Construction and Verification of Remote Study Supporting System using Office365 for the Visually Impaired

Abstract

According to the domestic estimate of population of the physical disabilities, there are 61,000 visually impaired people who are not in any living support center and able to be hired (aged 18 to 59) in Japan. Recently, the number of employment of the visually impaired in administrative work is increasing. To get such kind of job, it is necessary to gain IT skills. It is desirable that they are trained how to use computer at living support centers for the visually impaired. However, there are only a few support centers and also the centers are mostly around the metropolitan area so there is a disparity among regions. On the other hand, online service is getting not to depend on regions because of cloud services. Therefore, we constructed a study support system with Office365, a cloud service, to help visually impaired people and their supporters who want to study even though they are at home. Also the system is evaluated at an independent living support center for the visually impaired.