Development of ICT provisions for additional needs science students

Abstract

The School of Applied Sciences (SAS) has one of the largest incidences of ‘additional needs’ students in the University, with the potential for this to increase through recruitment from linked organisations (e.g. Rodbaston College), through School initiatives (e.g. Flexible Learning) or University initiatives such as Widening Participation. The increased emphasis placed on the use of ICT as a means of producing assignments (word-processing, spreadsheets, specialist packages etc.), coupled with an expansion in TSL (i.e. use of the SAS intranet, WOLF, and ‘Subject Centre’ and other specialist teaching packages) in the delivery of courseware within our standard IT provision, was considered to be exacerbating the difficulties encountered by some of our students with additional needs. The principal objective of the project is to increase accessibility to the University standard software suites in use in SAS in addition to the specialist packages used in the school. The basic strategy falls within two areas: use of appropriate additional hardware and software to enhance the display options available to students and use of appropriate additional hardware and software to provide alternate means of inputting information into, and receiving output from, standard software packages.