Faculty Guide

Faculty rights

• To set academic standards
• To evaluate the student based on the standards of the class and to grade accordingly
• To advise the student to contact DSPS if the student requests an accommodation and the instructor has not received written notification from the DSPS office

Faculty responsibilities

• To work with DSPS to provide for accommodations in a fair and timely way
• To adjust instruction without fundamentally altering the program
• To provide handouts in a timely way for alternate media provision
• To select textbooks in a timely way so that e-text can be ordered from the publisher
• To respect and maintain a student's right to confidentiality about his/her disability by not announcing or discussing the student's disability in the presence of other students or staff
• To contact the DSPS office if there is disagreement about the accommodation
• To work with DSPS to ensure that instructional web pages are accessible to students who use assistive technology
• To work with DSPS to ensure that instructional videos/DVDs are captioned
• To post materials on school websites in an accessible format for students
• To ensure that test accommodations do not impact lecture time or other course meeting requirements

At the beginning of each semester, your DSPS students will send you a faculty notification letter via our DSPS Online Portal (AIM). It contains details about the accommodations the student requested for your particular class. Please read this letter carefully, and contact DSPS if you have any questions.

The following examples demonstrate varying levels of instructor involvement in the accommodation process. The examples are not designed to guide the selection of accommodations for a particular student.

Accommodations which require little or no involvement by the instructor

Recording devices

Recording class lectures and discussions might be a necessary accommodation for some students. If DSPS approves use of a recording device for a student, faculty must allow it. Recording devices are specifically mentioned in Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act as a means of providing full participation in educational programs and activities. As a general rule, any classroom material on which a student typically would take notes might be recorded. Occasionally, classroom discussion reveals items of a personal nature about students. If open discussions tend to reveal personal information, it would be appropriate to ask the student with a disability to turn off the recording device during these discussions.

Seating

A student with a physical disability who cannot use the standard classroom desks might need to use a chair designated for that individual. The instructor’s role might be simply to assist the student in reserving the chair for his/her use.

Accommodations which require the instructor to be minimally involved

Note taking devices

A blind student might use a braille note taking device which stores information electronically. The instructor would need to remember to verbalize what s/he writes on the board or to describe verbally other items used in instruction.

Note takers

A note taker, who might or might not be a student enrolled in your course, attends each class session in order to take notes for a student with a disability.  You can assist by helping DSPS identify students who could act as note takers, some notetakers may qualify for priority course registration as an incentive.

Assistive listening devices

Some students who are deaf or hard of hearing use assistive listening devices which amplify and transmit sound. Usually the person speaking wears some type of microphone, which transmits sound directly to a receiver being worn by the student. The instructor might be asked to wear a transmitter or microphone during class. Faculty might also need to restate questions or comments that are made by other students so that this information is transmitted to the student using the assistive listening device.

Interpreters or Real-Time Captioning

Students who are Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing might use an American Sign Language interpreter or a Real-Time Captioner who transcribes the lecture so that the student can access instruction and participate in classroom discussion. The instructor should speak directly to the person who is deaf or hard of hearing rather than to the interpreter.

Extended time on tests

When a recommended accommodation is additional time on tests, instructors might choose to proctor the exam themselves or arrangements can be made to have DSPS proctor the exams at a distraction-reduced site.

Accommodations which require more significant involvement by the instructor

Testing in different format or alternative methods of recording answers

In some circumstances, an alternative testing method will be an approved accommodation for a student. Some disabilities make it very difficult to accurately fill out a Scantron or other computer-scored answer sheet. On a multiple-choice exam an instructor might need to permit a student to circle his or her answers on the test document. The instructor will then need to hand-score the exam. Other examples include permitting a student to speak answers into a recording device or to a scribe or to type answers on a word processor.

Alternative testing formats

Permitting students to show their knowledge or mastery of the subject matter by using an alternative testing method might be a necessary accommodation, provided that the change in method doesn't fundamentally alter the education program. For example, permitting an oral exam in lieu of a written exam might be permissible unless the purpose of the exam is also to test the writing ability of the student. Likewise, permitting an essay exam in lieu of a multiple-choice exam or vice versa might be acceptable in some situations.

Adaptations such as these ensure evaluation of the student’s achievement in the course, rather than reflecting the student’s sensory, manual, or speaking skills.

Providing technical vocabulary

Technical vocabulary might be unfamiliar to students and an interpreter. Preparing a list of such terms will help students and interpreters keep up with the lecture.

Academic accommodations should not be used to lower academic standards. They are, rather, changes to a classroom environment or task that are necessary to provide equal opportunity to eligible students with disabilities. Accommodations are designed to assist students in overcoming functional limitations resulting from their disability. Students with disabilities will still be responsible for meeting course and conduct requirements.

