Accommodation- Accessibility to Course Content
Current laws as well as UF Regulations specify that reasonable accommodations must be made in the instructional process to ensure equal educational opportunity. The University has provided an extensive guide, “Providing Service and Access to Students and Employees with Disabilities in Higher Education: Effective and Reasonable Accommodations.
http://webfiles.ehs.ufl.edu/ServicesandAccess.pdf
This document provides general guidelines and lists of resources available in working with individuals who have disabilities.
The proliferation of the e-learning platform has resulted in increasing numbers of courses and programs delivered through an “online learning” format. This format can be found not only in distance learning but also in the resident curriculum. This modality increases the immediacy of appropriate accommodations in that the student and faculty are not face to face and may be separated by time or distance or both.
Hearing Impairment:
The following procedures should be followed:
1) Any student requesting services as a result of hearing impairment must be referred to the Disability Resource Center (DRC).
- It is the student’s responsibility to request such services before the beginning of the class to assure timely provision of appropriate accommodations.
2) A DRC staff member will work with the referred student to identify the degree of impairment and the appropriate accommodations. This finding will be recorded and certified by letter.
3) The student must then present the letter to the instructor who will contact the UF Distance Learning Staff by sending an email to: accessibility@distance.ufl.edu . The staff will initiate the process necessary to provide the accommodations requested.
- The funding for the required support package will be generated by a per credit hour charge of $1.00 on all funded credit hours delivered online.
- The accessibility fees collected will be maintained in an auxiliary fund managed by DCE and capped at no more than $50,000. Any fees collected that would increase the account balance beyond the limit will be reinvested in general online accessibility.
- Students enrolled in off-book programs will not pay this fee. The cost of the required accessibility for these programs is the responsibility of the revenue receiving college.
4) The DRC will publish annual data in regards to requests and accommodations and DCE will likewise provide accessibility fund flow and end of year balance data for the Associate Provost.
Support services for students with disabilities are coordinated by the Disability Resource Center in the Dean of Students Office.