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Article

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Available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike 4.0 International Licence

Disciplines

5.3 EDUCATIONAL SCIENCES

Publication Details

Universal Design & Higher Education in Transformation Congress,

30th October -2nd November 2018, Dublin Castle

Abstract

Today, achieving quality higher education in Universal Accessibility and Design is a difficult task. There is a lack of development in this regard within higher education study programmes, so training components must be added to traditional education in order to respond to the 21st century effectively. Therefore, we name hereunder five innovative strategies that can vastly ease the success of this task when combined: 1. Flexibility: Online training in a digital world. 2. Internationalization: Allowing teaching staff and students to experience a global classroom scenario without spatial and temporal boundaries. 3. Transversality: Including individuals with multiple skills in a complex world. 4. Diversity: Sharing experiences from different professional and research areas in a plural world. 5. Connecting with reality: Businesses and Institutions working closely together to design and deliver high quality practical workshops. The strategies listed come from the evaluation of the different curricular training projects sponsored by the ONCE Foundation and the Conference of Rectors of the Spanish Universities. This framework emerged from the Accessibility White Paper (2003-2010) and the I National Accessibility Plan (2004-2012). These documents referred to a new paradigm in Design for All seeking full equality of opportunities and founded, implicitly, the foundations of how to face the formation of a new way, from the strategies previously indicated. For this purpose, we will refer to four success stories that took place in Spain: 1. Online Master’s Degree in “Accessibility for Smart City; the Global City” 2. MOOC on “Accessible design, Design for All” 3. last three editions of the annual event “MAW Madrid Accessibility Week” 4. “Multidisciplinary workshops on universal accessibility and design at the UDEM in Monterrey – Mexico”, organized by the University of Jaen in cooperation with ONCE Foundation. The success of these strategies within our organisations has encouraged the development of further initiatives to develop and adopt these training tools in an education setting

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