Accessibility
According to the Macquarie Concise Dictionary, accessibility refers to 'ease of access/approach' or 'getting to' or 'getting into' something whether that something, for students with disabilities, is a centrally located ground level Disability Liaison Unit or being able to use a telephone typewriter to ring home.
Accessibility can be applied to the physical environment as well as to systems and processes within it. For example, with regard to the physical environment the things that make a difference include: ergonomic chairs, adjustable tables and work benches, elevators, walk-overs, automatic doors, ramps, paved pathways, buses with hoists, sheltered taxi pick up points and designated parking close to buildings. All of these considerations help to ensure comfortable and safe access to and egress from the campus, its grounds and the buildings on it.
With regard to systems and processes, accessibility considerations might centre around: lighting, signage, air conditioning, enrolment, induction and orientation, information technology, telecommunications, catalogues, first aid, alarms and evacuation - to name but a few. Many of the accommodations that help to ensure accessibility in tertiary and vocational education and training environments are devised, recommended, established, co-ordinated, monitored, and/or evaluated by learning access practitioners.
Accommodations
Accommodations are actions or measures taken that assist a student with disability to participate on the same basis as a student without a disability.
The Disability Discrimination Act (Commonwealth) 1992 uses this term in section 5. (2) to encompass adjustments made and facilities developed in order to ensure that people with disabilities are not discriminated against. For now, we will look at several other terms encompassed by the term accommodation in an education or training environment.
- Adjustments: An adjustment is any variation in existing processes, systems, policies, procedures, curricula, timetables and teaching/ assessment methods and materials made by an institution in order to accommodate the requirements of students with disabilities.
- Facilities: Facilities refer to things that make possible the easier performance of any action. Regarding students with disabilities in a tertiary context this definition could include: the institution's disability liaison unit itself, automatic doors, ramps and paved pathways, a workroom in a library and a resource room fitted with ergonomic furniture and different forms of assistive technology for the use of students with disabilities.
- Support services: In the same vein 'support services' refers to services provided in addition to the existing educational, training and generic student services on offer. Services may include (but are not limited to): personal assistance with finding/ using/ borrowing library materials; attendant caring; note-taking; reading; scribing; sign interpreting; and, tutoring.
- Assistive technology: Assistive or adaptive technology includes devices, tools, hardware or software, which enable people with disabilities to perform functions that might otherwise be difficult or impossible. These include screen readers, screen magnifiers, alternative keyboards or input devices, voice recognition software, and text only browsers