Provided that no other accommodations or discussions around alternate forms of assessment are indicated on a letter of accommodation, students with accommodations take a test/exam in the same format as non-accommodated students.




Welcome to the Student Accessibility Services Instructor Information website. You can use this website to view accommodations that have been assigned to your students.

Here is a quick guide on how to view and confirm receipt of accommodation letters.

Please be advised of the following:
  1. Please confirm receipt of the accommodation letter by checking off that you acknowledge that you have received and reviewed the Accommodation Letter and by clicking submit
  2. Students continue to be encouraged to reach out to their instructors to discuss their accommodations, especially when the nature of the accommodation requires the input or support from the instructor
  3. Students are only required to provide their letter of accommodation via the instructor portal and should not be asked to provide an additional copy of the letter to their instructor in a PDF or other format
Please read the information provided below before reviewing accommodation letters.

Click the Courses or Accommodation letters link in the menu in order to get started. You will be asked to login using your Passport York account.


Information for Faculty

Your students have given us permission to discuss their accommodations with you. Should you have any questions or concerns about any of the academic accommodations in the context of the course that you teach, please do not hesitate to contact the Accessibility Counsellor included in the letter. For more information about academic accommodations, we also invite you to view the Faculty Resource Guide: Teaching Students with Disabilities.

Accommodated Quizzes/Tests/Exams
  • Instructors are responsible to change the time in eClass for students who are doing on-line tests and exams
  • Instructors can reach out to Alternate Exams at altprof@yorku.ca if they need assistance with calculating time

About Accommodations

Academic accommodations are meant to reduce or eliminate disability-related barriers for a student to demonstrate their level of academic mastery of the course material. They are not intended to undermine the academic integrity or core requirements of a course or program of study.

The accommodation process is:
  • A collaborative one between the student, the Course Director and the Accessibility Counsellor in Student Accessibility Services
  • meant to remove possible barriers to learning
And is informed by:
  • the student’s confidential medical and/or psychological documentation
  • Student Accessibility Services’ expertise in establishing academic accommodation
  • the Course Director’s expertise in the core curriculum and essential requirements of their course and its academic integrity
We strongly encourage students to connect with Course Directors over email and/or during virtual office hours at the start of each course to discuss accommodations that they need. Please respect the student’s right to privacy by not publicly identifying the student in class situations where there are interactions between the student and other class members such as on-line discussions, on-line postings, and/or virtual video discussions.

When a recommended accommodation might undermine the academic integrity of their course:
  • Discussion between the Course Director, the student, and the student’s Accessibility Counsellor is recommended
  • Consultation can occur with the Director of Student Accessibility Services, the departmental chair, and/or the Associate Dean
  • Consultation with the Centre for Human Rights, Equity and Inclusion is also advisable in some circumstances
Academic integrity is determined by the Course Director by examining a course’s:
  • Core curriculum and essential requirements
  • Learning objectives in the context of the academic Program in which the course is offered and any professional standards or requirements for professional accreditation associated with the Program or the specific course
Please note that the academic accommodations may be subject to minor adjustments based on further educational assessments that may occur during the course of the academic year.




Does confirming receipt mean all the accommodation are confirmed?
No. Confirming receipt confirms that you have opened and reviewed the letter. If there is a need to further discuss how an accommodation can be implemented in the context of a specific course, the instructor can reach out to the student to arrange a time to connect. Students have also been directed to reach out to their instructors, especially in the case where accommodation might be more complex to implement.

Do Teaching Assistants (TAs) have access to the letters on the portal?
Yes. Teaching assistants, when they are assigned to a tutorial/laboratory group, will be emailed that there is a letter of accommodation waiting for them to review. Either the TA or the Course Instructor can sign off as having reviewed the letter.

Can TAs have access to the letters submitted for my lecture?
Yes. We can give TAs access to the letters for your lecture. Send your course information and TA’s full name and @yorku.ca email address to sasinfo@yorku.ca.

What happens if I do not confirm receipt?
A reminder notice will go out twice a week for the first month of the course to remind you that there is a letter which needs to be reviewed. If you do not confirm receipt, the student will approach you to ensure that you received the letter. The date you confirm receipt also lets the student know that you received the letter in time to adjust any extra time required for eClass tests.

Why am I getting 2 letters per student?
It is the instructor's responsibility to make sure all accommodations are in place for students. As a result, even though TAs will receive a notice that there are accommodation letters available for them to review directly, the second letter allows the instructor to see when the TA confirmed receipt, thereby became aware of a student’s need for accommodation.

