The underlying principle of the 'Online Access Map' (OAM) relates to the role of The University of Sydney in reaffirming its commitment to 'understanding the needs and expectations of those whom it serves and striving constantly to improve the quality and delivery of its services and access to those services' (Strategic Plan 1999-2004). Therefore, the OAM was conceived in order to provide information that could facilitate access to teaching spaces, services, amenities and disabled car-parking spaces on University campuses to staff, students and visitors with disabilities, by helping them better plan their trip to the University campus.

A disability access audit on all buildings used by the University in the late 1990s resulted in the development of the 'barrier removal project'. The challenge was to produce a web site that was easy to use and access by people with disabilities, in particular the visually impaired. The web forms and resulting reports had to be designed in order to be compatible with character-recognition softwares for visually impaired users.

The OAM provides information to people with disabilities from the University and general community through a simple web interface. The interface was designed on the premise that certain users might be visually impaired and, therefore, they would require specialised software to read web pages. This in turn meant that the web pages had to comply with particular standards such as simple page-layout as well as ordering the tabbing or flow of information (as character-recognition softwares generally read a web page left to right, top to bottom). The University of Sydney is one of the first Australasian higher education institutions to provide an OAM which is tightly integrated with a Facilities Management Information System (FMIS).

The interface consists of two navigation modes; a graphical drill down mode and a more traditional user input mode (drop down menus). The home page of the OAM (see www.facilities.usyd.edu.au/oam/) demonstrates those two modes through the hyperlinked thumbnails of the University campuses as well as the campus or building selection menus. By clicking on a campus thumbnail or selecting a campus and clicking the 'search' button, a larger image of that campus map, with hyperlinked buildings, is displayed. Clicking on a building will take the user to the building page, which is also accessible directly from the home page if the user selected a building directly.

The information displayed on the building page falls into the following three categories:

Location

This section displays generic information about the location of the building, the address and the year it was built, and this information comes directly from the space database.

Accessibility and links to other buildings

This section shows whether a building has an accessible main entrance, the number of steps, other accessible entrances and links to other buildings. The idea is to assist the user to plan the trip to a particular location. If a building did not have an accessible entrance or entrances, there might be a link through another building that has an accessible main entrance and a lift.

Attributes

This section displays attributes within and around the building. For example:

• disabled car-parking
• accessible entrance and alternative if available
• lifts
• disabled male and female toilets
• lecture theatres and accessibility (rear and front) as well as T-loop hearing aids
• faculty office.

There is no quantitative measurement of the OAM's success against targets and benchmarks at this stage, but a log file for this particular web site is being implemented in order to monitor future traffic and the forms/reports visited. However, University groups such as Disability Services, University Venues, and the Time Tabling Unit, who are regular users of the OAM, have constantly received enthusiastic feedback about this unique service from staff, students and visitors alike.

At the design and implementation stage, the project required the following internal and external resources:

1. Internal resources:

• the Disabilities Services Manager and an assistant to gather the information to populate all the fields related to accessibility and attributes as well as to provide advice on design issues and test prototypes
• the Facilities Information Manager to assess potential integration with the FMIS, as well as scope, and to project manage
• the University's Landscape Architect to provide input within the 'barrier removal project'.

2. External resources:

• Facilities Management consultancy, which has been involved with the implementation of the FMIS at the University, implemented the web-based OAM and carried out the integration with the FMIS.

Post-implementation stage

As the OAM is integrated with FMIS, the 'space-related' data is managed by the Facilities Management Office and the 'access-related' data is remotely managed by the Disability Services Unit at the University.

The second stage of the OAM implementation will be associated with way finding. The proposed functionality will allow the user to enter criteria (eg location of University organisation (faculty, department, etc), University venue or employee name), select a mode of transport (eg by car or bus) and the form will return a combined graphical and text-based page that can be printed, and which shows the closest car park, with facilities for the disabled, or bus station. An optimised route for people who are wheelchair-bound will also be available, which will highlight the appropriate route and location of the facility or employee requested. For more information on this Good Practice see the following web sites: www.facilities.usyd.edu.au/

and www.usyd.edu.au/stuserv/welfare/disability/.

© 2010 Australian Universities Quality Agency