In my own experience, the worst problems occur when lecturers do not
make handouts or OHPs or PowerPoint presentations available in advance
and then persist in refering to them throughout the lecture without
explaining what is on them. I attended one recently where the
lecturer kept saying 'this shows this', 'you can see that', 'you can
see from the slide' and as a visually impaired person you feel very
excluded, and bored! I do personally prefer to have access to all
of the materials (in advance and in large print) that those without a
print impairment will have, but if this really can't be done then the
impact of not having them will depend on how accessible the lecture is
otherwise.
The very worse example was where I asked a lecturer for materials in
advance, he said he could not do this and then proceeded to give me a
list of chapters I could read instead to ensure I was
prepared! However, once I explained to him how very difficult
this would be as everything would need to be scanned and processed
using OCR, he relented and did manage to get most of his materials to
me the day before each lecture.
The staff who support me seem to take the view that the lecturer has a
duty to ensure that he/she can provide materials in advance (even if
only an hour or so in advance). If they can't then you have to
examine why not and potentially change practice within the department
to ensure that lecturers do have time to prepare adequately - for the
benefit of all students. I know this is a bit idealistic, but 95%
of the time I do receive such materials in advance. It makes a
big difference to me, and to a lot of other students too.
Also, on the point someone made earlier about student attendence
dropping when materials are made available to all in advance, during my
research I've asked a number of staff members about this, and have been
told that even where a drop does occur (and this is rare) it is not
significant and grades do not seem to be affected. In fact, I've
been involved with a project in which one department has made all
course materials available online and grades have gone up
significantly. The improvement was particularly noticeable
amongst those with print impairments - many of whom had had difficulty
accessing such materials before the introduction of this blanket policy
that required all lecturers to prepare and release materials in advance.
Emma Wright
