As part of the University’s roll out of online teaching and learning to be deployed from the week beginning Monday the 13th of April 2020, it is envisaged that two main categories of students with special needs are likely to be most disadvantaged. These are students with visual and/or hearing impairments.
It is anticipated that Lecturers who teach such students are already aware of their enrollment in their classes, however a list of courses for which these students have registered, has been compiled and given to the Technical Team handling the roll out of the Sakai LMS.
The Office of Students with Special Needs wishes to bring the following to the attention of all Lecturers who teach students with Special Needs in the following categories.
1) Students with Hearing Impairment
All audio files must have transcriptions. If a Lecturer records a lecture, or is engaged in an audio discussion, there has to be some transcriptions, to enable students with hearing impairment to participate. If Zoom is used, for example, it would be useful to activate a chat session where comments and questions can be written for the sake of these students.
Any Lecturer who may need assistance with this should kindly contact the Coordinator of the Office of Students with Special Needs at: amasiedu@ug.edu.gh.
2) Students with Visual Impairment
For visually impaired students, the Team is ensuring that all materials that are put on Sakai for their respective courses are optical character recognized so as to make them usable with a screen reader.
Additionally, the Team has acquired remote access licenses for the JAWS and Zoom Text (Fusion) application that will assist visually impaired students directly on their PCs.
2) Extra Time for Students during Assessments
As has been the practice in the case of assessments, approval for extra time has been given for students with Special Needs.
Lecturers must therefore endeavor to inform the UGCS anytime there is a planned assessment exercise, to enable the Team to activate the appropriate platforms to ensure extra time is made available for the students.
The reality however is that these students with Special Needs are not likely to be more than 5 or 6 in any particular class and so Lecturers are encouraged to kindly contact the students individually to ensure any arrangements being considered will suit their needs.
Lecturers are to note that the Office of Students with Special Needs can be contacted at any time should there be any need for support or assistance. The Coordinator may be reached on amasiedu@ug.edu.gh.
We would appreciate your full cooperation to ensure our students are not disadvantaged.
Thank you.
Christy Badu (Mrs.)
Ag. Director, AAD
Distribution: General
cc:
Pro Vice-Chancellor, (ASA)
CITO
Coordinator, OSSN
