How to be a TA in charge of PMC issues


Overview of the Role

You have 2 main roles in as the TA in charge of Ventus: 

1) Enter the Notice of Exam (NoE) for each quiz. 

2) Verify student accommodations in Ventus and/or in Brightspace if students reach out.

 

You are NOT responsible for helping the student apply for PMC accommodations. If they have not begun the process, refer them to PMC to get started: https://carleton.ca/pmc/registering-with-pmc/

  

Experience

This experience counts as experience with persons with disabilities and neurodiverse populations. You can put this experience on your resume as such.

 

Ventus

You can login to the instructor portal at https://ventus.carleton.ca/instructor/ using your MyCarletonOne credentials. NOTE: you will likely need to contact Ventus to gain access to the course. 

 

  1. Log in to Ventus using the link above and note which email account your Ventus is linked to (cunet or cmail). You can tell by looking at the header where the logout and settings buttons are located
  2. Email Ventus support ventus@carleton.ca and Exam Room  Examroom@cunet.carleton.ca to request access. Let them know which email your Ventus account is linked to.  It can cause headaches if you are linked via a CUNET account, as the emails will go to that non-existent account (not an issue if you have a CUNET and are able to access it). You may need to reach out a few times to resolve the issue. 
  3. Sample email:
    1. Dear Ventus Team, 
      My name is XX (student###) and I am a TA for Jim Davies' CGSC 1001 course.  Part of my duties involve assisting with Ventus and I'd like to request Ventus access to the course (all sections).

 

An overview of the Ventus portal can be found here: Ventus Faculty Portal - Overview - Ventus Help (carleton.ca)

 

If you have questions about the functionality within the Ventus faculy portal, contact technical assistance at ventus@carleton.ca or MEC Exam Services at 613-520-2600 x 1571 or Examroom@cunet.carleton.ca 

 

Adding Notices of Examinations (NoE)

All quizzes need to be entered into VENTUS ideally at the beginning of the semester and at the very latest 10 days before the exam is scheduled to take place. Because there are two possible exam dates, you will need to add 2 notices of examination for each quiz (one for each possible date students can take the quiz). If done right, entering Notices of Examination will allow you to offload inputting student accommodations into Brightspace (MEC will take care of it).

 

  1. In VENTUS, at the bottom of the class list, select Add Notice of Examination. A new window will appear: 
  2. Fill out the first page of the booking form 
    1. Exam Delivery -> Online; Availability -> Fixed duration within range; Exam format -> Digital - Brightspace; Exam Type -> Quiz; start & end date and time (can be found on the syllabus on Brightspace or jimdavies.org/classes); location -> add the Brightspace link for that quiz.
  3. Include any additional in the extra instructions section (Optional)
    1. Example:  please provide Online Accommodation Support
    2. *Note: There used to be an Online Accommodation Support button, to request that MEC input all of the accommodations for all of PMC students into Britghspace. As such, students who are entitled to, for example, extra time, will be given it automatically through Brightspace due to the changes made my MEC.  
  4. Review your submission and click 'Submit' 

 

Brightspace Link

  1. You need to submit the link to the Quiz using the "view" function on Ventus
  2. Open the event, scroll down to the proctor instruction sheet and enter the activity URL. You can access the Brightspace link by copy and pasting the URL of the activity using the web-browser. 
  3. Click submit proctor instruction sheet.

 

NOTE: you will likely add 12 NoEs in total. You should have 2 for each of the 3 quizzes and there are usually 2 sections. This is tedious so budget 30-45. 

 

According to MEC, accommodations are typically applied 1 week prior to the write date and an email is sent to the student confirming their accommodations 3 days prior to the write date.

 

It is important to check the status of Student Accommodations in Brightspace 7-10 days before the first quiz. Using the instructions for course-level accommodations, you can check to see if students accommodations have been correctly inputted from Ventus into Brightspace by the MEC staff. A quick way to check is to make sure that all students listed on Ventus have the Accommodation iconbeside their name when you look them up in Brightspace through the Course Admin -> classlist.  

 

Manually Setting Accommodations in Brightspace

 

PMC students (students that the Paul Menton Centre has verified have a learning disability) will get a "Letter of Accommodation" LoA. These are usually the need for quiet, solitude, or extra time. For CGSC1001, the quizzes are online, so they are responsible for getting their own quiet and solitude. 

