Supporting the needs and enhancing the experience of disabled and dyslexic students.

This paper reports on a project that sought to better support the needs and enhance the experience of disabled and dyslexic nursing students. The Higher Education Academy suggest that absence of, or delay in receiving support results in disabled students reporting a negative experience while the provision of support results in a positive student experience (Jacklin et al 2007). The University Disability and Dyslexia policy adopts a positive approach in meeting the needs of disabled / dyslexic students and also to promoting compliance with legal obligations under the Equality Act (2010) and Data Protection Act (1998). The Equality Act (2010) imposes a duty upon Higher Education Institutions to make reasonable adjustments to provision in order to minimise disadvantage experienced by a disabled student as a result of a disability. Appropriate reasonable adjustments for individual students are identified by the University and recorded on Individual Support Plans (ISP). The project sought to capitalise on available technical resources, namely Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) a secure, large-scale, web-based project collaboration and document management system, designed to allow colleagues within an organisation to easily communicate and share files. MOSS is used to store and share ISP documents with appropriate staff according to clearly defined permissions and access rights. The paper will report on the project evaluation which suggests that use of SharePoint has enhanced the student experience due to: •Improved organisation and management of disability and dyslexia support provision within the Faculty. •Enhanced communication of the support needs of disabled and dyslexic students. •Improved communication between the Faculty and the University Disability and Dyslexia Service. •