Guidelines for the Production and Provision of Academic Materials in Accessible Formats

(Endorsed by Committee of Associate Deans Teaching (CADeTS ) 4/2004)

Students with a print disability or a learning disability* may experience difficulty in accessing material which is print based or in an inaccessible electronic format. These students may require their study material in alternative formats such as braille, e-text, audio or disk.

The production of alternative format material can take up to 12 weeks. The Disability Liaison Unit (DLU) assists in the translation and reformatting of academic material.

To assist with the timely delivery of material the following is recommended:

Academic and General staff members responsible for production of course material

Before the start of semester:

• Prioritise material, in week order. This includes course outlines, reading packs, texts and book chapters.
• Identify essential texts.
• Provide, where possible, all available material on disk or electronically to the DLU, as this ensures a faster turn-around time for the production into alternative formats.
• If material is not available electronically, it must be scanned before transcribing to the student’s preferred alternative format. It is essential that hard copy material is in excellent condition.

Material to be scanned should:

• be 1st generation photocopies
• have clear page numbers
• be aligned correctly
• be printed on a white background
• have a readable font
• have complete bibliographic details for all books and articles are provided
• be appropriate size text (Font 12 for Monash University produced materials)

Academic material should not be more than one page of text per photocopied page or be reduced photocopies.

In choosing class materials, preference should be given to material already available on disk or CD ROM.

Timelines for the Provision of Material

Every endeavour should be made to have teaching material available to all students at least 4 weeks prior to the commencement of the semester in which the subject is to be taught.

If additional material is introduced to the course every attempt should be made to have the material available to the student for reformatting by the DLU 4 weeks prior to when the material is required.

Exams

It is the DLU's responsibility to liaise with the relevant lecturer to negotiate exam provisions if the student requires their exam in an alternative format.

For Further Information

Clayton Campus
Disability Liaison Unit
Equity and Diversity Centre
Level 1, Gallery Building (Bldg 55)
Monash University
Clayton 3800

Telephone: (03) 9905-5704 (Voice)
Facsimile: (03) 9905-5517
E-mail: dlu@adm.monash.edu.au

OR

Gippsland Campus
Disability Liaison Unit
C/- Community Services
Room 4N-103
Gippsland Campus
Monash University
Northways Road
Churchill, Victoria, 3842

Telephone: (03) 9902-6425
Facsimile: (03) 9902-6975

Notes

* People with a print disability may be unable to:

• Visually process print material due to sight impairment, learning disability or other perceptual condition;
• Hold or manipulate books or other texts; and/or
• Maintain focus to read.

* Learning Disability

Learning Disability (LD) refers to a variety of disorders that affect the acquisition, retention, understanding, organisation, dissemination, or the use of verbal and/or non-verbal information. Learning Disabilities range in severity and invariably interfere with the acquisition and use of one or more of the following skills:

• Oral language (eg. listening, speaking, understanding)
• Reading (eg. decoding, comprehension)
• Written language (eg. spelling, written expression)
• Mathematics (eg. computation, problem solving)