It was really insightful talking to the performance disability advisor about the processes that students go through when applying for support. As a student with a learning difference, I went through the ISA process myself, and identified my own barriers. I’ve had the experience as a student, but I was not familiar with the side of the disability advisor.
To start with I created a word cloud to see what the most used words were that came out of the interview.
It is interesting to see how the focus of importance is on the students, barriers, equipment, building and access etc.
The key pieces of information that I learned from this interview are the following.
- Open days can be fundamental for disabled students choosing or rejecting a university/course.
- Barriers may take time to identify if the student is unfamiliar with processes that will be learned on the course.
- The disability advisors do not have specialist knowledge of the courses allocated to them. It may become a team effort to identify barriers, but this can take time.
- There is little representation for the disability services during open days – maybe one member of the team present.
- There is no funding to make courses more accessible without the student demographic present. Funding is based on per student per individual needs.
- Funding can come from DSA or university budgets. Both can take months before funding is received, only then can equipment be ordered.
My reflections from this interview is my belief that open days should be of significant importance going forward. If we can make the rooms more accessible and disabled students can see that they have been considered, the hope is that they will be encouraged to apply.
My next endeavour is to set up the Moving3Dmachine to see if the adaptation works, test with colleagues and gain feedback on improvements. This would also require a risk assessment to be done. If it works, finding out if the course budget would cover the cost of the Moving3Dmachine so one is set up in each room and open access to the total cost of £33.72 will be my next avenue of enquiry.
Masters, S (2023) Interview word cloud