Monitoring the student experience

Regular communication with the student and monitoring via their online academic record enables early identification of issues around the implementation of reasonable adjustments.

Role of Disability Coordinators

College Disability Coordinators are responsible for providing oversight of provision for undergraduate students, and departmental Disability Coordinators are responsible for postgraduate students.

The Disability Coordinator provides a single point of contact with whom the student can report any substantial changes in circumstances or problems with provision.

The Disability Coordinator should maintain oversight of the academic progress and experience of each disabled student through their student career. They should check existing academic monitoring records (such as OxCORT reports and collection marks in the case of undergraduates, and GSR records in the case of postgraduates) to review whether progress is as expected and encourage academic and welfare teams (with the student’s consent), and the student themselves, to advise of any disability-related issues which might require further reasonable adjustments. The frequency of monitoring should be proportionate to the complexity of the student’s needs, but would commonly take place termly or annually.

Role of Disability Leads

The Disability Lead in each department or college should instigate regular reviews of the institution’s provision for disabled students and report the results of these to their senior management body. The review should be in the context of having established a local strategy and targets relating to the support for disabled students within the unit and the implementation of the Common Framework. Targets should relate to: anticipatory adjustments and inclusive teaching and learning; effective sharing of disability information to support provision; implementation of reasonable adjustments; training and awareness on disability issues for staff and students.

Both the Conference of Colleges and the Student Welfare Subcommittee conduct annual surveys of all departments and colleges to review the implementation of the Common Framework and its core principles.

The results of the survey are used to assess the level of compliance with the Common Framework across departments and colleges, to raise awareness of the importance of the Common Framework principles, to identify examples of good practice in the support of students which can be shared across the institution, and to identify where problems exist in implementation.

Questions in the Student Welfare Subcommittee survey include:

• are the names and contact details of the Disability Lead and Co-ordinator published clearly on your department/faculty website?
• to support the sharing of best practice, please provide any examples of anticipatory action taken to improve the accessibility of department/faculty provision during the past academic year. This might relate to the built environment, policies, and teaching and learning activities.
• please provide comments on any aspect of the operation of the Common Framework. For example, has your department/faculty encountered particular obstacles in following the procedures outlined in the Common Framework?