Madera Community College provides Notetaking as an accommodation which allows students who are eligible to receive a peer’s notes in the same course that they are enrolled in. The accommodation applies to courses that are synchronous and hybrid (has a live in-person/online lecture component), and not asynchronous (no live lectures and all course materials are provided through Canvas).
Request Notetaking
The Notetaking accommodation can only be requested if the student is eligible to receive the accommodation based the documentation provided to the DSP&S office during the interactive process with the student’s DSP&S counselor. If the student is not eligible to receive Notetaking, please contact the DSP&S counselor to discuss how to add this accommodation based on submitted documentation. Please note, if the documentation provided to register with the DSP&S office is not sufficient to add the accommodation, additional documentation will be required to support the request.
The Notetaking Process:
Once a student requests notetaking for their courses using the DSP&S AIM Portal, a notification is sent to the instructor for them to announce that a volunteer notetaker is needed to provide notes to a peer. The instructor is not to identify the requesting student in anyway. Instructors will direct the volunteer to the Volunteer Notetaking Website where they will register on the DSP&S AIM Portal and be able to upload their notes. When notes are available, the requesting student will be notified to download them from the DSP&S AIM Portal.
PLEASE NOTE: This process will need to be completed every semester for each course.
How to Check Notetaking Status and Download Notes
Please follow the instructions below to retrieve and download notes
- Login to “My Portal” on the Madera Community College Homepage.
- Select the “DSPS AIM Portal” app under “Apps Catalog”
- Make sure that the Faculty Notification Letter (FNL) is sent to the instructor by completing the “Select Accommodations for Your Class” on the “My Dashboard” home page
- Select “Notetaking Services” under the “My Accommodations” navigation link
- The status of notetaking will be displayed under each course name
- Locate the course(s) to retrieve and download notes. Select “Available Note(s) for Download (Click to Expand)”
- Locate the desired week the notes were taken, and select “Download Notes”
Types of Notes that can be Received:
Notes can be given to the student in various formats based on their peer’s notetaking style and how they upload them to the DSP&S AIM Portal. The following are examples on how the notes may be delivered to the requesting student.
- Handwritten
- Scanned notes
- Images of notes from a camera
- Extracted from a note application
- Typed Notes
- Word Document
- PDFs
- Text Files
DSP&S Responsibility
The following are the responsibility of the DSP&S Office:
- The Following are the responsibility of the DSP&S Office:
- Facilitate the Notetaking accommodation
- Assist the requesting student with requesting the accommodation and accessing notes
- Assist the volunteer notetaker with the registration process and instruct how to upload notes.
- Assist the instructor with the announcement if needed and assigning the volunteer notetaker.
- Resolve any potential issues in facilitating the notetaking accommodations.
Requesting Student Responsibility
The following are the responsibility of the requesting student:
- Request the Notetaking accommodation for their courses each semester.
- Monitor the status of their Notetaking accommodation for each course.
- Monitor the accuracy and quality of their notes
- Follow up with the DSP&S Office with any issues arise such as no notetaker found, not receiving notes, or the quality of the notes are not sufficient
- Attendance in the course is required to receive notes
- Ask for assistance with any notetaking issues
Attendance
It is required that students utilizing the notetaking accommodation attended their course(s) to continue to receive their notes for the days attended. The Notetaking accommodation is not a substitution for attendance. If the requesting student is not able to attend their course(s) for an extended period of time, the DSP&S Office is to be notified. If the requesting student dose not notify the DSP&S Office, this accommodation may be placed on hold until a meeting with a DSP&S counselor takes place and determined if the accommodation is still eligible for the student.
Instructor Responsibility
The following are the responsibility of the instructor:
- Take notice of the faculty notification Letter (FNL) that is delivered via email that outlines the student(s) accommodations.
- If there are questions regarding accommodations in the FNL, please contact the DSP&S office. If asking the requesting student directly, ensure that confidentiality is upheld.
- Take notice if the course is synchronous or asynchronous
- Notify the course that a volunteer notetaker is required while note identifying the requesting student in any way.
- Please announce verbally in the course, post on canvas, and email students directly. Also, if there are identical course at another time, it is possible to ask for a volunteer from the other course, please ask the DSP&S for assistance if needed.
- When a volunteer is found, please send them to the Volunteer Notetaking website for instructions on how to register and also forward their student information to the Alternate Media Specialist.
Volunteer Notetaking Responsibility
The following are the responsibility of the volunteer notetaking:
- Inform the instructor that of the availability to volunteer
- Register with the DSP&S office on the DSP&S AIM Portal
- Upload copied notes to the DSP&S AIM Portal
- Notify the instructor and the DSP&S office is volunteering is no longer possible.
Attendance
If unable to attend the course, please ensure to notify the instructor and ask another peer for their notes for the day(s) missed to ensure the notes are consistently uploaded for the requesting student.
Need Assistance?
For more information, contact the DSP&S office by email at mcdsps1@scccd.edu or by phone at (559) 675-4864 for more information.
