whether it is reasonable to make adjustments, we will need to consider the extent to which making the adjustment is consistent with a disabled person’s request for confidentiality. In some cases, this may mean reasonable adjustments may have to be provided in an alternative way in order to ensure confidentiality, and in some cases this may lead to the provision of less satisfactory adjustments.

Do not guess! If you have a student with a disability or impairment then ask the experts and ensure that you pass on that knowledge to your team where appropriate.

Future-proof wherever possible – design your courses and assessments etc., to have some flexibility built-in.

Ask your line manager to arrange training or development as a team if you feel you would benefit from greater knowledge and confidence in this area.

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Claire Ridgley

(Equality Diversity & Inclusion Manager)

Competence Standards and Reasonable Adjustments

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Detailed subject-based case studies have also been produced for the following: (please click the following links for further information - all links open in a new window)

he Equality Challenge Unit (ECU) has produced guidance on developing competence standards and taking into account the needs of disabled students. (click for ECU guidance information opens in a new window) This guidance includes information and examples on: The legal definition of competence standards and its relation to disability legislation Identifying and developing nondiscriminatory competence standards professional bodies and competence standards Considering reasonable adjustments in the assessment of competence standards Meeting competence standards on work placements and fieldwork

Geography, earth and environmental sciences (GEES) Modern languages Nursing Teaching Below are some of the questions and answers from the ECU web page: What is a competence standard?

A competence standard is used by an education provider to determine whether a person has a particular level of competence or ability.

The Equality Act 2010 defines a competence standard as: ‘An academic, medical or other standard applied for the purposes of determining whether or not a person has a particular level of competence or ability.’ (Sch 13, para 4(3)) Are learning outcomes the same as competence standards?

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Current EDI Practice

There are a range of standards and requirements associated with different courses which meet the legal definition of a competence standard within the Equality Act 2010. This can include learning outcomes.

If a standard or requirement meets the legal definition of a competence standard then it should be treated as such.

Do competence standards need to be objectively justifiable, and what does this mean?

Competence standards must be objectively justifiable. This means that they must be a proportionate means to a legitimate aim, and be genuinely relevant to the course in question. If they are not, and could have an adverse impact on a disabled student, then they may be discriminatory. In these cases, an alternative competence standard should be developed which achieves the same purpose in a way that would not have an adverse impact on a disabled student.

Are HEIs required to make reasonable adjustments to competence standards?

HEIs are not required to make reasonable adjustments to competence standards themselves. However, they are required to make adjustments to the ways that competence standards are assessed so that disabled students are not disadvantaged in demonstrating their competence by the assessment method.

Who should be involved in drawing up or reviewing competence standards?

There should be a partnership approach to drawing up and reviewing competence standards involving both academic staff but also representatives from the Disability Service.

What information can HEIs make available to students?

It is important that information on competence standards, assessment and reasonable adjustments is made available to students so they can make informed decisions when applying to courses.

Further information is available on the ECU website - click here for the website (opens in a new window)

If you have any queries or comments about this article please contact: Clare Ridgley (Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Manager) clare.ridgley@cumbria.ac.uk

“A competence standard is a particular level of competence or ability that a student must demonstrate to be accepted on, to progress within and successfully complete a course or programme of study.�

Equality Challenge Unit

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Stuart Illingworth

(Senior Learning Technologist)

Hornby building sunset

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Learning Technology: Accessibility and your Digital Resources

ome disabilities will affect how people can use the web (Blackboard, Pebblepad and everything else which is accessed via a browser).

These disabilities include sight, sound, physical and mental/ neurological problems, but others, which are often overlooked, include older people with age related accessibility needs.

Making efforts to design and create your digital resources so that everyone can ‘access’ them benefits all, not just those with disabilities. Including accessibility in any digital (web-related) design gives people flexibility in the way they access your digital materials.

‘Universal design’ combines accessibility standards with usability needs to make digital resources that are genuinely

useable by everyone. This helps to create ways for people to learn, communicate and share using digital technologies, and without the barriers that would otherwise exist due to individual learning styles or physical difficulties.

As lots of people are using mobile phones and tablet devices to access web content (Blackboard Mobile Learn and PebblePocket apps, for example) many designers already think about how easily mobile users can access their sites, but it’s interesting, when you realise that mobile users and those with disabilities often face the same problems. Mobile users will also find it hard if a site requires the use of a mouse, especially if the resource is made for a desktop computer and displays tiny text when viewed on a mobile.

Content Accessibility Creating accessible digital content can, at first, seem to be very complicated.

In reality, it’s very quick and easy to implement a lot of things that will have a very big impact on the usability and accessibility of your online resources.

The following are some examples:

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Learning Technology & Accessibility

Contrast and Colour Using light-grey text on a white background will make it difficult for most people to read. Dark-grey on black, white on red and green on red can also cause problems – not only because of lack of contrast but also colour blind people (red/green is the most common) may not be able to distinguish the text from the background.

Try to make sure that there is enough contrast so that everything is easy to read.

Alternative Text in Images Alternative, or ‘Alt’ text, for an image, is the text description that appears when you roll the cursor over the image.

