Faculty FAQ

A student may need academic accommodations to ensure they have equal access to a learning environment due to a disability or condition that affects their ability to fully engage with coursework, assessments or classroom activities. Accommodations are designed to remove barriers and can include adjustments such as extended exam time, notetaking support, lecture recording, alternative formats for course materials and assistive technology.

Faculty will receive an email at the beginning of each semester notifying them if they have any FSC registered students enrolled in their course. This email will include a link to Accommodate, where Faculty can access individual Student accommodation letters detailing the required accommodations the respective student is entitled to. Faculty members are encouraged to check Accommodate periodically to ensure they are kept informed about any updates or changes to students' accommodations. However, if there are major changes in a student’s accommodation or additional students newly registered at the FSC, these updates will also be communicated by email as well.

1. Login to Accommodate Platform
2. Click on "Courses,"
3. Click the respective Course
4. Click on "Enrolled Students”.  

The Enrolled Students section will provide a list of all students in the respective course. Any students enrolled in the course with approved academic accommodations will have the specific accommodations listed under their name.

Accommodate does not currently have a filtering tool that enables users to display all FSC registered students within a single course list. However, Faculty can follow the steps below to export a class list to Excel and filter the list to display all FSC registered students within a respective course. 

1. Login to Accommodate platform
2. Click on "Courses,"
3. Choose the Course
4. Click on "Enrolled Students”. You'll see a list of all the students in your course. Any with approved accommodations will have those listed under their name. 
5. If you want to export this list as an Excel file click on “More Filters” and select “Approved Accommodations for this Course” and then “Apply Serach” 
6. Click the Batch Options red button at the top and choose "Save as Excel" 

Maintaining confidentiality involves respecting the privacy of students registered with the Fred Smithers Centre. Faculty should be mindful not to inadvertently or intentionally disclose a student's disability or accommodations with anyone else. Students are not required to disclose the nature of their disability at all outside of the FSC. Always ensure that accommodation information is handled securely and avoid identifying or singling out any students in your class based on their accommodations. Respecting student privacy is essential to creating an inclusive and supportive learning environment.

Common academic accommodations can include but are not limited to extended time for midterms or exams, note-taking support, lecture recording, alternative formats for course materials (such as audio or large print), and access to assistive technologies. Other accommodations may include quiet or private spaces for exams, flexibility with assignment deadlines, or the use of a reader or scribe during assessments. These accommodations are designed to remove barriers and help students fully participate in their academic work.

Accommodations are determined during the student's Intake Appointment with their Accessibility Advisor and are tailored based on the students disability circumstance and their support needs. All accommodations are based on medical documentation provided by the student and any recommendations made by the student's healthcare providers, ensuring they are tailored to meet the student's specific needs and support their academic success. Accommodations are not one size fits all and vary depending on the individual rather than the disability. Accommodations can change or shift over time based on the student's evolving needs, health or other factors.

Accommodations do not impact academic rigor or learning outcomes. They are designed to remove barriers experienced by students with disabilities, ensuring equal access to the learning environment. All students are still expected to meet the formal learning outcomes of their courses. Accommodations cannot change or impact those outcomes but rather should provide the support and flexibility needed for students to demonstrate their knowledge and skills.

A student’s accommodation letter lists all accommodations the student is eligible for, but not all accommodations may be necessary or applicable in every course. Accommodations are based on the student's individual needs rather than by course, so they will likely only use the accommodations that are relevant to each class. If you have questions about how to implement specific accommodations, it's best to reach out to the Fred Smithers Centre for guidance.

If there are concerns about a students’ specific academic accommodations, the first step is to contact the Fred Smithers Centre and discuss any questions or concerns with the student's Accessibility Advisor. Together, we can assess the students’ necessary accommodations and determine if these meet the students’ needs and the requirements of the course, adjusting if necessary. If further discussion is needed, Faculty are encouraged to review the process outlined in the Academic Accommodations for Students with Disabilities. An informal appeal can be submitted to the Manager of the Fred Smithers Centre for additional discussion. Following this discussion, if the concern remains then a formal appeal can be submitted to the office of the VP Academic and Research. 