Under the ADA, a "fundamental alteration" is a change that is so significant that it alters the essential nature of the goods, services, facilities, privileges, advantages, or accommodations offered.

If you feel that an accommodation fundamentally alters a course and/or program, please contact the Director to discuss the process of completing the Determination of Fundamental Alteration of Course/Program form.

What is a Service Animal?

Under the ADA, a service animal is defined as a dog or miniature horse that has been individually trained to do work or perform tasks for an individual with a disability.  Service animals are working animals, not pets.  The work or task performed by the dog must be directly related to the person’s disability. 

Are Faculty/Staff allowed to ask an individual about their service animal’s purpose if one enters their office or classroom?

No, only Public Safety can ask the two questions permitted by law. Faculty/staff cannot ask a person about their disability or their service animal.

What are some basic etiquette rules for service animals and their handlers?

• Do not feed or pet service animals when you see them on campus
• Do not try to separate the handler from service animal
• Do not harass or startle a service animal

What needs to happen if a service animal is behaving aggressively towards their handler or others, or if there are other concerns around the service animal’s behavior?

Call Public Safety at SLO: 805-546-3205/NCC: 805-591-6205

Do service animals have to wear a vest or patch or special harness identifying them as service animals?

No, the ADA does not require service animals to wear a vest, ID tag or specific harness.

Do service animals need to be on a leash?

The ADA requires that service animals be under the control of the handler at all times.  The service animal must be harnessed, leashed or tethered while in public places unless these devices interfere with the service animal’s work or the person’s disability prevents the use of these devices.  In that case, the person must use voice, signal or other effective means to maintain control of the animal.

For further reference please review the ADA guidance provided by the DOJ or, for questions, please contact the DSPS Director.

DSPS Testing Center (for courses conducted in person)

For faculty holding in-person classes who are unable to meet a student's exam accommodations in class, DSPS is able to proctor tests in the testing center using an Alternative Testing Agreement completed online using the DSPS Faculty Portal (AIM).Please visit our Faculty How To page to learn more about managing Alternative Testing Accommodations and contact DSPS if you have any questions about testing accommodations.

1. Review and discuss accommodations listed on your Faculty Notification Letter with the student in a private setting.
2. If the student's needs are best met by your exams being proctored by DSPS, complete the Alternative Testing Agreement form online and be prepared to select alternate dates and times if your class schedule does not sufficiently overlap with those of the DSPS Testing Center.
3. Upload your exams securely online and be prepared to answer questions from DSPS proctors leading up to and during the exam.

Please visit our Faculty How To page to learn more about managing Alternative Testing Accommodations and contact DSPS if you have any questions about testing accommodations.

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Distance Learning Accommodations (for courses conducted entirely online)

• The student will send the course instructor a faculty notification letter via the DSPS Online Portal (AIM). The testing accommodation (for example, extension of time allowed) is outlined in this letter and serves as authorization for the instructor to increase the test/quiz time.
• If the instructor needs assistance setting up the testing accommodation, please contact the DSPS testing services office.

Extending time in your Learning Management System (LMS)

Visit the module page in the Canvas Teacher Community for instruction son how to extend time in Canvas (Note: Extending times for multiple exams in Canvas at once is only possible using the "New Quizzes" feature). To extend time in McGraw Hill Connect visit the Knowledge Base Article on Assignment Extensions.

How to modify proctored online exams

Students using the Kurzweil text-to-speech browser extension may not be able to access exam content without modifying your remote proctoring solution (Honorlock Exam configuration).

Alternate Media Services allows students to obtain classroom materials in alternate form such as braille, tactile graphics, enlarged print and electronic text. Materials converted to electronic text can be utilized in a variety of programs that allow for student accommodations. For questions regarding alternative media, please contact the DSPS Alternate Media Facilitator.

