Is the administration doing enough for student accessibility services?
Volunteer note-taking is the most commonly required accommodation provided to students registered with Accessibility Services. Unfortunately, it is an ineffective way to address the accessibility needs of students. There is no quality control process to ensure that the notes submitted by volunteer note-takers are accurate or even complete. The professors don’t review the notes to ensure that everything important mentioned during the lecture has been accurately written down. The volunteer note-taking program also requires other students to take the initiative to volunteer their notes. There is no guarantee that notes will actually be available.
Another underlying issue with the volunteer note-taking program is that it places the onus for providing accessibility services on other students rather than on the school itself. The school should be doing more to ensure that they are meeting the accessibility needs of students and not offloading this responsibility to students.
A better solution for students with accessibility needs is allowing those students to record lectures. Audio recordings address issues related to quality control and potential lack of volunteer note-takers, while shifting the onus of accessibility onto the school itself.
However, as per the Academic Handbook, “the Faculty of Law does not permit the recording of classes, nor does it permit instructors to grant such requests. In instances of disability accommodation or extraordinary circumstances where students are required to miss class, students should expect to rely on class notes.”
The administration, as well as several professors, have expressed concerns about allowing students to record lectures. These include potential drops in class engagement, as well as privacy issues if statements made by professors and students are taken out of context.
However, Professor Kent Roach said he “can think of at least a few justified exceptions [to the policy]—kind of like mandatory minimum sentences.” Another professor, who asked to remain anonymous, stated that recordings should be allowed if they help students learn, but specified conditions that must be attached to the recordings, such as recordings being personal to the students with accessibility needs and the recording being destroyed when the course finishes.
According to Associate Dean, Students Andrew Green, “Any potential benefit of taping lectures is, on balance, far outweighed by the risks of negative effects on attendance as well as on the quantity and substance of participation.”
However, I find it difficult to believe that these negative effects would be substantial enough to outweigh the benefits of taping if only students with accessibility needs are granted this privilege.
Ultimately, the volunteer note-taking program is, by itself, an ineffective learning tool and should be used in conjunction with tools like audio recorded lectures. The Faculty of Law’s restriction on recording lectures should be modified to consider the needs of student accessibility services.