It’s important to remember that Saint Mary’s University has a legal duty to accommodate students with disabilities, as outlined by human rights law. The Fred Smithers Centre works closely with Faculty and students to ensure the university meets this duty and provides the necessary support for students. 

If you feel a student may benefit from the support offered by the Fred Smithers Centre, Faculty are encouraged to approach the student in a respectful and confidential manner to inform them about the FSC services. Students can be directed to our website for information, or they can contact us directly via email. Faculty can also reach out on the student's behalf, with their permission, to inquire for more information. We also encourage Faculty to mention the Fred Smithers Centre services to their classes at the beginning of each semester, so students are aware of the resources available to them.

To foster an inclusive classroom environment, focus on creating a culture of respect, understanding, and flexibility. We recommend using Universal Design principles, such as providing materials in multiple formats (e.g., digital, audio), offering clear instructions and consistent expectations, and ensuring that your teaching methods accommodate various learning styles. Encourage open communication by inviting students to discuss their needs in confidence, and be proactive in addressing accessibility concerns.

We have a number of resources available for Faculty and staff for incorporating accessibility considerations into their classrooms and work. Please visit the Accessible Resources and Guides page to learn more. The Studio for Teaching and Learning also has a variety of resources, guides and information workshops pertaining to accessibility.

The best way to help students with disabilities succeed is to ensure they have access to the accommodations outlined in their Accommodation Letters and be proactive in implementing them into your course. 

Additionally, building an open and supportive relationship with students is essential. Encourage them to communicate their needs and challenges, provide clear instructions, be flexible with deadlines when necessary, and seek opportunities for feedback. Stay connected with the team at the Fred Smithers Centre and The Studio for Teaching and Learning for guidance, and work to create a classroom environment that fosters inclusivity and equal opportunities for all students to thrive.

If you have questions or concerns, please reach out to fredsmithers.centre@smu.ca.

Common testing accommodations for students may include extended time, a quiet, separate space, or the use of assistive technologies, such as screen readers or voice-to-text software. Other accommodations might involve a reader or scribe to assist with reading or writing, or the provision of frequent breaks during the exam. These accommodations are intended to ensure that all students have an equal opportunity to succeed and demonstrate their knowledge in a testing environment. Each student’s testing accommodations will be listed on their accommodation letter.

Not all FSC students write their tests at the FSC Testing Centre. While many students are eligible to use the Testing Centre for tests and final exams based on their accommodations, students may choose to remain with their class to write their tests. This is entirely up to the individual based on their comfort level, whether their accessibility needs are met within the classroom or the assessment being offered in a manner that adequately meets their needs. It should not be assumed that all FSC students will complete their assessments at the Testing Centre and those students should not be automatically directed to leave. Faculty will be notified if a student has submitted an approved request to write at the Testing Centre.

Faculty will receive an email notification when a student has submitted a request to write a test at the Fred Smithers Centre. Students are asked to submit their requests at least 14 days in advance to allow sufficient time for coordination and for the test to be emailed or delivered to our office. However, it's important to keep in mind that students with disabilities may face unforeseen challenges that could impact their ability to meet this deadline. The FSC remains flexible to accommodate these situations, and we appreciate faculty remaining flexible as well.

Students write their tests at the Fred Smithers Centre, which has two designated distraction-reduced testing areas on the 3rd floor of the Student Centre. These areas include private spaces, cubicles, and a classroom setting, providing a variety of environments to meet students' needs.  
 
During busier periods, such as midterms or final exams, we may need to book additional space across campus. However, these spaces are always diligently checked for accessibility needs, and students are informed well in advance. All testing areas are also invigilated to ensure a fair testing environment.

Faculty are asked to adjust the time limits for any students who have extra time as an academic accommodation. This adjustment should be made at the beginning of the semester in Brightspace. By setting the extended time at the start, the accommodation will automatically apply to all timed assessments throughout the semester.

