eLexdis Project

Enhancing the Learner Experience of Disabled Students

ELExDis (lexdis.ecs.soton.ac.uk) will enhance the learner experience of disabled students by helping academic staff ensure that teaching and learning resources are accessible and usable by all learners.

The ELExDis project, supported by Learning & Teaching Enhancement & E-Learning Funds 2008, will develop methods, resources, strategies and systems to help ensure that teaching resources are accessible and usable by disabled students. It will build on the findings of the LExDis project which is exploring the e-learning experiences of disabled learners at the university using student-centred participatory methods in collaboration with Student Services, The Learning Differences Centre, Mentoring Service and the Assistive Technology Service.

The Learning and Teaching Enhancement Funding will provide the opportunity to use the knowledge gained from LExDis to work with academic staff and disabled students to help make courses and teaching and learning resources more accessible. The project will also produce good practice examples from real undergraduate or postgraduate courses (with accompanying rationale) that will be available for use on PCAP and Lateu CPD courses as well as by lecturers through self study.

TheThe ELExDis project will help provide practical exemplars and answers that are needed by staff to support the “questions that Schools could address in relation to inclusion” and links to guidelines and resources provided in the Inclusion Task Force report.

The ELExDis project will also help the University and its teaching staff meet the equal access requirements of current legislation. The latest legislation is the Disability Equality Duty which requires all universities to have due regard to the need to:

Promote equality of opportunity between disabled people and other people
Eliminate discrimination that is unlawful under the Disability Discrimination Act 1995
Take steps to meet disabled people's needs, even if this requires more favourable treatment

The Guides, Hints and Tips will be expanded over time with more advice being available by the end of Feb 2009 as part of the link in with the LexDis project.