What is accessibility?

Accessibility is the realization of a physical, mental, and social environment in such a way that everyone, regardless of their characteristics, can function on an equal footing with others. The learning environment – including the digital environment – must take into account individual support needs related to learning disabilities, health conditions, or cultural and linguistic background, so that learning can progress according to the objectives. Particular attention should be paid to the overall accessibility and accessibility of guidance, teaching and learning.

The terms accessibility and usability are used to assess the accessibility of different online services. They promote diversity and equality. The Accessibility Directive entered into force in the EU on December 22 2016. Its key objective is to ensure that every individual has the full potential to function fully in digital environments. Learning can be supported by smart technologies, such as apps that can transform speech into text or text into speech, for example. In online environments, accessibility takes the form, for example, of multimodal solutions using different sensory channels.

How is accessibility taken into account at Humak?

As a student, you often know best what kind of facilities you personally need. If you have a learning disability, a health condition that affects your studies, or individual support needs related to your cultural and linguistic background, you should contact a student counselor right at the very beginning of your studies. After discussion with the councelor, any individual arrangements to help you with your studies (e.g. extra time for exams, returning assignments, or alternative ways of completing them) will be agreed upon.

Submit any certificates and statements related to the arrangements to your counselor. The mutually agreed arrangements will be recorded in Peppi’s contract archive and your student counselor and your PSP coach will be added as parties to the contract. In this way, the arrangements agreed in the contract can be taken into account on an implementation-specific basis in the coaching. You can discuss in more detail with the lecturer responsible for the implementation what the arrangements mean in a specific course implementation.

Humak’s e-learning environment includes the Ally tool, which provides you with alternative accessibility formats, such as audio content (MP3) and electronic braille. Click here to read the instructions for the Ally tool.

For more information, see the related guide: