DARLENE: Welcome, everyone. It's Darlene here, on behalf of ATEND and ADCET I would like to -- ADCET I would welcome you to this webinar. Firstly I thank Sharon Kerr for sharing her wealth of experience and knowledge with us again. Sharon gave this presentation at the 2016 conference on the roundtable of information access on people with print disabilities in May this year and has kindly agreed to share this presentation with us today. Just a few housekeeping items before we start, this webinar is being live captioned by Jason from Bradley Reporting and will be recorded. The recording and the copy of the presentation will be placed on ADCET and probably by the end of next week the actual recording will be captioned. All participants have been muted, to ensure as little background is received during the webinar. Sharon will speak for 30 or so minutes. And for the first time we are trialling a more interactive presentation today. And what we're aiming to do is enable people to ask questions via your microphone. So if you have a question, raise your hand, you should be able to see that in that area of the GoToMeeting, raise your hand and we will unmute. However if you do not have a microphone, still ask questions in the question pod. If you have any technical difficulties during the webinar, please email Jane at ADCET.admin@utas.edu.au. So hopefully you will have an enjoyable presentation, enjoy the session and hopefully have no technical issues and now I will hand over to Sharon. Thank you, Sharon.

SHARON: Thank you very much, Darlene. Hello to everyone. It's certainly been chilly in Oz here the last few days, so please excuse me for presenting from home so that I have some good broadband to present to you. So hello from Australia. And hello from Sydney. As I progress through the slides I will be saying "next slide" so for those of you following this with the electronic PowerPoint format you can follow that way. So now we're going to the next slide. So today with this presentation I'm going to try to follow as much as possible the presentation that I actually gave to the roundtable. Now, obviously some of the things I presented were directed towards that organisation, but I will try to make it so that it's relevant to universities and TAFEs and colleges who are attending this seminar. Today I will briefly introduce you to Global Access Project, who we are and what we're doing. I will report on what we're finding in the higher education sector, with regard to the support of students with a print disability. Now, GAP actually work was all disabilities. And -- but this presentation I'm focusing mostly on students with a print disability. So, those who have dyslexia or a vision impairment, et cetera. In the presentation I give, I highlight the opportunities that roundtable may be interested in addressing. But I think these are opportunities that are also relevant to advocates within universities, support staff in universities, TAFEs and colleges as well. Okay, so next slide. We're located in Sydney, Australia. Here you have an image on this page of 10 Bridge Street, which is where we were until last week. Now we are actually in York Street. Our senior team have extensive experience in higher education sector and this has actually been both the basis of all of our careers. For me I was a teacher, before working in universities. And I was responsible for putting together online education through Macquarie University. And from that, I got involved in ensuring that all courses are accessible for all students. And my colleagues who I will briefly introduce you to as well, they have come through similar stories. Next slide.

So When I was at Macquarie University, he was the deputy Vice-Chancellor, sorry, Vice-President. He has come from a business background and started a group called the higher education consulting group. Global Access Project has been going now for two and a half years. We are a social enterprise that fits in under the higher education consulting group. Kylie, she is also from Macquarie University. And she has very much an analytics background. She was the Chief of Staff to three Vice-Chancellors. So very much understanding how universities work and she looks after all of our operations as far as the conversions and the management of staff, et cetera.
Next slide.
So, what we do. We provide consultancies to universities, TAFEs and private colleges. And we do customised conversion services.
So if students present at a university and the university does not have capacity to meet that individual student's access needs, then we find a solution.
So, we have been doing this now since -- well, I've been doing it now since 2004. So we have quite an extensive amount of experience in finding new ways to do things and more efficiently.
One of the things we're doing recently is information toolkits for TAFEs and colleges so they have all of the information at one spot. So staff can access information about various disabilities, about the sorts of things they need to consider when developing courses. And where to go to for help. We are also doing reviews and helping with plans.
Next slide.
The professional development, teaching support and administrative staff. So that's another thing we're doing, for institution-wide training. Developing courses and delivering those. We have an instance of Moodle and developing courses. Our team develops courses that we deliver through that instance of Moodle and can push that out across institutions.
And training seminars et cetera as well. So, really, whatever organisations are needing, that is what we do to meet those needs. Next slide.
Okay, so that's enough of who we are. Now we're getting on to the more important thing -- what we're finding in the higher education sector with regard to supporting students with a print disability. Next slide.
When I'm talking about higher education sector and for people who are in universities this is often quite a shock. I'm not just talking about universities. I'm also talking about the TAFE sector. And I'm talking about the private colleges. Many are not aware that the private colleges and TAFEs are now actually offering degrees, are now moving into a lot of the space that was traditionally that of the universities.
So for this I'm going to look at the universities, the TAFEs and the colleges. So, looking first at the universities -- and looking at the profile of the people attending, I'm sure that a lot of you are absolute experts in this. But what we have found is that there is a major shift away from focusing on support -- supporting students with sensory or physical disability, to supporting students with mental health issues. That's not meaning students with sensory disabilities are not being supported. What it means is that the responsibility for supporting those students and getting alternate formats and negotiating their learning needs are quite often being shifted to other areas of the university such as the library. We are finding a change in the profile of disability support staff at universities. 10, 15 years ago you would have found people coming from accessibility act grounds who knew about assistive technologies, who were very aware of what was required in the alternative formats and who engaged very closely with groups such as the roundtable for print disabilities. Whereas now we're finding that increasingly, universities are having to employ people with psychology backgrounds and health care workers to meet the tsunami of students presenting with mental health support needs.

