All in a day's work

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EA Draffan (on the right of the picture) manages the Assistive Technology Centre in Lancaster House. Initially funded by donations from Sussex alumni and in memory of Sally Marriott (Assistant Personnel Officer for many years), the centre opened in 1996.

Students on campus have free access to our service. We support them with their technology needs - and in particular, complex needs like voice recognition, which is very memory-hungry on any computer and not as easy as it sounds.

We also have prospective students who come to look at all the facilities and to learn about the Disabled Students' Allowance (DSA).

As a designated Access Centre, we do needs assessments for students who apply through their Local Education Authority for the DSA. The needs are related to their course and to their disability.

They can apply for capital expenditure once during their course for computer equipment or any other study aids. In the case of a hearing-impaired student, this may, for example, be a radio link loop system. There is also a non-medical helper's allowance and a general allowance.

We are part of the National Federation of Access Centres and we have links with about 30 other centres across the country. We do the assessments here for students from the whole region.

But Sussex students benefit more because they are able to drop in to the centre and use our technology. For instance, students with severe visual impairments are able to access their email, which they're unable to do at present on the campus network.

Part of our job is finding out what the latest technological advances are and what's on the market. We discovered that many disability co-ordinators and others working in the field are not always aware of the latest software, where to get it from, how much it costs and what's appropriate for what type of disability.

So we set up the National Internet Accessibility Database (NIAD), which actually tells them all those things. This means we have to know about the disabilities and the technology, and also how appropriate certain software packages may be in relation to different courses and computer platforms.

The internet has improved things for disabled students hugely; if only lecturers could put their notes online, and make sure they are accessible to all, including those with visual impairments and dyslexia, this would help matters. They can either contact us for guidance or look on the Web [at www.w3.org/wai/].

We need to look at making accessibility an issue within mainstream studying so that aspects of disability are no longer dealt with only in special centres. However, we are well aware that there are often technological and physical barriers that are hard to overcome.

But it will happen; everybody wants inclusion. My dream is to have an accessible machine in every computer lab, with equipment for disabled students so that they don't have to come to us.

I think we can make our campus considerably more accessible in the next couple of years. The government is on our side now - they're providing more money for this sort of thing - and the technologies have moved ahead.

Students are realising that there is more on offer to help them with their disability, so they also - rightly - have increased educational aspirations. So now they're saying, "Not only am I going to finish my degree, but I'm going on to a PhD."

So we are getting many, many more students; they're far more knowledgeable about their needs and they're more capable of saying what they want. Students are now coming through with expectations - and I think that's very exciting.

It's an expensive business, though. We really do depend on charity for donations of equipment, because you have to upgrade so quickly. We've just bought a brand-new Apple Mac as a result of further support from the Marriott family and we were given a brailing machine, which we couldn't have afforded to buy, thanks to the Blatchington Court Trust.

Do give generously for Christmas, because we will soon be opening three new rooms and would like to equip them!