When the U of S closed its campus in March 2020, the AES Exam Service team had very little time to adapt. Approximately 2500 exam requests had been submitted for April. There wasn’t time to contact each instructor regarding exam delivery and accommodations in the new online learning environment. As a result, we asked students to email their instructors directly, since in most cases, timing accommodations would need to be handled by instructors and other accommodations would need to be managed by the students at home.
What we found, in retrospect, is that most instructors prefer that AES stay involved in the accommodation process. AES is able to act as a gatekeeper, ensuring that all documents and communications are “official.” We also found that many students prefer that we stay involved since students aren’t always comfortable discussing their accommodation needs with their instructors.
Two other themes that emerged were:
- Students were often unclear about how their timing accommodations would be implemented, which resulted in several in retroactive complaints.
- Instructors are feeling overwhelmed with email.
To address these issues, the role of the AES Exam Service team was reconfigured and we worked with our IT support team to minimize the number of emails our system sends automatically to instructors. To ensure that students understood the changes, we sent monthly emails and also posted communications to our blog, PAWS channel, and website.
As of September 2020, the exam accommodation process ideally follows these steps:
- Students request their Letters to Professors at the beginning of the term (or ASAP after registering) and send them to their instructors for informational purposes.
- Students request accommodations for any sort of test by filling out the online AES request form.
- The AES system automatically generates an email (with an attachment) for instructors 10 days before the exam date. The attachment:
- Explains the role of AES in the accommodation process.
- Asks for information about the exam (such as format and time).
- Includes a list of ALL students writing the same exam on a specific date.
- Instructors should fill out the exam information sheet using Acrobat Pro by Adobe or other means and email it back to AES.
- AES transfers relevant information about the exam to the student’s online exam record, so that the student understands what to expect when they arrive at the exam.
- The instructor adjusts the timer for timed online exams, as required.
- AES arranges any accommodations that the students cannot manage themselves, specifically readers and scribes.
We do understand that instructors have had to make a lot of changes and adaptations, and that they have a lot on their plates. The form we are asking you to fill out and return is indeed one more thing. However, we are hoping that our new processes help by:
- streamlining all requests for a single exam on a specific date into one email;
- removing the need for instructors to keep track of the Letters to Professors and/or communicate with individual students regarding the accommodations for each exam;
- requesting a very small amount of information; and
- diminishing the number of student issues that need to be addressed retroactively.
We’ve had positive feedback from some instructors about these changes thus far. We’ve also seen a noticeable decrease in the number of retroactive student complaints. These processes do promise to improve things for everyone. Please take the short time required to complete and send back our exam information form.
If you ever have questions or concerns about the AES Exam process, please contact us. Our phones are not monitored while we work remotely. It’s best to reach out by email to this address: aesexams@usask.ca