Students used to email us the letter and if I had questions about the recommended accommodations, I could reach out to them when I received it – can I still reach out?
Yes. The email of the student is provided on the Letter of Accommodation. Instructors can use this email to reach out to a student.

How do I get an Excel list of all my students and their time accommodations?
Instructors can reach out to the Alternate Test & Exam team who can generate a list of students by tutorial who need additional time. They can also support entering a student's extra time for quizzes, tests, exams being administrated through eClass. More information can be found here: https://accessibility.students.yorku.ca/accommodation-support-in-eclass

I have some of the letters but there appears to be one tutorial missing. What do I do?
If you have received letters for one of your sections and not another, there is a chance that there are no accommodated students in that section. However, if you are aware that there is an accommodated student in the missing section, the instructor should get in touch with their department as the department needs to update this in SIS, so our system can pull the correct information.

I have received accommodation letters for 4 students. Oddly, there are 6 letters for the 4 students on the portal. Why are two extra letters identical?
If a course has lecture and tutorial components, there will be one letter for the lecture and one letter for the tutorial. These letters are identical as the accommodation for the student is the same. Confirmation of receipt only needs to be checked off for one of the letters.

This course is taught by 4 people. Does this twice-weekly notification get sent to all four of us? Do each of us have to review and confirm the letters or just one of us?
All four instructors can review the letters but only one instructor needs to confirm the letters. Moving forward, instructors will only get 1 notification a week and 1 reminder in order to decrease email traffic.

Two of my courses' codes were changed recently and, as a result, I can no longer access the letters for students in my class. What do I do?
When the courses are recoded, our system sees them as dropped courses. Students must resubmit the letter requests by visiting the accommodation letter portal. Please ask your students to resubmit their letters to you.

How do practicum supervisors become aware of a student’s accommodations?
If there is a course code for the practicum, there needs to be an email address with Passport York credentials associated with the course code for the letter to be sent. Please ensure that the department has an email address attached to the course code in SIS.

I teach a large course that has many TAs who do the marking, how do I ensure that the TAs have access to a student’s letter?
Please provide the TAs full name and @yorku.ca email address to sasinfo@yorku.ca and we will update our system.

I am still receiving letters of accommodation from students, and it is mid-way through the term, why are they so late?
Students can register with our office throughout the year, so it is possible that the student just registered with our office.

A student had given me a letter of accommodation but none of the accommodations pertain to my course. Why am I receiving this?
Students are asked to make their professors aware of their accommodations at the beginning of the term, often before they have seen the syllabus. While students can customize their letter for each course, many choose to share all their recommended accommodations with their instructors to make the instructor aware of they are registered with Student Accessibility Services in case something disability related comes up during the term. Please feel free to speak directly to students about their letter of accommodation.

I am a teaching assistant for one of the tutorial/laboratory/practicum groups. Why am I receiving accommodation letters for the group I do not teach? Why am I receiving accommodation letters for the students who are not in my group?
We import the student course information from Academic Resource Management System (ARMS)/Student Information System (SIS). Please make sure that the tutorial group assignments are entered correctly on the system. If you are having trouble updating ARMS, we can manually update the information in our system. Please send us the tutorial group assignments, including the full name and @yorku.ca email address of the TAs, to sasinfo@yorku.ca.

I received an accommodation letter notification email but when I went to the instructor portal, I didn’t find any new letters.
There can be one of three reasons why this is happening:
a) We send out two notification emails when a student submits a new letter. The first notification is sent out within one week. The second notification is sent out as a reminder about two weeks later.
b) The student dropped the course after submitting the accommodation letter. When this happens, the student's letter will be removed from the portal.
c) Your PPY username may have changed recently, and we may still have your old PPY username associated with your account in our system. Please contact us to update your PPY username.

My username and password are not working on your system. I’m getting an incorrect username or password error message.
The instructor portal only accepts your PPY username and password. Do not put @yorku.ca when you are entering the username.

There is a new instructor who is teaching a course this term. This instructor doesn't have a PPY username or York email address yet. How can I ensure that the new instructor receives the letters?
The instructor portal only works with Passport York credentials. If accommodation letters are submitted, they will wait in the portal until the instructor information is available in ARMS/SIS. Then the notification email is sent to the instructor's email address within one week. In the meantime, we can add one of the TAs in the course to access the letters if necessary.