Changing Organizational Architecture for Access to Students with Disabilities

Context: ICT in Knowledge Societies Higher Education institutions are working steadily towards increased participation in the global knowledge society, where knowledge, expertise and talent produce socio-economic benefits. Internationally the drive to promote ICT in education has been characterised by an alignment with broader social and economic goals. Adam et al., 2011; Department of Education, “ICTs have become a positive force of transformation and a crucial element of any personal development, empowerment and institutional framework for inclusive development”.

Changes in Higher Education (HE) as a result of ICTs ODeL – is enabled by technology. Pervasive technology has significant implications for higher education. eLearning is on the rise at universities around the world. Move toward academic innovation and organisational change through technology.

The Context For students with disabilities (SWD) who have to contend with attitudinal and environmental barriers to inclusion in education, the prognosis for self-actualization and social mobility is disheartening. The ability to become constructive and active members of society becomes seriously diminished through the intentional and unintentional denial of access to education opportunities and the world of work. For students with disabilities (SWD) who have to contend with attitudinal and environmental barriers to inclusion in education, the prognosis for self-actualization and social mobility is disheartening. The ability to become constructive and active members of society becomes seriously diminished through the intentional and unintentional denial of access to education opportunities and the world of work.

Students with disabilities (SWD) have a deep-seated conviction that no one is concerned in their lives and hardships. They are exposed not only to economic deprivation but also social exclusion or marginality, severe violation of basic human rights, and public indifference.

SWD and the Digital Divide Digital divide will be exacerbated by failing to address the challenges faced by SWD. Access to education technology and digital literacies for SWD is a matter of social justice. Digital elites and Digital strangers – Universities need to understand the “technological habitus” of students in context of unequal access. (Czerniewicz and Brown 2013). The benefits of ICTs have to be shared benefits. ICTs have to be made accessible to SWD so it can “constitute an opportunity and not a barrier”. There are severe information and knowledge access challenges for SWD.

Inequalities in the networked world for SWD Advances in ICTs and education technology reveal new inequity and inequality concerns. SWD: “permanent second–class citizens of the information age”. SWD have to contend with collaboration and participatory inequalities and a lack of digital and media literacies. – “With Internet and Web–based content now central to education, employment, entertainment, socialization, and civic engagement, unequal access to the content and technologies necessary for social participation results in very significant virtual segregation”. Retrofitting accessibility: The legal inequality of after the fact online access for PWD in the United States. Brain Wentz, Paul Jaeger and Jonathan Lazar

Inclusive Organizational Architecture reordering of systems and design for the benefit of all people

Inclusive Procurement management Inclusive PQM design Inclusive Student Management Quality Management Inclusive Talent Management ICT and Education Technology Access and Design Organizational Architecture Change for Inclusive Higher Education

Complicated infrastructure Retrofitting technology access Provision for SWD seen as “undue financial burden” Provider-centred academic architecture Optimal advantage of and access to ICTs Inclusive student-centred academic architecture Inclusive education practise Innovation of new access ICTs ODL leap to create an Inclusive Digital Future

An institutional element needing change: Procurement Move towards Inclusive Procurement: University procurement that ensures accessible purchases and investment in ICT and infrastructure. Institutional governance must support human-centered technology and in particular, access technology and ICTs which will aid in increasing the learning autonomy of SWD. The most frequently cited reasons for not providing accessible technologies are that incorporating accessibility into the technology will: – increase costs of the technology – lengthen time of development – only serve a small market – necessitate special design requirements – never meet the needs of each different disability (Maskery in Brain Wentz, Paul Jaeger and Jonathan Lazar. 2011).

How universities can support SWD Universities can:- – authentically respond (no lip service) to the needs of SWD – explore the limitations, exclusion and undesirable side effects of current teaching and learning methodologies, knowledge mobilizing and dissemination strategies, systems and technologies – reconfigure institutional organizational architecture in order to explicitly include SWD

create access to ICTs and social media that takes into account the pedagogical and epistemological, psychological, psychosocial aspects of disability thereby enabling new pathways of hope and admission into new possibilities facilitate ICT learning labs to incubate new, innovative knowledge access solutions generate open source working models to address knowledge access needs of SWD encourage innovation and creativity so SWD can design their own knowledge creation and dissemination solutions Open Education Resources - HE can provide access to digital knowledge resources for use by SWD using any connected device, anytime and anywhere. There will be no need to buy proprietary texts. Encourage social justice practice in teaching, research and community engagement plus system such as Procurement and ICT. How universities can support SWD:

Why we must collaborate o No one government ministry, industry, sector or scientific discipline will be able to offer complete solutions to the challenges faced by SWDs. o We need to create a bridge between work done by universities, government and civil society. o Technology and learning methodologies can be areas where partnerships can bring about benefits of scale. o Sharing the burden of innovation, research activity and breaking down complex challenges into manageable pieces, can be invaluable.