Please review the guidance below as you make arrangements for providing exam accommodations on final exams for your students with approved exam accommodation. For questions about JMU policies around providing reasonable accommodations, please reference Policy 1331 and the Faculty Testing Agreement (our policy and procedures).
For more detailed guidance on Accommodate, please review the Faculty Guide for Scheduling Exams. If you need additional assistance navigating Accommodate, feel free to reach out to us at odsexam@jmu.edu to set up a phone or Zoom consultation.
If you need a reminder of your students’ approved exam accommodations, review the Accommodation Letters that have been sent to you from Disability Services for this semester in the Accommodate Faculty Portal.
ODS Testing Center Final Exam Reservation Block
Students are now able to reserve a seat in ODS for Fall 2025 Final Exams in Accommodate. Reservations will close November 21st.During finals week, ODS will provide two exam blocks per day (8:00AM to 12:00PM and 1:00PM to 5:00PM). Please note that students can only schedule an exam to begin only at 8:00AM or 1:00PM to allow exam spaces to maintain a reduced distraction environment.
There will not be an evening proctoring block during Finals Week.
Please communicate with your students who are taking your final exam in ODS regarding which date and time block (8:00AM or 1:00PM) you prefer they reserve to take your exam.
If you are unable to accommodate your student's final exam and you are choosing to utilize our space and proctoring services, please read the following information about:
Testing Locations and Online Finals
ODS reserves additional classrooms outside of our existing testing spaces to support as many final exam reservation requests as possible. Each classroom will have two proctors, ensuring that proctor presence and test security is consistent. Because we use satellite testing locations and these classrooms do not have computers, students who have an online exam are required to bring their own laptops. If your final exam is online, please make note of the following:
- We cannot accommodate IP filters for final exams. An alternative to the IP filter would be to provide ODS with an access code. These codes are kept securely by ODS staff until the student is ready to begin testing.
- If your exam includes a listening portion, please remind your students to bring headphones that work with their specific computer. Many laptops no longer include a headphone jack, so ODS headphones will not work with them.
Faculty Responsibilities
- Approve exam reservation requests as soon as possible, and no less than 48 hours in advance of a student’s exam start time.
- Upload exams to Accommodate ideally 72 hours and no less than 48 hours in advance of a student’s exam start time.
- If a faculty member experiences extenuating circumstances which impede their ability to provide ODS with the exam 48 hours prior to the student’s exam start time, please contact the ODS Exam staff. If we do not receive the exam before 5pm the day before the student’s exam reservation date, the student will be unable to test in ODS on their reservation date. If we do not have capacity to reschedule the student to take the exam on another day, we will direct them to work with their faculty member to receive the exam accommodations listed on their Accommodation Letter.
- If you are delivering an exam by hand to ODS, it must be delivered no later than 5:00PM the day before. If we do not receive the exam before 5pm the day before student’s exam reservation date, the student will be unable to test in ODS on their reservation date.
- If the exam is online or on paper, faculty members must provide exam directions, access code (if applicable), exam length, and what materials the student is allowed to have. This information will need to be uploaded to Accommodate via the “upload new exam” button under the student’s room booking request for both paper and online. We cannot proctor exams without this information.
- Faculty members should plan to be available during their student’s reservation time to address issues that may arise for their exam. ODS proctors will make every effort to reach faculty by email and/or phone to resolve issues. If the issue cannot be resolved without your assistance or approval, and our proctors cannot reach you (either within 30 minutes or with enough time for the student to receive their full extended time), the student must reschedule their exam.
Exam Pick-up Instructions
If you select “pick-up” as your preferred return method, exams must be picked up from our main ODS office (SSC 1202). We cannot allow faculty to enter the testing rooms while testing is in session in order to maintain a reduced distraction environment.
For same-day pick-up:
- Exams with a start time of 8:00AM will be available by 1:00PM.
- Exams with a start time of 1:00PM will be available between 5:00-5:30PM.
All completed exams will be available for pick-up the business day following the exam reservation date.
We thank you for your continued partnership in promoting equal access to learning by providing JMU students with their ODS exam accommodations during this very busy time. Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns.
Note: This page was last edited to reflect information for Fall 2025 final exams.
Frequently Asked Questions
Finals Week reservations are now open and will close on November 21st. ODS does reach capacity for some time blocks, so it is important that students sign up as early as possible.
No. Accommodate is unable to receive reservation requests from faculty. Students must submit the request through their Accommodate portal.
No. ODS will not be providing evening proctoring hours during finals week.
ODS proctors a high volume of final exams each finals week. Each exam comes with different directions, and each student has different accommodations. Our team requires adequate time to prepare and organize exams to ensure accuracy. When we receive an exam less than 48 business hours in advance, it places additional strain on our team. ODS strives to provide a smooth testing process for students, while providing support for faculty who are unable to meet students’ exam accommodations on their own.
