DARLENE MCLENNAN: Thank you everybody. We’re just wanting to firstly start by acknowledging and paying respects to the Tasmanian Aboriginal community as the traditional and original owners and continuing custodians of this land on which I'm meeting today. I would also like to acknowledge the elders past and present and emerging, and all of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders across Australia. Today ADCET is excited to be bringing you the first webinar for 2019. I'm sorry it's taken us so long. It's been one of those things of trying to get the webinars off the ground, it's quite difficult. But hopefully this will be the first of many more to come in the next few months. Today's topic is a fabulous topic. We're starting off with “When Is An Adjustment Reasonable In Education?” And we're delighted to have Rick Boffa presenting with us today. This is Rick's first webinar. He is new to the technology. But Rick is probably no stranger to many of us online today. And he has had a diverse career and he currently manages the RMIT Equitable Learning Services. You may have noticed that we are now using Zoom. This is for accessibility reasons so we hope your experience of this webinar will be far easier to use than our previous platform. So we're hoping that everything will go okay. I’ve got every finger crossed in the hope that we will have no difficulties. For those wanting to access closed captions we are having closed captions provided by Bradley Reporting. You can access those at the bottom of your screen. And you can expand the caption box by clicking on the small arrow on the right hand side at the top of the box. I hope that makes sense to everybody. You can't actually have any movement around the captioning but you should be able to see the captions as well. If you are using captions today, and would like to provide feedback on if it worked for you or not please do. As we -- the other option for us is to have captioning in a separate web browser going forward. If you have any technical difficulties throughout the webinar, please email us on admin@ADCET.edu.au. Rick is aiming to do the presentation for around 40 or so minutes and then we will have 10 or so minutes for questions at the end. But Rick’s also going to pose some questions to us throughout his presentation. We're going to try to actually allow people to put up their hand and if you have got a mic or feel that your sound will be good, we can actually have you ask the question into the webinar. If you are happy for your voice to be recorded. Otherwise you can put your answers into the chat or question pods. And also throughout the presentation if you come up with any questions you would like me to raise with Rick at the end of this webinar please feel free to put them in either of the pods and we will ask them. We're unsure which ones are going to work best, the question or the chat pod at this stage but we wanted to try both. Once again we're just feeling our way of how this technology will work. Ok, I think I have covered off everything. I'm really hoping you join us for many more webinars this year. But for now we're over to Rick and this webinar. Thank you, Rick.
RICK BOFFA: Great. Thanks very much, Darlene, great to be here. Yes, a disclaimer that I'm not all that savvy with webinar technology so please take it easy on me. I'm still using an Abacus when I do my budget calculations so… But let's jump into it. I'm Rick Boffa, manager of the Equitable Learning Services at RMIT and I'm here to talk to you about how to determine when an adjustment is in fact reasonable. And my objective for this afternoon: to define the term "reasonable adjustment"; provide you with a simple formula to help you determine when an adjustment is reasonable or perhaps unreasonable; and provide some case studies for discussion. I'm not too sure how the discussion is going to work here this afternoon on the webinar but let's give it a go and see where we get to. Ok, so definition. What I tend to use as a definition is “an adjustment is considered reasonable if it balances the needs of all parties concerned”. Pretty simple. I'm sure those of you who are active practitioners out there will have your own variations to this definition. Now, whenever I use that definition, it's really important for me to be clear with the people I'm speaking to in terms of who the relevant parties are. So, if I can ask the question to the audience out there, who do we think would be the key parties that are involved with most reasonable adjustment discussions? So question out there, let's see what the responses are.
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DARLENE: So, feel free to put the responses into the chat or question pod if you would like or raise your hand. 
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So, Rick, we have had a few answers like students with disabilities, students in class, academics, disability services, students. All who are attending or learning, is another answer.