1. When talking with a person with a disability, speak directly to that person rather than through a companion or sign language interpreter.
2. When introduced to a person with a disability, it is appropriate to offer to shake hands. People with limited hand use or who wear an artificial limb can usually shake hands. (Shaking hands with the left hand is an acceptable greeting.)
3. When meeting a person who is blind, always identify yourself and others who might be with you.
4. When conversing in a group, remember to identify the person to whom you are speaking.
5. If you offer assistance, wait until the offer is accepted. Then listen to or ask for instructions.
6. Treat adults as adults. Address people who have disabilities by their first names only when extending the same familiarity to all others.
7. Leaning on or hanging on to a person’s wheelchair is similar to leaning or hanging on to a person and is generally considered annoying. The chair is part of the personal body space of the person who uses it. Never patronize people who use wheelchairs by patting them on the head or shoulder.
8. Listen attentively when you’re talking with a person who has difficulty speaking. Be patient and wait for the person to finish, rather than correcting or speaking for the person. If necessary, ask short questions that require short answers, a nod or shake of the head. Never pretend to understand if you are having difficulty doing so. Instead, repeat what you have understood and allow the person to respond. The response will clue you and guide your understanding.
9. When speaking with a person who uses a wheelchair or a person who uses crutches, place yourself at eye level in front of the person to facilitate the conversation.
10. To get the attention of a person who is deaf, tap the person on the shoulder or wave your hand. Look directly at the person and speak clearly, slowly, and expressively to determine if the person can read your lips. Not all people who are deaf can read lips. For those who do lip read, place yourself so that you face the light source and keep hands, cigarettes and food away from your mouth when speaking.
11. Above all, relax! It’s okay to use accepted common expressions, for example to invite a person in a wheelchair to “go for a walk” or to ask a blind person if he “sees what you mean.” Don’t be afraid to ask questions when you’re unsure of what to do. DSPS is committed to helping you and the student succeed together.

Words with Dignity

• Person with a disability
• Person who has multiple sclerosis or cerebral palsy
• Person with epilepsy or seizure disorder
• Person who has muscular dystrophy
• Person who uses a wheelchair
• Person who is blind
• Person who is deaf or hard of hearing
• Person who is unable to speak or uses synthetic speech

 

Words to Avoid

• Handicapped/crippled/the disabled
• Physically/mentally challenged
• "Afflicted by", "Stricken by" or "Victim of"
• Epileptic or Epileptic fits
• Restricted/confined to a wheelchair; wheelchair bound. (The chair enables mobility. Without the chair, the person might be confined to bed.)
• The blind
• Suffers a hearing loss, the deaf
• Dumb, mute. (Inability to speak does not indicate lowered intelligence.)
• Crazy, insane, nuts

Each semester, as students request their approved accommodations for your class, a notification is sent to your Cuesta College e-mail address. Accordingly, at the start of each semester you may receive a number of these Faculty Notification Letters with details about your student's accommodations. If you're not receiving DSPS notifications in your Cuesta employee email inbox, please check your Junk Mail folder and mark the sender as safe to avoid missing future notifications.

In addition to receiving a Faculty Notification Letter when the student requests accommodations for your class, you may visit the DSPS Faculty Portal (AIM) for an overview of student accommodations, including the ability to view a student's Faculty Notification letter. 

In order for DSPS to proctor exams with a student's accommodations in place, we require faculty to complete an Alternative Testing Agreement specifying the parameters for an exam. This is required for all in-person classes in which faculty are unable to provide the student's accommodations and are thus unable to proctor the exam.

Before logging into the DSPS Faculty Portal (AIM), please discuss the student's exam accommodations with the student in detail and complete the agreement accordingly.

Note: Due to our office hours, DSPS proctored exams may need to take place outside of class hours.

To avoid disadvantaging students with a disability, pre-recorded video shared with the class needs to feature captions. For original content, best practice is to edit auto-captions for accuracy. To ensure non-original content is captioned consider using the YouTube search filter or contact the content creators. See the Cuesta College Teacher Community's Captioning Resources page for more information.

In fact, captions as well as transcripts are beneficial for many people, including:

• Non-native speakers of the language
• Viewers without access to audio on their device
• Viewers in a loud or quiet space
• Students who benefit from seeing and hearing information simultaneously

Consider the equity and legal implications of in-class camera use and synchronous class recordings.

Best practices for inclusive online teaching include:

• Make course or meeting materials accessible and distribute to participants ahead of time
• Understand that students may not have equal access to internet bandwidth, etc.; build in pauses when possible
• When screen-sharing, describe everything on screen. (Shared screens are inaccessible to screen readers.) Be descriptive and specific

Provide alternatives to online proctoring if necessary for accommodations

• Students who have testing accommodations may need to use a different proctoring solution if their accommodation is not compatible.
• Please ensure Honorlock settings are compatible with the student's accommodation using Honorlock platform's configuration options. Note: if you have Browser Guard enabled for your class, we recommend that you create a separate copy of the exam that has that feature disabled for students using text-to-speech.
• Be flexible with your testing requirements, and provide students with the ability to communicate any barriers they experience with assistive technology
• Use question banks in Canvas to randomize questions and reduce the possibility of cheating
• Use alternative assessment strategies instead of exams

Creating accessible documents in Microsoft Word relies on using built-in styles along with additional steps for making links and images perceivable to all users.

Please review the steps below for a quick introduction on how to verify and implement document accessibility in MS Word.

How to run the Accessibility Checker

• Click the “Review” tab on the ribbon.
• Click the “Check Accessibility” icon. (Or in the “Tools” menu, click “Check Accessibility.”)
• In the pane that appears beside your document, you see a list of  accessibility issues. Click an issue to highlight it in your document.  The accessibility checker will suggest for how to fix the problem you’ve selected.

