Equal Access…

One of the arguments often used against innovation in developing OU courses is that some particular technology choice may exclude certain students even if alternatives are available. Flippantly (and perhaps unfairly – but I am trying to caricature the position), if you have a fast computer, we’ll try to make sure we design things in such a way as to downgrade your experience so that it’s equivalent to someone running a minimum specification machine, because that’s only fair…

I’m not sure I agree, but at some point I really need to clarify why (to myself, at least) I believe that…

In the meantime, here’s a quote from a High Court judgement (Adath Yisroel Burial Society -v- HM Senior Coroner For Inner North London) on a policy relating to a coroner’s hearings that has been deemed unlawful: scheduling hearings around deaths in “taxi rank” order rather than in a way respectful day-of-death burial traditions of certain religions:

[T]o treat everyone in the same way is not necessarily to treat them equally. Uniformity is not the same thing as equality.