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December, 1999 Volume 3, No. 12
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+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ <<< A NOTE FROM THE EDITOR >>> Welcome to the New Year -- and the last edition of the OLD volume (Volume III) of the DAIS Newsletter. Email is a wonderful invention and has certainly changed our professional lives forever (witness this newsletter reaching more than 1000 people across the country simultaneously!)… but there are still too many vagaries in the system for me to have felt comfortable sending out this newsletter before this date! For example… On Friday, December 17, a subscriber to one of the listservs I monitor set her email to respond with an automatic out-of-office reply for the two weeks she was to be away. The first email sent to her from the list triggered some kind of a loop and the same out-of-office reply was being sent to the entire list -- EVERY SIX SECONDS. Because it was the start of the holiday season, and a Friday to boot, no one who had the power to stop the process noticed the problem until almost 4,000 messages had been delivered. Isn't modern technology wonderful! GRIN. More to the point, I know that many folks shut their email down over the holidays, and others return to hundreds of messages that are easier to simply eliminate than to try and sort through. I didn't want your newsletter to get lost along the way. So here it is -- a new newsletter from an old year, brought to you in a new year, a new century, a new millennium (for all but the purists!), and unveiling a new website. Read on… +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ <<< "WELCOME TO OUR NEIGHBORHOOD…" >>> No, Mr. Rogers (of children's television fame) has not relocated to the DAIS website. And the website hasn't moved. But just about everything WITHIN the website has a different appearance, as DAIS begins the new year and the new millennium with a new look to its online presence. Since its debut in May, 1998, almost 11,000 people have entered the website through our "front door," while at least that many again have gone straight to the webpages they needed for the information they sought. The Home of DAIS was starting to get a bit cramped and cluttered as we added new resources, and developed new interests and opportunities. (NOTE: Actually, the virtual Home of DAIS was beginning to bear an uncomfortable resemblance to the physical office space DAIS occupies; my friends have always maintained that I have a miscellaneous mind -- and a desk to match!). So we have moved beyond the our comfy "home" to establish a place in the surrounding community. You are invited to take a look around the neighborhood at what the DAIS website has to offer. Here's a quick rundown on where to find the things you are looking for, and the things that are there but you didn't know you were missing!!! Enter the website through the same address you have been using (http://www.janejarrow.com). A directory there will provide the opportunity for you to visit a number of establishments in our neighborhood. Most prominent among them is the DAIS ACADEMY (http://www.janejarrow.com/academy). More about the many new and exciting professional development opportunities available in the Academy can be found in the article below. Information about print resources available from DAIS, including this newsletter, can be found in the DAIS Bookstore (http://www.janejarrow.com/bookstore). The growing sampling of resource materials and links, formerly housed in our Study, can now be found in the Public Library (http://www.janejarrow.com/public_library), while the resources dealing with national issues and having broader significance, formerly housed in our TV room, have been relocated to the TV Station (http://www.janejarrow.com/tv_station). Two old features have a very new and different look. The former Job Board has been shifted to an Employment Exchange. The job postings there will be presented in a bulletin board format, where employers can go in and post their own jobs (instead of sending the information through DAIS for posting), and where job seekers can go and browse through those postings to consider their options. Meantime, the listing of Upcoming Conferences and Meetings has been shifted to a community Bulletin Board where such notices can be posted directly by those promoting the available opportunities. Finally, the Home of DAIS remains a vital part of this emerging community. As you enter through our front door (http://www.janejarrow.com), you can "Meet Jane Jarrow" (bio and vita included for a little light reading!). You can stop by the Kitchen to find out "what's cooking in our community" or visit the Garden to find a growing list of services and resources available through DAIS. The Dining Room (http://www.janejarrow.com/home/dinroom) remains a gathering place, serving up food for thought and focused conversation on a number of critical areas. Visit the Faculty Corner or the Administrator's Corner (still to be changed monthly -- stop by regularly and bring a friend!) and the Technology Corner, or sign up for the ICU (Independent Colleges and