Advance Access to Presentation Slides Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Academic accommodations are provided to ensure all students have equal access to educational activities. 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. For disabled students who use the slides as an outline, they can focus their notetaking on adding on supplemental information from the lectures in order to most successfully engage in classroom learning while also documenting important additional points. It helps limit disability-related impacts that could result from needing to copy down everything that is on the slides, as they already have them as a guide and outline.

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 advises students to work with their instructors on how the slides will be shared (e.g., Canvas, Box, email, etc.).

Because students have gone through the interactive process with the McBurney Center, we are required to follow through on this responsibility for any student who is approved for this specific accommodation (the same as we would for other accommodations like small group testing, preferential seating during class, 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 must consult with the McBurney Disability Resource Center.”

Only in rare cases, such as the following examples, where we would 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.
• If an instructor does not use slides and/or any other presentation materials.

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

• Sharing slides before class via Canvas with all students, not just students approved for this accommodation, is best practice.
• Create a shared folder (e.g., Box, Google Drive, etc.) and use it as a place to house slides. Using this strategy, so long as all slide decks are developed in and/or added to the folder before each class, instructors only need to share the link to the folder one time at the start of the semester. Students will be able to access them without any additional steps or “sharing” from the instructor. 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.
• Utilize Canvas to share slides with students, even if choosing to limit which students they are shared with.
• Reach out to McBurney Center staff for additional consultation or brainstorming, if needed.

Neither copyright nor intellectual property concerns 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), students may be referred to the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards for possible violation of UWS 17.09(11) Refusal to comply regarding a university matter and/or UWS 17.09(15) Violation of university rules.

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 before they present, in order to share the slides with the 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.