Providing extra time as an academic accommodation does not give an unfair advantage; rather, it levels the playing field for students with disabilities. Extra time helps ensure that students with certain disabilities, such as those affecting processing speed, focus, or physical limitations, have an equal opportunity to demonstrate their knowledge and skills. This accommodation allows them to work at a pace that reflects their abilities, just as other students have the opportunity to take tests under typical conditions.

No, extra time does not apply to take-home exams because the nature of take-home exams already provides built-in flexibility. This format helps to remove the barriers that students might face in a more traditional testing environment, allowing them to manage their time and work at their own pace. Therefore, additional time accommodations are not typically necessary for take-home exams.

Following an email notification that a student is writing at the FSC, faculty can submit a copy of the test for a student’s in-person exam at the Fred Smithers Centre in several ways: by dropping it off in person at the FSC, attaching it via email, or uploading it to the portal on Accommodate. All tests and exam materials are treated with the utmost security and confidentiality.

Faculty can either pick up the student’s completed test from the FSC, or we can arrange to deliver it to your department or office (typically the day after the test). Since different departments may have different arrangements for test drop-off, we encourage you to include any specific drop-off instructions with your test to ensure it is returned to you as needed.

Yes, you can provide special instructions for tests and exams written at the Centre. We aim to provide as much information as possible to ensure the student has what they need to succeed. Additionally, we strive to recreate the testing scenario that their classmates experience, so we encourage you to include any specific instructions or directions along with the test to support a smooth and fair testing process.

The Fred Smithers Centre offers a variety of assistive technology to support students, including speech-to-text and text-to-speech software that functions without an internet connection, ensuring students won’t have access to online materials when using this technology. We also provide MS Word for typing answers, as well as additional resources such as white noise machines, noise-cancelling headphones, sit-stand desks, and more, to create a comfortable and accessible testing environment.

Alongside the dedicated staff at the Fred Smithers Centre, we also employ a number of Saint Mary's University graduate students who are trained in accessible testing, invigilation, and mental health support. These graduate students are highly professional and trusted colleagues of the Centre, ensuring a supportive and secure testing environment for all students. They are skilled in handling various accommodations and are committed to maintaining the integrity of the testing process while offering additional support when needed.

Yes, if you are able and feel it would help a student’s success, we always welcome faculty visitors. Additionally, we ask that faculty provide contact information, such as a phone number or email address, that can be used if a student has any questions or concerns during their test that can be addressed by the professor. This ensures that students have the support they need while maintaining a smooth testing experience.

If you still have questions about tests and exams, we have a dedicated email for testing and exams at the Fred Smithers Centre that is monitored daily. Faculty can reach out to FSCExam@smu.ca, or feel free to call or visit the Centre anytime for further assistance with testing and exam procedures. We’re here to help!

Genio for Education is a web-based note-taking tool that can support students with disabilities by diversifying the ways in which they can engage with their academics. Genio is provided through the Fred Smithers Centre for Student Accessibility (FSC) when it is determined to be the most appropriate notetaking support based on a student’s individual accommodation needs.

Genio provides audio recording and transcription features for students approved for Notetaking Support accommodations. This helps students review and study class material more effectively and at their own pace. Students can also upload slides, type or write their own notes during class, and highlight key moments in the recording for easy review later.

By promoting accessibility and providing students with equitable access to course materials, Genio supports Saint Mary’s University’s ongoing commitment to inclusivity and our duty to accommodate students in accordance with their academic needs.

Notetaking support has been an established accommodation at Saint Mary’s University (SMU) for over 20 years. Traditionally, this has been provided through Peer Notetakers in the classroom. However, in recent years, it has become increasingly difficult to meet the needs of students through this model. Despite offering financial honorariums, the Fred Smithers Centre has only been able to fulfill approximately 40% of Notetaking Support accommodations since 2021, primarily due to challenges recruiting willing and available notetakers, and the inconsistent quality of notes provided. When a Peer Notetaker could not be found, the responsibility to provide notes often fell to faculty – an onerous and time-consuming task that was not always feasible to complete in a timely manner. As a result, this has created significant gaps in our service and duty to accommodate, prompting the need to explore more reliable and scalable alternatives to ensure students with disabilities have equitable access to course content and the university is meeting its legal obligation to accommodate these students.

