Introduction
The History Faculty is committed to ensuring that students with disabilities are not treated less favourably than other students, and to provide reasonable adjustment to provision where you might otherwise be at a substantial disadvantage.
For central information about provision made by the University for disabled students, go to: http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/eop/disab/.
General advice about provision for students with disabilities at Oxford University and how best to ensure that all appropriate bodies are informed, can be found on the University’s Disability Services website at www.admin.ox.ac.uk/eop. The website of the Oxford Learning Institute also provides information on issues relating particularly to learning and teaching for students with disabilities: www.learning.ox.ac.uk/
Contact people
Individual needs of students will be taken into account as much as possible. The contact person for disability issues in the History Faculty is the Administrator (administrator@history.ox.ac.uk) but undergraduates with questions about the curriculum, lectures etc. which can not be resolved via their college history tutor, should contact the Faculty Administrative Officer Dr Andrea Hopkins (faculty.office@history.ox.ac.uk, tel. (6)15020). Graduate students should raise any queries with the Graduate Studies Officer, Hubert Stadler (hubert.stadler@history.ox.ac.uk, tel. (6)15001).
Premises
Details of accessibility of the different premises of the History Faculty, the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine and the History of Art Department can be viewed here www.admin.ox.ac.uk/access/summary/deptab.shtml, (or details available from the Administrator). This includes details of the accessibility and provision for disabled students in any of the teaching rooms used by the Faculty.
Many lectures for the Faculty are held at Examination Schools, in the High Street. For access information here, please see www.admin.ox.ac.uk/access. Hearing loops have been installed recently in some lecture rooms. Lectures may be amplified in the following rooms at the Examination Schools (North, South, East, West Schools). For further information, contact Mr. Keith Thomas (keith.thomas@exams.ox.ac.uk, tel. (2)76905).
Many lectures and particularly postgraduate seminars are held in colleges. For college accessibility please see: www.admin.ox.ac.uk/access/summary/coltab.shtml. If concerned about the accessibility of any of these venues, undergraduates should contact the Faculty Administrative Officer (see above for contact details) or graduates should contact the Graduate Studies Officer (see above for contact details).
If there is a problem with a venue please contact the relevant Faculty Officer as soon as possible so that alternative arrangements can be made.
Informing the Faculty
For undergraduate and postgraduate students who have declared a disability on entry to the University, the Faculty will have been informed if any special arrangements need to be made. If you require special adjustments of any kind, the Faculty asks you to inform the University, either via your application form or by contacting the Disability Office directly (disability@admin.ox.ac.uk), as soon as you have been offered a place – even if only conditional. This can help plans to be made for you even before you arrive here.
If you think that adjustments in Faculty teaching, learning facilities, (including whether special copies of material are needed), or assessment may need to be made, you should raise the matter first with your college history tutor, who will ensure that the appropriate people in the Faculty are informed.
Postgraduate students should inform the Dean of Graduate Studies in the college and/or the Faculty’s Graduate Studies Officer as soon as possible.
Information about the Faculty and its courses
Information about the History Faculty, its courses, staff and facilities, is found on our website at www.history.ox.ac.uk. The website complies to Level II as required by the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Act. If you need the information to be made available in other formats (large print-outs, copies on coloured paper, braille), please refer to the Faculty Administrative Officer (undergraduates) and the Graduate Studies Officer (graduates) as above.
Lectures, tutorials and course material
Lecturers for the History Faculty have been advised of various ways of making their lectures, classes, tutorials and the supporting material they give to students more accessible to students with disabilities. Your college tutor will try to ensure that other tutors you may be assigned to, or lecturers whose lectures you are likely to attend, have been informed of any adjustments to be made. However, it will be very helpful if you could also inform tutors and lecturers directly of how they can best make adjustments. They may liaise with the administrative officers of the Faculty to ensure that handouts are produced in a suitable format, or change their form of presentation. In the case of graduate students, the Graduate Studies Officer will liaise with your supervisor and seminar providers, but it will be helpful if you can talk to seminar providers directly.
Reading lists and library resources
As far as possible, tutors have been asked to indicate on reading lists which texts are available in electronic format – and thus able to be easily converted into other formats. You will appreciate that the most successful and rewarding study of history will depend very much on breadth of reading and a lot of material will not be available other than in printed or even manuscript form. If accessibility of material is an issue for you, you may wish to discuss with your college tutor which options would have the most texts available in electronic format.
The Oxford University Libraries Resources for the Blind , which is located at Ewert House, Ewert Place, Summertown Oxford, offers the following service: audio recordings and personal readers. Please contact the centre for more information on (01865) (2)80880.
The History Faculty Library staff are also able to provide help and advice, and also to make arrangements for gaining access to particular materials in the Bodleian library and other libraries. The Library staff can also assist in making special copies (large print, coloured paper etc). Please let the Faculty Office know or contact Valerie Lawrence (valerie.lawrence@bodleian.ox.ac.uk).
In addition Oxford University has an online union library catalogue, OLIS, which contains records for over five million of the estimated ten million titles held by libraries associated with Oxford University. For more information see http://www.lib.ox.ac.uk/olis/.
Examinations
The task of assessing what kind of adjustment might be needed for a student with a disability falls to the University Proctors. If you are an undergraduate, your college should ensure that an appropriate application is made to the Proctors in good time; if you are a graduate, your college should also apply to the Proctors for you. It is, however, a good idea to seek early advice from the History Graduate Studies Officer. Further information about the Proctors’ role and the guidance they give is available on their website http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/proctors, and the Disability website: http://www.admin.ox.ac.uk/eop/disab/.
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