RICK: Great. Well, that's a pretty comprehensive response. Let's spin the wheel and see what comes up here. So we’ve got the institution, academics and teaching staff, other students – absolutely. And the student with a disability who are the reason why we are posing the questions in the first place, so absolutely. So they’re the primary parties to any discussions around adjustments. So, next is the formula. It is as follows. Do I believe that a reasonable adjustment equals the institution plus the staff, plus the other students and other students with disabilities? So if we’ve got all of those key players considered in any particular adjustment we want to work through, and that particular adjustment does not cause any adverse influence or impact on any other stakeholder, then we could safely say that that adjustment is reasonable. And that would become a reasonable adjustment. However, if it impacts negatively on any one of those parties, then we would consider that perhaps more discussion is needed, because in its present form that adjustment recommendation may not be considered reasonable. And some case studies for discussion. Let's say for example we’ve got a student with a disability who’s requested an alternative assessment arrangement or a triple A instead of sitting formal exams. This request.
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This request has been made at the end of semester, during the formal exam period. And the student wants it to apply immediately if possible. Is this reasonable? So can I ask that question of the audience? What do you guys think? Is this reasonable? I think for me the important bits are this is happening at the end of semester.
DARLENE: Okay, everybody, if you wanted to put that into the question and answer and sorry you can't all see it. The chat box seems to be disabled so we might need to offer some adjustments and accommodations to enable effective participation. So, if anybody wants to put some answers into the question and answer and I will read those out to Rick until we can see if we can get the chat box going. Somebody has written it's time consuming but it's possible to put in place then it would be reasonable. One person said it's not reasonable, no, not reasonable in the timeframe given. So reasonable adjustment takes time and effort, so it could have a negative impact on staff, are some of the answers we have got at the moment, Rick. This is great, thank you, everybody, for participating and providing us all your answers. We will collate them to get them to Rick because I can't read them all out but to collate to Rick, without your names just so he gets an idea of some of the answers.
RICK: Terrific. That's wonderful. Thanks very much, Darlene. And, of course, the chat box was disabled so we could actually demonstrate a reasonable adjustment so I think that went down well. What did you think, Darlene?
DARLENE: I just got texted by someone saying it was a great joke, so I've done well.
RICK: Well done, okay. They are great responses. So let's just see what the wheel tells us. I normally start these conversations with a "depends". There are so many variables involved that to be able to come up and say categorically, you know, instantly, whether it's a "yes" or "no" - very hard to do. So, be optimistic. However, given the extreme late notice, to make a triple A adjustment an opportunity of assessment arrangement, it does take a considerable amount of time. Because we are actually asking our academic colleagues to essentially change the way that they assess the curriculum. And that's something that is a time consuming activity, particularly when they need to consider academic integrity. So, very, very difficult. So, open now to the audience. Has anybody out there had any great success with organising an alternative assessment arrangement for a student at the eleventh hour? If so, are there any particular strategies or formats that you use in terms of talking to academic colleagues? Any thoughts?
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DARLENE: Feel free to raise your hand also if you are wanting to talk into the webinar or keep your answers coming in to the question pod.
RICK: Yes. If anybody wants to use their mic and have a bit of a chat it would be great to have a two-way conversation. Very happy to do that.
DARLENE: A couple of answers that are coming through - “I would perhaps reschedule the assessment for the student”, “Yes, I would be able to adapt an existing past item”, “Yes, if I had to think quickly on my feet and be very inclusive with other participants”, “Nothing at the eleventh hour but absolutely with a reasonable amount of time”, “If there were a present process for such a situation it could be done on short notice otherwise it would be too challenging”. One person said “it's a case-by-case but we usually approach the academic with the request”.
