Increasing Access for Students with Disabilities
From: Chronicle of Higher Education - 11/28/2003

Congress is considering legislation to expand programs that increase access
for students with disabilities to include distance education. An existing
grant program is designed to support various programs that allow students
with learning or physical disabilities to participate in higher education,
and the new legislation explicitly adds distance-education programs to that
program. Peter Hoekstra (R-Mich.), author of the legislation, said, "The
flexibility and access facilitated through distance education and electronic
delivery methods also holds tremendous promise for eliminating barriers ...
for students with disabilities." The National Technical Institute for the
Deaf, established in 1965 by the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT),
uses technology tools to improve access for students with disabilities, and,
according to Joeann Humbert, director of online learning at RIT, such tools
sometimes benefit all students. The university developed a tool to search
captions of video clips, according to Humbert, and the tool has become a
favorite of all students. 

http://chronicle.com/prm/weekly/v50/i14/14a03401.htm

