December 1, 2021
This message is distributed to All-Instructors, Academic-Assistant-Deans, and Academic-Department-Managers. (Click here to view description of distribution groups.)
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To: Fall Quarter Instructors
From: David Marshall, Executive Vice Chancellor
Michael Miller, Interim Associate Vice for Undergraduate Education
Re: Finals Exams and Disabled Students Program (DSP) Accommodations
In anticipation of Fall Quarter Final Exams, which begin on Saturday, December 4th, we are writing to remind instructors that we have a legal and ethical responsibility to cooperate with students who are registered with the Disabled Students Program (DSP) and are approved to receive official accommodations for taking exams. At this point, the parameters of the Final Exams should have been added into RegisterBlast; the deadline was 5:00 PM on Friday, November 19th. We now ask that you upload the exam to RegisterBlast or deliver the exam in person to the Testing Center, at least TWO business days before the scheduled exam.
In addition, we want to alert you to the procedures this quarter for private space accommodations for Finals Week, due to the unexpectedly high volume of accommodations. Since the Testing Center does not have enough space to accommodate all of the students needing accommodations, DSP staff will again work with departments to find appropriate space, as was done in the past. All exams will continue to be registered and uploaded through RegisterBlast.
In addition, we are asking for your cooperation to remedy any problems with providing appropriate accommodations to our DSP students, including any problems that may have occurred recently and any problems that may be experienced during Finals Week. Some of the problems may have been caused by inadvertent mistakes by faculty, such as failing to upload an exam on time or correcting a typo on an in-person exam but not on the exam uploaded to the Testing Center. Others might have been caused by DSP or Testing Center systems. Regardless of the reason, all students certified by DSP have a right to their appropriate accommodations and it is our joint responsibility to ensure that the accommodations are honored.
Therefore, if problems have been identified, we may ask for your help in resolving issues through various remedies, such as retaking the exam with accommodations/equal access, redistributing the weight of the exam with another grading criteria, replacing the exam score with another exam score, or allowing the student’s grade to be calculated based on those requirements for which a student had equal access. A representative of DSP will work with you to determine an appropriate remedy, if needed.
This is the first quarter in which the Testing Center and RegisterBlast have been operational, and it will take some time for the Testing Center and DSP to fully develop and refine protocols and logistics. We ask for your patience and cooperation as they work through these issues. We count on your continued dedication to the welfare of our students and your assistance as we fulfil our legal obligations to provide suitable accommodations for those students who are entitled to them.
A link to information for faculty on using the Testing Center is here.
And a link on FAQ regarding DSP accommodations is here.
Thank you.