Advance Access to Presentation Slides Accommodation

Advance access to slides is an accommodation provided to students with a variety of disabilities that impact their ability to process or track the lecture content in real time and/or take effective notes at the same time. It helps limit disability-related impacts that could result from needing to copy down everything that is on the slides. Disabled students who use the slides as an outline can focus their notetaking on adding information from the lectures.

Strategies for Implementing

Instructors can consider the following strategies to provide slides in advance of class:

  • Best practice: Share slides via Canvas with all students, not just students approved for this accommodation.
  • Create a shared folder (e.g., Box, Google Drive, etc.) as a place to house slides. If you are sharing the folder only with students approved for this accommodation, be sure to maintain confidentiality by preventing students from seeing others’ names (In Box, use the sharing setting “Viewer;” in Google Drive, use sharing setting “Anyone with the link can view”).

    Using this strategy, as long as all slide decks are developed in and/or added to the folder before each class, you only need to share the link to the folder one time at the start of the semester. Students will be able to access slides without any additional steps or “sharing” from you. It will then be the student’s responsibility to save the link to the folder and simply open it to have access to the slides in advance of class.
  • Email slides to students individually before each class session.

Reach out to McBurney Center staff for additional consultation, if needed.

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Frequently Asked Questions

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The McBurney Center provides training to students who are approved for this accommodation. Students are encouraged to share with instructors when (how far in advance) they need the slides for access based on their disability-related impact. The McBurney Center recognizes that there is a difference between sharing slides 30 minutes before class and 1 day before class. For students who require more time for access, we communicate that they may get a working draft of the slide content. McBurney Center staff also advise students to work with their instructors on how the slides will be shared (e.g., Canvas, Box, email, etc.).

Policy UW-855 states that faculty and/or instructors are “responsible for timely implementation of accommodations,” and if they “are uncertain about or disagree with an accommodation or believe an accommodation poses an undue burden to the university, (they) must consult with the McBurney Disability Resource Center.”

Instructors are required to follow through for any student who is approved for this specific accommodation (as they would for any other disability accommodations).

Only in rare cases, such as the following examples, would instructors not be required to provide an approved accommodation:

  • It would fundamentally alter the course – If an instructor thinks that sharing slides would fundamentally alter their course, they should consult with the student’s Access Consultant before denying the accommodation. For example, if the slides include answers to in-class knowledge checks or quizzes intended to gauge student understanding, it may be appropriate to omit those slides.
  • An instructor does not use slides and/or any other presentation materials. Instructors are not required to create new materials for a student with an accommodation.

Copyright and intellectual property concerns do not outweigh the university’s obligation to provide reasonable accommodations. As employees of the university, we must abide by federal law and provide reasonable accommodations to disabled individuals. If an instructor believes that students are sharing or using the materials beyond the scope of why they were initially provided (the individual student’s education), the instructor may contact the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards to discuss whether a conduct violation has occurred.

Sharing the materials with students who have this accommodation would fall under the Fair Use Doctrine. Even if the material is copyrighted, it is being used for non-commercial, educational purposes. We encourage instructors to share the need for advanced access to slides with any guest speakers or lecturers and request that all presentation slides are provided to instructors in advance to be shared with students.

This accommodation is not a replacement for attendance. It is meant to provide access while in class. If you notice a student approved for this accommodation missing a significant number of classes, please check in with the student and/or their Access Consultant.

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