Hearing impairment

Open Day information for visitors with a hearing impairment, including British Sign Language interpreters, Assistive Listening Technologies and captions.

British Sign Language interpreters

We will be happy to provide British Sign Language (BSL) interpreters to prospective students who will require this to participate in our Open Day activities. We will require at least two weeks’ notice in order to arrange BSL interpreter cover.

As availability of interpreters can be limited, we cannot guarantee this service, but will do our very best to accommodate your request.

We are unfortunately unable to provide this service for the accompanying guests of prospective students, so we can prioritise interpreters for our student visitors.

We will be in touch with you directly by email to discuss your requirements and plan for the day.

Assistive Listening Technologies

Many lecture theatres in use at our Open Day are fitted with Assistive Listening Technologies. The majority of these are hearing induction loop systems, while a handful are FM induction systems.

We also have portable induction loop systems available should you need to use one on the day (a bulky model, but functional). If you plan to use this in a lecture theatre, you will need to sit at the front as the loop listening field is under 1.5m².

If you request a portable loop system in advance, we will be in touch with you by email to let you know where to collect this from when you arrive at the Open Day.

We have provided a list of the assistance systems in each of our Open Day talk venues.

Campus	Talk venue	Assistive technology
King's Buildings	Ashworth Building, Lecture Theatre 1	Hearing Loop
King's Buildings	Nucleus Building, Oak Lecture Theatre	Hearing Loop
King's Buildings	Nucelus Building, Alder Lecture Theatre	None
King's Buildings	Nucelus Building, Elm Lecture Theatre	None
King's Buildings	JCMB, Lecture Theatres A, B and C	None
King's Buildings	Swann Building Lecture Theatre	None
Central	40 George Square, Lecture Theatre C	Hearing Loop
Central	40 George Square, Lecture Theatres A & B	None
Central	40 George Square Lower, Room LG.11	FM
Central	40 George Square Lower, Room LG.09	None
Central	50 George Square, Lecture Theatre G.03	None
Central	50 George Square, Screening Room	None
Central	Appleton Tower, Lecture Theatres 1 - 5	Hearing Loop
Central	Business School, Auditorium	Hearing Loop
Central	Edinburgh Futures Institute, Event Space	TBC
Central	Edinburgh Futures Institute, Room 2.35	IR Personal Loop
Central	Gordon Aikman Lecture Theatre	Hearing Loop
Central	Hugh Robson Building Lecture Theatre	Hearing Loop
Central	Reid Concert Hall	None
Central	Teviot Place, Anatomy Lecture Theatre	None
Central	Teviot Place, Meadows Lecture Theatre	Hearing Loop
Central	Teviot Place, Teviot Lecture Theatre	None
ECA	Hunter Building Lecture Theatre	FM
ECA	Main Building, Lecture Theatre E22	Hearing Loop
ECA	Main Building, West Court	None
New College	Rainy Hall	None

Priority seating for talks

If it would be helpful for you to be seated close to the front in talks, we recommend arriving early for any talks you have booked to ensure that you are able to get a suitable seat. If you arrive after a talk has already started or when visitors are entering a lecture theatre, we will not be able to ensure this.

There will be a University staff member working at each lecture theatre venue, so if you let them know when you arrive that you’ll need to sit at the front (and you have arrived in good time) they will do their best to let you in to the talk first to get a seat.

Accompanying guests

While our policy is to prioritise prospective students for busier talks, if you will require an accompanying guest in talks, to take notes or support you, let staff at the venue know and we can accommodate your guest.

Lanyards

We will be providing green lanyards for you, and if relevant a guest, to wear or carry with you. This will make it easier for our staff to identify who will require priority talk access and which accompanying guests are permitted to support students in talks.

Using the lanyard means you will not need to explain your requirements at each talk venue. However, it is completely optional, so you do not need to take a lanyard if you are not comfortable with this arrangement.

You can collect lanyards from the following Helpdesks:

Central campus: Informatics Forum Helpdesk
Edinburgh College of Art: Main Building Helpdesk
King’s Buildings: Nucleus Building Helpdesk

Captions

It will not be possible for us to live caption talks or presentations on the day, as our lecture theatre technology does not support this.

However, we intend to record the Open Day talks using lecture capture software and circulate these following the event.

As long as the presenter has provided their consent for us to share the recording (and we have not encountered any technology hiccups!), we would be happy to accurately caption the recordings of your talks of interest and send them to you following the Open Day.

Presentation slides

If access to presentation slides would be helpful for you, let us know which talks you are interested in, and we can get in touch with the relevant departments to request a copy of their presentations for you.

We cannot guarantee that these will be available in advance of the Open Day, but we will do our best to get these to you as soon as we can.

Information desks

Our information desks can get very busy during the event, especially for more popular subject areas. If you are struggling to hear staff when speaking with them at an information desk, let them know, and they will do their best to find a quieter area in which to have your conversation.

There are designated ‘quiet spaces’ located in many buildings in use on the Open Day.

Quiet spaces

It will be a very busy day and there will be a lot of visitors on campus, but we will have a number of designated Open Day ‘quiet spaces’ which are:

Central campus: 50 George Square, Room G.01
Central campus: 40 George Square, Lower Ground Room LG.10
Central campus: Informatics Forum, seating area
Central campus: McEwan Hall, Lower Ground, Robing Room
Edinburgh College of Art: Main Building, Room C.21
King’s Buildings: Nucleus Building, Hawthorn Room (Floor 2)

These rooms are there for you to use as and when you need to. Feel free to ask staff or student ambassadors for directions to these designated quiet spaces, or other quieter areas in whichever building you are in.

Assistance dogs

Certified Assistance Dogs are permitted to access all University premises under the control of their handlers (or where necessary in order to control the Assistance Dog for a short period of time, someone other than the handler).

Ensure that they are clearly identifiable as an assistance dog so that our staff do not need to check, as only assistance dogs are allowed into University buildings.

Read our policy and guidelines on assistance dogs. The Assistance Dogs UK list has been expanded since this policy was published.

University policy on assistance animals (175.99 KB / PDF)

Disability and Learning Support Service information desk

You will be able to speak with staff from our Disability and Learning Support Service at their information desk, located in McEwan Hall from 10am to 4pm.

Their role is to provide support to prospective and current students who are considering studying at the University of Edinburgh who have a disability, learning difference, neurodivergent or health condition that may impact on their studies.

They will be very happy to speak with you on the day about your specific support needs in relation to studying at the University of Edinburgh. You can also get in touch with them outside of the Open Day.

Disability and Learning Support Service website

Contact us

If you would like to get in touch to request any of the resources mentioned on this page or if there is anything else we can do to help make your day go as smoothly as possible, let us know in advance by emailing us.

Email ug.recruitment@ed.ac.uk

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This article was published on 2025-05-01