The Deadline & Attendance Adjustment accommodation is intended for students who experience unpredictable disability-related health events that temporarily limit or alter their academic engagement during the semester. It is intended to provide an appropriate level of flexibility without fundamentally altering course objectives. Faculty should apply their general absence policy in cases where a student has a temporary illness or injury, or if they miss class for non-health related reasons.
Communication & Implementation
- Course staff will receive an email notification for each student in their courses who require accommodations. This is called an “Accommodation Action Plan,” because it gives instructions of actions that need to be taken to implement academic accommodations.
- Course staff are directed to use the Flex Plan Module in the AIM portal to document your terms for deadline and attendance policy adjustments. If you do not submit this customized plan in AIM within two weeks of receiving the Accommodation Action Plan, DAO’s default plan will be used. Friendly reminders will be sent to instructors who have not completed a customized plan for their courses. *Please note that the default plan allows for up to 3 additional absences and 3 additional deadline extensions of up to 48 hours. If this plan does not meet the requirements of your course, we strongly suggest that you complete a customized plan in the Flex Plan Module.*
- Students are encouraged to schedule a meeting with you to discuss the plan you created and course-specific accommodation implementation. They may request that their DAO advisor be present.
This accommodation should not be applied retroactively and is only active upon completion of a documented (faculty-customized or default) plan.
*Please note that the default plan allows for up to 3 additional absences and 3 additional deadline extensions of up to 48 hours. If this plan does not meet the requirements of your course, we strongly suggest that you complete a customized plan in the Flex Plan Module.*
Instructions to Complete Your Deadline and Attendance Adjustment (DAA) Plan in AIM’s Flex Plan Module:
- Within the Flex Plan dashboard, under “Step 1: Select Courses”, click on “view” to open the DAA questionnaire.
- Complete the DAA questionnaire and click “initiate and request review”. Alternatively, you can view DAO’s default answers and if these meet the expectations of the course, no further action is needed.
- After your DAA questionnaire is submitted, DAO will review and finalize the plan. Once reviewed, the status will be marked as “completed” and shared with the student.
General Guidelines for Deadline and Attendance Adjustments (DAA)
- This accommodation is intended to be used infrequently and only when there is a disability-related health event that prevents the student from attending class or completing work by the deadline.
- Students should not be required to provide a doctor’s letter to faculty when flare-ups occur since the disability is documented with DAO. Faculty are encouraged to consult with DAO if they have concerns about the nature of the absences/extensions.
- DAA is not designed to support a substantial number of missed classes (sporadic or consecutive) or lengthy assignment extensions. In these cases, reasonable adjustments may not be possible and the student’s final grade may be impacted if they remain in the course.
- Grading, attendance, and extension policies are subject to the academic judgment of the faculty. In some situations, you may not believe that additional absences or extensions are appropriate due to the essential requirements of the course. In these cases, please indicate this in your written plan.
- This accommodation is not intended to be used to access classes remotely. If a student requests remote attendance to your class, please direct them to DAO.
- If a student requests more absences or extensions of work than your DAA plan allows, please contact DAO to discuss.
- Remote attendance, asynchronous learning, individualized instruction, course recordings and course notes are not a necessary or required component of any missed classes associated with this accommodation.
- DAA does not apply to thesis deadlines. Students who experience a disability-related health event should contact DAO and their thesis advisor.
- DAA does not apply to timed assessments, take-home tests, and exams. Students who are unwell on the day of their exam should follow the process outlined in the Student Handbook under Hour and Midterm Examinations.
- Students who are approved for DAA mid-semester will have any agreed upon flexibility applied from that point forward. Absences and late work are not excused retroactively under this accommodation.
Deadline Adjustment
Deadline adjustments are reasonable extensions on assignments, papers, and projects in the event of an unpredictable disability-related health event that coincides with a communicated deadline. If a student requests more absences or extensions of work than your DAA plan allows, please contact DAO to discuss.
When determining essential requirements of the course related to attendance, please consider the following:
- What are the classroom practices and policies regarding assignment deadlines and/or late assignments? Have exceptions been made to the policy for non-disabled students or for reasons unrelated to disabilities (e.g. athletic competitions, close relative funerals, or religious holidays)?
- Is there classroom interaction among students regarding the assignment (i.e. peer review)? Are students required to actively participate in class discussions/activities based off of the assignment?
- Are students required to work together on the assignment?
- Are the assignments frequent in nature (for example, weekly), and/or do they build on each other (for example, smaller assignments leading up to a final paper or a series of assignments that build upon one another)?
- How much time do students have to complete an assignment? Is the assignment information published in the syllabus or given to students during the semester?
- Are the answers to problem sets or other types of assignments published immediately after the deadline, or is there a delay?
If the answers to a problem set are published immediately after the deadline, it may be appropriate to consider redistributing the points among remaining work instead of approving an extension.
If you believe that deadline extensions beyond those already allowed for in the course syllabus may fundamentally alter the essential requirements of the course, please contact DAO to discuss.
Attendance Adjustment
Attendance adjustments are excused absences in addition to what all students are permitted to miss as outlined in the course syllabus. If a student requests more absences than your DAA plan allows, please contact DAO to discuss.
When determining essential requirements of the course related to attendance, please consider the following:
- What is the nature of classroom interactions between the instructor and the students and/or among the students?
- Do student contributions in class constitute a significant component of the learning process?
- Does the fundamental nature of the course rely on student participation as an essential method of learning?
- To what degree does a student’s absence in class constitute a significant loss to the educational experience of the other students in the course?
- Is there a lab component to the class, or another activity, that is critical to the student’s learning and cannot be recreated at another time?
- If your course is made up of different types of learning environments (large lecture, small interactive sections, wet lab, etc.), is it possible for a student to be absent from one component of the class but not others?
If you believe that additional absences beyond the stated course policy would fundamentally alter the essential requirements of the course, please contact DAO to discuss.