[Athen] When do professors have to make their materials accessible?

[Deborah Armstrong via athen-list]

Ideally, always. But it's a common question at my community college.
The answer I've been giving is this: if we have information in advance, we can arrange to have a textbook or handout or exam remediated.
But if you are going to produce an exam the day before a test, or a class handout, or you don't publish your course's book information until a week before the course starts, then it is your job, Mr. Professor to make the materials accessible.
I just discussed this yesterday with a professor whose entire job is to train faculty in our college on title V regs including accessibility of their materials. I emphasized, faculty who wait until the last minute make it difficult for students to succeed and those faculty in a panic about how to make their materials accessible should be consulting with us or sending us their materials nice and early.
One problem we have is students request accommodations, we encourage them to be proactive and we don't contact faculty on their behalf until the student makes the actual request and wants us talking to their professors. So often the poor student does not know what materials they will need until class begins! We are on the quarter system and as a community college, we have many students who are new to higher education.
I am curious what other colleges tell their faculty. Do you insist on all materials being accessible or do you explain you can remediate so it's not their responsibility?
--Debee

--Debee

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