Additional Support Needs

How is support organised?

• We have four friendly Education Support Advisers to advise and support you at any time during your studies. Advisers are matched up to particular courses of study.
• If you are unsure about your need for support, your Education Support Adviser (ESA) will happily answer any questions and advise you further. No information will be passed to your lecturers at this stage.
• If agreed, your Education Support Adviser will devise a Personal Learning Support Plan (PLSP) for you. This involves discussing your support needs in more detail and agreeing with you what support arrangements may be useful for your chosen course. With your consent, they will share the finished plan with your Personal Development Adviser/Personal Academic Tutor to send to your lecturers.
• Support is designed around your individual situation. To give a few examples, arrangements may include: information for lecturers to make them aware of your needs, materials provided in a different format, training in the use of assistive technology, the provision of accessible equipment, or one-to-one study support to help you manage your coursework.
• If you already know you will need adjustments for assessments or exams (such as the use of a computer, a scribe, or extra time) your Education Support Adviser will organise this for you.

We invite you to book a confidential meeting with your Education Support Adviser as early as possible.

At this time, meetings will be carried out remotely, either by phone or video call depending on your preference.

Please e-mail: additionalsupport.ic@uhi.ac.uk with your name, course of study and student number (if known).

Remote working phone number available on request.

Assistive technology

Assistive technology (AT) can be described as products, equipment, and systems that increase access to learning resources within UHI Inverness. AT can improve or maintain an individual's independence in learning and offers a fantastic, constantly improving, source of support. Assistive technology can benefit every student.

Examples of assistive technologies include:

• Formatters

This covers technology like screen overlays, immersive readers etc.

• Screen readers

This software reads elements of the screen via text to speech. They can often be customised to read selected text or entire documents. Examples include Windows Narrator, Chrome Vox and iOS voice over. Specialist software for screen reading can also be installed, examples of which include: Texthelp Read and Write, Jaws and NVDA.

• Dictation / voice control

Dictation enables you to speak to a computer and have your voice automatically transcribed. This could be through tools such as Word’s dictate function or Google's talk-to-type. Advanced assistive voice tools such as Dragon Naturally Speaking, work to allow a user to control their computer with their voice.

• Eye control / switches

These technologies extend the alternative control scheme provided by voice and can be used by persons who have reduced or limited mobility.

As a student at UHI Inverness, you will have free access to Microsoft Office programmes, which contain many in-built accessibility features, but we also have advanced software for specific needs.

Your Education Support Adviser will introduce you to the AT best suited to your needs and organise further one-to-one training with our Learning Technologist.

Visit the university assistive technology web pages for more information.

British Sign Language

British Sign Language (BSL) users can contact us via an online BSL/English interpreter through Contact Scotland BSL. If you are, or are thinking of, studying with us, please contact student services and we would be delighted to discuss your requirements.

Our UHI British Sign Language Plan serves the UHI partnership as required by the British Sign Language (Scotland) Act 2015. It:

• Sets out the actions we will take over the next six years to promote, and facilitate the promotion of the use and understanding of BSL in Scotland.
• Reflects the aims and priority areas of the BSL National Plan 2023-29, where these are relevant to the work of the partnership.

This single plan covers the UHI partnership and relates principally to our role as an education provider, rather than as an employer. The actions we have set out are informed by our experience of delivering our previous BSLP 2018-2024. As this is our second partnership-wide plan, we have updated and refined the actions we wish to take allowing greater focus on actions relevant to further and higher education, and specifically on equity and enhancement of the student experience for BSL users.

UHI British Sign Language Plan 2024-2030

Mental health and wellbeing

A mental health issue can affect student life in many ways. Your Education Support Adviser will sensitively listen to  your mental health concerns with the aim of anticipating what support may be beneficial to you over the course of your studies. Examples of support arrangements could include flexibility with your attendance at lectures, one-to-one support every week to keep you on track with your workload, or extra time in exam situations.

All students can refer themselves to our confidential Wellbeing service for further support from our Wellbeing Officer and counsellors. Have a look at our wellbeing pages.

Disabled Student's Allowance

If you are studying a Higher Education course (HNC level or above) and are being funded by SAAS, you may be eligible for funded equipment or support from the Disabled Student's Allowance. Your Education Support Adviser will discuss this with you and, if recommended, they will complete the Needs Assessment and accompanying paperwork for you. For a full explantion of DSA and the application process, please visit the UHI Disabled Students’ Allowance page.

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