Universities) Listserv. Bring your own cup of coffee, pull your chair up to the monitor, and spend some time sorting through important issues and concerns. No description of these new "facilities" would be complete without my taking the time for a very public and heartfelt thanks to the architect, WEBMASTER EXTRAORDINAIRE, CHARLEY TIGGS, who has (as always) done a remarkable job of moving from concept to reality. I believe his dedicated effort will be of tremendous benefit to the DSS community. Please, visit sometime soon, update your bookmarks, review the information available, and feel free to sign the guest book and tell us what you think of our expansion. Hope to see you there!!! +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ <<< THE DAIS ACADEMY: PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ONLINE >>> Perhaps the greatest differences you will see when you visit the DAIS website will be in the much more formal structure provided for the DAIS Academy -- and the greatly expanded (and still growing!) list of offerings through the Academy. Three new courses are due to begin/be available within the next month, in addition to the courses debuting in 1999 (which are still available). Perhaps most intriguing (at least, I hope you will think so!) is an opportunity for new or potential "students" in the DAIS Academy to get a sampling of this mechanism for online professional development. A 3-lesson mini-course, "Confidentiality, Disability, and Higher Education," has been developed to give you a feel for the style, tone, and quality educational experiences provided through DAIS. High on the list of issues/conversations that seem to recycle frequently in listserv discussions is the issue of confidentiality. Who has a right to access information regarding a student's disability? On what basis? For what reason? How should such information be managed within the institutional setting. Most importantly -- WHY is it so important to keep disability-related information confidential. This mini-course will address these issues. New students to the Academy can sign up for this individual study course for only $30. Returning students are rewarded for their persistence with a $25 dollar tuition fee! Meanwhile, experienced service providers are always complaining that there is nothing available for THEM at meetings, conferences, and so on. The DAIS Academy is responding to that challenge with the one time offering of "ADA BEYOND Higher Education," a course for old-timers -- er, veterans. This course could be subtitled, "…For the DSS Provider Who Knows Everything!" It is intended for service providers who have a pretty firm grasp on both the letter and the spirit of the law as it applies to students with disabilities in higher education. This course is intended for people who remember a time before the passage of the ADA, when we quoted from 504 regularly because it provided us with both our justification for action and our marching orders. It is intended for people who know the circumstances and the outcome of the Davis decision, Grove City, Jones v. IIT, and Wynne v. Tufts without having to look them up. The course could also be subtitled, "What You Don't Know COULD Hurt You!" We will not be discussing any legal cases drawn from higher education. Instead, we will be discussing how ADA decisions dealing with areas outside of higher education -- employment, services, public accommodations -- may eventually impact on what we understand OUR ADA responsibilities to be. The course will run for a one month period in February, 2000, with four lessons and (hopefully) a VERY active private listserv discussion. Finally, an offering appropriate to service providers at all levels -- "Back to Basics: What IS the Accommodation and WHY Am I Making It." This innovative course offering from DAIS tackles a new problem in an old way. Lately it seems that, not uncommonly, all the students with "X" diagnosis/label on campus are receiving the same accommodations in all settings. Something is wrong with this picture! This course provides an opportunity to step back and look at what accommodations are available/used in higher education, why they were brought into use, and what circumstances should be evident before accommodation is assigned. If you have never had the chance to consider "why" (or "why not!!!) -- or if it has been too long since you thought about it -- this course is for you. Visit the DAIS Academy today (http://www.janejarrow.com/academy)!!! +=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+ <<< DIFFERENT STROKES FOR DIFFERENT FOLKS…BUT NOT DIFFERENT TESTS! >>> Recently, there was a discussion on the DSSHE-L regarding whether it was appropriate to ask a faculty member to give a different test -- essay instead of multiple choice; short answer/fill-in instead of essay. That is a subject I would like to follow-up on in the months to come. But it brought to mind another discussion regarding testing PRACTICES that seems to resurface periodically. The following is a series of posts to the DSSHE-L, written in November, 1998. The thread begins with the question below, and my edited responses include segments of other posts on the subject.