No. If you are able to meet the student’s approved exam accommodations listed on their Accommodation Letter, they do not need to take your exam with ODS.
Students are responsible for scheduling their own exams in Accommodate. ODS does not have control over when students make a reservation. Faculty members can follow the steps to approve an exam and click “no” instead of yes. It will then ask you to explain why you are not approving the exam, and the student will receive an email with your response.
A detailed faculty Accommodate guide is available in the Resource tab in the faculty member Accommodate portal. Additionally, you are always welcome to call our ODS Exam staff (540-568-6705) or stop by our office in SSC 1202 for additional assistance.
No. All approvals and exam uploads must be done through Accommodate. Responding to a reminder email does not provide approval in the Accommodate system. Sending the exam through email does not upload it to Accommodate. The approval and exam upload must be done through the faculty member’s Accommodate portal.
The automatic reminder emails are linked to a two-step process within Accommodate. The reminder emails will stop when the exam has been approved, and the exam information and/or exam itself has been uploaded. If you are delivering an exam by hand, the reminder emails will stop when ODS receives the physical exam.
The two start times during finals week are 8:00AM and 1:00PM.
We use two 4-hour blocks per day, starting at these times, to accommodate extended time and maintain a reduced distraction environment in ODS exam spaces. We recommend that students choose the exam block that overlaps with their class’s exam time.
Yes! For online exams, faculty must still approve the date and time as well as click on the “upload new exam” button to fill out the form. This is ESSENTIAL because the ODS Exam staff still need additional information in order to proctor an online exam (e.g. access codes, exam length, materials allowed, etc.).
Bluebooks can be used only if the faculty member is physically picking up the exam.
ODS has a limited number of computers in our regular testing spaces and cannot provide computers to all the students who need one. During finals week, we use additional classrooms as satellite locations for ODS testers. These classrooms do not have computers. Students are instructed to bring their own laptops for exams that require a computer or access to the internet.
Yes, but only if it is explicitly stated in the exam materials in Accommodate. If a scantron or gradescope is not listed in Accommodate by the faculty member, it is up to the student to ask for one or proctors will not know to provide one.
Yes. Our computers do not have webcams and are not compatible with external webcams. If a webcam is required, students must bring their own devices with a webcam.
Not during Finals Week. Because we use satellite classrooms and require students to bring their own devices, an IP filter will not work for students taking exams with ODS during finals week. An alternative would be to provide ODS with an access code. Some professors copy a Canvas exam and have an IP filter for students who are not testing with ODS and an access code for students who are testing with ODS.
No. To maintain a reduced distraction environment, faculty members are not permitted to enter testing rooms while students are testing. Exams will be returned to ODS after each testing block (1:00 pm for morning exams and 5-5:30 pm for afternoon exams).
Exam security is a priority in ODS. Exams are kept in a locked filing cabinet until the day of the exam. They are then transported by ODS proctors to the exam location. Once completed, exams are transported back to ODS by the proctors, uploaded or prepared for pick-up, and filed in a locked filing cabinet once again.
Each room will have two test proctors. Students are not allowed to bring anything to their seats unless it is explicitly listed in the exam materials in Accommodate. All student belongings are kept at the front of the room next to the proctors. We utilize restroom sign-out sheets and do not allow students to take unpermitted items with them if they need to use the restroom. Faculty members are informed of any unusual circumstances.
The best way to ensure a seamless testing experience is to provide ODS with your approval, exam, and exam information as early as possible. Additionally, a few tips may be helpful:
- For Canvas exams:
- Double-check that you have added the correct extended time for each student testing at ODS.
- Make sure that the “due date” in Canvas is set past when the student with accommodations will finish testing.
- If providing an access code for online exams, please double-check that you have provided the correct access code in your directions in Accommodate. This is the most frequent issue that ODS Exam staff contact professors about during testing. If you need to change the access code after you have uploaded your information to Accommodate, please email us at ODSExam@jmu.edu. We may have already printed the exam information and Accommodate does NOT alert us to changes in instructions that are made.
- Clearly write all materials needed for the exam in the directions in Accommodate, including scantrons, blue books, cheat sheets or notecards, rulers, calculators, etc. Our staff do not have the capacity to read through all the exams we proctor for this information. We will read what you write on the form in Accommodate.
- Provide a phone number for contact. Should an issue arise, we need to be able to contact you to resolve it. If we are unable to reach you, the student may not be able to begin testing on time, or at all, and this could cause them to need to reschedule. Due to limited ODS seats, rescheduling with ODS is sometimes not possible. If a student is unable to reschedule with ODS, their faculty member will be responsible for providing their exam accommodations.
