Glean for note-taking is available to students as a default note taking tool. It can be provided through Disability Services to registered students, or by the Assistive Technology Center (ATC) to students with a documented disability. This AI tool assists students in becoming better note takers by audio-recording lectures, providing a recording transcription, and has tools for highlighting and bookmarking notes. All students using Glean are provided a Recording Agreement document highlighting their rights/responsibilities.. This protects faculty/instructor copyright and intellectual property while providing necessary ADA access to eligible students. Please note that some instructors may opt-out of Glean and will not allow audio-recordings in their class.
There also may be some instances where Glean does not work well for a course (e.g., the course is not taught in English, a math course with many equations and formulas, or when the instructor has a fast speech pattern or strong accent etc.). Many notes are provided directly by instructors and can be accessed on the course website or Canvas. If students find that Glean is not working well for a course, they should work with their assigned Access Coordinator to identify solutions, such as getting notes from the instructor, from a peer, or working with the ATC to learn how to utilize Glean more effectively.
A peer note-taker for note-taking services are available to eligible students. Students requesting a peer note-taker must submit supporting documentation and their request must be processed by our Review Committee. Once a student has been approved for a peer note-taker, they should first make sure to send their accommodation letters to faculty/instructors through Clockwork. Once accommodation letters have been sent, they will be able to select "course notes" from the Clockwork menu to identify the classes they may need supplemental notes for. Please see directions below. This process alerts the Note Taking Coordinator that notes are needed in specific course.
Students with a peer note-taker who are having difficulty accessing their notes or find that their notes are not detailed/complete enough should inform us at notes@umass.edu. Please provide us your name, ID#, the course where there is a challenge (ex: WGSS 100, Section 14). Student note takers are contracted to upload their notes to Clockwork within 24 hours of each class session and upload them to Clockwork for easy downloading by eligible students. For their efforts, note takers can earn 45 hours of community service per class each semester. Students in need of notes are notified once notes are available for download.
How to Request Access To Notes In Clockwork
1) Go to www.umass.edu/disability/ and select the link called “Clockwork for Students”.
2) Select “Course Notes” from the main menu. You will then be asked to log into Clockwork. Your username and password is the same used for accessing Spire, Moodle, OneDrive, etc.
3) Select “Course/notes” in the gray menu bar.
4) If you are requesting access to course notes, change the “No” to a “Yes” but selecting the “change this” link under the column “I require a note taker”. This will alert our note taking staff of your accommodation request.
5) Clockwork will ask you to confirm your request. Select ok.
Please Note: note-taking services are assigned for lecture courses only. Due to the interactive format of labs, discussion-sections, team-based learning, direct language-instruction, clinicals, practicums, independent-study and online courses, note-taking services cannot be provided by a note-taker. If you feel you have a disability related need for note-taking services within an interactive course, please discuss with an Access Coordinator so we can determine an appropriate accommodation.