{"id":1984,"date":"2026-05-21T11:04:50","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T10:04:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/librarian\/?p=1984"},"modified":"2026-05-21T11:04:52","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T10:04:52","slug":"global-accessibility-awareness-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.aber.ac.uk\/librarian\/?p=1984","title":{"rendered":"Global Accessibility Awareness Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\r\n

Today (21st<\/sup> \u00a0May) is Global Accessibility Awareness Day<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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Within Student Journey, we have a specialised Accessibility and Wellbeing Team<\/a> who work with students throughout the year. The Team includes over 50 non-medical helper staff who provide 1:1 mentoring or study skills support for students with a disability or learning difference.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n

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Last year they supported over 800 of our students \u2013 the number of students they support has increased by 34% in the last five years.<\/p>\r\n

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Here\u2019s what our students have been saying about the team this year:\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

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\u2026incredibly invaluable, allowing me to\u2026\u00a0remain in university\u00a0through the several challenges that have occurred during my course.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

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\u2026really appreciate \u2026[having]\u2026continued support\u00a0throughout our entire degree from the same people (as opposed to them changing each year). I am autistic and that makes a real difference for me.<\/p>\r\n

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[The support worker] has single handily been the most important person in my university experience\u2026 without the services I would have less routine and interest from others which have been the two most\u00a0vital components in my success\u00a0in university.<\/p>\r\n

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We think that this student sums up the service perfectly: \u201cAmazing\u2026Absolutely brilliant\u2026Fantastic\u2026Phenomenal\u2026Invaluable\u2026Top tier\u201d<\/p>\r\n

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But it\u2019s not only these staff who are making sure that what we do is as accessible as possible. Here are some of the things that our other teams do.<\/p>\r\n

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Blackboard Content<\/h1>\r\n

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Blackboard Ally<\/a> is available for all students and staff at the university. This year 59,541 documents have been downloaded in an alternative format by 3,894 users. The most common format is Tagged PDF.<\/p>\r\n

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Staff have made 3,417 fixes to content \u2013 that\u2019s 3,417 changes that make teaching materials more accessible to use.<\/p>\r\n

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The average Ally course score for 2025-26 courses in Blackboard is 72%.<\/p>\r\n

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In November 2025, AU entered the Blackboard Fix Your Content Day<\/a> and were placed 3rd<\/sup> in the UK for the number of fixes to Blackboard content made.<\/p>\r\n

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\"Pie<\/figure>\r\n

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Books and journal articles<\/h1>\r\n

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All the book chapter and journal article scans that our digitisation service for reading lists are in an accessible format. They use OCR (Optical Character Recognition) scanning, which means that uploaded scans of book chapters and journal articles in reading lists are fully machine-readable, searchable, and accessible content. As well as complying with legislation, these scans are accessible for all learners. OCR scanned documents are compatible with assistive technologies such as screen readers, as well as having text navigation facilities.<\/p>\r\n

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As well as scanning items for reading lists, the team can also create accessible copies for books for students who have declared a disability to the university. We have a licence which allows us to make or find accessible copies of books if a suitable version is not available for us to purchase. If a text is not covered by the licence but we own an original copy, we may still produce an accessible copy for personal study or research.\u00a0<\/p>\r\n

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This service is free of charge to eligible students and can be accessed by emailing\u00a0digitisation@aber.ac.uk<\/a><\/p>\r\n

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Sensory items for wellbeing sessions<\/h1>\r\n

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Staff in our Wellbeing Service introduced boxes of sensory items that can be offered to students in Wellbeing sessions to help them manage need for self-stimulation (stimming). Here\u2019s an example of the items available:<\/p>\r\n

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\"A<\/figure>\r\n

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Using AI<\/h1>\r\n

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Our new AI prompt library<\/a> which is available to everyone include information about using AI for users with accessibility requirements. You can see some examples of this in some samples from the prompt library<\/p>\r\n

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