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ACCESS-ed Activities

The ACCESS-ed Project was designed around four major activities:

1. DARCs

  • DARC protocol development
  • DARC training and implementation
  • Partnership development and replication

2. Universal Design Materials & Techniques

  • Materials Acquisition and Consolidation: Gather and index existing UD materials in a searchable web-based database.
  • Materials Development: Develop new materials to fill accessibility gaps when there is not an option available or on the horizon.
  • Materials Nomination System: Create a web-based information system that allows our partners and other organizations to nominate relevant resources and protocols to be added to our UD materials database.

3. Dissemination

  • Web Resources: The ACCESS-ed website serves as a portal for information, resources, links, and products supporting UDE.
  • Searchable Web-based Database: An accessible search interface for locating materials supporting UDE.
  • Co-sponsor a National Conference: ACCESS-ed will offer a national conference in Septempber 2008 on "Universal Design in Higher Education and Beyond"
  • Publications and Presentations: The ACCESS-ed Project staff will publish articles and present at national conferences to disseminate the findings and resources of the project.

4. Evaluation

  • Formative and Summative Assessment: Project staff will enage in a variety of outcome measurement activities to assess the impact of the project.

It took me several years of struggling with the heavy door to my building, sometimes having to wait until a person stronger came along, to realize that the door was an accessibility problem, not only for me, but for others as well. And I did not notice, until one of my students pointed it out, that the lack of signs that could be read from a distance at my university forced people with mobility impairments to expend a lot of energy unnecessarily, searching for rooms and offices. Although I have encountered this difficulty myself on days when walking was exhausting to me, I interpreted it, automatically, as a problem arising from my illness (as I did with the door), rather than as a problem arising from the built environment having been created for too narrow a range of people and situations.

Susan Wendell, author of
The Rejected Body: Feminist Philosophical Reflections on Disability