So, that is actually changing the focus in the universities. Next slide.
With this, we are seeing a shift away from resourcing for alternative formats towards counselling. So, 10, 15 years ago, it would not have been uncommon for a university to have spent many, many hundreds of thousands of dollars on alternative formats for students who presented with access needs. Now what we're finding is those many thousands of dollars are being spent on staffing to try to meet the needs of students.

With that, we are finding that broadly there is little institutional awareness about accessibility. Previously when you had people who were assistive technology specialists -- and when I'm talking about assistive technology I'm talking about speech to text and text to speech and programs such as Win or even the in-built software on your laptop or hand-held device. Because those people are not there, we are finding that there is little institutional awareness of accessibility. And there's widely held views, for example, that all e-books are accessible. So they say to students, "Look, e-books are accessible. The library has e-books, you don't need any further assistance." That's what we're finding. Next slide.

We're also finding that more often than not, students are told not what -- they are told what formats they can request. Rather than asked what they need.

Large print is in the main no longer needed or requested, which is -- that's a great thing. But for some people they really would still like hard copy, large print, especially when it comes to terminology or key resource materials.

We are finding that Braille is rarely offered. For some this is problematic. It's something that we are finding. Next slide.

While we're finding technologies are being relied on -- and they are saying, "It's okay, technologies are there now and you can use these technologies to access your learning materials", few universities -- and I know that -- I heard the list of some of the universities that are represented at today's webinar, some of you actually do. But many universities do not provide the technologies for students. They are expecting that the students will provide them themselves. And few universities have any expertise at all in advising students about what is available.

Next slide. Okay. Now, for the TAFEs -- with the election coming up I'm sure many of you have been hearing lots and lots of stories about what is happening in TAFEs throughout our country. The introduction of Smart and Skilled to the TAFE system -- there have been major, major changes impacting on students with a print disability. I can't say that these have been good changes.

Next slide.
We are seeing with the introduction of high course costs that many institutes experience decline in numbers of students with a disability enrolling. We are seeing lots of disability staff being put off and whole cycles of change management have come through the TAFEs. I will give you an example. A New South Wales example here, to show you how people with a print disability have been disadvantaged because of this. Last year what happened is that the fees came in for TAFE courses. We have heard about the 100,000 degrees mooted for universities. But to do courses at TAFE it is not uncommon for a course to cost 30,000 to 40,000 dollars. I was really shocked to find that was the case. Because I always thought TAFE courses were the entry-level course that students would go into and then they would growing university studies. But that's not the case. There has been very high fees in TAFEs that have been placed on these courses. So what happens when that original -- when that originally happened, there was a large decline in the numbers of students with a disability enrolling, because people were worried if they would ever get employment, what was going to happen. So there were large declines in the numbers. When the numbers dropped they put off the disability support workers.

