Developing a Training Model Using Orca (Assistive Technology) to Teach IT for Visually Impaired Students

Abstract

With the increasing number of disabled work force working in the corporate sector, Assistive technologies are playing a very important role in training and development. It is necessary now to have new generation of Information Society products and Training Models to train the disabled workforce in an organization, that ensures full access, participation and equality for all the people including the disabled persons; and to implement new and cost-effective solutions for them. By this research, the researcher has developed a training model to impart IT knowledge and skills to visually impaired students. Feedback related to Orca, an open screen reader was collected from its end-users. It was also compared with three different screen readers on 8 different parameters before using it as one of the technology components of the developed training model. The model has been tested successfully to train undergraduate visually impaired students, using both open source and proprietary technology. However to keep the cost of the training process low, the users are advised to use open source technology.