Guide
Exam support for students with a disability
Updated on 16 February 2024
Guidance for staff regarding the provision of exam support for students with a disability.
Disability Services Advisers identify the support disabled students require for exams as part of the student’s Needs Assessment. They may identify specific IT needs and other adjustments for exams. These adjustments are shared with the student’s School with the student’s consent via the University’s eVision system.
Adjustments may take several weeks to be added to eVision due to the volume of students supported by Disability Services and will also be added/updated throughout the year. Staff are therefore advised to check students’ adjustments on eVision regularly.
Who arranges support for students?
Exams organised by Registry
For exams in the main diet (Registry managed), adjustments and support arrangements are made centrally. Schools and individual lecturers do not need to take any extra action for these exams.
Class tests and other locally managed exams
For exams not managed by Registry (mock exams or class tests), IT will make the technical arrangements only when they receive a request from the School/department. Usually, the lecturer running the exam will make this request. If no request is made, support cannot be guaranteed.
Requesting extra IT support
Does one of your students need extra support to take an exam or class test you've organised?
Before contacting IT:
- Check that the student has adjustments in place on eVision. If they don’t, inform the student they need to make an appointment with Disability Services.
- Speak to the student and establish their support needs for the exam. This is important because adjustments may not always be needed depending on the style of exam being run (for example, interview style exams).
- Consider whether IT needs to know. Students who only have extra time allowance in their adjustments do not necessarily need IT support.
Then follow this process:
- Book suitable IT accommodation for the student to sit their exam in (choose one that's centrally managed by IT) through the Room Bookings and Central Timetabling website
- Inform the student when and where they will sit their exam
- Arrange for an invigilator to oversee the exam
- Complete the request for disability IT support form to get an exam account for the student (IT requires at least 10 working days advance notice to make their arrangements)
- Check that the list of software available with an exam account meets the student’s needs
- Let us know if the student needs Dragon, Jaws, SuperNova, or any other non-standard software (extra setup required)
- Direct the student to the information about extra support on the webpage before the exam
- Print a copy of the student guidance on extra support, and make it available to them during the exam
- Print a copy of the invigilator helpsheet on extra support, and hand this to them on the day of the exam
How exam support works for students who need adjustments
- IT will provide an exam account for use on a computer in the room you've booked.
- We may provide on-call support on the day of the class exam, but this isn't guaranteed.
- If on-call support isn’t provided for the exam, you will need to call the Service Desk if the student has issues during the exam.
Saving work during the exam
The way your student needs to save their work depends on the type of exam they are sitting. The invigilator will advise the student to either:
- save their work as a local copy on the computer (to My Documents), onto the invigilator’s USB stick, and then also print a copy before logging out of the account (as any lost work will not be retrievable), or
- not worry about saving their work if sitting an online exam using Questionmark OnDemand or ExamOnline, as these programmes auto-save answers throughout the exam
We issue one account per student per exam. Exam accounts can't be shared or re-used.
About the exam account we give to your student
We'll set up an exam account on a computer for your student to sit their test. This account won't let them access the internet or network resources and is credited with funds to let them print during the exam.
Software available with exam account:
- Exam account home directory
- Calculator
- LaTeX (technical and scientific text editor)
- Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, Powerpoint)
- Microsoft Paint
- MindView (visual mind mapping software)
- Notepad (plain text editor)
- Read & Write Gold (literacy text help)
- Shortcuts to online exam programmes (OnDemand and ExamOnline) for those sitting an e-assessment
Extra software you need to ask for if your student needs it:
- Dragon (speech-to-text software allowing vocal interaction with the computer)
- JAWS (a screen reader for low-vision/non-sighted users)
- SuperNova (screen reader and magnifier for low-vision/non-sighted users)
- Any other non-standard software specified in the individual adjustments
The version of each piece of software is the same as that offered on the student desktops across our campuses. If your student needs a different version, let us know as part of your request.
Does your student need something else?
Requests for other assistive software and equipment are welcome and these will be provided where possible. Contact IT help4u to request this.