The government then, in early this year, has now made it free for students with a disability to enrol in TAFE across Australia. So that has meant now that a lot of students with disability have re-enrolled but the support staff have already gone, and once have you taken a redundancy, -- once you have taken a voluntary redundancy from the sector, you can't be employed again for two years. So it's a shermoz, it really is. At the end of all of this you have students with a print disability trying to engage with the enrolment process and engage with their courses. Next slide.
And this is -- on this slide, this is the story that I have just given about New South Wales. Okay. Going to the next slide.

What I mentioned earlier on is that TAFEs are increasingly moving into the space that was traditionally the domain of universities, offering degrees, not just degrees but masters degrees, and they are going into the international students space as well. And attracting international students. Therefore, the big thing there is the -- is developing and delivering courses online. Again, something that was primarily the space of universities, but this is now the space of TAFEs. Next slide.

All right. Finally, private colleges. Now, these are the real surprise. If -- over the last two and a half years ... I have got here there are now over 4,500 private colleges in Australia. I think the figure actually closer now to 5,000. There are private colleges that are being registered daily. These registered training organisations are offering qualifications ranging from certificate I right through to postgraduate qualifications. Some of them are very much. Some of these college -- very large. Some of these colleges have 30,000-plus students. They are the size of a university. And they are charging the big fees. And the students are paying FEE-HELP as well. Next slide.

So while some of these colleges are big and, as I said, that are as big as universities, we are finding that there is often little to no understanding of the needs of students with a print disability. It's not uncommon to hear the colleges encouraging students to go elsewhere. They have said, "No, sorry, we haven't got resources for this. You go elsewhere. No, you can't do this course. Go elsewhere." The level of student support is aimed at the general student body who may have trouble organising themselves for example. Again a little bit more understanding about mental health but very little at all about disability. Next slide.
So there is a heavy reliance on the unjustifiable hardship clause in the Disability Discrimination Act, and the education standards for not making an adjustment. So they will hit a student and say, "I'm sorry, we cannot do this" rather than doing it. Next slide.

The adjustments they do make often do not include alternative formats. They might be giving someone more time or being able to resit an exam. But they're not providing the student with their learning materials in a format that they can access. We're finding that the teaching staff are subject specialists. And often without formal education qualifications. Now, when I started in the university sector, this was really the case then as well. Back in 2002 even or in the late nineties, you would find a lot of teaching staff in the universities would be subject specialists and have absolutely no understanding of teaching methodology or pedagogy or how to go about teaching in an engaging way. But over the time, there has been a lot of professional development put into the universities into effective teaching. So, while in universities a lot of the academics are still subject specialists and not actual teachers, a lot have had professional development and they understand the concept of effective teaching. But what I'm finding in the private colleges in particular is quite often people have no formal education qualifications at all. Next slide.
The next thing I did with my presentation was I talked about the opportunities for the roundtable. This is where I believed there are opportunities for all of them us. I have kept this in because I believe it's still relevant. I have said to the roundtable that the sector is look for standards, that we are all looking for standards. That every university, TAFE and college, they want standards to say that is what you need to present to students who present with X, Y, Z. And -- but most universities are totally unaware that there have been standards developed by the roundtable. Now, as you go to their website. And I'm sure Darlene can put a link on to the ADCET site if it's not already there -- they have developed standards for conversions into alternative formats, for Braille, for e-text, et cetera. So they have a lot of standards that they have actually done over the years.

When I look at the standards, though, they are very, very ... what I said to the roundtable is we need to have them in a format so that they are easy for people who have no knowledge of print disabilities at all to understand. I was just saying basic five points, this is what you need to do. And when I shared this with the roundtable, they took it on board. And I understand there was quite a bit of discussion around that. So I was very hopeful that the roundtable itself will put out some easy to use standards for conversions and alternative formats and adjustments so that all universities can access them. Next slide.
While legal compliance imperatives have worked overseas, it is it has not worked in Australia. For those of you who have been following the blogs I have been putting up over time, you will have read about the litigation that took place with some of the major providers, Harvard and MIT. And through their Edex offering they were brought to a place where they had to make sure they were accessible. That has had a ripple effect through all online courses and course delivery throughout the United States. Accessibility of courses, universal design of learning -- these are now core elements in developing courses in the United States. There are whole schools in universities that have been developed and are teaching practitioners how to develop the courses using universal design. McGill University in Canada is another one -- it has a whole school of universal design of learning. That has been because the legal imperative that's been driving that. But in Australia we have just not had that. I really believe that there is a need for advocacy in this area. Especially with the appointment of the new Disability Discrimination Commissioner. I believe that all of them us need to be advocates. There needs to be some action as far as getting universities, TAFEs and colleges to meet their legal obligations in meeting the needs of students with a print disability. Next slide. Okay.

