Accommodation - the adjustments including reasonable modifications to rules, policies, or practices; environmental adjustments such as the removal of architectural, communication, and transportation barriers, or auxiliary aids, and services. Examples of accommodations include, but are not limited to: alternative testing, extended time, scribe, interpreter, environment free of distractions, Braille material, taped lectures, and computer-assisted instruction. (University of Wisconsin System Policy on Individuals with Disabilities.)

American with Disability Act 1990 (ADA) - creates broad civil rights protection for people with disabilities, modeled after the Civil Rights Act 1964, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended.

Assistive Technology - any item, piece of equipment, or product system, whether acquired commercially or off the shelf, modified, or customized, that is used to increase, maintain, or improve functional capabilities of individuals with disabilities.

Educational Technology - includes all components of informational technology used in the delivery of educational materials.

Informational Technology - any equipment or inter-connected system or subsystem of equipment that is used in the automatic acquisition, storage, manipulation, management, movement, control, display, switching, interchange, transmission or reception of data or information.

Input Device - a device that allows the user of a system to enter information into a system such as a computer. This can be via alternative modalities.

OCR - Office of Civil Rights of the United States Department of Education.

Output Device - a system that provides the user with visual, tactile or auditory feedback.

Person with a Disability - someone who has a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits that person in some major life activity, has a record of such impairment, or is regarded as having such impairment.

Qualified Individual - someone who (with or without accommodation) meets the essential eligibility requirements for participating in programs. services, and activities provided by the university. (University of Wisconsin System Policy on Individuals with Disabilities.)

Rehabilitation Act 1973 as amended - Title V (particularly Section 503 and 504) forbids discrimination on the basis of disability in programs receiving Federal funds. Language used is parallel to the Civil Rights Act of 1964: people with disability were confirmed as a protected class in Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1988.

Screen Reader - a software/hardware system that allows a person with a visual or print impairment to attain access to printed material on a computer screen. Output for the user can be both tactile and/or auditory.

Universal Design - the design and production of products that promote equal opportunity for use by individuals with or without disability.

Voice Recognition - an electronic software/hardware system that can be trained to recognize an individual’s voice patterns to allow for an alternative means of computer input replacing the keyboard.