Proposal

Narrative

The Florida Atlantic University Student Accessibility Services (SAS) Assistive Technology Resource Center (ATRC) supports diversity at FAU by serving a wide range of students with challenges presented by their individual disabilities. The ATRC employs innovative solutions along with specialized one-on-one student  training to facilitate accessibility leading to student independence, retention and ultimately academic success. These acquired skills not only lead to academic accomplishment, but serve to prepare the students for full participation in the workforce with minimal limitation from disability.  The SAS has implemented a strategy of using innovative assistive technology along with individualized and specialized training  to facilitate this outcome. This proposal requests additional items and replacements in order to maintain this high quality of support to students with disabilities. The items required include a Humanware Brailliant 40 cell Refreshable Braille Display, which is an assistive device that will be used by students who are blind to read Braille in a fast and efficient manner when working on coursework and taking examinations. Two CCTV magnifiers (Davinci Pro and Baum Visiodesk for use by students with visual impairment are required to replace some aging units with outdated technology. These will allow visually impaired students to have full and equal access to printed materials such as hard copy books and exams by the use of magnification and image enhancement. Five additional laptops and five additional iPads are requested to expand the accessible accommodation of C-Print captioning services which are provided to students who are Deaf or hard of hearing. These laptops are used to deliver real-time captioning to students in class. The students view the resulting captions on an Apple iPad. This provides a discrete and unobtrusive display for the student which retains their anonymity and reduces the stigma of disability in the classroom while providing an equal and inclusive learning experience. This also presents a labor cost saving to the University of approximately $87 per hour compared to outside vendor Communication Access Real-Time captioning (CART) services for the Deaf. The ATRC currently utilizes twelve desktop computers that are configured with a range of assistive technology. These are utilized by students on a daily basis as they complete academic work. These desktop computers are currently at the end of their five year life-cycle and we are requesting the replacement of all twelve of these. We are requesting that four of these have larger 27” monitors to accommodate our visually impaired student users.

The items in this technology fee proposal are focused on supporting diversity and taking an innovative technology approach to ensure full  accessibility to students with disabilities at Florida Atlantic University. This proposal aims to reinforce FAU as the leader of the highest quality level of accessibility of any academic institution in the State of Florida.

Facilities

Not applicable.

Hardware Requirements

The hardware devices indicated in this proposal include:

Humanware Brailliant BI40 refreshable Braille Display with Perkins Braille input keypad. This will allow Braille input and output while connected to a computer or other suitable device  for visually impaired students.

Visio Decsk CCTV magnifier. This will allow hard copy text materials to be magnified and enhanced for accessible reading by visually impaired students. The device is designed for portability and use in student/tutor situations as well as classroom use.

Enhanced Vision DaVinci Pro. This is a desktop CCTV large screen 24" CCTV magnifier. This allow for magnification and visual enhancement for printed text materials. It also provides Optical Character Recognition ()CR) of materials to provide text-to-speech. This is for use by visually impaired students.

8 Dell 7040 desktops with 24" monitors and 4 Dell 7040 desktops with 27" monitors for visually impaired student users in the Assistive Technology Resource Center.

5 Ipads and 5 Dell 12 3000 series laptops for use as 5 C-Print captionist/student sets for captioning services for Deaf Students registered with Student Accessibility Services. The C-Print Captionist will type on the laptop while the student receives a live feed of the transcript captions via wireless communication on the Ipad in the classroom.

These items all comply with OIT standards and no additional hardware other than the items in the proposal are required.

Software Requirements

No additional software requirements.

Personnel Costs

Student Accessibility Services will provide the personnel to configure and manage the equipment. They will also provide training for the use of the equipment to students who are registered with the SAS.

Other Costs

No additional costs are associated with this proposal.

Timeline

Equipment will be fully implemented within 3 months of the funds being release to the SAS. The duration of the project will be at least 3 years but will be dependent on the life of each hardware device.

Sustainability

Not applicable.

Resource Matching

Not applicable.

Implementing Organization

Student Accessibility Services will be implementing this project.