We cannot be excellent unless we are inclusive. The University of Maryland is committed to creating and maintaining an accessible and inclusive educational and working environment to all its constituencies in any circumstance.
In the event of an emergency disruption and a shift to online instruction and teleworking, accessibility and disability related accommodations must be provided so that students, faculty and staff can fully participate.
The Accessibility and Disability Service (ADS) provides accommodations to students to ensure equal access to services, programs and activities sponsored by the University of Maryland. Through the variety of services offered, ADS works to ensure that students’ accommodations and accessibility needs are met in any learning environment.
In the interest of the health and safety of students, staff, and faculty, ADS will only offer in-person exam proctoring under extenuating circumstances, and only when all available online accommodation options have been considered and determined to be ineffective or impractical. For questions or more information, please contact ADS office at 301-314-7682 or adsfrontdesk@umd.edu.
Accessibility is the right thing to do and it is required by law. By designing your course online to be accessible to those with disabilities you will benefit all students. A course is accessible to the degree that every student can easily access and navigate course content and assignments; submit assignments; and successfully use course tools.
Accessible course design is part of universal design for learning. Instructors should utilize as many components of universal design for learning as possible when developing online courses and responding to specific accommodation requests.
Many accommodations that have been established for students to use in the classroom can transition with them to online courses with minimal modification. How accommodations are implemented in an online environment may need to be adapted or adjusted and will depend on specific course platforms, content, and assessments.
Some of the most frequently used accommodations include extended exam time, note taking, audio recording of lectures, consideration for flexibility in class attendance (for synchronous coursework) and assignment due dates.
Other accommodations might require some adjustment or alteration when transitioning from in-class to online coursework. ADS will work with students and instructors to affect these modifications to accommodations to ensure equal access to coursework for students with disabilities. Important considerations:
Below are examples of accommodations and types of technology used by students with disabilities, organized by disability type.