Easily Accessible By people With Disabilities
The first phase of the “Show Me the Way” project, the “Daisy Format” project, and the “Life on Wheels” exhibition project, which is one of the Kingdom’s Vision 2030 programs at the university, were inaugurated this morning, Wednesday, Rajab 25, 1439 AH, in the academic field of the Deanship of Student Affairs. The "Show Me the Way" project, which is an application for smart phones, will contribute to helping people with visual challenges navigate around the academic field using a path on the ground and instructions that reach them from a mobile phone connected to a Bluetooth network. It is considered one of the pioneering projects in the field of wireless guidance technology in Saudi Arabia, and allows people with The visually impaired has the freedom to move from one place to another within the university campus, completely self-reliant, simply by standing on the touch lines with the help of the electronic application in areas that are covered with guidance devices for guidance. The “Show Me the Way” application creates signs and descriptions for all the university’s academic, educational, training, and administrative facilities and other services, such as mosques, restaurants, etc., and the obstacles, entrances, and exits that the user passes through the application, according to the geographic coverage available in the application. As for the “Daisy Format” project, it enables students of the English Language Institute to obtain the language curriculum on their mobile phones in a format that allows them to browse and review. A product was developed and named “My Curriculum in My Hands” While the “Life on Wheels” exhibition aims to raise community awareness about the capabilities and rights of people with special needs
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ACCESS SCHEMES FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

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KAU is the ZERO Project 2020 Winner with its project “SHOW ME THE WAY”.In 2022, ZERO Project theme was “Accessibility”. KAU presented an accessibility solution along with other 76 innovative solutions from 35 countries worldwide. “A comprehensive program to make a university accessible to all” was the headline of the presented factsheet
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Accessibility and inclusive design strategy

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To enable students with disabilities to live independently and participate fully in all aspects of life, King Abdulaziz University, through the Center for Persons with Disabilities, takes all measures that enable students with disabilities to access the surrounding physical environment (facilities, buildings, means of transportation, electronic means of communication and assistive technology) with ease and removing the obstacles that prevent this. At the forefront of these measures are the following:
  1. Establishing specific standards and specifications for preparing buildings and facilities to ensure easy and convenient access to them.
  2. Establishing specific standards and specifications that ensure easy access to websites and web browsing in a way that is appropriate for people with disabilities.
  3. Providing assistive means and technologies. Providing qualification and training programs.
  4. Providing bathrooms for people with disabilities in all buildings of the female students’ section.
  5. Allocating parking spaces for people with mobility disabilities at all gates.
  6. Providing classrooms equipped with special chairs for people of short stature.
  7. Restoring the floors of the female students’ section so as not to impede the movement of female students while moving between buildings and facilities
  8. Encouraging all blind female students to use a white cane.
  9. Providing a golf cart with specifications that suit the needs of mobility disabilities

ACCESSIBLE FACILITIES FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES

King Abdul Aziz University is a beacon of awareness in the service of people with disabilities and its research, and provides a service similar to that offered by the developed countries to this dear group of university employees and students in particular, and the society in general. The efforts of KAU in serving people with special needs in the field of higher education are continuing and, up to now, KAU has received appreciation from many authorities for the special provided services, such as: The National Academic Accreditation Authority, NAAA, described the services provided by the Center as “Impressive”. The University's College of Engineering received a “Strong Points” evaluation by the American Board of Engineering (ABET) Accrediting Authority for the services provided to students of with special needs. The University currently chairs the Care Committee of Students with Special Needs at the universities of the Gulf Cooperation Council states and embraces the Secretariat of the Committee due to its providing of advanced services, consultations and research support services to the rest of the universities in this field. KAU gave a full attention to people with disabilities, specifically on 8 June 2016, when the University Rector, issued the attached Administrative Decision to form the Executive Committee with the mandate of easy access to the university without any constraint for the people with disabilities. Thereafter, KAU started deploying multiple access procedures on campus that would support people with disabilities accessibility to required facilities. In 2020, KAU was the winner of the Zero Project which provides people with disabilities (blind-visual challenges) the ability to access all campus using a special path, while receiving necessary instructions on his/her mobile phone over a Bluetooth network is that is deployed all over the campus to serve this goal. The project is explained further in the below section. In 2021 KAU participated in Zero Project with an accessibility solution program to compete with other solutions offered by various organizations from over 30 countries world wide.
KAU stresses the importance of providing services and technologies that appoint students with special needs at the level of mobility, services, activities or academic affairs, as part of the university strive to avail access facilities, for disabled, within the university environment through many programs and projects that have been completed recently.

Sample Access Schemes for People with Disabilities

Targeted Support:
  1. The presence of 3.2 km track for the blind people in the academic field.
  2. Translating the awareness brochures for the occupational safety and health administration, and the emergency
  3. Translating the awareness brochures for the Occupational Safety & Health Administration, and the Emergency Center for Sign Language, through an agreementbetween the Hof Group and the Occupational Safety & Health Center and the Emergency and Disaster Center at King Abdulaziz University.
  4. The existence of an application called Show me the way to introduce blind students to the important places in the university.
  5. The university's website supports the speaker program to ensure that students with visual disabilities are guided and advised to access all needed information with full self-independence.
  6. There is a golf cart, wheelchairs, electric chairs for people with disabilities, automatic doors and elevators equipped with Braille language.
  7. Accommodation in the University's Dorms: Providing students, who have various types of disability like mobility, vision, and hearing, with accommodation in the university dorms, and they are provided with services that guarantee a normal university life similar to the rest of their colleagues without any distinction. They even have the priority in choosing the rooms they prefer in the dorms.
  8. Eliminating obstacles such as providing buildings with automatic doors, slopes, etc. The University cooperates in this framework with local and international bodies such as the King Salman Center for Disability Research and the International Organization for Accessibility in the Urban and Electronic gates.
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Last Update
4/8/2025 8:29:44 AM