{"id":7302,"date":"2020-09-01T07:30:36","date_gmt":"2020-09-01T07:30:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hfd.phee.dev\/blog\/accessibility-and-inclusive-digitization\/"},"modified":"2023-11-23T15:02:38","modified_gmt":"2023-11-23T15:02:38","slug":"accessibility-and-inclusive-digitization","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hfd.phee.dev\/en\/accessibility-and-inclusive-digitization\/","title":{"rendered":"Accessibility and inclusive digitalization"},"content":{"rendered":"

The coronavirus crisis has hit universities abruptly. Teachers and students suddenly find themselves in virtual learning spaces. Students who were already disadvantaged before the pandemic are particularly affected by this crisis. Students with health impairments often belong to the risk group of people who are particularly vulnerable to coronavirus. They have to reorganize their everyday lives, and assistance and care staff are not available to the usual extent. And finally, they should study as successfully as possible under the changed conditions. <\/strong><\/p>\n

The decline of the higher education sector is particularly evident in this crisis situation. Students should work with content that they cannot use because it is not accessible. Teachers quickly had to switch to online teaching and often run their courses as synchronous virtual events. This form is borrowed from classroom teaching. It is not suitable for all courses. In addition, synchronous digital teaching puts some students at a disadvantage, especially students with health impairments.<\/p>\n

With manageable effort, multi-modal solutions can be designed that ensure accessibility and can be used by all students. In several blog posts, we show how this works, why it is important and why all students benefit from it.<\/p>\n

Students with health impairments in Germany<\/h2>\n

There is hardly any data on students with health impairments in Germany. One of the few sources of data is the
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\n Social Survey<\/a>
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\n<\/strong>which the DZHW regularly conducts on behalf of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and the Deutsches Studentenwerk (DSW). In the current social survey, 11% of the students surveyed stated that they had a health impairment that made it difficult for them to study.<\/strong> This means that of the current 2,892,000 students, around 318,000 are hindered in their studies because they have a health impairment.<\/p>\n

Of these students, 29% state that they have more than one impairment that makes studying difficult. In particular, the proportion of students with mental illnesses has risen significantly in recent years. However, other forms of health impairment also make it difficult to study, as the following chart shows:<\/p>\n

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Information on the study situation experienced by students with health impairments is provided by the study “
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\n impaired studying – best2<\/a>
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\n<\/strong>“. In the area of study organization as well as teaching and learning, 29% of the students surveyed stated that they had difficulties in their studies due to inaccessible teaching materials. <\/strong>And 24% of students say that non-accessible e-learning causes problems and that there is a lack of technical aids.<\/p>\n

What does accessibility actually mean?<\/h2>\n

The concept of accessibility is clearly defined by law in Germany. Section 4 of the BGG states:<\/p>\n

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Buildings and other facilities, means of transport, technical commodities, information processing systems, acoustic and visual information sources and communication facilities as well as other designed areas of life are barrier-free if they can be found, accessed and used by people with disabilities in the usual way, without particular difficulty and in principle without outside help. The use of disability-related aids is permitted.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I would like to go into a few aspects in more detail here:<\/p>\n