Digital Exams for Students with Disabilities

NIC’s Depart­ment of Acces­si­ble Learn­ing Ser­vices (DALS) facil­i­tates and pro­motes the ongo­ing devel­op­ment of an inclu­sive learn­ing envi­ron­ment. Dig­i­tal test­ing accom­mo­da­tions are an inte­gral com­po­nent for mit­i­gat­ing dis­abil­i­ty impact with­in the learn­ing envi­ron­ment. Stu­dents requir­ing dig­i­tal exam accom­mo­da­tions have been asked to con­tin­ue to book their exams fol­low­ing the stan­dard DALS pro­ce­dures. DALS review all accom­mo­dat­ed exam requests and reach out to both stu­dents and instruc­tors to facil­i­tate accom­mo­da­tions.

The fol­low­ing are con­sid­er­a­tions for deliv­er­ing dig­i­tal exams for stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties. If you have any ques­tions about accom­mo­dat­ing stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties for a dig­i­tal exam, please reach out at https://www.nic.bc.ca/student-services/accessible-learning-services/. See also down­load­able PDF of this web page.

Accommodations

Extra Time

Descrip­tion: Giv­ing stu­dents extra time on an exam
Con­sid­er­a­tions: When pos­si­ble, instruc­tors may man­age the addi­tion­al time accom­mo­da­tion as per the student’s accom­mo­da­tion let­ter. Dig­i­tal test­ing plat­forms (such as Bright­space) have built-in func­tions for increas­ing or remov­ing test­ing time lim­its. Email NIC Ser­vice Desk for sup­port with adjust­ing the tim­ing vari­ables on quizzes and tests in Bright­space. Take home or open book exams often have a very long exam writ­ing win­dow so may or may not require extra time added for stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties.

Private space or distraction-reduced environment

Descrip­tion: Many sup­port­ed stu­dents require an envi­ron­ment in which they can con­cen­trate with­out out­side stim­uli for dis­trac­tion.
Con­sid­er­a­tions: In gen­er­al, stu­dents are respon­si­ble for find­ing a suit­able space in their home or alter­na­tive to write. It may be worth con­sid­er­ing that many stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties will find it dif­fi­cult to find some­where to write an exam in an envi­ron­ment which mit­i­gates the func­tion­al impact of their dis­abil­i­ty ‑sus­tained atten­tion, anx­i­ety, ergonom­ic, etc.  DALS can pro­vide dis­trac­tion-reduced test­ing envi­ron­ments for stu­dents, if need­ed.

Students requiring in-person supports

Descrip­tion: A read­er, scribe, inter­preter, or mobil­i­ty assis­tant
Con­sid­er­a­tions: This lev­el of test­ing accom­mo­da­tion will need to be worked out on a case-by-case basis. A scribe or read­er could also be uti­lized via video con­fer­enc­ing or face-to-face invig­i­la­tion with DALS.

Adaptive Technology

Descrip­tion: Numer­ous pos­si­bil­i­ties: voice input, screen read­ers, mag­ni­fiers, cap­tion­ing, etc.
Con­sid­er­a­tions: Stu­dents will need to work with DALS on a case-by-case basis to deter­mine func­tion­al­i­ty in the spe­cif­ic test­ing envi­ron­ment.  Stu­dents who require adap­tive soft­ware have usu­al­ly received access through the Cana­da Stu­dent Grant. Please note that Respon­dus Lock­down brows­er is not com­pat­i­ble with many adap­tive tech­nolo­gies and alter­na­tives may need to be explored.

Text to Speech

• MAC built-in is called “Voice Over” https://www.apple.com/accessibility/mac/vision/
• Nat­ur­al Read­er (free, Win­dows and MAC) Paid option includes bet­ter voic­es and the abil­i­ty to sync to a smart phone or tablet.
• Cen­tral Access Read­er (free, open source, reads for­mat­ted math, Win­dows and MAC)
• Tex­tAloud (free to try, Win­dows)
  • Tex­tAloud video tuto­ri­als
• Nar­ra­tor (free, built-in Win­dows 7 and lat­er)
• Adobe Read­er (free, Win­dows and MAC)

Voice Input Software

• Drag­on Nat­u­ral­ly Speak­ing https://www.nuance.com/dragon/dragon-for-pc/home-edition.html
• Google Doc­u­ment with Google Voice Typ­ing allows for dic­tat­ing direct­ly into a word doc­u­ment
• Apple Dic­ta­tion (iOS, macOS)
• Win­dows 10 Speech Recog­ni­tion (Win­dows)

Captioning

• Required on video con­tent.

Screen Readers

• NVDA (Non-Visu­al Desk­top Access) (free, Win­dows)
• JAWSis the most com­mon screen read­er
• Win­dow-Eyes (avail­able free of charge for users with a val­i­dat­ed Microsoft Office ver­sion 2010 or lat­er)

Magnifiers

• Mag­ni­fi­er for Win­dows  (built-in)

Take Home Exams

Descrip­tion:  Where stu­dents are giv­en more than a day to com­plete the exam.
Con­sid­er­a­tions: The accom­mo­da­tion of extend­ed time does not typ­i­cal­ly apply to these cas­es. Stu­dents who believe that they would still require addi­tion­al time will need to con­nect with DALS to review test­ing needs.

Other Possible Accommodations

Descrip­tion:

• cal­cu­la­tor
• MS Word — with spell assis­tance or not penal­ized for spelling errors
• adjustable desk
• own device
• noise can­celling head­phones
• white noise machine/music
• sup­port­ive chair
• mag­ni­fi­er
• access to wash­room
• ergonom­ic key­board
• sen­so­ry reduced room
• food per­mit­ted
• enlarged font
• C‑Pen

Con­sid­er­a­tions: If the stu­dent does not have the nec­es­sary sup­ports in place, they should con­tact DALS.

Scheduled Breaks

Descrip­tion: Stu­dents hav­ing breaks dur­ing the exam.
Con­sid­er­a­tions: In gen­er­al, stu­dents who need sched­uled breaks would be afford­ed this time with­in their accom­mo­da­tion of ‘Extra Time.’ Giv­en the com­plex­i­ty of dis­abil­i­ty impact and test­ing for­mat, oth­er con­sid­er­a­tions may also be war­rant­ed.

Multiple Scheduled Testing Sessions

Con­sid­er­a­tions: If the exam is pre­sent­ed in mul­ti­ple, dis­crete sec­tions, the instruc­tor could ‘load’ the test­ing in sep­a­rate sec­tions for the stu­dent for sep­a­rate sit­tings. If not fea­si­ble, an alter­na­tive eval­u­a­tion may be need­ed.

If you have any ques­tions about accom­mo­dat­ing stu­dents with dis­abil­i­ties for a dig­i­tal exam, please reach out at https://www.nic.bc.ca/student-services/accessible-learning-services/.