A Strategic Approach to a Disability Inclusive Academic Department

In March 2020, with a week's notice, England went into lockdown and Universities had to switch to online delivery of teaching, learning and assessment activities. Exams that traditionally took place in invigilated examination halls were cancelled and staff were asked to assess students online. I was the Exams Officer and Chair of the Board of Examiners for the year 2020-2021 and it my responsibility to resolve examinations due in May for my department.

Usually, exam setting processes consider reasonable adjustments for students with disabilities by way of additional time, large text, different coloured paper, take home paper, separate room, reader, etc. The pandemic presented different contexts where our exams needed to be inclusive:

1. We had several students who had returned to their home countries and would be taking the exams from different time zones.
   
2. We had students who had to share internet connections, computers and study spaces in their homes.
   
3. We had students with informal care responsibilities as a result of the pandemic for instance, in the absence of professional carers.
   
4. We had students who were recognized key workers.
   
5. We had students whose mental health was suffering due to the context.
   

This inexhaustive list and any existing disabilities meant we needed to identify an approach to the exams that could be taken at a flexible time, with flexible duration and at the same time be fair and rigorous.

Thus, this examination process had a significant impact not only on students with diverse disabilities but also the diverse contexts they took the examinations from as a result of the pandemic.

Based on my previous experience as Academic Lead for Technology Enhanced Learning at Anglia Ruskin University for five years and work with Jisc on Inclusion and Accessibility initiatives, I drew on my knowledge and experience to identify the best approach.

As a Computing Department, staff were familiar with online tests with formative quizzes including those text-based, programming and mathematics. The standard duration for exams in our department are 2hr and 15 minutes with additional time for any students with special arrangements.

The following principles were used to set the new digital exams:

1. Each exam was available to take within a window of 48 hours. This made the exam inclusive of students in other countries, had family responsibilities and who would otherwise may not be at the optimum set up to take an exam.
   
2. The duration of each exam was set to be three times the duration that would be required. This not only addressed any special arrangements that would have been in place for students with disabilities but also catered any slow internet connections.
   
3. Exams were broken into smaller components. This met the needs of students who needed to take frequent breaks and also split up the time a student needed to occupy the computer and possibly a room for the duration of the exam at home.
   

The following measures were taken to enhance academic integrity:

1. Exams were a combination of multiple choice and long questions, similar to the traditional paper-based exam format. In the digital exam, staff set a large bank of questions and each student would receive a randomly selected questions with randomised answers. No student would receive the same question at the same time and if students spent time discussing the questions and answered, they would lose their own time and at the end of the time, the answers would automatically be submitted. Once submitted, students could not revisit questions.

2. Long questions were set up in open book style.

3. For long answers, students have to scan/take photo and upload their working where relevant.

4. Oral presentations were organised for randomly selected students for every module.

5. If there was suspicion of academic dishonesty, they were dealt with a separate process.

Mental wellbeing at exams:

Similar to the incident form in traditional exam halls, an online problem reporting form was set up so students could report any issues with their computer, internet connection, exam system, and any other extenuating circumstances. Exams were never reopened for students but if the student had experienced extenuating circumstances, they were considered at the board of examiners and offered an opportunity to take uncapped resits in the next opportunity.

Managing Student Experience:

We set up a sample exam for all students to familiarize themselves the new format and had student open meetings where they could raise any concerns and worries about this approach.

Staff Experience:

This format took significantly additional time to set up. However, majority of the marking was automatic and the questions could be reused in the following years.

Learning to write open book style questions was a new experience to many. This was managed with individual conversations and support from more experienced staff.

Student Feedback:

While there was initial apprehension due to the uncertainty and the new format of exams, students responded positively to their exam experience. Feedback ranged from how they appreciated being able to choose their personal best time to, reducing the stress and anxiety they would normally feel in exam halls.

This approach was adopted by thirteen members of staff and the exams were taken by over a thousand students. We received just over hundred incident reports. Concerns raised ranged from students being unsure if their answers were saved to technical problems with their internet or computer. Incidents were summarised and considered at the pre-exam board meeting. Majority of the reported concerns from students were dealt with by email, confirming that the examiner had received their responses. Only two students had significant technical problems had to retake the exams in late summer.

Our external examiners commended our approach and staff and students would like this approach to exams continue.

Moving forward:

Our experience was overwhelmingly positive and we have decided to keep our future exams online with some changes. Due to scheduling availability and the fact all of our students have now returned to in personal learning activities, we have reduced the exam window from 48 hours to 36 hours.

We have had challenges with making the exam questions and answers available for external examiner scrutiny in the same format. We are working out ways of improving this with our technical experts.

As there is limited publication on assessments as a response to the pandemic, I cannot say for certain if similar approaches have been practices elsewhere. This was an approach original to the Department of Computing and Goldsmiths, University of London.

Exams amid a pandemic is only a single aspect of digital provision that needs to be made inclusive and accessible. Anecdotally, I was aware that there were other pockets of Goldsmiths where accessibility initiatives being taken. Therefore, I decided to investigate for initiatives across Goldsmiths.

