What support do we offer?

We offer different kinds of support to help you during your time at University, from exam adjustments to specialist technology.

 
 

Putting in place support in classes and assessments

Once you tell us you have a disability, you will be assigned a Disability Advisor who will work with you throughout your studies to organise your support.

  • If you are a new student and have declared a disability on your application form, we will contact you before your course starts to encourage you to make an appointment with your assigned Disability Inclusion Advisor.
  • If you are a continuing student, please email disabilityandinclusion@napier.ac.uk to arrange your first appointment.

Meeting with your Disability Inclusion Advisor is important, even if you have included information on your application form or mentioned your difficulties to an academic member of staff. Please note that support, including exam adjustments, is only put in place once you have discussed and agreed it with your Disability Advisor.

You might meet with your Disability Inclusion Advisor in person, online, or on the phone. You can keep in touch with your Disability Inclusion Advisor by email to discuss any support you need during your course.

If you had support at school, college, or another university we will normally match that support. If you have had a support plan in the past, it is helpful if you can bring that to your first meeting with your Disability Inclusion Advisor.

Your Disability Inclusion Advisor can:

  • Create a personalised Learning Profile (support plan) to inform your tutors about the support you require
  • Arrange exam adjustments
  • Provide advice about resources to help with your studies, including technology
  • Help you to apply for additional funding, such as Disabled Students' Allowance (DSA) or the Eire Fund for Students with Disabilities
  • Refer you to other agencies to support you with study skills, mental health etc
  • Create a Personal Emergency Evacuation Plan (PEEP) to decide how to help you exit a building safely in an emergency.

The support we organise depends on your individual needs. Your support will be documented in a Learning Profile (support plan). This is a document setting out all the support you need. It is shared with your tutors and the University’s exams team, so that they can provide your support. We can update your Learning Profile as and when your needs change.

These are some examples of adjustments we commonly put on Learning Profiles:

  • Support from a study skills tutor
  • Use of a PC in exams
  • Smaller room for exams
  • Extra time in exams
  • Use of a calculator on placement
  • A pre-placement meeting with your Personal Development Tutor and placement mentor

If we write a Learning Profile with you, you will be able to find it on your Student Record. Lecture recordings and access to class materials in advance are generally mainstream expectations, so we do not normally put those on Learning Profiles.

Once agreed, learning profiles will be accessed by Programme and Module leaders, Personal Development Tutors and School Disability Contacts, to ensure that your support needs are understood and implemented.

We’ve provided some student guidance so that you can see how the process works.

 
 

Student guidance for learning profiles

What is a learning profile?

Learning profiles are a support plan that makes sure you have everything in place so you can can fully access all parts of your learning experience, including outlining exam arrangements.

Learning profiles are developed with full involvement of students and can be accessed by contacts who have a key role in making sure related support needs are in place. These contacts are the Disability Inclusion Team, Programme and Module Leaders, Personal Development Tutors and School Disability Contacts.

What is e:Vision?

e:Vision is the portal where student learning profiles can be found. In many ways it provides a 'front door' to where the University holds information about what requirements you have to help you have a great University experience.

There are times when you may want to access e:Vision so you can look at your learning profile. We've put together this short guide so that you can understand the system and find your way around it.

How to view your learning profile

You will be able access e:Vision directly through eStudent records.

  1. Visit the eStudent records page on My Napier or go directly to the eStudent records website.
  2. Once you have accessed eStudent Records, select 'Accessibility' from the options in the menu bar, then select 'View my Learning Profile'.
  3. You will then be able to view your learning profile as your PDT and module tutors are able to see it. On the top right you can select 'View as PDF' which allows you to save or print it if you wish.

If you have any difficulties accessing your learning profile, contact your Disability Inclusion Adviser directly or email disabilityandinclusion@napier.ac.uk

 
 

Keeping in touch

As a team, we try to stay in touch with all the students we work with every few weeks during term-time with updates from the team, our disabled student ambassadors and news from other teams we think you might be interested in. That includes reminders, for instance to check you're happy with your exam support arrangement or to renew your DSA funding.

Advisors will not normally check in regularly to ask how you're getting on – we tend to ask you to get in touch with us if you have any questions or need any help. If that's something you might find hard to do, please let your advisor know or ask someone to contact us on your behalf so we can adapt how we normally work to meet your particular needs better.

 
 

Other support

Specialist technology support

Assistive technology enhances learning, working, and daily living for students with disabilities. It can help people who have difficulty speaking, typing, writing, remembering, pointing, seeing, hearing, learning, walking, and many other things.

Different disabilities require different assistive technologies. We can support you to install, configure and use your assistive software. You can find out more about the specialist options we have available and free options from our Assistive technology page.

Assistive listening technology helps deaf and hard of hearing users hear audio in noisy environments. You can find out more about the system and how to access it on the Assistive listening page.

Unfortunately, we cannot provide general IT support or troubleshooting for laptop issues. For help getting online and with accessing university services, contact the IS Service Desk for 24/7 telephone and email IT support.

Support to access Disabled Students’ Allowance

Your Disability Inclusion Advisor can help you find out more about Disabled Students’ Allowance funding, whether you might be eligible, and can help you to apply.

Find out more from our Disabled Students' Allowance page.

Evidencing your disability

We can help some students to evidence their disability, for instance to support a Disabled Students' Allowance application.

Visit our 'Where do I start?' page to find out more about what assessments we can help arrange.

Library support

The Librarians work with the Disability Inclusion team to make sure that the campuses and their books and journals are as accessible as possible. For eligible students with a print impairment, we can also set up accounts to RNIB Bookshare, a huge online digital library.

Visit our 'Who else do we work with?' page to find out more.

Careers support

The Disability Inclusion team works with the Student Futures team to provide specialist support for disabled students entering the job market, including thinking through what and when you might disclose a disability when you submit an application, go for an interview or start a new job.

Visit our 'Who else do we work with?' page to find out more.