Hi All,
I’m been a member of this list for a number of years, although I’ve tended to read the discussions with interest but not be a very active participant. I’m a lecturer and researcher at the University of York, and my speciality is technology for people with disabilities. I’m currently involved in a European project which is investigating how to use the potential of virtual learning environments to better support students with disabilities and mature students (although we are well aware that these systems have big accessibility problems at the moment).
So I’m looking for some volunteers and publicity to help us understand the needs of students and how professionals currently support them.
We have a survey for everyone working in HE/FE institutions (lecturers, disability officers, technicians, library and admin staff, I do mean everyone). Also, we don’t want only people with experience of working with students with disabilities or mature students, we are interested in everyone’s experiences. It is quite a long survey, it will take up to 40 minutes to complete (the clever software does at least allow you to do some and come back later if you wish). Because it is quite an effort, we are going to hold a prize draw with 10 x £10 Amazon gift vouchers amongst all respondents. So I’m inviting all staff on the list to complete it, and if there are any ways you can advertise it to other people in your institution, I’d be very grateful. I can provide a pdf flyer, if that would be useful to people.
Of course, we also want to get information from students, and we have a survey for students, both disabled and non-disabled, mature and not mature. Again it’s quite long, but there is also a prize draw of 10 x £10 Amazon gift vouchers. If you can publicise the survey to students, I’d be very grateful.
Both surveys can be accessed from the following web page:
The surveys have been extensively tested for accessibility, so they should work well with screen readers and magnification programs.
Finally, we are interested in doing interviews with people, to get more in-depth information. We are interested in recruiting anyone working in HE/FE who could give up about an one hour for an interview. We can travel pretty much anywhere in the UK. Everyone who is interviewed will get an £10 Amazon voucher for their efforts.
Many, many thanks for your help with this, feel free to ask any questions, either on list or off list.
Helen