2.1 Student view

Disabled students in mathematics had previously provided input on their requirements, their use of assistive technology and given feedback on the notes already in production. We invited further input for this project and one student updated us on how his use of notes had changed over time.

Lecturers either provide handwritten notes or L^aT_eX  which has normally been encoded in 10pt, 11pt or 12pt default spacing and fonts.

Formats we have created:

• Clear print: A4, single sided, 12pt helvetica font for English, extra white between paragraphs, extra spacing in maths. Extra space is to enable annotation.

  Are provided each year to students who are dyslexic, dyspraxic, have Asperger syndrome, mental health difficulties, conditions causing fatigue and to some students with mobility difficulties based on the recommendation of the DSA Needs Assessor, Disability Adviser or Study Skills Tutor. Notes are also provided to students with temporary conditions at the request of the Director of Studies.

  • Why they are needed: “My eyes don’t especially like the font [in the standard course notes] and it is all a bit close together.”

  • Notes are valued for their reading clarity: “Clear PDFs — clarity and portability”; by portability this student is referring to his practice of using an e-book reader to enable him to transport his notes with greater ease.

  • Notes need to be up to date: students lose track in lectures and will quickly get in touch if they are not.

• Large print: A4, single sided, helvetica font for English, extra white space between paragraphs and in mathematics, enlarged diagrams and:

  • 14pt text

  • 17pt text

  • 20pt bold English but not maths, underlining for emphasis, double spaced text with a clear typewritter font for verbatim text

  • 26pt bold English and maths, double spaced, no emphasis

  The latter two formats have each been provided to one student only. 14pt and 17pt have been provided on several occasions.

  Why they are needed:

  • “I could really do with an enlarged font version.”

  • “Without the lecture notes there is no point in being there...”

  Why they must be updated:

  • “the confusing part is when lecturers change the order of things round completely”

  • “the lecturer often strays from the official course notes.”

  • Students receiving these notes can lose track in lectures quite rapidly as they are not able to see the board clearly/at all.

• “Could I have the L^aT_eX?!”: We have provided the L^aT_eX  sources to two students

  • For one student the comments had to be removed. The student learnt L^aT_eX  in third year because they could no longer effectively produce handwritten notes and wished to continue annotating the full notes provided.

  • For a second student “human readable” L^aT_eX  was provided. The screenreader used by the student (or any other available) cannot read the mathematics in PDF or Word documents. The student read the L^aT_eX  source but found commands present solely for visual layout etc. to impede reading so these need to be removed.

• Editable formats for students who don’t know L^aT_eX: requested but can’t be provided...

  Why are they needed: because the students often prefer to adjust the materials to their own requirements and are best placed to do so, if we can enable this.

  • “I should be okay with [the notes already available from the lecturer] as long as I can adapt them as needed...”

  • “I wondered if I could get some editable ones as theres lots of gaps and font size changes on the PDFs online which make it really hard when I’m trying to read them.”

  • A regular request: “Can you correct the error on ******* notes?”. Some students find it difficult to ignore or work round errors in notes and genuinely require a correct version but the format means they cannot alter it themselves. This sometimes results in confusing and time-consuming conversations between the student, the staff providing notes and the lecturer: “where exactly is the error?!”.

• Formats which work with text-to-speech: not requested but students report that... “This doesn’t work...”

  • Some students report their frustration that text-to-speech does not work or ask if it is possible. Since equations are interspersed with text this even impedes students who primarily wish to hear the English text aloud rather than the equations themselves.