Closing the accessibility gap in digital learning, with zero exam-season lockouts and more than half a million feature uses
Data from Perlego’s partnership with the University of Leeds shows students turning to accessibility features at scale, with nearly 708,000 total uses
Students at Leeds University are benefitting from Perlego’s accessibility features
New data from digital learning platform Perlego - collected two years into its partnership with the University of Leeds - shows the scale at which accessibility features built into its digital library are being used.
Since launch, students at Leeds have used Perlego’s Read Aloud text-to-speech tool 40,871 times, activated dyslexia-friendly font settings 2,532 times, and changed text size 11,391 times.
The university, one of the UK’s largest universities, with around 36,000 students, says accessibility was the deciding factor in choosing Perlego as a digital partner, addressing a gap that had left 60% of reading list citations unavailable in any electronic format.
Eliminating ‘turnaways’
The partnership has also eliminated “turnaways” - instances where students are denied access to a text because licence caps have been reached - during peak exam periods and has seen students opening an average of 18+ books each across a catalogue of more than 1.5 million titles.
Gauthier Van Malderen, Founder and CEO of Perlego, said: “Accessibility shouldn’t be an add-on to digital learning - it should be built in from the start.
“What we’re seeing at Leeds shows what happens when it is: over 40,000 uses of Read Aloud alone, and a library team telling us it’s changed how confidently they can support every student - not just some of them.
“We’re proud to work with universities like Leeds who put inclusion at the centre of their digital strategy, and this data shows the difference it makes when technology is designed to support learning, rather than just deliver content.”
Isabel Archer, Access & Acquisitions Manager (Acquisitions & Reading Lists), University of Leeds said: “One of the things that initially drew us to Perlego was the coverage of reading list titles that we couldn’t provide electronically through other providers, and in some cases couldn’t obtain in print either.
“We’ve seen a really positive impact from filling those gaps in our reading list provision.
“With Perlego’s analytics dashboard, it’s particularly interesting to see engagement with accessibility features, and how our users are interacting with those alongside the learning tools. It helps us identify usage, track engagement, and understand user behaviour.”
