These policies are intended to assist the Office for Disability Services, ODS, its service providers and registered students in the orderly and efficient operation of providing captioning and American Sign Language Interpreting services.
Every effort will be made to provide Captionists/Interpreters for students who request these services. Students must have completed the appropriate forms and provided documentation of their disability to ODS.
Student Responsibilities:
When requesting classroom accommodations, student responsibilities are to:
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Contact your Coordinator and obtain a Letter of Accommodation (LOA) every semester that you are requesting classroom accommodations.
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Have the captionist/interpreter introduce him/herself to the professor/instructor on the first day of class and explain his/her role.
Provider Commitment:
Each captionist/interpreter is committed to work for the entire semester. Captionists/interpreters will not be changed unless there is a compelling reason, and approval of ODS is required.
Submit Online Captioning/Interpreting Service Request:
Submitting your request early is your best assurance of receiving services promptly. The requests must be received within 5 business days (not including holidays and weekends). Switching sections or making schedule changes may present problems in providing services in a timely manner. Please refer to the link for online requests: https://webapps.rutgers.edu/student-ods/Forms/ASL
Attendance:
Captionists/interpreters are expected to arrive 15 minutes before class begins. You are responsible for notifying ODS if your captionist/interpreter is late or misses a class.
If the captionist/interpreter reports to an assignment and the student fails to show, the captionist/interpreter must wait fifteen minutes for a class which is up to one hour in duration and twenty minutes for any class over an hour in length. This will confirm the no-show. Captionists/Interpreters are required to report student no-shows immediately to ODS so that student absences can be monitored.
Absence:
If captioning/interpreting services have been requested, and you know that you will be unable to attend class, you must provide ODS with at least 24 hours advanced notice so the captionist can be informed. Services will not be provided to a student who does not attend class, unless specific approval has been obtained in advance from the Office for Disability Services. In some situations, students may not be able to provide 24 hours’ notice, and these type of situations will be reviewed by ODS. Failure to provide any advanced notice is considered a "No-Show". To give advance notice, a student should contact the ASL/CART Specialist Allyon Paduano by text at at 631-553-8625 or email at allyson.paduano@rutgers.edu.
Failure to provide notice will result in the following actions:
1 - First "No-Show": A letter or email will be sent to remind the student of the policy and appropriate procedures.
2 - Second "No-Show": Services will automatically be temporarily suspended and a letter or email will be sent to the student informing him/her of the policy and the appropriate procedure. Services will remain suspended until the student makes an appointment and meets with Marie Lisa to discuss reinstating services.
3- For each subsequent "No-Show": Services will automatically be suspended and a letter or email will be sent to the student informing the student of the policy and the appropriate procedures. The services will remain suspended until the student makes an appointment and meets with the ASL/CART Specialist.
In the event that a captionist/interpreter is unable to caption a class for any reason, ODS will attempt to find a replacement captionist/interpreter. ODS will provide the student with a tape recorder to be utilized in the unlikely event that the captionist/interpreter is late or fails to provide services on a given day. Please note that ODS may not be aware the captionist/interpreter is absent, especially in unpredictable events such as car problems, traffic, weather conditions, etc. If an unforeseen event occurs, the student should tape record the lecture and provide ODS with the tape as soon as possible. ODS will have the tape transcribed in a reasonable amount of time.
Communication Between Student and Captionist/Interpreter:
If you have problems with your captionist(s)/interpreter(s) that you are unable to resolve, please contact the ASL/CART Specialist. Every reasonable effort will be made to resolve the problem(s) quickly and fairly.
Requests for Services Outside Class:
Meetings with professors, academic advisors, university officials, etc. require students to give ODS a minimum of forty-eight hours advance notice in view of the difficulty in scheduling captionists/interpreters. An effort will be made to fulfill requests made on short notice, with the understanding that captionists/interpreters may not be available.
Electronic/Hard Copies:
In the interest of fairness to all students and to encourage class attendance, neither electronic nor hard copies are to be provided to any other student.
If you have any questions about services, or about your rights and/or responsibilities, please contact the ASL/CART Specialist
