Skills for Access

Using Skills for Access

Skills for Access has been developed to support you in two goals:

1. Creating multimedia for e-learning that is accessible as possible to your target audience, regardless of disability
2. Using multimedia to support and enhance access to the learning environment to disabled people

These two aims are not always the same - the Skills for Access philosophy is that we want to encourage you that using multimedia in e-learning can help to reduce accessibility barriers present in other areas of the learning environment.

What we don't want to do is portray accessibility as a set of guidelines or checkpoints to apply without considering the resource in question in a holistic way - i.e. taking into account the environment in which it's being used, its purpose, and intended audience.

Neither do we want to portray accessible web and multimedia design as something done disability-by-disability, or suggest that disabilities exist in a vacuum independent of one another.

So we present the following key resources:

• The Skills for Access Philosophy for accessible multimedia e-learning - the core resource, setting out a framework for developing multimedia to enhance accessibility of learning environments, acknowledging why development may until now have been hindered, while also conscious of responsibilities placed by legislation such as the Disability Discrimination Act.
• Articles by experts in the area of accessibility, e-learning and multimedia - short pieces to inspire and encourage you that multimedia can be made optimally accessible and at the same time enhance the learning experience for all users regardless of disability.
• Case Studies - real world examples of implementation of accessible multimedia to support learning by disabled students.
• Challenges to Learning - the way that specific sensory, physical or cognitive impairments can combine to present barrier to access to e-learning to students.
• How tos - advice on how to address a specific accessibility issue relating to a specific multimedia technology or format.

We also provide background information on disabilities and multimedia technologies

Each resource is provided with links to other relevant resources within the web site, plus links to external web sites with authoritative, in-depth information on the topic.

If you get lost within the site, all pages link to the Home page and other key pages: Skills for Access Philosophy, Articles, Case Studies, Challenges to Learning and Resources. The site has a Search Facility and Site Map to help you locate the information you need.