RICK: Look, they’re all great responses. And I would agree with every single one of them. Certainly, the option of delaying or postponing the assessment is certainly one that we have put forward in the RMIT context on more than several occasions where this happens. And generally academics and teaching staff are very happy to engage in a conversation around this if there is sufficient time to do it. So postponing an assessment is certainly a great option. Certainly in the RMIT context, we try and communicate key messages to students who are registered with us through the semester. And one of those key messages is the earlier you can get in to talk to one of our advisers, the more opportunity it allows the university to accommodate your particular needs, because we've got more time to do so. And that is typically working reasonably well for us, because it's the eleventh hour requests such as this, that they do seem to be diminishing at a fairly significant rate, which is great news for us. The other thing that I'm really keen to move forward on, you know, at RMIT and open up the conversation with other institutions is around - for me, you know, if we can eliminate the need to actually have conversations around alternative assessment arrangements whether they’re timely or not, that would be a fantastic thing. I guess what I'm suggesting or hoping to move towards is where we have course or program structured around a variety of assessment types, which would give students an opportunity to maybe choose which assessment tools actually indicator best for their way of learning. And if we're able to achieve that outcome, then we're less needing to undertake alternative assessment arrangements on an individual basis. If that makes sense? Any thoughts out there on that approach or any other more inclusive teaching and learning styles that might sort of eliminate the need for individual adjustments such as this?
DARLENE: All right, everybody. The miraculous Jane Hawkeswood has got the chat box going. So you can actually put into the chat box your answers. But down the bottom you just need to click on, instead of "to the panellist" you just need to write "all panellists and attendees” and that gives a chance for everybody to be able to see it and so that will then keep the conversation going and get other people to participate. Otherwise you can just send a question in the question box and I will ask that to Rick. So Rick, your question again?
RICK: My question again really is whether, you know, people agree with the learning and teaching approach that maybe it would be a good idea to offer more assessment methods to all students and therefore allowing students to make a choice as to which assessment type best meets their learning requirements. So really mainstreaming it and making it more inclusive. Or whether there is any other ideas, innovative ideas out there with regards to how we can create a more inclusive curriculum. And maybe diminishing the need to have to make reasonable adjustments on an individual basis.
DARLENE: Yep, brilliant. We have had quite a number of chats in the chat pod. People are saying that one person has said that many academics are developing multiple assessments which once again gives students an opportunity of choice. Somebody else said it seemed to be something which is offered in gender and cultural studies; the academics have difficulty with this though as it's hard to create a standardised way of marking. Somebody said have resources ready to go that provide reasonable adjustments ready for flexibility according to the type and place of assessment and individual students. Someone wrote yes, options are good but must be within the requirements of the discipline or practice still, staff need the skills. So, yes, there are some great answers.
RICK: Thank you very much, everyone, for that. That's terrific. All right, look, we might move off this particular case study and look at the next one. Okay. So, student with a disability has been assessed by a disability practitioner or adviser as requiring the following adjustments for their formal examination. We've got, I'm just missing some of it from my screen, but let's say an additional 10 minutes writing time, 10 minutes additional reading time, and 10 minutes per hour rest breaks, a room on own and a scribe. And simply is this reasonable? So what do we think?
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DARLENE: Gosh, you're making me work hard today, Rick, and everybody else. I normally sit back, got my feet up on the couch but, no, oh well.
RICK: That's exactly what I'm doing. This is great. I actually have one sitting beside my computer out of view. This is terrific. I will do one of these again.
DARLENE: The answers are: it depends on the disability; it depends on the condition; it depends on the exam. Some people have said "yes". “What would be the reason for a room on own with a scribe only? The rest seems reasonable”. “I think that it is reasonable as long as flexibility is applied to other participants”. “Depends on the impact of the condition”. “It seems reasonable, however for total fairness I think there should be an examiner in the room with the student and the scribe”. They are some of the answers.
