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Brightspace offers two easy ways to implement accessibility accommodations for multiple students in a course site, they are as follows:

  1. Making use of the Manage Special Access function in assessment editors.

  2. Setting bulk accommodations through the course Grades area

The following methods will be discussed below, as well as some of the options they offer for accommodations.

Student accommodations (perhaps those provided by Brock Student Accessibility Services) can be added to most tools in Brightspace. These will often manifest as time limit, due date, or access window adjustments, and most will be added through what Brightspace calls Special Access.

Brightspace offers three ways to implement accommodations:

  1. Individual access and timing overrides can be added through Special Access in each assessment tool (Assignments, Quizzes, etc.).

  2. Course-wide timing adjustments for Quizzes can be added in Classlist.

  3. Grade accommodations or exemptions can be managed in Grades.

Info

Instructors can find students' SAS-approved accommodations in the BrockDB OASIS Instructor Portal and should connect with Brock’s Student Accessibility Services (SAS) for further support and guidance when it comes to addressing these needs.

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Manage Special Access

Special Access can be granted to students who require extra time, revised due dates, etc. to complete assignments. Instructors use special access options to comply with accessibility accommodations. The special access function itself refers specifically to the Brightspace options for providing students with extra time or adjusted access dates. It offers the most thorough method of applying accommodations but can also be used to grant extensions on an individual basis.

The Manage Special Access options can be found in different places based on the type of assessment , more information on each is below:and each will be described below.

Info

Special Access has two main functions:

  • It can be used to grant students special accommodations for an assessment.

    • It can be used to

    can be used in two distinct ways:

    1. To grant specific students individualized accommodations within a course-wide assessment.

    2. To allow only certain students access to an assessment.

    Assignments and Quizzes

    Expand
    titleAssignments and Quizzes

    Manage Special Access can be found in the same location in both Assignments and Quizzes.

    1. Edit an assignment or quiz

    by either clicking New or clicking the drop-down arrow next to an existing assessment and clicking Edit

    1. (or create a new one).

    2. Click the Availability Dates and Conditions sub-menu in the top-right of the editor.

    This will open it.Scroll down to find

    2. Find Special Access near the bottom of the sub-menu.

    3. Click Manage

    Special Access to open the

    1. Special Access

    section

    1. .

    Assignments

    Special Access in

    assignments

    Assignments allows instructors to

    give students different

    override access and due dates

    for the assessment

    to

    accommodate

    facilitate extra time.

    There is not a way to increase the submission count for certain students, so CPI recommends that if the instructor is predicting many students will want to submit multiple times, they should open the entire assignment for multiple submissions

    Number of submissions (resubmissions) cannot be adjusted through Special Access.

    Quizzes

    Special Access in Quizzes allows instructors to change the following:

    Due Date

    • Access and

    Quiz availability

  • Timing for quizzes

  • number of attempts

    • Surveys

    Expand
    titleSurveys
    When editing a Survey,

    • availability by means of the Start and End Dates.

    • Time limit (by either overriding the default, adding a multiplier, or providing extra time that is added onto the default).

    • Number of attempts.

    Surveys

    Special Access can be found in the Restrictions tab

    at

    near the top of the

    editor

    editing page.

    1. Edit

    an survey by either clicking New or clicking the drop-down arrow next to an existing assessment and clicking Edit

    1. a survey (or create a new one).

    2. Click the Restrictions tab at the top of the editor.

    3. Scroll down to the bottom of Restrictions and select Add Users to Special Access.

    Special Access in Surveys allows instructors to give students different due dates for the

    assessment

    survey to accommodate extra time.

    Self-Assessments

    ExpandtitleSelf-Assessments

    and Discussions

    Self-Assessments

    Self-Assessments do not give the option to assign Special Access. This is because self-assessments cannot have any sort of restriction placed upon them besides

    being visible or not to students. As such, there is no need to put Special Access on them.

    hidden or visible.

    Discussions

    Discussions do not have Special Access. Instructors will need to reopen a forum/topic for all students if a student needs to post after the

    end date

    End Date.

    Accommodations

    in

    via Classlist

    If instructors know that they will have to apply accommodations for multiple quizzes for a student, they have the option to go into the course Classlist and automatically set a student’s accommodations there. At this time, the only accommodation that can be set in this manner is the time limit for quizzes.

    Go to the Classlist area of the course site

    Time limit for quizzes can be adjusted across all quizzes in a course per student through the Classlist.

    1. Go to Classlist.

    2. Click the drop-down arrow next to the student who will be receiving a timing accommodation.

    3. Select Edit Accommodations.

    4. Select Modify Time Limit and then either choose to apply a multiplier, or set the given extra time for every quiz the student accesses. The multiplier is useful if the student is always granted 1.5x the amount of time as per their accommodations, but instructors can use the extra time box to be more specific.

    5. Click Save. The timing accommodations will now be applied for every quiz the student takes.

    Grade Exemptions

    Instructors may encounter situations where they need to exempt students from certain assignments. While Brightspace does not allow instructors to tailor final grade weight - calculations between students, it does allow instructors to exempt students from assessments. If the assessment the student is being exempted from goes toward their final grade, Brightspace will instead calculate their final grade out of the weight remaining (i.e. If , if a student is exempt from an assignment worth 10% of their final grade, Brightspace calculates their final grade based on the remaining 90%).

    1. Go to the Grades area of the course site.

    2. Make sure instructors are in Select the Enter Grades tab at the top of the Grades area.

    3. Scroll down and search for the student to exempt from an assessment.

    4. Click the drop-down arrow next to the student’s name, and select Bulk edit exemptions.

    5. Select whichever assessments the student is being exempt from, then click the Save button.

    Grouping Students with Accommodations

    Instructors may attempt to streamline the accommodations process by placing students with the same accommodations into a Brightspace group, and then just selecting that group when editing Special Access.

    This process is not recommended.

    There is no way in Brightspace to hide students from seeing other members of a group they are a part of. In this sense, students will be able to see who they share accommodations with, which violates their right to privacy in this matter.

    Should instructors desire strongly to implement this form of accommodating, please In large classes, with a high number of accommodations, instructors should reach out to cpi@brocku.ca to discuss .

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