[Athen] Course Management Systems... Extra time

[normajean.brand]

Fellow Athenians,

I have been asked to collect comments, suggestions, responses from you and how you and your college handle extra time on quizzes, exams, any timed assignments in an online class. For instance, most of our students who meet certain criteria are accommodated with extended time up to time and ½  and some with double time. This works fine for the traditional F2F classroom and on-site testing centers, but not online. The CMS we use is Blackboard. Blackboard does not allow, that we can find, for 1.5 time duration only increments of 1 hr, 2 hr, etc.  Blackboard's answer to this is found in the instructor's help file: For users with special needs, such as students who use a screen reader, give them extra time or an unlimited amount of time to complete the assessment. (I'm sure you all have some idea of the accessibility issues with the various CMSs out there, including Blackboard.) 

 

The concern is that if the norm is up to time and ½ but not available in the CMS and we allow double time or unlimited time are we over-accommodating? Discriminating against the other students in the same online class? Do we allow double time in an online class but only time and ½ in the traditional F2F class? If the instructor has two or more students with accommodations, 2 with time and ½ and 1 with double time, how is that handled?

 

How are you handling this at your college?  When I suggested allowing all the students in the online class the same amount of time, say double time, many of the professors met that suggestion with disdain. You don't want to know how they took the 'unlimited amount of time' suggestion!

 

Thank you for your kind and thoughtful responses, ideas, etc... short of doing away with Blackboard (sigh).

 

NJ

 

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NJ Brand

Houston Community College-NW

Technical Support and Innovation Center

Assistive Technology Specialist/Sr. Lab Assistant

Town and Country Square Campus

MC 1379 Room RC13

1010 W. Sam Houston Pkwy N.

Houston TX 77043

VM/Office: 713.718.5604                    

FAX: 713.718.5430 

Email: normajean.brand at hccs.edu

http://nwc.hccs.edu 

http://learning.nwc.hccs.edu/members/normajean.brand

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