RICK: Great. You know, they are all terrific responses so thanks for those. Look, absolutely, I think this is very reasonable. There is certainly nothing in there that's going to cause unjustifiable hardship on an institution or exam staff. Particularly if all of this is provided through our exam administrators well ahead of time and generally it is. A room on own, and we'll assume for the purposes of this case study that the disability practitioner or adviser, they have carefully assessed the student. So they have taken on the documentation provided by the student, so, the objective information, and verified that. They've spoken to the student and have a really good understanding of their story and challenges. So the subjective information, and then the disability practitioner or adviser value adds or that is they crunch that information or analyze it using their experience and their understanding of the institution's disability legislative obligations, and they've come to these recommendations. So I think we will just assume that they are appropriate for the student's needs but I guess the main point that I wanted to make was, going back to the formula, is there anything within these recommendations that are going to impact negatively on any of the other stakeholders? I think in this particular instance, no. We've assessed the student thoroughly. You know, what has been recommended, the student is entitled to under the Disability Discrimination Act. So therefore we're not advantaging a student in terms of other students. You know, it's an equitable process. And fair. In terms of academic and teaching staff, there is nothing in there that's going to be overly onerous to them. They don't need to change exam papers or anything like that. The only case where they might need to provide an additional exam paper of course is the student with a disability's exam is perhaps happening at a different time to their peers. But generally speaking, with recommendations such as these, the student with a disability is doing their exam pretty much at the same time as their peers, so no problem there. So, yes, I would be suggesting that, you know, on the face of it, these particular recommendations in case study 2 are reasonable and we should be implementing them with vigour. And I think there was a question, Darlene, someone was asking why would we have a room on our own with a scribe? A room on own is really relevant and necessary for situations where a student does have a scribe for their, you know, dictating their responses. So we want to make sure that they're not interrupting other students. Similarly, students who might be using voice dictation, Dragon Naturally Speaking or something like that, we want to ensure that they're not disrupting other students, so room on own is quite appropriate. Yes, in most circumstances where we do have a room on own, for academic integrity purposes there would be an invigilator in the room. So if fact, there’s actually three people in the room, the student, the scribe and the invigilator. So any other comments or triggers for the discussion that anyone wants to sort of raise?
DARLENE: Someone confirmed also, Rick, that there may be also some sensory issues. So, good to have the room as well on their own.
RICK: Yes.
DARLENE: Yes. And also anxiety issues can lead to the own room as well.
RICK: Absolutely. There is a number of reasons as to why a room on own would be a good thing. Yes, so in this example we're talking about scenarios where because of the adjustment it might impact negatively on other students. So, students sitting on their own. As you mentioned, Darlene, there will be lots of scenarios where the student is going to function much better due to anxiety and other challenges where - if they've got a space, that they are secluded, they are away from others and the potential pressures that being with others creates for them.
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Yes, are there any comments from anybody else out there?
DARLENE: No, all good to go if you wanted to keep going.
RICK: All good to go if I want to keep going? Look, I think we're almost at the end of the - well, actually I've got some - we are. That was very quick. I must have forgotten to use one or two of my ice breakers at the beginning.
DARLENE: Ok, thanks for that, Rick. Yes, I suppose Rick has not experienced the webinar before so probably wasn't aware that it's kind of not like a room full of people and having conversations so it's probably been a little bit disjointed for people having me read out the answers, but it's probably given some people some opportunity to reflect on their own current practices. Has anybody got any general questions for Rick or any comment on the content? There are a few more chats coming through. We're just waits for those now, Rick.
RICK: Terrific. Darlene, maybe while we're here and we've got really another 10 to 15 minutes if we want to use them, I'm happy for if there are any practitioners out there who are struggling with a particular challenge, you know, put it to me now. And maybe we can have a bit of an innovative discussion around how we might be able to solve it?
DARLENE: Ok, so Rick, I’ve got a couple of questions coming through. Do you actually run information sessions for academic staff regarding adjustments?
RICK: Yes, we do. We try and target particular schools. Not for any bad reason but we have to make sure that we are getting to everyone, as well as on request. And that probably equates to maybe about 10 to 15 sort of formal presentations a year. That would sort of be roughly around about an hour and a half or two hours, which would consist of presentation and then sort of Q&A at the end. That's a really useful means of identifying and creating relationships for discussions later down the track.
DARLENE: Great. Someone said that earlier on you felt that the message of reporting needs to go out earlier. Seems to be working because of these requests being less. What do you see as the most effective medium to deliver that message?
