Disability Information Team

The role and contact details for the Disability Information Team.

The Disability Information team consists of The Head of Disability Information, the Deputy Disability Information Officer and a consultancy post.

What the team does

The Information Services Disability Advisory Group was instrumental in creating the Head of Disability Information role in 2008. In 2019 the post of Deputy Disability Information Officer was created.

The Team's role includes:

Consultancy 

• Helping Information Services meet its objectives as stated in the University's Equality and Diversity Strategy and Action Plan.
• Being the named point of contact for disabled students, staff and visitors facing challenges or wanting advice regarding anything Information Services offers or provides.
• Looking at Information Services' policies, practices and procedures to ensure they are as accessible as possible for disabled users.
• Maintaining a website of information and resources.
• Liaising with other key personnel across the University to ensure premises and services are as accessible as possible for disabled staff, students and members of the general public.
• Providing information on legislation and its practical implementation.

Training

• Advising, informing and training staff regarding disability awareness and legislation.
• Training staff on how to manually test the accessibility of new software and hardware that Information Services has designed or is in the process of procuring.
• Training on preparing and writing Accessibility Statements.
• Training on how to conduct and write Equality Impact Assessments (EqIAs).
• Training on physical building accessibility.
• Bespoke training is available on request.

Advice

• Central point for any accessibility queries
• Advice on legislation 
• Reviewing documents for accessibility
• Reviewing accessibility statements
• Reviewing Equality Impact Assessments
• Advising on assistive software and hardware
• Assisting IS staff with general disability/accessibility advice and guidance and assistance with reasonable adjustments.

Other

• Reviewing buildings for accessibility and providing recommendations 
• Testing digital accessibility of online high profile resources and systems

Contact Details

The Head of Disability Information  is Viki Galt.

BSL users can contact me via Contact Scotland BSL, the on-line British Sign Language interpreting service. Find out more on the Contact Scotland BSL website.

Contact Scotland BSL website 

Disability Advice for Students

For individual student adjustments please contact the Disability and Inclusive Learning Service.

Disabled staff can speak to their line managers,contact Human Resources or contact the Staff Disability Advice Service at StaffDisability@ed.ac.uk. The Staff Disability Advice Service (SDAS) can provide advice and guidance to disabled staff including deaf, and/ or neurodivergent colleagues as well as their line managers. Staff can contact the service to get advice on reasonable adjustments in the workplace or information about Access to Work. 

Staff Disabilty Service Webpage

A Staff Disability Computing Support service is also available

Staff Disability Computing Support Webpage

Request an alternative format

If you require this document in an alternative format please contact Viki Galt, Head of Disability Information, via the contact details provided above.