Students follow the steps of the engineering design process (EDP) while learning about assistive devices and biomedical engineering. They first go through a design-build-test activity to learn the steps of the cyclical engineering design process. Then, during the three main activities (7 x 55 minutes each) student teams are given a fictional client statement and follow the EDP steps to design products an off-road wheelchair, a portable wheelchair ramp, and an automatic floor sweeper computer program. Students brainstorm ideas, identify suitable materials and demonstrate different methods of representing solutions to their design problems scale drawings or programming descriptions, and simple models or classroom prototypes.

This exercise allows students to explore how people with site-impairment “read” documents and digital media using screen readers. It provides students with a sample memorandum to review for communications effectiveness. Then, by using a freely downloadable screen reader (and/or an enabled text-to-talk feature) and an embedded accessibility checker, students will evaluate the accessibility of the sample memo. With an altered appreciation of audience (now aware of sight-impairment disability), students will revise the memo using universal design principles and best practices for creating accessible documents. Using those experiences, students will be guided to reflect upon other disabilities and accommodations in the workplace. Finally, students will explore ability privileges and create a plan to identify, monitor and control blind spots. | Introductory except from a presentation at the Eastern Academy of Management on 26 June 2020 | Appendix containing ideas for modifying the exercise

The main objective of the MADA ICT-AID competency framework is to provide the community with a framework that can be used as a template to assist educational institutions, organizations and individuals in delimiting the required relevant competencies in the ICT accessibility and inclusive design field. This framework can help in creating learning resources and teaching materials on ICT accessibility and inclusive design, and also to make other courses accessible.

The focus of many open education projects is to provide access to education. But what does access mean? If the materials are not accessible for each and every student, do they fulfill the mandate to deliver fully open education? The open education movement has helped people in different parts of the world access content that they would otherwise not be able to view or interact with. Open education resources reduce costs for students and allow for greater flexibility for instructors. Accessibility can help push the movement even further forward.

The goal of the OER Accessibility Toolkit is to provide the needed resources needed to each content creator, instructor, instructional designer, educational technologist, librarian, administrator, and teaching assistant to create a truly open and accessible educational resource — one that is accessible for all students.

Students follow the steps of the engineering design process while learning more about assistive devices and biomedical engineering applied to basic structural engineering concepts. Their engineering challenge is to design, build and test small-scale portable wheelchair ramp prototypes for fictional clients. They identify suitable materials and demonstrate two methods of representing design solutions (scale drawings and simple models or classroom prototypes). Students test the ramp prototypes using a weighted bucket; successful prototypes meet all the student-generated design requirements, including support of a predetermined weight.

Students practice human-centered design by imagining, designing and prototyping a product to improve classroom accessibility for the visually impaired. To begin, they wear low-vision simulation goggles (or blindfolds) and walk with canes to navigate through a classroom in order to experience what it feels like to be visually impaired. Student teams follow the steps of the engineering design process to formulate their ideas, draw them by hand and using free, online Tinkercad software, and then 3D-print (or construct with foam core board and hot glue) a 1:20-scale model of the classroom that includes the product idea and selected furniture items. Teams use a morphological chart and an evaluation matrix to quantitatively compare and evaluate possible design solutions, narrowing their ideas into one final solution to pursue. To conclude, teams make posters that summarize their projects.