I believe that it's important, in this environment, that those who are advocating for access to education for students with a disability who require adjustments, that we work together. We need to collaborate with other groups and feed information in to bodies such as ADCET. Darlene, I put this in -- this is before I knew I was doing this presentation for you guys here. But for too long, disability has been siloed. You have the needs of people with maybe a hearing loss or deafness over in this camp. You have people over in this camp, students with a print disability. And such as sight loss or dyslexia. And have you intellectual impairment over here. We just have to work together. We can't be competing with other areas of the sector. We are actually after the same thing. We are after access to education for students with a print disability. And we just need to work together with this. I just said that if at your university you are developing fantastic resources -- why not share them through ADCET so other universities and colleges can use them? We certainly are at GAP, we are trying to provide anything we can and make it open source. With my other hat -- or like all of us I have many hats, about but one of my hats is as national secretary for the online distance learning association of Australasia. And very much promoting this openness and sharing. I think it's something that we need to do. Next slide.

I also think we need to be creative in how we approach community education and awareness of the needs of students with a print disability. Now, one of the ideas that I put to the roundtable was maybe we need to look at giving awards for education providers who are providing accessible education and support for students. And remembering that with lifelong learning we are all potentially students. With lifelong learning, the whole country is potentially a market really for this.
So, I think that even at university level, maybe that's something you can put to your senior executive, that there are awards given to various -- you know, to faculties that are doing the right thing or that are really trying to embed universal design of learning into their presentations, that they are providing accessible formats for students to access their learning. You know, we are trying the stick. While I said before we have to be trying to push for compliance; I think we need a few carrots out there. And for people to realise that when they do this, it doesn't just help students with a print disability or any disability, it helps all students. If students can have responsive -- and it helps the administration of the university. If you are delivering all of your material in accessible text, if it's responsive text, which means that they can then use analytics, robotics et cetera to farm the data out of what is happening in the university, if it's not responsive text, and if it's just put up as an image, nothing can be extracted from it. Okay, next slide.

I have said to the -- I said to the roundtable that they need to ensure that the membership has up to date information on assistive technologies. And is aware of what is available. Now, this is equally relevant for universities, TAFEs and colleges. Our students don't know what they don't know. And if we can't show those students what technologies are available, then when it comes to them doing their assessments or reviews for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, they won't know what to ask for. Under the NDIS, employment and education are not covered. So, if a student for example needs assistive technology to access their learning, they need to understand what it is, if it's Win or Read Write Gold, or if it's JAWS, so when they are having their plan done through the NDIS they can say, "I need this software to access all of my general reading, for planning my life" or the big picture outside of education. They can't do that unless we know -- they know what technology is available. Some of the companies such as Qantum Technologies which I think I mentioned in a previous webinar I did for ADCET, they are quite happy to come out and do trade shows, for want of a better word, for organisations. At the Pathways conference there will be a booth where the companies will be demonstrating assistive technologies. If you are going to the Pathways conference make sure you really engage with those assistive technologies so that you can tell students what is available. 
Okay. Next slide.
For those working in universities, TAFEs and colleges, and that's all of us, I believe it's important to advocate for strategies such as universal design of learning. Because if we can minimise the demand for adjustments and have creative solutions -- and I suggest employing students with a print disability to do end user checking. For example, you all have students who -- with a print disability, why not put them on the payroll and get them to check materials for your institution? So they get that work experience and it also brings staff into contact with someone who has a print disability and understands then what they need to consider when they are developing content and material. Ah, this is the best part. Next slide. This is questions and discussion. So do we have any questions? Anyone game enough to go on the speaker here and ask a question.

