The School of Social Work collaborated with the Texas School for the Deaf to create an American Sign Language version of a workplace engagement survey, according to a June 12 news release. The survey included 78% of the workforce within the Texas School for the Deaf who communicate with ASL. 

The Institute for Organizational Excellence within the School of Social Work creates workplace surveys for a wide variety of agencies, which measure employee perceptions of their workplaces, according to its website. Geoffrey Treitel, a software developer for the School of Social Work, said the Texas School for the Deaf approached IOE to create an ASL version of the survey. The survey was originally offered in English and Spanish, but the ASL version aims to increase accessibility for school employees.

“During the course of this project, I learned that for a lot of people (who use) American Sign Language, their first language is ASL — it’s not English,” Treitel said. “For those people, it really makes a big difference that they have that as their starting point.” 

The ASL version of the survey shows the questions written in English, along with a short video above each one with a translator signing the question in ASL. Treitel said the Texas School for the Deaf recorded the videos, and IOE embedded the clips into the survey. 

Julie Dodd, human resources director at the Texas School for the Deaf, said in the news release that the ASL survey made the Texas School for the Deaf staff feel represented while answering the questions. 

“Over the years, my team and I have been committed to making our services deaf-friendly and welcoming to everyone,” Dodd said. “This survey being available in ASL marks a significant step forward in that effort.”

Hailey Wetherill, a graduate research assistant who worked on the project, said it felt rewarding to see the values of inclusion and accessibility displayed in the survey. 

“It made me kind of take a step back and realize, ‘Okay, this is why I’m doing what I’m doing,’” said Wetherill, a doctoral social work student. “I bring value into a workplace area.” 

Wetherill said IOE is already working on more projects focused on accessibility, such as auto-generating reports that are screen-readable for those who are visually impaired.

“Accessibility shouldn’t be a secondary thought,” Wetherill said. “This should be something that everybody utilizes and everybody’s thinking about when creating surveys, when creating reports, because it’s something that should be automatic.”