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RICK: At RMIT we use a couple of methods. From the equitable learning service, my area, and one of them is that we send out a message to new students who tick the disability box on their enrolment, which is generally a welcome and please find some services which you might be interested in. One of them of course is Equitable Learning Services. The other is strategically placed student announcements through the semester. We might do those maybe three weeks into semester. And maybe two or three weeks before semester is finished. That sort of tends to work reasonably well. The other - we did a survey of our students late last year and one of the questions was, how did you find out about Equitable Learning Services? And a real surprise to me, the majority of students found out about us via discussion with their academics and teaching staff. Which is really lovely to read. So, obviously students and staff are having proactive conversations early with regards to particular challenges and Equitable Learning Services is sort of coming up as a viable option to consider. So, those three things I think work really well in the RMIT context. So word of mouth. Yes.
DARLENE: Okay. So a question for the group but also to Rick - if people do have answers in the chat pod for their colleagues please feel free to have the chat going - students who cannot attend at classes due to their medical condition, this person is talking about a TAFE scenario where the attendance is required around 80 percent, what sort of adjustments would be reasonable so that the student is very motivated and wants to stay up to date with their work but actually due to their conditions may not be able to attend the required 80 percent?
RICK: That is a little bit tricky cause it depends. It's one of my "depends" answers again. We've got an adjustment recommendation around attendance where we sort of say, you know, due to the student's circumstances that they might experience short bouts of an inability to attend. And we ask for academics and teaching staff to provide some flexibility. And I equate that to you know, if attendance requirement is around 80 percent then a student with that particular adjustment in their equitable learning plan, which their academic will have a copy of, I would sort of be suggesting to that academic that they apply some flexibility, which would be somewhere in the order of 65 to 70 percent attendance. So dropping it by 10 to 15 percent. They would do that based on the student's participation in class and their assessments that have been put in up to that point. And that seems to be really fairly well acknowledged at RMIT. We don't tend to have a lot of difficulty there. The conversation with students if they feel that their attendance is in fact going to be lower than 65 percent, then that's a more proactive conversation with the student and their school and my staff around what are the potential alternatives that we can achieve to enable that to happen? And the "depends" comes in with regards to what is the program that we're studying? So for example if it's a program where there is lots of practical exercises and lab time and so on, then it's going to be really difficult to try and maintain academic integrity without the student putting in, you know, that sort of time. So it really does depend. But I think the important thing is that we are able, as practitioners wherever we are, to surface the conversations with the relevant people and feel comfortable that we've explored all the options. I think as practitioners if we are able to do that, then it's a job well done.
DARLENE: The person has also said there is a lot of role play and discussion involved in the class which I suppose adds that extra challenge to of the attendance rate.
RICK: Absolutely. Typically speaking, the attendance would be difficult to reduce for programs that have strong rate of learning or prac nature to them. For that reason.
DARLENE: Just another question, Rick, is someone has had a student that has requested a scribe with subject specific knowledge to a very high degree. Would this be considered a reasonable adjustment as they are having trouble sourcing scribes? They can easily get scribes with subject general knowledge.
RICK: That's a great question. It depends. Generally speaking – so at RMIT, whenever we assess a student as requiring what we refer to as enabling staff, so that could be a note taker, a participation assistant or an Auslan interpreter, we provide the student with an information pack and that pack basically goes through how it works and whatnot. In there we deliberately point out to students that these enabling staff typically don't have subject specific knowledge. They are great at what they do, but they're not experts in the topic and that’s by and large to safeguard the academic integrity and make sure that we're not providing an advantage for students. Because the main goal of disability practitioners within tertiary study is, you know, we want to level the playing field. We don't want to create, you know, advantages for students with disability because then obviously that's not equitable and academic integrity and so on and so forth. Now I said "depends" in my answer. That's because I think there are some exceptions to that and the exceptions would be where a student is studying a program where it's highly technical in nature and as such it uses key phrases and words and formulas and whatnot that would be very difficult for a lay person to be able to take notes on and relay. In those circumstances on a case-by-case basis, we would discuss with academics and teaching staff the adjustment around using an enabling staff person who does actually have that knowledge so the students' notes or their Auslan interpreter is actually communicating accurate information as opposed to giving them notes with everything sort of misspelt and out of context and so on. So I think it is a "depends" and I think it is on a case-by-case basis. But generally speaking, no, the enabling staff would not have subject knowledge.
