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Web Accessibility Guidelines and Support Services For help, contact: Karen Sorensen As of Spring term 2012, the content in all new online courses (including content that is linked to from the course) must adhere to the accessibility guidelines listed below.

* Deutsches Studentenwerk (DSW - the German National Association for Student Affairs) presents new research on students with disabilities and chronic diseases in Germany * Problems identified by the study: timeline and organizational requirements, lack of support, individual interests in teaching process are too little considered * Compensation of disadvantages and counseling efforts are effective, but are too seldom used * Three out of four students have impairment-related extra costs * DSW president Prof. Dr. Dieter Timmermann: "There is still much to do on the way to University-for-All * 15.000 students with disabilities and chronic illnesses from 160 universities participated in an online survey in Germany, making the study nationally representative. Due to their disability or health situation, many students experience difficulties with the schedule and formal requirements of their studies, for example with frequent exams, inflexible classes modules or presence requirements. At times, teachers are not open to the impairment-related needs of their students. Often, there is also often a lack of necessary support like scripts in accessible version. Compensation of disadvantages and counseling are indeed effective, but also too seldom used - mostly because students don't know about such possibilities or do not want to speak openly about it. Nearly three quarters of students have impairment-related additional cost of their university studies; 15% have massive problems to secure their study financing. More than 15.000 affected students took part in the DSW-survey, out of which - 12% said that disability or health situation has a negative influence on the study process. - the large majority is suffering from mental and/or chronic diseases - 6% of respondents have dyslexia or any other learning disabilities - almost two thirds of respondents reported severe or very severe difficulties in their study process The DSW- survey "

Benchmarking in European Higher Education is an initiative funded by the European Commission to improve the use of benchmarking in higher education. It is designed to help modernise higher education management and to promote the attractiveness of European Higher Education. Benchmarking is a powerful tool to support higher education institutions (HEIs) and policy makers to better realise the Lisbon goals and the Bologna Process. It is a modern management tool to progress with institutional reforms, increased operational efficiency and the capacity for innovative changes in order to adapt to the new challenges in their environment.