[Athen] Tracking alternate format services and technology inventory in Accommodate Symplicity database

[Russell Solowoniuk]

Hi Cassie,

Thanks so much for your detailed response. This helps a lot.

Take good care,

Russell

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> On Behalf Of Cassie Kilroy Thompson
Sent: Tuesday, September 6, 2022 7:17 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Tracking alternate format services and technology inventory in Accommodate Symplicity database

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Russell,
Many of the barriers that others have expressed about Accommodate are based on their institutions settings for importing schedules, timing of requests, etcetera.  We have been using Accommodate since 2016, and import every student's schedule and information as soon as it is available in PeopleSoft, the product that UMBC uses for student schedules and profile data.  I think Accommodate does a good job of keeping all of those overlapping semesters separate in terms of current and future courses, and there is a setting for who should receive notifications when specific requests are made. We do not currently track specific alt format requests in Accommodate (currently using a google form), but we could.  I am working with our bookstore on getting a book list formatted to import into Accommodate every semester so that ISBN and other pertinent information for course materials would already be available to attach to those requests.  Students CAN request alt formats in Accommodate - it is an internal form that is customizable - but it only becomes available to a given student when they are approved for that accommodation for the current semester.

Accommodate itself is not currently a repository for the alt format documents themselves, as the cloud storage for that would be unwieldy right now, but representatives at Symplicity have said it is something they are exploring.  I recommend contacting a representative at Accommodate to explore your concerns.
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Cassie Kilroy Thompson (she/hers)
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On Wed, Aug 24, 2022 at 6:04 PM Russell Solowoniuk <solowoniukr at macewan.ca<mailto:solowoniukr at macewan.ca>> wrote:
Hi everyone,

Hope you all had a wonderful summer.

We currently use a proprietary database to track all our disability services, accommodations, exams, technology, alt format, etc. For the alternate format piece, students complete an online request form with the information for the book they want in an alternate format: Title, Edition, Author, ISBN, Publisher, and include the course, term, instructor, date of textbook purchase and price paid. When they submit this online form, the information gets populated in our database. If we already have the requested alt format on file, there is a field that will show, "Item in inventory". We have the ability to run a number of reports in the database, for example, we can run a report to show all the requests received for any given term and year, a report to show all the requests made by a specific student, and much more.

We are looking at perhaps moving to Accommodate by Symplicity as our database. I recall asking on this list last January if anyone was using Accommodate, and it appeared that none of you were. I am hoping that perhaps things have changed since then.

So, if anyone is using Accommodate, can you tell me how the alternate format module works? Do you have the ability to run reports and pull out specific information? Is there a front end where students can enter their alt format requests? Does it have the ability to show whether or not the requested alt format is one that you already have? Does it work well?
Also, can you track technology in Accommodate? We have loaner equipment that students borrow, and we need a way to track what technology students have out on loan, and what technology is left in inventory.

If there are still no Accommodate users out there, I would appreciate it if anyone using any of the commercially available databases could answer my questions above.

Many thanks, and hope you all have a great fall term.

Best regards,

Russell


Russell Solowoniuk
AT Educational Assistant, Access and Disability Resources
MacEwan University
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