SuperNova Access Suite Case Study: Supernova at the University of Central Lancashire.

Martin Roberts is studying a Social Policy degree course at the University of Central Lancashire in Preston. The university offers Dolphin's combined reader magnifier Supernova to all students with a visual impairment through its Windows NT network. Martin takes up the story. "When I first came to university we used Windows 3.1 with another access product and access to computers was limited. We had no choice but to only use a small number of campus computers in designated areas, a less than ideal situation.

In 2000 the university purchased Supernova for use on their new NT network and as a result access to computers for all of us visually impaired students has become much easier. We are no longer restricted to specific computers in the way we used to be. Now, we, speech users, have the freedom to use any machine on campus as long as it has a sound card to enable the output of the Orpheus speech synthesiser that comes with Supernova. Large print users aren't restricted to machines with sound cards though as the magnification portion of the program will work on any monitor. For me this is fantastic, as I am not restricted to where I do my work. It's great when doing group preparation because I know that it's possible to log in to any machine in the library or even in other university buildings and get Supernova up and running quickly and simply. I love the fact that when I log on to a new computer, I don't have to re-create all my settings files or personal preferences as they roam with my NT profile on to any machine. Of course for me one of the nicest things about Supernova is the automatic access it gives me to many applications. I can be creating a chart for a piece of course work in Excel, writing essays in Word or simply browsing the web and Supernova's speech output is with me all the way.

Outside university work time I enjoy tinkering around in the audio production tool Sound Forge and using the Net for fun. Supernova may give great automatic feedback in speech, large print and Braille, but it can be customized to my own requirements. Settings can even be changed on an application-by-application level. I find the fact that application specific settings are available to be of great help. For example, I usually have Supernova's column detection mode switched on when I go on to the web to read Social Policy statistics or newspaper Web Pages. However when I go to my e-mail package, I like standard row detection mode enabled. Settings files make this an automatic process.

Supernova really has made my life easier at university, and I guess we, as students, are lucky to have such a flexible and stable solution to work with. I can honestly say that equal computer access for all visually impaired students is a reality at the University of Central Lancashire, and it's thanks to Supernova.” As senior specialist technician at the university, John Hodgson is also pleased with the way in which Supernova has benefited the university's visually impaired students. The University of Central Lancashire's (UCLAN) mission is to provide access to excellence for all. Through the use of Supernova and effective training we are able to encourage staff and students to reach their full potential. We are in the unique position of being able to offer roaming profiles to all of our 24,000 students, which is no mean feat! It has made using the computer system here easier for everyone, with personalized settings being available from any workstation. The installation of Supernova has enabled blind and visually impaired staff and students to access the computer system with virtually no limitations. Users requiring magnification or speech technologies can use the same product on different PCs within the University. This means that specialist training can be restricted to just one product at any level regardless of personal IT ability.

Dolphin's director of UK sales, Steve Bennett is pleased that Supernova is proving easy to implement and effective at the University. "It has always been our aim to create software solutions that are both stable, intuitive and simple to integrate in to networks of any size. This is a fundamental design philosophy and our products, which embrace both single desktop and server versions, prove this point. Because Supernova works on Windows 98, Me, NT 4.0, 2000 and XP, our corporate clients can be sure that no matter what 32 bit windows platform they choose, Dolphin's full range of speech and magnification products will be on hand to provide equal access for all. This is especially important for a network of the size found at the University of Central Lancashire. We don't modify applications either as other products tend to, this can be re-assuring to companies with strict security policies.”

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