I learnt from the IT Services unit, that they have published accessibility guidelines for those using Microsoft Word format. Our Disability and Wellbeing team focuses on Students’ diagnosis and recommending reasonable adjustments to the departments. I also had conversations with our Library, Employability, Legal teams who were aware of gaps and the need to improve digital access.

This provided a clear landscape of the opportunity and receptiveness for change. I planned actions for three academic years to make the department of Computing the most inclusive and accessible one in Goldsmiths, University of London and use that as a case study to extend good practice across Goldsmiths. Year 1 (2020/2021) to be exploratory work, setting up classroom and VLE structures and providing staff development within the Computing department; Year 2 (2021/2022) to carry out an assessment and audit of effectiveness of actions and apply any action and Year 3 (2022/2023) to reach and impact across the institution and influence the digital strategy.

First, I produced some general guidance on making the classroom environment inclusive and accessible. These was drawn from the guidance at Anglia Ruskin University [5]. Please see Appendix A.1 for the guide.

One of the key issues raised by our students was the inconsistency of our module level VLE pages.

I used my knowledge and experience from Anglia Ruskin University to propose a template for the VLE and worked with our central learning and teaching teams to implement this. I also consulted our staff and students on the structure and expected experience (please see Appendix A.2 for the template).

One question that kept coming up in the consultations was why each of these components of the template mattered. Therefore, I also compiled the checklist along with a rationale for each of the items (please see Appendix A.3 for the VLE Checklist). These were rolled out ahead of the academic year 2021-2022.

As with similar initiatives, providing documents does not mean it will be followed through. Therefore, I organized two workshops where staff brought their materials for the following academic year and populated their VLE module pages using the template and checklist. A member of the learning and teaching team was also present to provide any support required by staff.

Over the consultations on the VLE templates and guidance, it also became apparent that over the years, we have assumed and expected that all staff members should somehow understand and know how to support students with disabilities.

I worked with our Disability team to identify specialists and delivered sessions on understanding disability, Dyslexia, Neurodiversity, Mental Health, and Assistive Technology to academic staff in the department of Computing. These were attended by up to 30 members of staff per session who found it useful and practical.

At the end of the first term following the usage of VLE templates, I surveyed students who were in their second and third years as they would have experienced the previous versions of the VLE pages as well. Forty-two students responded to the survey. A summary of findings are as follows:

• The structure of the VLE was rated inclusive and accessible by 88% of the students who responded.
  
• 62% of the students thought the VLE had improved since their previous year of study at Goldsmiths.
  
• In their free text, they said the structure of the VLE was easy to navigate and the module pages were neater.
  
• They flagged 3 specific modules that were not following the templates which we were able to address immediately.
  
• Students said the way Panopto (https://www.panopto.com/) displayed recordings of lectures was messy. As a response, we produced guidance on how to structure recorded videos to staff. Please see Appendix A.4 for guidance to use within the local interface drawing from Panopto's own accessibility guidance [6].
  

I ran two workshops for the second term to include that came from student feedback. The survey is still open and the responses are still rolling in. One qualitative response says:

“…..what I found annoying in previous years was that most modules have the same 'assessments', 'grades', 'forums' and 'resources' sections but they would be in completely different locations within the pages for different modules. Now that's been made consistent, so students know where to find those things.

Likewise, this year most module pages have had headings for each week of term, with the resources and materials relevant to that week underneath. Whilst that was how most module leaders used it previously anyhow, some weren't organising it that way before this year so I'm grateful for the consistency. It makes it much easier and faster to locate materials when I want to refer to them. You wouldn't believe the time I've wasted in previous years …"

I have allocated time and responsibility to two designated members of staff for checking that the VLE template has been followed across modules during the induction week when students look at their VLE pages to find out what their modules are about and again around week 3 of the term to check if members of staff are following the guidance to have material available before and after a lecture.

In the first term of checking, we identified 9 out of 138 modules that hadn't followed the guidelines and were able to rectify them. In the second term, except for some components in a handful of VLE pages, all module pages had followed guidance.

Our monitoring process of VLE pages also showed that some of our staff members may have their own challenges. I sent an open invitation to staff to complete a survey or email me directly if they needed any workplace adjustments.

Two members of staff emailed me to say that they are Dyslexic and regularly share their experience and support mechanisms with their students regularly.

One member of staff reached out to me about progressive hearing impairment. I worked with IT Services and Estates Teams to survey the hearing technology in the classrooms. I have now made a portable microphone and Personal Audio (PA) kit that can be collected by any member of staff, should they need it. I have also raised awareness of transcription and other accessibility features in Microsoft Teams. Please see Appendix A.5 for guidance. Further, all classrooms across Goldsmiths have now been surveyed and 11 classrooms have hearing loop systems in place.

One member of staff raised mental health issues and aspects of ADHD they are struggling with. I am exploring how best to support these members of staff by making adjustments to work spaces.

I have made discussions of disability, neurodiversity part of workload conversations so staff have an opportunity to discuss any challenges and strengths relating to their disability or neurodiversity.

I have also provided guidelines on how to run meetings in an inclusive and accessible way (please see Appendix A.5).