Accessibility Services supports students with disabilities using a variety of accommodations. While you may have personal experience supporting someone with a particular disability, it is important to understand that accommodations are tailored to each student – not each disability.

Not all students with disabilities will choose to register with Accessibility Services. You may also work with students who are not connected with our office but could benefit from support. You can learn more about recognizing common disabilities, along with additional ways to support your students, in the Accessibility Services Faculty Intranet.

By working together, we can ensure that students’ accommodation needs are met while preserving the academic integrity of your course. We encourage you to read MSVU’s Academic Accommodations for Students with Disabilities for additional information about your role in providing an accessible academic experience.

MSVU Accessibility Services uses an accommodation management platform called Accommodate. Your Accommodate portal contains important information related to your students’ accommodations, including Accommodation Letters and accommodated testing for your courses. We recommend bookmarking Accommodate and reviewing the Accommodate Faculty User Guide.

Accommodate

Accommodate Faculty User Guide

Accommodation Letters

At the beginning of every semester you teach, you will receive an email notifying you of any students in your class(es) registered with Accessibility Services. Your letters will be housed in your Accommodate portal, under Accommodation Letters. Please be sure to review these letters. They will include a list of the student’s approved accommodations and other relevant details on how to implement the accommodation (e.g. confirming exam details, guide for deadline extensions, etc.). Students are encouraged to connect with you early in the semester to discuss how their accommodations will be implemented in your course.

If a student registers with Accessibility Services mid-semester, or if their accommodations are updated, you will receive a new Accommodation Letter and email notification.

You can also view a list of students with accommodations enrolled in your course through Accommodate. After you sign in choose Courses, select the class, and the information is under the Enrolled Students tab.

For more detailed instructions on viewing your faculty letters and list of enrolled students with accommodations, please review the Accommodate Faculty User Guide.

If you have concerns about a student’s specific academic accommodations, or want guidance on how to implement an accommodation, please reach out to accessibilityservices@msvu.ca. An Accessibility Advisor will be happy to speak with you to ensure MSVU meets its legal duty to accommodate while maintaining academic integrity.

Test Process & Pickup

Students registered with Accessibility Services may have testing-related accommodations. For a full list of accommodation codes, please review the Accommodate Codes Glossary (also found on Accommodate). Some of the more common accommodations include:

  • Extra time (1.5x) or double time (2x)
  • Reader and/or Scribe
  • Computer for writing answers
  • Testing in isolation

If you have an unproctored Moodle quiz, test or midterm (i.e. written at home) and a student only requires extra or double time, the student will notify you to adjust their time on Moodle. An extra time calculator can be found on the Accessibility Services Faculty Intranet.

For any in-person tests, proctored online tests, or online tests requiring a Reader/Scribe or other accommodation involving our staff, students can submit a request to write in our Testing Centre. Students must submit a separate request for each quiz, test or midterm.

There are three steps in the testing process for faculty:

  1. Confirm the test time with your students: Our Testing Centre operates at certain start times to enable proctor scheduling, adhere to the Library’s open hours, and minimize disruption to test-takers:
  • Monday to Thursday: 9 a.m., 1:30 p.m., 4 p.m.
  • Friday: 9 a.m., 1:30 p.m.

You and your student(s) should agree on their test time before they submit their request in Accommodate. If a student is not able to write at the closest time to the rest of the class (due to a schedule conflict, evening test, etc.) we require your written confirmation of the agreed-upon time sent by you or the student to tests@msvu.ca.

Note: Students are required to submit their test request on Accommodate at least 9 days before the test is scheduled. If it is less than 9 days away, they can email their request to tests@msvu.ca but we cannot guarantee that accommodations can be arranged.

2. Upload your test to Accommodate: Tests must be uploaded to Accommodate at least 24 hours before the scheduled writing time. After signing in, use the Add Exam button on the home page beneath Test Room Bookings to Review for the course. That button will open a form with questions pertaining to the test and a place to upload the file.

If you are experiencing issues uploading to Accommodate, you can also email the file to tests@msvu.ca. More detailed instructions on viewing student test requests and uploading your tests can be found on the Accommodate Faculty User Guide.

3. Pick up completed tests: We will return completed non-Moodle tests to you using the pickup method you selected in the upload form.

Pick up next day from EMF 108. The front desk is typically open 8:30 a.m. – 12 p.m. and 1 p.m. – 4:30 p.m., Monday to Friday (closing at 4 p.m. from June to August). Please note that the front desk may be occasionally closed during business hours. It is best to call or email ahead to ensure a staff member will be there when you arrive.

Delivery to department administrative office within 1 week. If you want tests delivered directly to you instead of the department admin, please email tests@msvu.ca to make arrangements.

Scan and email to you within 48 hours. We keep the paper copies after scanning them in the event of issues with the scan (e.g. if pencil is too faint to read online). You can still choose to pick up the test after we have scanned it.

If you have any concerns or particular instructions, please call 902 457 6567 or email tests@msvu.ca.

Final exams written during Summer I and Summer II terms follow the same process. A different process is used for accommodated Fall and Winter final exams and is described in the next section below.

Fall/Winter Final Exam Process

Final exams taking place in Fall or Winter final exam periods are administered by the Registrar’s Office. Please follow their process for submitting those exams. Their primary contact for final exam-related communications is exams@msvu.ca.

Accessibility Services staff assist the Registrar’s Office in administering accommodated Fall/Winter final exams. During those exam periods our staff are based in Seton 457, and the best way to reach us is to visit us there or email accessibilityservices@msvu.ca. You can pick up completed exams from Seton 457 on the same day they were written, or from the Registrar’s Office the next day.

Students writing with accommodations may finish later than the rest of the class depending on their approved accommodations. We recommend visiting Seton 457 to check on your students writing with accommodations before you leave campus. Please also provide us with your cell phone number or another way to reach you in case questions arise from students who are writing with accommodations at a different time than the rest of the class.

Visit our Accommodate & Other Resources page and the Teaching and Learning Centre Resources and Supports page for additional information and resources for both faculty and students.

Accommodate

Accommodate Faculty User Guide