Remote Access Programs to Better Integrate Individuals with Disabilities.

Sensory impaired individuals are at a disadvantage in accessing and processing electronic information. The first author (i.e. Thomas Hahn) is legally blind due to Albinism. In this experience report we describe challenges faced by the visually impaired and explain how remote access programs in combination with voice communication programs can be used to---at least partially---compensate for those disadvantages because they don't transmit magnification. This property is especially important to effectively train visually impaired individuals on new applications and interfaces remotely because it allows them to view exactly the same information simultaneously with their sighted trainers. Since the technical prerequisites for this information exchange, skill transfer, and knowledge acquisition approach have already been freely available for at least 7 years, but are still not widely used, this approach needs to be impressively demonstrated at conferences like this one to increase the odds that its participants will share this approach with those who could potentially benefit from it. This approach could make computer labs with expensive software not only accessible to the disabled, but instead, to everyone around the clock while saving money, which is still being spent to pay lab supervisors to keep the labs open for a few hours without losing---but instead---gaining functionality. Offering virtual remote office hours would benefit disabled and non-handicapped students and faculty alike. Providing remote access to lectures can make them available to a wider audience and thus could decrease costs for tuition. Obvious benefits of this approach for the mobility impaired and soon to be expected benefits for the hearing impaired are mentioned. Allowing faculty to remotely participate in oral exams increases choices for possible specializations. Making information more accessible to the disabled has obvious synergistic benefits for non-handicapped people alike as reflected by the importance of the concept of workforce diversification for overcoming unexpected future challenges and potential stumbling blocks. This approach makes it possible to magnify lecture presentations directly onto the screen of visually impaired students and could improve real-time interactions in the classroom. Remote access for everyone could reduce the perception of disabilities. Handicapped people could be considered early adopters because they are more in need of improvements since the present circumstances and limitations are much less acceptable to them. This article concludes by describing current bottlenecks to accessibility and information transfer, and ends with an overall optimistic outlook to the future.