In response, Genio was piloted at Saint Mary’s in early 2023, with excellent feedback from student users and interested faculty. This solution puts students in control of their own note-taking needs, eliminating the reliance on a peer’s attendance or note quality. As a result of the successful pilot, the program was expanded in Fall 2023. The Fred Smithers Centre now provides 150 Genio licenses to students with documented medical needs, joining nearly 50 other institutions across Canada in offering this support.  

Students with disabilities may benefit from notetaking support such as Genio for Education for a number of reasons. For many students with disabilities, traditional methods of note taking may leave them needing to decide whether to place their focus on actively listening to the instructor during class or to place their focus on taking notes for after class study. The requirement to do both simultaneously may create a potential barrier to access.

This barrier to access may arise for the student for several reasons related to (but not limited to) physical impacts (permanent or temporary), neurodiversity, learning disability, ADHD, Autism Spectrum Disorder, concussion, vision or hearing loss, among others.

Genio for Education allows a student to engage in active learning in class while also taking notes to support their unique access requirements.

Every semester the Fred Smithers Centre surveys students who use Genio to gather their feedback on the tool. Here are a few key highlights from recent responses:

"I started using Glean because I have ADHD and I find it very difficult to be able to write down my notes while I’m listening to the professor speak and sometimes it’s not always accessible to get a student notetaker. [With Glean] I have been able to take detailed notes, review them, and be able to have a finalized study guide of everything that happens during lectures, and I don’t feel like I’m missing something. It’s been great!"
-3^rd year student

"Thank you I love Glean it really helped me do so much better this semester. I feel like for the first time my notes actually meant something because I was able to engage with the class and not worry about getting every little detail down. Thank you again!"
-2^nd year student

"I definitely did worse in the classes where Glean was not used. This Notetaking resource is something I never thought I would have access to, but now that I get the opportunity to use it, I wish I knew about it back in high school! Thanks."
-1^st year student

No changes are required. Genio is a passive recording and notetaking tool that does not interrupt class activities. Faculty are not expected to modify teaching methods or provide additional materials if a student is using Genio. Students are responsible for managing their own Genio use in accordance with their accommodation and the Student Agreement that is signed before obtaining the license.

Genio for Education is provided as an accommodation to Saint Mary’s students who are registered with the Fred Smithers Centre for Student Accessibility, have submitted appropriate medical documentation supporting this type of accommodation, and whose past or present in-class experiences have identified specific barriers that can be effectively reduced or removed through the use of a lecture recording/notetaking tool.

Typically, a Genio license is provided at the beginning of each semester so that students can record their lectures and notes from the very first class. However, a license can also be issued at any point during the semester if a student is newly registered with the Fred Smithers Centre, or an already-registered student begins to struggle and reaches out for additional support. To continue using Genio throughout the year, students must re-request a license each semester. 

Faculty can view whether a student has an accommodation for Notetaking Support by logging into Accommodate, the university’s accommodation management system. At the start of each semester, instructors will receive an invitation to access Accommodate and review accommodation letters for students enrolled in their courses.

Students approved for Notetaking Support may choose between a Peer Notetaker or a Genio for Education license. The Fred Smithers Centre administers this process and if a student opts to use Genio in a course, the FSC will notify the instructor via email to ensure they are aware that Genio is being used as part of the student's accommodation.

Click here to access Accommodate.

Prior to using Genio for Education in the classroom, students must sign a Student Agreement. These terms and conditions stipulate that:

• Recordings are for personal study use only and must not be shared or copied.
• The content of the recording is for academic purposes only.
• The student has permission to digitally record academic teaching portions of in-class lectures only. This does not apply to personal stories of instructors, other students’ comments or questions, or practical demonstrations/practice sessions.
• Should the student violate any of these conditions, they can be held accountable under applicable Saint Mary’s University Conduct and/or Academic Integrity policies.

Click here to view a copy of the Saint Mary’s Genio Student Agreement.