How to access the Navigation Pane

• The Navigation pane in Word lets you quickly search or navigate through your document using the Heading structure.
• To show the Navigation pane in Word, click the “View” tab in the Ribbon. For all document views other than “Read Mode”, then check the “Navigation Pane” checkbox in the “Show” button group.
• If using “Read Mode”, then select the “Navigation Pane” choice from the “View” tab’s drop-down menu, instead. By default, the Navigation pane appears at the left side of the application window.

How to apply Heading Styles

• Select “Home tab>Styles” (or “Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S” to open the “Styles pane”) and apply heading styles to the headings in your document.
• You can: Select the heading style you want and then type your heading, or
• Type your heading, place your cursor anywhere within the heading, and then select the heading style you want to use.
• You may also right-click on the Heading Style and select "Update Heading to Match Selection" to preserve the existing styling
• If you have different heading levels (such as chapter, article, section, topic, etc.), then you must use a different style for each heading type. 

How to add Alt Text to Images

• Assistive technology cannot infer meaning from images and other objects. Images and other objects include pictures, images of text, images of tables, shapes, icons with hyperlinks, etc.
• To enter “Alt Text”, select the image, object, or shape. “Right click” or “Shift+F10” and select “Alt Text" (Note: could say Format Picture, Format Shape, etc.>Alt Text). In the “Description” field, enter information that states the purpose (in as few words as possible while remaining clear) for a meaningful image or object or  check “Mark as decorative” as appropriate. Then select “close”.

• Assistive technology users rely on meaningful names to determine the destination, function, or purpose of links. For example, multiple “click here” links are misleading if the name for each link is the same, while the destinations differ.
• To create a hyperlink, select or type the hyperlink text and either right click and select “Hyperlink” or use “Ctrl+K” to open the “Insert Hyperlink” configuration window. Specify/verify the “Text to display” and the “Address” for the link and its destination, and select “OK”.

How to check Font & Contrast

• The “Accessibility Checker” automatically checks for sufficient contrast between text and background.
• Ensure your font has good spacing and displays distinct characters accurately
• If needed, use text to duplicate the meaning of information communicated using color

How to ensure Accessible Lists

• Lists organize and structure content. Assistive technology users cannot infer meaning if you just format with tabs, a dash, or a number.
• Select “Home tab>Paragraph” and use the “Bullets,” “Numbering,” or “Multilevel List” features when formatting lists in your document.

Plan your presentations with Accessibility in mind by recognizing the importance of the following choices.

• Slide Layouts
• Reading Order
• Images and Alt Text
• Descriptive Links
• Table Header Row

For detailed instructions, get started with the Microsoft guide on how to make your PowerPoint presentations accessible.

For a detailed guide on creating accessible PDFs see this comprehensive checklist for PDF Accessibility. For original content, consider the following.

• Good quality originals retain the majority of accessible features when converted to PDF
• To verify results, use the built-in Accessibility Checker (under Tools > Accessibility)

Benefits of a searchable PDF include the ability to:

• Search text
• Select text
• Highlight text
• Create a Table of Contents
• Listen to text

Mathematical equations and scientific formulas are made accessible either by using special markup (such as MathML, which is automatically created by Canvas' Equation Editor) or by providing appropriate alt text along with an image of the equation or formula. This latter strategy is also available for making charts and graphs accessible.

To learn more about creating properly marked up equations in please review the Canvas  Instructor Guide. Another option for creating accessible maths is TextHelp's EquatIO extension for Chrome. This tool is also capable of remediating formulas in existing documents and is free for teachers to use.

With regard to supporting STEM graphs and charts with alt text, please keep the following in mind,

• Identify the instructional merit of an image. What is the main point? Is the image more decorative than informative?
• Keep the explanation of an image brief. How would you describe its purpose in a sentence?
• Articulate the point of the image clearly. Would your explanation help the learner to understand the point of the image? Would learners be more confused?
• Ensure that your explanation is usable by all. How would you explain the image, if you need to do so to someone over the phone? This helps a sighted person perhaps better understand the experience of a non-sighted individual listening to alt text.
• It is often more accessible to provide a table rather than narrative alt text in cases where you're using a pie chart and/or bar chart.
• For graphics that illustrate processes (e.g. flow charts), these can often be presented in a nested list format instead/in addition.
• If the information conveyed in the image/graphic is already represented in the text, then a brief alt text description is all that's needed. The alt text could read "flow chart representing the process discussed in the following text" or something simple that directs the user to the text equivalent

You can always review Creating Accessible Canvas Pages for further assistance or email altmedia@cuesta.edu.