USQ leading the way for students with a print disability

The University of Southern Queensland's (USQ) Disability Resources Unit (DRU) is leading the tertiary education sector in supporting students with a print disability.

The DRU has implemented innovative educational technologies that allow study materials for students with print disabilities to be reformatted on campus.

Technical Coordinator in Assistive Technologies Rob Fawell said USQ was different to most universities because it has the capability to reformat documents in-house, rather than having to outsource them.

'We have a dedicated technical support unit whereas most unis outsource their technical requirements,' Mr Fawell said.

'The advantage of that is the turnaround time. You can get prescribed materials to the student before the semester starts.'

'The aim of the whole section is to encourage the independent learner and create a level playing field,' he said.

The Assistive Technologies team reformat a range of documents, from assignments and university forms to entire textbooks using Optical Character Recognition (OCR).

'(OCR) turns the scanned images into text. Its then edited and outputted to the required format, whether that be large font, Braille or other specified format,' Mr Fawell said.

'You've really got to have a fundamental understanding of a broad range of disciplines.

'Sometimes it's quite subjective. With images in textbooks you have to decide if an image is relevant or just anecdotal. Then if it is relevant you have to describe the graphic and try to portray its meaning in context,' he said.

Currently the team provides materials in alternative formats to 12 students and covers 25 units. The DRU covers a broad range of disciplines including engineering, science, music, arts, psychology, maths and computing and even German.

Mr Fawell said the services are the result of assistance from a lot of people around the university.

'I get support from DEC, printery, buildings and facilities, ICT, the library and of course academic staff,' he said.

Second year music student Christine Casey has certainly benefited from the processes.

'It's really good with the in-house processes,' Miss Casey said

'I gave them a list of about 18 books in the first week of semester. They had the contents pages to me the next day.

'You get to see the people and know them and know where the work is up to. The staff have been great,'

Miss Casey said friends of hers from other universities have had some difficulties trying to get materials processed.

'Talking to other blind friends of mine from other unis I have so few problems,' she said.

'Things like having it taking a long time to get their materials and some have even had to scan their own materials.'

Originally Miss Casey wanted to go to Brisbane for university but a USQ Tertiary Taster Day changed her mind.

'Talking to Rob and discovering all of the support that was available was great. I liked the look of the music program too,' she said.

'I love uni and don't want to graduate!'

Miss Casey hopes to become a primary school music teacher and is aiming to complete the Graduate Diploma of Learning and Teaching after her degree.

Media Contact: Jane Urquhart, USQ Media, +61 7 4631 2559