EVT Chalky Notetaking Accommodations :

EVT uniquely automates note generation (equations, graphs, diagrams, etc) from board writing to provide note taking accommodations. Many university STEM courses heavily or exclusively use the board.

"Nearly 100% of math faculty members at Stanford teach using chalk and chalkboards." - Dr. Brian Conrad, Director of Undergraduate Studies (Oct. 2021, Stanford Daily)

For board based courses, EVT is the only assistive technology which enables the university to be ADA compliant for note taking accommodations. Existing note taking assistive technologies in the market only transcribe audio, summarize speech transcripts, or require the student to take all of the notes by themselves. This inadequacy of not notetaking from board writing completely violates the Americans with Disabilities Act's provision that educational institutions must provide appropriate auxiliary aids and services to ensure that communication with persons with disabilities is as effective as communication with others (28 C.F.R. § 35.160).

 

Many disability offices run Volunteer Peer Notetaking programs which are great if they can get 100% of accommodation requests fulfilled and have them fulfilled before the term starts or soon after the request is approved. It often is the case that no one volunteers or a volunteer is found many weeks late into the term. Other issues that can occur are that notes could be sent late, the notetaker misses a class, or the notes have quality issues such as being incomplete. Programs that provide volunteers a stipend have better fulfillment rates, but tend to be in violation of labor laws. Theres also a lot of overhead managing logistics as some universities get over 1000 notetaking requests a year. Due to this overhead and challenge finding volunteer notetakers some universities are unfortunately getting rid of their peer notetaking program and instead only offering assistive tech which doesn't accommodate courses taught on the board. 

We hope you can support us in our mission to provide a more equitable academic experience for students with disabilities across the nation!