1. UKOLN is supported by: What Does Accessibility Mean To The Blogging Community? Group Exercises Brian Kelly UKOLN University of Bath Bath UK B.Kelly@ukoln.ac.uk Emma Duke-Williams School of Computing University of Portsmouth Portsmouth UK http://www.ukoln.ac.uk/web-focus/events/conferences/blogs-ac-uk-2006-06/ This work is licensed under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.0 licence (but note caveat)

2. 2 Contents Group Exercises: Blogging (1) Blogging (2) Podcasting (1) Podcasting (2) Skype Report Back

3. 3 Blogging Exercise (1) For discussion in your group. Lecturers in your department provide Blogs which provide supplementary materials relate to their courses. It has been pointed out to you that this may breach SENDA regulations as the Blogs fail a number of Bobby automated accessibility test. In addition, one overseas student has complained that he does not enjoy reading one Blog due to its personal writing style and humour which is not to the student's taste. What do you do? Exercise Creative Commons licence available for this exercise

4. 4 Blogging Exercise (2) For discussion in your group. In your department you encourage your students to write Blogs as a means of reflective learning and shared learning. However you are worried that the Blogs encourage plagiarism. You are also worried that a visually impaired student may find the Blogging software difficult to use. What do you do? Exercise Creative Commons licence available for this exercise

5. 5 Podcasting Exercise (1) For discussion in your group. In your department you provide Podcasts of lectures for first year students in order to support large nos. of students and comply with your institution's 'clicks and mortar' strategy. The students' feedback is very positive However it has been pointed out to you that this approach may be illegal. What do you do? Exercise based on presentation given at SOLSTICE 2006 conference Exercise Creative Commons licence available for this exercise

6. 6 Podcasting Exercise (2) For discussion in your group. You are attending a closed conference in which a group of experts are talking about emerging new technologies. You would like to use one of the emerging new technologies – Podcasting – in order to disseminate more widely the talks at the conference. However it has been pointed out to you that this may be illegal unless you provide full transcripts of the talks. You do not feel you have the resources to provide such transcripts. What do you do? Creative Commons licence available for this exercise You can listen to the brief MP3 sound file about a related real world example mp3

7. 7 Skype Exercise For discussion in your group. You have a student with hearing impairments on your course. The induction loop system in lecture theatres normally works fine, but not in all areas. He suggested that lecturers used Skype, so he could listen in his laptop. The trial works fine – and you realise that a similar approach can be taken for use by a student in a wheelchair and a rugby player who has broken his arms. However your IT Service department points out to you that use of Skype infringes UKERNA's AUP What actions do you take? Exercise Creative Commons licence available for this exercise PDF

8. 8 About The Exercises In your groups: Address the issues raised in one of the case studies Discuss: How realistic the case studies are How the tensions raised in the case studies can be best addressed The barriers which may be faced in attempting to address the tensions How such barriers themselves can be best addressed