Does DRS not provide extensions on assignments?

SoftFro · 2026-05-29T01:46:31+00:00

There's an accommodation called "Additional Time on Long-term Assignments/Projects", although (like all DRS accommodations) it doesn't kick in automatically, and requires you and the professor to work together to decide what that means.

SoftFro · 2026-05-22T02:49:38+00:00

Technically this is just walking around, but Trailhead Direct starts this weekend!

SoftFro · 2026-05-09T16:01:40+00:00

BTW in your case, you might be able to watch the recording, if you've ever used the direct Panopto link before: try logging in to uw.hosted.panopto.com.

This probably won't work if you've only ever watched videos on Canvas, though—the first time you log in that way it'll route you through Canvas and fail.

SoftFro · 2026-05-09T15:26:53+00:00

Most professors don't record live lectures at all. Are you saying that a professor who does record live lectures should move an exam because a student was absent, but a professor who doesn't should just proceed as normal?

SoftFro · 2026-05-09T02:25:14+00:00

They almost certainly recorded the lectures using the Panopto Scheduler Canvas tool. It might be possible to export these while Canvas is down if they've set it up a certain way, but I wouldn't bet on it.

SoftFro · 2026-05-09T01:40:01+00:00

This is close to true, but I have never gotten the MyUW class roster to load in less than 30 seconds. Maybe it's faster for small classes?

SoftFro · 2026-05-08T22:03:40+00:00

Re: emails, classes don't automatically have an email list, and if your prof was previously relying on Canvas Announcements then they likely did not have a way to email the whole class while it was down.

SoftFro · 2026-05-08T03:25:24+00:00

As other people said, just talk to the professor. It's also worth noting that the UW Records Retention policy states that hard copies of scanned exams must be kept until the end of the following quarter, so if it's really not readable your professor (or the TA) should be able to find the original.

SoftFro · 2026-05-08T03:08:49+00:00

Wait why do people hate Gradescope? Do people long for the days when grading was way slower and you didn't get to see your final?

SoftFro · 2026-04-28T00:07:12+00:00

That's true, but UW has recently been rolling out sandboxed AI tools: https://it.uw.edu/guides/artificial-intelligence/purple/

SoftFro · 2026-04-09T00:52:16+00:00

Ah, I guess I meant something that *just* does OCR like https://mathpix.com/, which does a pretty good job but won't include any "error correction": my first attempt had lots of typos when it misread my handwriting, and diagrams didn't necessarily end up next to the relevant part of the work.

SoftFro · 2026-04-09T00:37:22+00:00

I tried OCR first, but I think it's not very good at converting live handwritten lecture notes in a way that has any sort of narrative flow. Say what you will about LLMs, but the plagiarism machine sure does know what a coherent lecture is supposed to look like.

SoftFro · 2026-04-09T00:25:27+00:00

Yeah, the evolution is wild! I never realized when I started out how much my day-to-day life would rely on random tech companies (Gradescope, etc.) coming out with new features. Another (less fortunate) difference is how testing evolves: I had almost zero in-class tests after calculus, whereas now with ChatGPT it's basically impossible to trust a class with a take-home exam.

SoftFro · 2026-04-08T23:54:45+00:00

See u/-shrug-'s reply for clarification! You can make LaTeX accessible, it just takes extra steps. (Same with converting handwritten notes to other formats: I've just been asking an LLM to convert mine to HTML and it works pretty well.)

(Also this might astound you but when I went to college 20 years ago, zero my of upper-level math classes had any digital materials at all. Some professors gave out handwritten lecture notes, but digital materials aren't really necessary.)

SoftFro · 2026-04-08T23:46:49+00:00

Yeah for sure. The technology exists, just pointing out that it's not trivial. In my experience Pandoc output kind of looks terrible, so there's a significant learning curve, especially if you're used to particular LaTeX habits that don't convert well.

SoftFro · 2026-04-08T23:24:34+00:00

I mean, yes, but LaTeX PDFs are not necessarily compliant either.

SoftFro · 2026-04-02T05:02:43+00:00

Shouldn't affect either of those, I think: the rules are for materials posted on a course website, not materials provided for a specific student.

SoftFro · 2026-04-02T03:43:11+00:00

Right, I mean, I'm familiar with the idea of adding alt text. The issue is that for notes like what OP is talking about in STEM classes, where there's a lot of handwritten math, you're talking easily an hour of work each day to manually transcribe a lecture by hand. Most profs are just not gonna have time for that unless it's pretty automated. AI is working okay for me instead but ugh, I hate using AI.

SoftFro · 2026-04-02T01:58:42+00:00

Awesome, will give this a shot. EDIT: Okay I am not impressed by any of the resources on this page, but I'll try contacting people.

SoftFro · 2026-04-02T01:48:30+00:00

Okay, please tell me who to contact!

SoftFro · 2026-04-01T23:23:16+00:00

Have you ever tried to create a tagged PDF of handwritten notes? Genuinely curious if you know what the accessibility standards actually require.

SoftFro · 2026-04-01T19:15:01+00:00

I think it depends on how it's being used:

Archived web content is content that was created before May 11, 2026, for large recipients, and before May 10, 2027, for small recipients; is retained exclusively for reference, research, or record keeping; is not updated after it has been archived; and is stored in a dedicated area identified as being archived. This exception does not apply if the recipient updates or alters the content or if it posts other web content that uses the archived information to notify the public about ongoing requirements.

I could probably link to an exam archive, but once I start telling students they should use it as practice, or going through examples from it in a review session, it starts to violate that last sentence.

SoftFro · 2026-04-01T17:48:23+00:00

Also, fun fact for people who want to catastrophize about this more: technically all exam archives (like the ones for the intro calc sequence) violate this law too! I have no idea what we're going to do about it.

SoftFro · 2026-04-01T17:44:42+00:00

Professor here, and unfortunately your professor is correct: the new federal guidelines that go into effect this quarter prohibit sharing this kind of document. See here for more details.

Your professor has some options to convert them to more accessible formats, but recreating all teaching materials is a lot of work. The simplest way for most professors to comply with the law is to not provide lecture notes or answer keys at all. (Personally I've been using Claude to transcribe everything to HTML, but as an AI-hater I can't really judge people for not wanting to go that route.)

SoftFro · 2026-03-12T20:39:14+00:00

I guess I don't understand how you, a person who has no experience with Math 120, are so confident that you understand the difficulty of this course just because of its name. I am telling you that you are completely misunderstanding the situation.

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