Barrier-free ETH – advances in room acoustics and teaching
At the beginning of 2021, the “Barrier-free at ETH Zurich” programme was launched. This aims to make the university as barrier-free as possible over the course of the next few years. Progress has already been made in the fields of room acoustics and teaching.
When a lecture hall’s acoustics are subpar for a soft-spoken delivery, when audience members ask a muffled question, or when our own hearing is limited: all of these can mean that we understand only part of the many courses and lectures held every day at ETH. In response, IT Services (ITS) spent the semester break improving intelligibility in classrooms: they have equipped numerous lecture halls and seminar rooms with what are known as hearing loops. These allow hearing aids in those rooms to receive audio signals such as music or lectures and reproduce them with little interference.
Moreover, in a pilot project ITS made general improvements to the room acoustics in the NO building on Clausiusstrasse in lecture hall C60. A newly installed ceiling greatly reduced the reverberation time – a measure of the time required for a sound or noise to “fade away” after the source of the sound has stopped. This improved the speaker’s intelligibility during lectures.
Infoportal for accessible digital teaching materials
Courses are set to become increasingly accessible not only in an acoustic sense but also in terms of content. To achieve this goal over the next few years, the Educational Development and Technology (LET) department has launched a new information portal on topics related to accessible teaching at Teaching -> e-Accessibility. The portal is currently divided into four areas:
- The e-Accessibility Basics page provides a comprehensive, easy-to-understand introduction to digital accessibility.
- Accessibility @ ETHZ provides specific information on planned measures as part of subproject 13, “Accessible teaching materials”.
- The Support Services area is where the latest options for the promotion of accessible teaching at ETH are published.
- And Resources provides links to the most important international websites on the subject.
Event: “Breaking down barriers – physical and mental”
What obstacles or barriers do people with a disability or impairment encounter – both generally in everyday life and especially at a university? Three speakers with a disability or impairment share their experiences of facing a wide variety of obstacles and barriers – whether in the digital space, in the lecture hall or in social contacts.
The online webinar “Breaking down barriers – physical and mental” will take place on 24 November 2021 from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. as part of “Respect Events 2021”. Please register here. Please note that the webinar will be held in German.
Barrier-free at ETH Zurich
In autumn 2020, the Executive Board gave the green light to the implementation of the barrier-free project: over the course of the next few years, people with disabilities or special needs – whether students, teachers, researchers, staff or visitors – should benefit from greatly improved access to ETH buildings and services.
The proposed measures will be implemented in 14 subprojects under three categories: “Construction, building usage and architecture”, “Organisation, process and culture” and “Technology, communication and teaching”.
For more information on the programme and the 14 subprojects, visit the Programme website.
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