DARLENE: Thanks, Sharon. That was great. We will see if anybody puts up their hand. One of the questions we had in the question pod -- you said that the government had made TAFE free for people with disabilities -- enrolled in TAFE. I don't know if that is Australia-wide. I know that might have happened in New South Wales. But I -- only in New South Wales? You don't know of any other states?
SHARON: I would be interested to hear from other people in other states, if they have found that in their state. But that was certainly in New South Wales an initiative. But -- as I said in the presentation, you wouldn't say a comedy, but it was crazy stuff because you had the enrolments going down and the disability support staff -- some of them had had jobs 20 years, you know, they were put off. And they have reshaped their lives and going off and doing their thing and then legislation changed, the numbers have gone up but there is no-one there who even knows what e-text is.

DARLENE: Quite frustrating. James from TAFE in Tasmania. I have unmuted you, James, if you are able to talk and ask your question.
Thank you very much, Darlene and thanks, Sharon, for your presentation. Just a query -- I came in to working as a disability liaison officer at TAFE in Tassie partly because of my expertise in accessibility of print information. And accessible technologies. I have a bit of a background in counselling et cetera as well. So I have got my head around it but definitely agree with you about the tsunami of mental health issues coming in and the reprioritisation. With regard to the whole argument around print -- I guess another area that I really experience when I'm chasing down textbooks for students and information, which a lot of teachers have to rely on for course modules is how appalling the formatting of texts and other booklets et cetera is that is put out by publishers.

SHARON: Yes.
First they will just want to release it as a PDF. It's either scanned or a word processing document they have saved to PDF and then they will initially argue with you that that's the only format they have got it available in.

SHARON: That's right.
We know how inaccessible PDFs are for a range of users in our sort of cohort. But then when I get back to back track on the documents, they have been very visual in the way they have formatted. So they have not marked up the documents correctly. Then for me to convert, it's much -- it just takes less time, although it's still a lot of time to actually just start retyping the whole document from scratch. And you can imagine how -- what a huge consumption that is. The thing around national standards -- we need to be forcing publishers around the development of what they put together. The availability around that. And not having them being able to fall back on the argument of security and copyright. Because Australia still hasn't signed off on that, the US and Australia; they have hedged and blocked and delayed the UN's move to stop copyright ruling around access to information for people with disability.
SHARON: Can I just comment there. Two things that -- because I want to hear the next part that is still coming but I don't want to loose the essence of what -- lose the essence of what you said there. Two things, the Marrakesh agreement may change things. But after what we have seen happen in the last week, with Brexit, I can't see that. You know, that this is going to be a high-priority thing for countries to sign. Australia hadn't signed and last time I saw another nine still need sign before it comes into effect. What that will actually do, I understand, is, if material is made accessible to another country, we will be able to share it. That's one thing. And I'm not an expert in that. But that's just something to keep an eye on. The other thing is what you are saying, about forcing publishers. This is where they got to in the United States. And -- but where it came from is that the universities -- so senior management in universities, what came together -- and we could do it here for goodness' sake, we only have a handful of universities, relatively speaking. Under 40 universities. They got together and they said to the publishers, "We will not put your textbook on our reading list unless they are accessible." They used that combined buying power to force the publishers to do the right thing. But that's not going to happen unless senior executives see the business case for this. I went down to Universities Australia in Canberra, because I thought maybe in Australia if I could talk to the Vice-Chancellor and say you need to work together, this is something that is costing you money, is costing student retention. And it's something that can be fixed. But I agree with you, James. I think there needs to be a combined effort to get publishers to do the right thing.

It's strategic, definitely. What I also -- I mean, they are really good points. But the other thing I know too is that the development of materials, I mean, people in admin or do that transcription of information into documents, books, they are coming from a range of backgrounds without proper training. But what I also notice from TAFE and uni perspectives, I have seen a lot of the training manuals from training.gov.au around teaching people do business admin and creating documents. That's where people have taught the bad practice, because all of those training manuals are teaching people to do documents without the proper styles and formatting and templates. So we need to go even that far back, that we demand that even the delivery of -- the documentation and packages are teaching people how to create stuff where they fulfilled their obligations under the legislation.

