Innovation in accessibility How UniEvangélica promoted the inclusion of 22 employees who are deaf or hard of hearing within its hearing community
Overview UniEvangélica is a higher-education institution located in Anápolis, in the Brazilian state of Goiás. Founded in 1947, it became a full-fledged university in 2005 and is now a leader in the region both for its educational quality and its strategic location in the country. On top of helping fulfill the university s educational vision, the implementation of the Brightspace platform and the partnership with D2L enabled UniEvangélica to develop a free Brazilian Sign Language (LIBRAS) course to promote the inclusion of 22 employees who are deaf or hard of hearing (HoH) within its hearing community. With the help of several Brightspace tools, especially Brightspace Capture, the university gave the LIBRAS course the necessary boost and ensured it had a true impact on its corporate culture, much more than just text or pictures on a screen. AT A GLANCE Client UniEvangélica No. of students 10,000 Level Undergraduate and graduate Solution Brightspace Learning Environment, Brightspace Capture Brightspace Online and Blended Learning Solution CHALLENGE Promoting the inclusion of 22 deaf or HoH staff members Improving communication, interaction and collaboration among employees SOLUTION Developing and implementing a free, online LIBRAS course RESULTS 1 A more inclusive workplace Positive impact on all staff members The result of a joint effort by instructors and information architects, the LIBRAS course gave 49 UniEvangélica staff members the linguistic and cultural tools they needed to communicate with their deaf or HoH co-workers. This effort shows UniEvangélica s commitment to its staff s professional development and its mission to actively contribute to the socioeconomic and cultural advancement of the local community.. 2 1 Information supplied by UniEvangélica.
Challenge Known for promoting a comprehensive approach to education throughout its history, UniEvangélica became the first Brazilian institution to adopt the D2L Brightspace platform. The university currently has over 10,000 students enrolled on graduate and undergraduate face-to-face and blended courses. The Brightspace platform allows students to interact with classmates and instructors wherever they are for a more ubiquitous learning experience. Bringing D2L into the mix played a key role in causing this paradigm shift in the institution s culture. D2L s Implementation & Customization Services worked very closely with UniEvangélica, firstly to understand the specific needs and cultural and legal landscape of Brazil s education sector, and secondly to adhere to the university s own management and assessment policies. Among the initiatives that followed the adoption of the Brightspace platform is a free LIBRAS course developed by instructors and information architects with the help of the community. The course was created in response to concerns expressed by staff members with varying degrees of hearing loss who felt excluded from the hearing community due to lack of a shared channel of communication. PUTTING HUMAN DEVELOPMENT FIRST UniEvangélica understands that sustainable development is also about the inclusion of people with disabilities and special needs. That is why the university is so strongly committed to fostering and spreading accessibility, not only among its faculty but also among its administrative staff. Our HR department placed this great challenge before us: integrating 22 deaf and HoH staff members from different areas of the university into our hearing community. So we picked 49 hearing employees to take the course and made them responsible for promoting accessibility in our community to the benefit of our deaf and HoH staff. The results were highly rewarding and highlighted the importance of communicating, interacting and sharing, explains Head of elearning at UniEvangélica, Professor Marcos Wesley da Silva, PhD. 3
Solution UniEvangélica began offering elearning courses back in 2012, looking to add new technologies to its existing face-to-face course catalogue. Students can access online modules for each subject to interact with classmates and professors, obtain learning materials, and complete assignments created by each instructor. Once the platform had been chosen and implemented, it became part of the everyday routine of students, faculty and administrative staff. Soon the university had to deal with a concern coming from the HR department regarding the integration of the institution s deaf and HoH staff into the hearing community. Being the first institution in Brazil to adopt the Brightspace platform, UniEvangélica had D2L s ongoing support throughout the process of the accreditation of blended courses together with the Ministry of Education. D2L is a company with international experience when it comes to implementing and supplying technology for the education industry. Partnering with D2L made our project significantly stronger and academically unique, explains Marcos. RELIABLE TECHNOLOGY, FIRST-RATE EDUCATION UniEvangélica wanted to adopt a technologically reliable platform so that neither students nor faculty would feel overwhelmed by any potential technical challenges. Another determining factor in favor of Brightspace was D2L s long-term experience in education. According to Marcos, those two factors made UniEvangélica confident that both institutions could grow together. The D2L Community, just like Fusion, is a learning channel for our institution. We are aware of best practices carried out in other universities