Tell him he should get ready to argue in court (or at least with OCR). We've gone around on this one numerous times. Bottom line -- it is not appropriate to give a different test for exactly the reasons you gave. The fact that he has 25 years of teaching experience is more likely to speak to his rigidity on the matter than his skill in creating equivalent tests and grading them equitably. As an aside, I would suggest that you NOT argue this with the prof (who has already made up his mind). Go to the powers-that-be and say, "Professor So-and-So says he is going to give a different test. My understanding is that this is a violation of Section 504 and ADA. I don't think he will change his mind based on my discussion with him, so you have one of two choices. Either you intervene and tell him he must allow the same test to be used or you risk it and hope the student doesn't file a complaint Your call." You can only do what you can do! As a follow-up, someone wrote, in part:
Sorry. I can't agree here. The faculty member who chooses to give a different test for students who are taking make-up exams cannot carry that same procedure over to students taking a test at a different time in order to receive appropriate accommodations. Apples and oranges. The decision to allow a student to take a make-up exam because the student missed the test is a decision left solely to the faculty member. The decision to provide appropriate accommodations for a student in taking an exam is clearly NOT in the purview of the faculty member. He can't choose not to give the student the accommodation -- and he doesn't have the right to choose not to give the student the same test. Someone offered (in part):
I do NOT disagree with anything stated above. I understand why prof's are concerned about cheating, and I don't discount that it happens and I don't want to interfere in any way with the precautions that faculty choose to take in trying to prevent cheating. And you are right -- the danger to the credibility of the accommodations process is very real. But the issue, as I see it, is not whether there are legitimate concerns about the possibility of a student cheating, but rather whether the student with a disability has a legal right to equal access to educational opportunity. Again... the different test leads to the distinct possibility of a different level of difficulty, coincidental hit or miss on the student's focus for study, etc. I used to be a faculty member. I spent seven years constructing tests. There might be some ways in which you could give a different test and have it be truly comparable in some disciplines -- for instance, you could make up 2 dozen problems testing understanding of a given mathematical concept and then randomly select 12 out of the 24 for each student in the class to do. But most disciplines don't lend themselves to that and most teachers aren't going to go through that kind of process (it takes work!) along the way. What is going to happen MOST of the time is that the professor will write some questions that are legitimately drawn from the material covered, assign point value to them, and feel that the test is comparable. But if those were the most important questions to ask -- or the most salient points to be addressed-- the prof would have asked those questions on the initial form of the exam. So if I am a student studying as all other students are studying, I am (hopefully) going to be better prepared to deal with the things that seem to
> On the other side, students sometimes request different Let's save this argument -- er, discussion -- for another time. I don't believe that different formats of exams ARE comparable and I don't believe in pushing for this as an accommodations except in rare instances. But that is a personal opinion that may be clouding my response to the more immediate issue.
> The best solution, of course, is to avoid the issue altogether by ABSOLUTELY AGREED. Or at least, to have the student begin the exam while the other students are still taking it (or finish during the time there others are taking it) so there is no concern to BE raised about information getting out inappropriately. Meantime, someone asked: Welcome to the world of uncertainty, good judgement, and long memories. You are not going to find very many specifics regarding what is and is not allowed specifically spelled out in Section 504 (Subpart E), and even fewer in the ADA that pertain to higher education. It is good that you have found your way to the DSSHE-L because there are hundreds of colleagues on the
> I think it matters whether the student is taking the late exam Then we agree on this point, as my comments never considered the possibility that the student had REQUESTED the chance to take the exam at a different time as an accommodation. I assumed, from the original question, that the exam was being taken at a different time because of > I also wonder where the standard error of measurement fits in I don't have a lot of technical expertise in test construction (as is true of 95% of the people teaching in higher education today -- Ph.D. programs continue to teach you how to do research and then send you out to teach!). But from my position the term "substantially equal tests" sounds a little loose. Equal in whose view? Is it anything like "separate but equal" One last time... I understand about test security. I appreciate those concerns and do not, for a moment, doubt their importance. I just believe that whenever possible concerns about logistics should not be allowed to trump concerns about equity of opportunity. In a private conversation on this topic the other day, a colleague and I were discussing the fact that there are several good reasons why something is NOT considered a reasonable accommodation under the law (direct threat to health or safety of others, substantial alteration of the program or service, substantial change in an essential element of the curriculum, undue financial or administrative burden), but I don't remember concerns about test security making that short list! I will finish where I started. I believe strongly in what someone else suggested to start with... that whenever possible the problem should be avoided entirely by making arrangements for the student to take the test at the same time as everyone else. Then we don't have to grapple with either the philosophical or practical issues that have plagued this discussion from the first. I don't think we are really arguing major differences of INTENT here, only of practice, so following the old K.I.S.S. principle, let's avoid the discussion entirely by keeping the practice clean whenever possible! <<< WHAT'S NEW AT THE DAIS WEBSITE? >>> EVERYTHING!!! Come take a look at http://www.janejarrow.com !!! |
Welcome to the NEW Home of DAIS!Disability Access Information and Support (DAIS) is an important resource to the higher education community, providing a menu of services for those concerned with disability and access in higher education. Institutions and organizations can contract for help from DAIS, in the person of Jane Jarrow, Ph.D., for a variety of services. The growing list of DAIS publications and activities includes resource materials to assist in interpreting/fulfilling legal mandates, a variety of professional development opportunities, policy/procedure reviews, consultation regarding quality assurance and compliance, and information to aid in understanding the philosophical underpinnings of providing quality service to people with disabilities in the postsecondary environment. Check out the site orientation given on the home page under the heading of, "Where to look, and what you'll find at daisweb.com!" |