DARLENE: Okay. So just probably changing the tact a little bit here and asking a question around experience. I don't know if your equity unit, Rick, actually supports staff with disability as well? We have just had a question, do you have any experience of staff with disability and how do you encourage them to come forward within your institution? Is that something your service or does your HR support staff with disability?
RICK: That's a really good question. At RMIT generally staff with disabilities would find their way to me and my unit before they would perhaps go to our HR. So we've had lots of conversations with staff. But you know, they are conversations, they are advice. We would always need to refer staff back to HR. But in the last couple of years we have had some great discussions with our HR here and have developed a work adjustments group or initiative at RMIT where staff with disabilities are able to put in requests for reasonable adjustments. This group of well trained professionals are able to action those requests. And more often than not they are in discussions with me and my staff and engaging with the expertise that we obviously have within the student space. Which is often also relevant in the staff space. Very good question.
DARLENE: That's great because someone’s identified here that their experience for staff within their institution is very poor and that often the staff that are doing the assessments don't have the skills or ability and it's more of an evaluation on the financial, not necessarily what the adjustments are required. So it's good to hear of RMIT’s example.
RICK: Yeah, look we are slowly turning the tide on that. We have got some fantastic people at RMIT and in our HR. But I’ve got to say that the - going back five or more years, staff were sort of saying, staff with disabilities, who wanted to disclose, were saying to me that the messages they were getting from HR and from their institution were instantly going towards managing risk or OH&S. Which is really disappointing. But I can happily say that five years on, and I think at RMIT we're on a great trajectory where the conversation is much more positive. And it's about, you know, the individual being at the centre. And how can we assist and provide adjustments that are going to meet everybody's needs. And you know not go instantly towards risks and how we're going to manage this. So, I think, great strides there. I think that was by and large due to disability practitioners like all of us continuing the conversation and having some really positive and innovative influences on the institution for which we work.
DARLENE: Brilliant. So, just any final questions for Rick? Feel free to put up your hand, just to challenge us in a little way today or, and put the questions in the chat pod. It's been great, Rick, seeing the questions come through. We started this webinar not knowing how this would go and I think the conversation has been fantastic. One of the things that ADCET has been thinking about, because I love to challenge us is maybe developing some podcasts in the future. And I just wonder if people want to write in the chat pod if that is something they would be interested in hearing. Probably along the lines of what Rick has done today, some Q&As of different practitioners and managers, just about their experience. Because hearing from Rick today has really, I think it's great. We often work in isolation or in our little silos and I think hearing from others within the sector about what is happening within their environment, yes, serves us all well. Well, it looks like podcasts are going to happen because everyone is going yes, great, wow, now my heart is going at a hundred miles an hour. I don’t know how to do it but anyway I love learning new things. So any questions for Rick before we finish up? We have had a number of wonderful - and thank you, Rick, for your presentation so far. I will just - yep, no other questions at this stage. Just to also say that the technology today seems to have worked fairly well in we have had feedback from one of our participants who is a screen reader user who has been able to use the chat box really well and getting to have all of your answers and questions read out. So that's fantastic feedback as well.
RICK: That's terrific.
DARLENE: It looks like we have only got the excellent’s and thank you’s coming through Rick. At this stage I will finish up. Just to give a heads up that we will be having more webinars and podcasts now going forward and we will be putting those out, advertising those very soon. Thank you so much, Rick, for challenging me today with putting questions out, but also for giving up your time to share your wealth of knowledge, experience with us.
RICK: Darlene, can I just close by saying, thanks very much. This has been a wonderful experience. And I really appreciate participants taking it easy on me. And this is really difficult work and one of the reasons it is so difficult is that students with disabilities, people with disability, are not a homogenous group. Their needs are very different, very unique, which means that we’ve got to keep coming up with innovative and creative solutions to often very challenging scenarios. So it's really important that we band together as a group. So I'm very happy, Darlene, if you share my contact details. I would be very happy to be contacted by anyone out there and have my thinking challenged and talk through any scenarios that anyone might be working with and if we can add value by chatting, fantastic. So thank you very much, everyone.
DARLENE: Great.