This document discusses the impact of distance education for students with disabilities in higher education. It provides context on disability rates and challenges students face in higher education. Distance education can increase access and flexibility for students with disabilities by allowing communication from a distance, flexibility in schedules, and accessibility of technology and support services. The document recommends strategies for universities including developing inclusive policies, specialized disability services, training for staff, universal design of courses, and student support in areas like advising and social interaction.

1. THE IMPACT OF DISTANCE
EDUCATION FOR STUDENTS
WITH DISABILITIES IN HE
TIBERIO FELIZ MURIAS (UNED)
MARIA-CARMEN RICOY (VIGO UNIVERSITY)
SPAIN

2. 7,432

3. 7,432

4. 1. The Context: Students with Disabilities and Higher Education
2. Students with Disabilities in Higher Education
3. Problems of Students with Disabilities in Higher Education
4. Reasons to use Distance Education
5. Strategies for inclusion

5. THE CONTEXT: STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES AND
HIGHER EDUCATION
• United Nations Convention on the Rights of
Persons with Disabilities (UN-CRPD, 2006)
• Eurostat (2011)
• “Difficulty in basic activities” 14.00%
• “Limitation in work caused by a health condition
or difficulty in a basic activity” 10.95%
• One in six people in the European Union (EU)
has a disability
• The rate of poverty is 70 % higher than the
average

6. DISABILITY STRATEGY 2010-2020
• Accessibility
• Participation
• Equality
• Employment
• Education and training
• Social protection
• Health
• External Action

7. MODELS OF DISABILITIES
• "individual and social responsibility as opposed
to professional help and medical responsibility"
(Seale, 2013, p. 23)
• Students’ statements as:
• Being disabled is not being special.
• Disability is not a public matter.
• Doing disclose does not even result in action.
• Inconsistency and variations in provision of
support.
• Implications for technology use and access.

8. RESEARCHES & CONCEPTS
• DePoy and Gilson (2014): vanity
• IDEAL Project: Distance education offers
educational opportunities for disabled students
• Seale (op. cit.) talked about the voices and silences
• Absence of stakeholders and students
• The role of training and universal design
• Researchers and campaigners
• Digital capital (Seale, Georgeson, Mamas, and
Swain, 2015)
• Universal design (Burgstahler, 2012) to every type
and level of learning

9. STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES IN HIGHER
EDUCATION
• Most early leavers (age group 18-24) are people
with disability
• People with disability have lower tertiary
educational attainment (age group 30-34)
• Young people neither in employment nor in
education and training are more much in People
with disability
• Participation in education and training is lower
in people with disability

10. STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES IN HIGHER EDUCATION
(2)
• Erickson and Larwin (2016)
• Better in short degrees (for instance, associates)
• Private schools for bachelors
• Distance universities are the largest providers of
higher education for people with disabilities
• Specific services to promote, receive, orient, and
support students with disabilities
• OU of UK has a Disability Resources Team that
supports all the strategy for inclusion
• UNED: UNIDIS www.uned.es/unidis

11. PROBLEMS OF STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES IN
HIGHER EDUCATION
• Seale et al. (2015) discovered that students with
disabilities in higher education knew and used
technologies but sometimes these resources
were not totally effective or disabled students
were not drawing on all available resources.
• Ocampo (2012) analyses the inclusion of
students with disabilities in higher education
and provides data on how students express
more acceptance that academics and university
government authorities for inclusion.

12. BARRIERS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

13. BARRIERS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

14. BARRIERS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

15. REASONS TO USE DISTANCE EDUCATION
• Physical obstacles
• Distance communication
• Public exposure

16. REASONS TO USE DISTANCE EDUCATION
• Much more flexibility.
• Combine learning and other needs and activities.
• Communication technology accessibility for
communication.
• Forecast the learning means and process, and to
adapt them when it is needed.
• Specific services in very early period of their
development.
• Strong methodology to receive, diagnostic, and
orient students with disabilities (Andreu, Pereira &
Rodríguez, 2010; Sama & Sevillano Asensio, 2012)

17. STRATEGIES FOR INCLUSION
Recommendations for UNICA universities on minimum standards
for disabled persons (Limbach-Reich, 2015):
• Taking into account the needs of disabled students in strategic
plans
• Elaboration of an official document on equal rights, policies
and procedures concerning persons with disabilities
• Establishing of a disability specialist service
• Criteria of eligibility for services and accommodations
• Standards in the assessment of all students, disabled or not
• Same choice of study programmes
• Protection of information concerning the disability or health
of an individual
• Promoting disability awareness among students and staff and
disability training for staff (teaching and administrative)

18. RECOMMENDATIONS
• Good designs (Moore, 2011)
• The universal accessibility is provided by
accessible designs and assistive technologies
(Seale, 2013).
• Technology for people, and not technology for
disability (Foley and Ferri, 2012)
• Accessibility means that everybody is accessing
to any content by any technology in any
environment (Seale, op. cit.).

19. FIVE CATEGORIES OF STUDENTS’ SUPPORT HAVE TO
BE SPECIALLY ATTENDED (MOORE, 2011)
• Admission and guidance
• Administrative assistance
• Study skills
• Crisis intervention
• Social interaction with peers

20. SOME STRATEGIES FROM A GUIDANCE AND
ORGANISATION APPROACH
• To strengthen empowerment and visibility.
• To reinforce and delocalise support, helps, services, and means.
• To apply internal lines for training and knowledge about
disabilities.
• To get more flexible designs and structures, with special attention
to timing.
• To promote positive discrimination.
• To focus preferentially the abilities before the limitations.
• To promote special projects supporting for inclusion in higher
education.
• To consider inclusion as a compulsory dimension in all actions.
• To improve legal framework and rules.
• To normalise the life of people with disabilities, that means to
promote the invisibility of specificity.

21. Tiberio Feliz Murias (UNED)
tfeliz@edu.uned.es
@TiberioUNED
Maria-Carmen Ricoy (Vigo University)
cricoy@uvigo.es