This document summarizes the work done by the University of Alicante in Spain for the SWING project, which aims to promote accessibility for disabled students in higher education. It discusses the university's efforts to host visits, conduct needs analyses, help design accessibility centers, provide advising on assistive technologies, and oversee dissemination efforts. It also describes challenges observed during training in assistive technologies in Morocco and Egypt, such as students lacking knowledge on using technologies. Requests from students are mentioned, such as needing more research, resources, and documentation on accessible technologies in local languages. The document emphasizes the importance of assistive technology training and support staff at universities.

1. International Conference
“Tech-Based Accessibility for
HE Disabled Students”
8 October 2015
Abdelmalek Essaâdi University

2. Presenting the project
realizations
Carolina Madeleine & Jose Maria Fernandez
University of Alicante. Spain.

3. Realization Done by the UA so far…
• Host visit to the UA for all participants to show our best
practices,
• Supervise the Need Analysis made by partners countries,
• Participate in the Design and development of a model for
Accessibility Centres
• Advising in AT
• Attend to the training visit in partner countries by Laura Soler,
Mario Guilló, Domingo Martinez and José María Fernandez,
• Oversee the dissemination of the SWING project.

4. Training in assistive
technology in Morocco and
Egypt

5. Training in AT
• I had the opportunity of
attending the three
universities.
• It was a great experience, I
tried to pass on my
knowledge and at the same
time I learned a lot.

6. University measures
• The AT adquired
• Braille Display, Braille print
• Screen Reader/Magnifier
• Transmisor/Receiver FM
• Tablets: Surface, iPad…
• Keyboards & Joystics…
• Improve accesibility in the
web services
• Promote Volunteering
• Sensitization actions

7. Some problems with AT

8. Some problems with AT
• I noticed a problem that does
not happened in Spain, and it is
that disabled students enter
university with not a lot of
knowledge about technology
and even less knowledge about
accessible technologies.
• Learning how to use a screen
reader like Jaws, for example,
that's difficult, and then using a
web browser, a text-editor… that
needs time.
• In Spain there are specific
associations aiming to train
disabled people how to use
technology
• The Spanish Blind Association
taught me how to use them (this
association is similar to the ROA
association in Morocco). when I
had 12 years old.

9. Some problems with AT
• To overcome this problem, it
is very important, for instance,
the job that Ahmad is doing in
the University of Alexandria,
teaching AT to the rest of the
students, apart from social
networks, how to edit
documents, etc.
• It's a profile all universities
should have as a staff
member, …
•in Africa…. or in
Europe!

10. Some problems with AT
• I also observed problems
regarding the accessibility of
certain technologies as they
are not available in Arab or
they don't work in the same
way as they do in English or
in other occidental languages.

11. Requests of the students

12. Requests of the students
Regarding accessible
technology
• More research in accessible
technology
• More resources for AT
• More documentation about
accessible technology in
Arab.
• Prefer documents Word that
PDF.
In general…
• Adapted transport,
• Professors need to be aware
and adaptable towards the
needs of the disabled
students
• Accessible furniture (chairs,
tables), LIFTS!
• Priority to sit at the front of the
class.

13. More actions taken

14. More actions taken
• I have written several articles
about my experience during the
training.
• They have had a great diffusion in
Spain and Latin America.
• About disability in Morocco and
Egypt and the partner universities.
• I'm sorry but the last two still
need to be translated into
English!
• Article1 Disability and
university in Morocco
• Article 2 University of Tetouan

15. What's the best part?
• I'm still in contact with Abdelbari,
the enterpreneur that I met in
Tanger
• With the people of the association
ROA I met in Rabat
• With Ahmad, the accessible
technologies specialist I met in
Alexandria.
I think sharing experiences and
information between us is something
unique. 

16. ‫شكر‬ remerciements
thank you gracias
grazie ευχαριστίες