SHARON: One of the big things that happens in universities, TAFEs and colleges is that -- and I think it's fuelled a lot of the problem -- is the increasing casualisation of staff. Whereas you would have had, 15 years ago, more permanent staff who went through professional development -- you know, ... if they still had people who were ambassadors for this and they teach their colleagues in the next room, you know, how to do things in accessible ways -- that's being lost because of casualisation, and often the teachers are teaching materials they have not developed. They are coming in maybe a few days prior to the classes starting. Then they are looking at reading lists and thinking, "Oh, goodness. It should have this reading as well." So they are adding another reading on. And not necessarily taking anything off. Because they don't have the confidence to say, "Well, we need to cut this out of the course." So, all of this is coming together as a perfect storm for inaccessibility for students. It needs to be addressed.
The other area is procurement, which you touched on. There doesn't seem to be anything significantly strategic between all of the states and also education facilities and anywhere that gets access to information. I have been lobbying for it for a while. And I hope we see it soon. Around software procurement. I have been pushing that one here in Tasmania a lot. But government departments are actually including accessibility as a requirement for tender briefs that go out for procuring software. But we need to -- course areas, libraries, et cetera, need to have those same requirements for information that they are going out and requesting for their information. Procurement. But some really good statement, is there anything out there, is it getting shared? If one uni or TAFE does it, is it getting shared? Because I'm sure it could be duplicated as opposed to starting from scratch and there being a lot of inconsistencies.
DARLENE: Thank you, James. Just noticing the time. That's all right. Does anybody else have any questions? I will mute you again, James. Just to stop the background noise. So any other questions for Sharon? All quiet on the western front here. In regards to the roundtable, it appears their website is down at the moment. Because I would have put the link up for people to is a see today but we will put the link with the information from the presentation when we put that up on ADCET. But also there is some information about the roundtable that is actually on ADCET itself. We will also put that link. Which is good. Just on another side, probably a plug for ADCET, we are in the process of working Martin Kelly who was working at RMIT on inclusive technologies, we have employed him to update the inclusive technology on ADCET. I'm hoping that by early July -- but that's not far away -- hopefully in the next few weeks that will go live on the website. We have reviewed everything. That will be updates for print disabilities, et cetera. So which is absolutely fantastic.

SHARON: Just another thought I had when James was speaking as well -- so you go back to think how far we have come from 2004, 12 years. We have seen a huge change in the way education is delivered. And I sincerely believe the next five years we're going to see that bigger change again. I think we're going to see greater use of teacher bots. So that students won't actually have live tutors. They will have computer programs giving them first-level responses. So we're going to have to have input into the algorithms, making sure that there is access considered there. Also, with the use of virtual reality. Going into -- and the use of other multimedia’s in teaching. For those students with a print disability -- obviously if they have a visual disability as well, we are going to have to do a lot more by way of things such as video descriptions, et cetera. And alternate formats of that virtual reality material. Now, again, if we teach people universal design of learning right from the start there is not a problem. Because every time we have virtual reality -- as a start -- it started with the story board. It started with somebody thinking, "This is what we want to teach and this is how we want it represent it ." And you need to have those original foundation documents preserved so that they can be -- documents preserved so that they can be farmed to deliver to students in a way that they can access it.

DARLENE: Yes. Definitely. We have not had any other questions so it's an easy ride for you. If you want to click to your last slide.

SHARON: So I'm clicking to my last slide. Fancy Sharon having a final thought -- assistive technology, universal design of curriculum and conversions of inaccessible materials are the three pillars for access. And it's up to us for all of them us to ensure that all three are implemented. It is not just a matter of saying, you know, there is assistive technologies and that's enough. We have to make sure that the students have their learning materials in a format that they can access them using those assistive technologies. So, thank you very much to everyone. Please -- I can help -- if I can help in any way, don't hesitate to contact me. I'm happy to speak with you to your management groups, to whatever I can do to help improve access in your institutions for students with a print disability.
DARLENE: It sounds like a good time to end because you just have the low battery on your Mac. Before you cut out. So I really want to thank you, Sharon, for once again imparting your knowledge. I think there were lots of things for us to think about as sector. One that I'm wanting to take away is the idea about awards and I might talk to the roundtable about awards through ATEND as well to really promote inclusive practices that so many universities and TAFE do so well but we often don't celebrate. That's a great idea. Thank you very much for your time and thanks to everybody else for sharing your time. I hope it was as valuable as I experienced it. We will send out a survey to get your feedback. I hope you all have a good rest of the day. 
Thank you, Sharon. Cheers.

SHARON: Bye. Thank you.