While the Genio for Education platform does provide the functionality to share audio recordings with another Genio for Education user within the same university, this feature is not enabled at Saint Mary’s University and therefore Saint Mary’s students using Genio for Education cannot digitally share audio recordings created within the platform.

Audio data stored locally on the student’s computer is stored at rest in a Genio-readable format. It cannot be exported or digitally shared from the student’s computer. Each Genio-readable file stored on a student’s computer is linked to a specific Genio for Education account, only accessed through the student’s university email address. If two students with two separate Genio for Education accounts were sharing a computer, they would not be able to access the Genio-readable files linked with the other student’s Genio for Education account.

All Genio recordings are permanently deleted at the end of each semester following the Final Exam period.

No, Genio for Education does not infringe on copyright law. The recordings and transcriptions created by Genio for students with disabilities are permitted based on an exception in the Canadian Copyright Act (Section 32). This section allows individuals with disabilities to make copies of works (including recordings and transcriptions) for personal use, including for educational purposes as long as these copies are not for commercial distribution. This exception enables students with disabilities to use tools like Genio to access content in a manner that accommodates their needs.

The Genio Service Agreement (sec.6 - Your Data) states, “The ownership of Your Data prior to your use of the Services will not change once Your Data is held or inputted into the Services.”

In other words, Intellectual Property will always belong to the faculty member and Genio for Education does not claim ownership of any intellectual property. In addition, all Genio recordings are permanently deleted at the end of each semester following the Final Exam period.

Audio recordings and electronic notes are stored locally on the student’s device in a Genio-readable format. Data is also uploaded to Genio’s cloud storage, which is hosted across Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Google Cloud platforms in UK data centers.

Genio follows the rules of the UK General Data Protection Regulations (UK GDRP) for all personal data handled (including personal data handled in Canada).

All Genio recordings are permanently deleted at the end of each semester following the Final Exam period. To continue using Genio students must re-request a license each semester.

Learn more about Genio Data Security Policy and Genio Privacy Notice. You may also be interested in reading Where and how are my Events Saved? from the Genio user guide.

Yes. In certain cases, such as when there is a concern about appropriate use, faculty may request to review a transcript or summary of a student’s recent Genio recordings. These requests must be made through the Fred Smithers Centre to ensure they are handled appropriately and in line with student privacy and accommodation guidelines.

Genio follows The Principle of Least Privilege – a data security concept restricting access to end user information to the minimum level needed. Genio restricts access to end user data to authorized persons with legitimate business need to access that information in the scope of their job role.

Read more about Genio’s Authority and Access Control (see section 9).

Genio utilizes the service of third-party processors (Voicegain and Deepgram) to provide accurate and efficient transcription through Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) technology. These services use AI to help convert speech into text.  

While Genio for Education currently uses these two third-party processors for transcription, they are in the process of shifting all transcription services to Deepgram only.

Deepgram does not retain any user information. Once a transcript is delivered (typically within minutes), both the audio and transcript are permanently deleted from Deepgram’s system.

Voicegain, as part of their broader machine learning process, temporarily retains a small, anonymized sample (approximately 5% of total data – not specific to Saint Mary’s) for up to 14 days to help improve their service.  

Yes, Genio for Education has been extensively vetted at Saint Mary’s University.

• The commercial and service agreements with Genio for Education were reviewed and approved by the University’s Legal Counsel prior to purchase, ensuring compliance with institutional policies and contractual standards.
  
  

Genio for Education has been thoroughly evaluated and approved by the Chief Information Officer at Saint Mary’s University. The platform was assessed using the Higher Education Community Vendor Assessment Toolkit (HECVAT) and was found to fully comply with the university’s IT, privacy and security requirements and standards. 

If you have concerns about a student using Genio in your course, please contact the Fred Smithers Centre at FredSmithers.Centre@smu.ca. Genio is one option the university uses to meet its legal obligation to provide notetaking accommodations. If you have concerns about the use of Genio in your course, we’re open to discussing other reasonable alternatives. However, any alternative must still meet the students’ accommodation needs, and it’s important that we work together to identify a timely and effective solution.