and share every strategy that has worked for us with industry colleagues, Marcos adds. DISABILITY AS A POTENTIAL RATHER THAN A LIMITATION UniEvangélica developed a free LIBRAS course using D2L Learning Environment. A greater sense of community between hearing and deaf and HoH employees could be felt before the course had even ended. Members of staff learning sign language received help from deaf and HoH co-workers. This led to improved communication, interaction and collaboration among employees. People with disabilities not only have to cope with their condition but also with how society sees and treats them, which takes the greatest toll on their lives. The first great step towards the integration and inclusion of people with hearing loss into the hearing community is to see them from the point of view of their potential rather than their limitations. Providing the hearing community with the tools (i.e. sign language) needed to communicate with deaf and HoH co-workers helps bring out everyone s potential and promote a culturally richer, more inclusive and cohesive workplace. Although the initiative s main objective was the inclusion of deaf and HoH staff members, its adoption and execution offered benefits for the organization s culture as a whole. 4
Solution (cont.) One of the favorite tools among course students and instructors was Brightspace Capture, which allows users to record and stream real-time videos on demand. Thanks to Brightspace Capture, students and instructors were able to communicate directly using Brazilian Sign Language, a visual/motor language system. The online LIBRAS course would not have been possible without a dependable video tool. Thanks to Brightspace Capture, UniEvangélica managed to ensure students understanding and allowed online interaction with instructors, including quick, personalized assessment to help students master sign language, says Marcos. 5
Our HR department placed this great challenge before us: integrating 22 deaf and HoH staff members from different areas of the university into our hearing community. So we picked 49 hearing employees to take the course and made them responsible for promoting accessibility in our community to the benefit of our deaf and HoH staff. The results were highly rewarding and highlighted the importance of communicating, interacting and sharing. Prof. Marcos Wesley da Silva, Head of elearning at UniEvangélica 6
Results The Brightspace platform offered full support for the implementation of UniEvangélica s online LIBRAS course. The course encouraged hearing and deaf and HoH staff members to reflect upon and discuss inclusion and opportunities for people with special needs, based on the principle that physical limitations should not mean that one s rights as a citizen are affected. Moreover, those who took part in the course were trained to help turn the institution into a more inclusive workplace for deaf and HoH employees. the Environment s integrated modules make learning management easier and foster students proactiveness. D2L is honored to be able to provide tools that promote equality in education, and UniEvangélica has succeeded in mastering those tools to build a more inclusive future. The impact of the course can be felt across the university campus. Before this initiative was put in place, deaf and HoH staff members were barely able to interact with each other. Now they have become part of the community. Although the course was not designed for them specifically, they have benefited greatly from this initiative. All course attendees now see the world through different eyes. Not only have they learnt a new language but they have also understood the importance of interacting with deaf and HoH co-workers. Awareness of diversity in a group of people helps view differences not as obstacles but as strengths. UniEvangélica believes accessibility is the best way to include people with disabilities into the institution s culture. So accessibility is a top priority. The outstanding teaching approach used in this course, as well as the innovative, engaging methods and resources offered by Brightspace Learning Environment, were instrumental to the success of the initiative, as 7 1 Information supplied by UniEvangélica.
About D2L A global leader in EdTech, D2L is the creator of Brightspace, the world s first integrated learning platform. The company partners with thought-leading organizations to improve learning through data-driven technology that helps deliver a personalized experience to every learner, regardless of geography or ability. D2L s open and extensible platform is used by more than 1100 clients and almost 15 million individual learners in higher education, K 12, healthcare, government, and the enterprise sector including Fortune 1000 companies. D2L has operations in the United States, Canada, Europe, Australia, Brazil, and Singapore. www.brightspace.com www.d2l.com LET S TALK Phone: +1-519-772-0325 (world) Toll free number (international): 1-888-772-0325 (North America) 0-808-234-4235 (United Kingdom and Europe) 0-800-452-069 (New Zealand) 1-800-656-210 (Australia) 0-800-891-4507 (Brazil) Fax: +1-519-772-0324 E-mail: Comercial@D2L.com Twitter: @Brightspace Web: www.brightspace.com www.d2l.com 2016 D2L Corporation. The D2L family of companies includes D2L Corporation, D2L Ltd, D2L Australia Pty Ltd, D2L Europe Ltd, D2L Asia Pte Ltd, and D2L Brasil Soluções de Tecnologia para Educação Ltda. Brightspace, D2L, and other marks ( D2L marks ) are trademarks of D2L Corporation, registered in the U.S. and other countries. Visit D2L.com/trademarks for a list of other D2L marks. 8