This text, which appears in the code for the page, allows a screen reader to read aloud the whole page, which also includes the alt text description for an image.

Including alt text means the information is available for use by everyone, not just the blind, but also people who may have turned off images to lower their bandwidth charges for mobiles or for slow internet connections.

Alt text is also available for technologies like search engines and screen readers, that can’t actually see any images.

Transcripts for Podcasts In the same way as people with sight problems, can’t see images, people who can’t hear, can’t listen to audio files. A text transcript will make the

audio accessible to deaf people and to search engines.

It’s easy to provide transcripts for Podcasts and audio files and there are also transcription services that provide transcripts in html format – for a small fee.

A transcript can also be useful along with a video file, but mostly a ‘closed caption’ file is used.

Accessibility & Useability tips for Blackboard, PebblePad etc: Images often have large file sizes, ensuring good quality for printing, but with no visible advantage for web viewing. Large files take much longer to download/display so make your site ‘faster’ by optimising any images you use.

There is a free and easy to use image optimisation service available in the Knowledgebase. http://knowledge.cumbria.ac.uk/question. php?qstId=52

Closed Captions for Videos

(also available via the Staff tab in Bb) .....................................

Closed Captions (CC), or sub-titles in a video, let deaf people understand a video without difficulty. CCs should be as near as possible to the actual spoken dialogue within the video, but can be adjusted if there is too much being spoken too quickly. Each line should remain visible for at least 2 seconds to be useful.

Text File types. If you upload a (eg) Word™ document, the viewer must also have (eg) Word™ installed on their computer so they can open the document. The same applies to PowerPoint, Publisher and nearly every other text file format.

The closed caption file is separate from the video file, but most video players offer the option of showing the captions (CC), if they are available.

There are many free CC editors available. Some are accessed via a browser, some via a downloadable programme and some are apps that can be used on a mobile device - just search and choose one that’s best for you.

For more information, search ‘accessibility’, or try the following link to the World Wide Web Consortium: http://www.w3.org/WAI/intro/peopleuse-web/Overview.html

To overcome this problem, save every file as a *.pdf (File > save as > Save as type (dropdown) > PDF) unless it needs to be edited.

A free pdf viewer is available for every computer (available from Adobe™).

or, for mobile devices, from the Android iOS, or Microsoft ‘app’ stores, so that everyone can open your documents without difficulty. This also reduces the chance of a (eg) Word™ document being downloaded and altered. .....................................

‘Text links’ should always say what is being offered and not just ‘click here’. eg. ‘Word doc - Lesson Plan.docx (55.5KB)’ The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is an international community where Member organizations, a full-time staff, and the public work together to develop Web standards.

Led by Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee and CEO Jeffrey Jaffe, W3C’s mission is to lead the Web to its full potential.

www.w3.org/Consortium/

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HEA & JISC Resources on Accessibility

HEA & JISC Resources on Accessibility

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he Higher Education Academy (HEA) and JISC have dedicated a number of initiatives to providing additional support and guidance for those wishing to make their curriculum and learning experiences accessible to all students.

Below is a selection of links to additional resources which may be of interest. All links will open in a new window.

HEA Developing an inclusive culture in higher education: final report https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/inclusion/Inclusive_culture_ report_2013 Inclusive learning and teaching higher education: a synthesis of research https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/resources/detail/evidencenet/ Inclusive_learning_and_teaching_in_higher_education Embedding Equality and Diversity in the Curriculum discipline-specific guides https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resource/embedding-equality-and-diversitycurriculum-discipline-specific-guides Strategic approaches to disabled student engagement https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/resources/detail/inclusion/Disability/ StrategicApproachesFinalReport

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HEA & JISC Resources on Accessibility

JISC Using assistive and accessible technology in teaching and learning https://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/using-assistive-and-accessible-technology-inteaching-and-learning Making assessments accessible https://www.jisc.ac.uk/guides/making-assessments-accessible Access YouTube (an accessible version of YouTube) https://www.jisc.ac.uk/access-youtube Accessibility Essentials http://web.archive.org/web/20140905214650/http://www.jisctechdis.ac.uk/ techdis/resources/ae ....................................................................................

At October’s Major Professional Standards Panel we made the following awards through our CPD route to Professional Recognition.

D2 (HEA Fellow)

D3 (HEA Senior Fellow)

Margaret Rock (NHPP) Rosalind Sanders (NHPP) Kevin Wilson-Smith (HPSS) Alison Spurgeon-Dickson (HPSS)

Lesley Jobson, (Northumberland College, collaborative partner) Mark Hoelterhoff, (HPSS) Patrick Freeman, (IoE)

We have preparation workshops for D2 and D3 applications on the following dates: 20 January 2016 23 March 2016 9 May 2016 23 June 2016

(Lancaster) (Carlisle FS) (Lancaster) (Carlisle FS)

Places are bookable via the online staff development booking system (new window) We have a number of Academic Development and Quality Assurance workshops taking place in the spring, check out our AQD Developments brochure (opens in a new window) or the online booking system for more details.

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Cover image: ‘Oxcliffe’ © 2014 - Stuart Illingworth

New Year 2016. 4th AQD Newsletter. © January 2016. All rights reserved