Disability, Equality, Galaxy Michele Farmer

Michele Farmer Everything you need to know about the law, disability, and ‘Life, The Universe and Everything’ ‘This is, of course, impossible’ Douglas Adams And Michele Farmer

The session… Equality Act and what it means to you. EU Web Accessibility Sept 2018. Advice on agile working, proper work place set up and support services available to assist UCL staff and students. Assistive Technology and what we have available.

Statistics 10% of the population are dyslexic. 1 in 6 have a hearing loss. 50,000 are BSL users. 1 in 4 will suffer some kind of mental health problems in their lifetime. 1 in 30 has a sight loss. Approx 10 million with a physical disability

Student Numbers by Disability 2004-5 Undergraduate Graduate Total Blind / Are Partially Sighted 3 1 4 Deaf / Have a Hearing Impairment 19 13 32 Dyslexia 181 53 234 Mental Health Difficulties 9 10 Multiple Disabilities 11 14 Unseen Disability eg Diabetes, Epilepsy, Asthma 59 36 95 Wheelchair User / Have Mobility Difficulties 12 Disability Not Listed Elsewhere 15 68 No Known Disability 11716 6570 18286 Not Known 87 572 659 12141 7273 19414

Student Numbers by Disability 2016-17 Undergraduate Postgraduate Total Autistic Spectrum Disorder 31 32 63 Blind / Are Partially Sighted 28 33 61 Deaf / Have a Hearing Impairment 30 46 76 Specific learning difficulty -eg dyslexia 379 588 967 Mental Health Difficulties 288 209 497 Multiple Disabilities 85 104 189 Unseen Disability eg Diabetes, Epilepsy, Asthma 110 128 238 Wheelchair User / Have Mobility Difficulties 26 48 74 Other Disability 83 105 188 No Known Disability 16990 19238 36228 Not Known 261 631 892 Grand Total 18311 21162 39473

Equality Act 2010 Replaced the Disability Discrimination Act of 1995 The Equality Act, like the DDA, was introduced with the intention of tackling the discrimination which many people with disabilities face. ‘The Act is 'anticipatory', which means you cannot wait until a disabled person wants to use your services. You must think in advance (and on an ongoing basis) about what disabled people with a range of impairments (sight loss, hearing loss, mobility and cognitive impairments) might reasonably need.’ - RNIB

EU Directive on Web Accessibility Sept. 2018 Establishes common accessibility requirements in order to ensure that websites and mobile applications of public sector bodies are made more accessible by making them perceivable, operable, understandable and robust. Commission Implementing Decision (EU) 2018/1524.

Timeline for Implementation 23rd Sept 2018 – law came into being. 23rd Sept 2019 – All websites created after 23rd Sept 2018 have to be accessible. 23rd Sept 2020 – All websites have to be accessible. 23rd June 2012 – All mobile applications have to be accessible.

‘Content on new or updated websites that are published after 23 September 2018 has to be accessible by 23 September 2019. Existing sites will need to be accessible by September 2020. This is for public sites – so the main university website, faculty pages, anything not requiring a log-in. Documents are exempt only if they were published before 23 September 2018 and not essential for services in your organisation. So a PDF published for the 2017-18 academic year would be exempt if it is no longer used but one that was published in 2017 and is still in use is covered by the regulations.   If the document was published on your intranet or extranet (ie staff and student have to log in) then content published after 23 September 2019 will need to be accessible.  This would be the situation for a document that was only available through Moodle, then September 2019 is the deadline. ‘

Support resources for staff: Occupational Health Employee Assistance Scheme UCL Eyecare Disability IT Support Resources Access to Work

Support resources for students: Library Disability Support Student Support and Wellbeing Student Psychological Services

Assistive Software on the Network – site licence TextHelp Read and Write – text to speech software for dyslexics and those for whom English is not their first language. This also contains a wide range of useful tools. Inspiration – mind mapping tool that helps you time manage and plan essays, and presentations.

Assistive Software on the Database– Free and can be loaded anywhere Workrave – timer software to remind you to take breaks Balabolka – text to speech Orato – text to speech Ss Overlay – screen overlay Rapid Set – colour and font change T bar – screen ruler and colour block Vu bar – slotted ruler Xmind – mind mapping – free version NVDA – screenreader for the blind

Live Captioning – 121 Captions https://www.121captions.com/

Demonstration Time

Michele Farmer m.farmer@ucl.ac.uk Disability IT Support Website