Learning and Teaching Centre

Macquarie Accessibility Services

Information for Academics

MQAS' Educational Developers work closely with the academics to scope the courses and plan ahead for any issues that are identified during the scoping.

As an academic what will I need to do?
Supply as much information and access to your course content. The earlier we can view unit outlines or study guides, access your online units, know the required texts or readings will help us to identify quickly the conversion needs for the student.

What can I do to make conversions easier for my Units?
When you're planning your units, keep in mind that set texts are the hardest part of the conversion process. Ensuring you're using updated texts that the publisher has in digital format will lessen the time to obtain the text from publishers. Most publishers work well with us and understand that there are issues with texts and the different technologies that may need to be used as well as the importance of students being able to reference properly for the Higher Education sector. Check with the publishers you are using that they will be supportive of helping to make texts 100% accurate for students.

Do I need to change my Unit?
No, we will work with you to ensure the student will have access to all the content that other students have access to.

Why do you need the content earlier?
The time for conversion is the main issue, the earlier we can have access to the content the sooner we can finish the scope and then begin the conversion process. Set texts can sometimes take anything from three days to two months it depends on the publisher and what restrictions we face from them and what is required for the student.

As an example a student with a visual impairment may require all images or graphs to be converted into text. This takes time, so the earlier we can identify the conversion requirements the sooner we can begin.

What if I do not have content available early?
There will be a delay in the student receiving the content. Depending on the issues the delay can cause the student to wait and be working a few weeks behind other students because of the delay.

Read what academics have to say about their experience working with MQAS (formerly M-CAS)

 

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