 

In order to access and grant accommodations to students, you need to have the role of “Teaching Assistant (Full Rights)” in Brightspace. If any of the following does not make sense, this is likely the issue and you should contact the professor to get the proper access.

 

Once that is set-up properly, there are 2 ways to input accommodations (yourself) into Brightspace:

1. Course-Level Accommodations 

For most students with accommodations, this is the way to go. You only need to input their accommodations once for the entire semester. You can find detailed instructions Setting up Accommodations in Brightspace 

 

2. Accommodations for Individual Quizzes ONLY 

You may choose to use this feature if, for example, a student is beginning their intake process with PMC and is under temporary accommodations and/or are not yet listed on VENTUS.  However, this creates a lot of extra work and you are better off adding a course level accommodation and then removing it or updating it after the quiz.

From the main course page, you can click on “Tools” and then “Quizzes”. From the list, select the quiz that you would like to add the special access to. You will have to do this separately for each quiz. Once you are in the quiz, open the “Availability Dates and Conditions” tab. 

 

Scroll down to the “Special Access” section and click 'Manage Special access". This is where you can change the student’s access to the quiz for both accommodations and for deferrals (get to know the deferrals TA because you will be working together).

 

In the window that appears, chooseAllow selected users special access to this quiz and click on “Add Users to Special Access”.

 

Scroll down to find the correct student or use the search function. Check off the student you would like to add. Scroll back up, and you will first see “Availability”. Make sure this matches the time of the quiz. To make a time accommodation, under “Timing” check “Enforced Time Limit” and you can make the correct adjustments, either by manually changing the time or by entering a multiplier (i.e. 1.5 for students with 50% extra time). You’ll likely leave everything else the same, click “Save” at the bottom, and you’ll return to the previous screen. Save and close out of everything. 

 

If you choose this option, and are just giving extra time for a single quiz and offering it during the scheduled time slot, you will have to manually change the quiz access time to Monday at some point after the Friday quiz, but before the Monday slot (this is because you have only given the extra time for the Friday slot). Be sure to make this change.

 

At the bottom, you’ll see a list of students with Special Access. Here, you can edit a user by clicking the pencil or delete one with the x.

 

Emails from Students

Students may reach out about their PMC status or Brightspace. You can look up individual accommodations in Ventus by clicking on their class section, and scroll to their name. You can look them up in Brightspace through the Course Admin -> classlist. They should have a beside their name. 

 

Some will reach out during the first two weeks about missing accommodations in Brightspace. If you follow the instructions above, PMC will take care of that (you may want to send a quick email to PMC to verify this is still the case). You can then respond to the student with: 

 

Thanks for reaching out. We are able to see your accommodations in Ventus. 

 

Typically accommodations are applied 1 week prior to the first quiz date. You will also receive an email confirming your accommodations 3 days prior to each quiz date.

 

 Sometimes you will not be able to answer a question, or will need to involve the PMC coordinator. You can look up their PMC coordinator in Ventus (beside the student's name in the class list) and include them in any emails if you feel it's necessary. 

 

Below is for paper exams only - legacy

 

Here is the secret link for booking exam rooms:

http://carleton.ca/ses/exam-room-booking-form/

 

CUOL provides the McIntyre exam centre copies of exams and scantrons for the exam, but not for deferrals. When you get an email from Jim regarding PMC deferrals, or book them yourself, please make sure the exams and scantrons are delivered. Find out if they want them electronically or in physical form.

 

-PMC TA is in charge of proctoring for the PMC students for any of their exams.

-PMC TA needs to process their deferral requests through McEntyre Exam Centre (MEC) (The above link).

for PMC midterm deferrals, you will need to contact the McIntyre Exam Centre directly and ask them to change the exam dates for each of the students.  You will also be responsible to drop off the exams and pick them up once completed (this is only for deferred exams).  For the finals, this will be handled through Scheduling and Exam Services…there is nothing to be done on your part.  The CGSC Department will provide the exams to SES and they will make copies for all PMC students.

 

 Contact McEntyre Exam Centre for booking deferrals: http://carleton.ca/ses/contact-us/

 

**booking for midterms done automatically bu CUOL and final by the department not the TA.

 

Distance PMC students - legacy

The student must ensure that his or her Letter of Accommodation has been sent by his/her PMC coordinator 2 weeks before the CUOL exam. The coordinator communicates with Renea Free, who in turn communicates with relevant individuals at the test exam site.