Key takeaways:
- Start early for bigger payoffs: Students who are comfortable with their assistive technology before term starts are far less likely to fall behind in the first few weeks.
- Partnerships extend your reach: A small office can’t run campus-wide outreach alone. Student life orientations, co-hosted events, and Learning Management System (LMS) support sessions put accessibility in front of thousands of students and faculty.
- Accessibility is a shared responsibility: Faculty are the subject matter experts. Disability services teams can support the structure of accessible content, but they can’t own it alone.
- AI speeds up the work, not the judgment: AI is cutting labor hours for remediation, but human oversight is still essential for accuracy.
- Good assessment design must work in tandem with AI: When evaluations ask students to show their process, AI becomes a tool for learning rather than a shortcut around it.
Every semester, Disability and Accessibility Services teams face the same challenge, getting hundreds of students set up with the right accommodations, technology, and content, fast.
In a recent Genio webinar, we sat down with Will Pines, Accessible Technology Specialist at the University of California, Riverside (UCR), for a one-on-one Q&A to discuss his recommendations for preparing for a new semester, fostering stronger faculty partnerships, and where AI fits into assistive technology.
Will works with students, faculty, and staff to make sure students with disabilities can access instructional materials. His work covers assistive technology and alternative media as well as learning strategies and training.
Here’s what he shared about preparing for a new semester, working with faculty, and where AI is (and isn’t) making a difference.
How can Disability Services teams prepare for the start of a new term?
University of California Riverside runs on a quarter system with 10-week terms, and that compressed timeline shapes everything.
“Falling back one or two days is like falling back a week or so in a regular semester term."
Will Pines, University of California, Riverside
So the priority is getting students in early. During intake appointments, specialists explain what the office provides, how accommodations work, and how college differs from K–12. That includes what students will need to do for themselves.
Meanwhile, software previews make sure students are comfortable with their assistive technology before day one. The team also coordinates exam arrangements and alternative formats with faculty electronically, so office hours don’t become a bottleneck.
Of all these steps, orientation sessions deliver the biggest impact for the effort. Students visit campus, see where services are located, and learn what support exists before they need it.
How do you encourage students to show up to Disability Services’ orientation?
Low sign-ups and no-shows frustrate many offices. Will’s answer, don’t try to do it alone.
“Our office alone could not do this. There’s no way that would happen. We just don’t have the staff to do it, and we don’t have the reach.”
Will Pines, University of California, Riverside
Instead, his team builds accessibility into existing channels. Campus-wide orientations run by student societies can draw 15,000 to 20,000 students over several weeks, with every student service represented.
When the office co-presents with departments like the Recreation Center, the university events page tags the event, so students following those threads get an email. During the first two weeks of each quarter, the campus teaching and LMS support team also builds an accessibility piece into its open office hours and Canvas workshops.
What does strong faculty collaboration with Disability Services look like?
For Will, it comes down to communication and timing. Testing accommodations depend on faculty responding promptly to exam requests, sharing the exam, and setting its parameters. Some faculty even visit the Testing Center to see how it protects exam integrity.
Alternative media depends on content arriving early. For braille in STEM courses, the team asks for materials three weeks ahead, because content often needs remediation before it can be converted.
Many faculty already have accessibility features in the software they use to create content. They just may not know those features exist, or how to use them.
How can colleges work with faculty on disability accommodations?
Pushback still happens, most often around audio recording tools such as smart pens. The fix is to remove the uncertainty.
Start by explaining what the accommodation entails, what the technology can and can’t do, and how the student was approved. Then point to existing safeguards. Students sign an enforceable recording agreement, and misuse falls under the same student code of conduct as any other violation.
It also helps to clarify scope. An accommodation for access to overheads may simply mean sharing slides on time, not handing over every note and presentation.
The harder conversations come from a “here’s my content, go make it accessible” mindset. Will reframes accessibility as a shared responsibility. When pushback persists, bringing the right people to the table reassures faculty that students receive the same rigor as everyone else. The goal is access, not advantage.
Where is AI genuinely reshaping assistive technology, and where is it just hype?
The hype, Will says, is the idea that AI can fix inaccessible content on its own. It can’t. AI helps him turn large volumes of text into alternative formats far faster, but a person still makes the final check.
“In alt media, it still takes human interaction, human oversight, to make sure that what was placed before you is accurate, just as I did before we had AI.”
Will Pines, University of California, Riverside
The real progress is in STEM. AI significantly cuts the labor needed to produce or remediate math and technical content, including spatial math in notes and transcripts.
AI is also opening up hands-on learning. Working with the campus 3D team and Biology faculty, Will used AI to develop a molecular kit with braille labels and distinguishable bonds, so the student no longer relies on color alone.
The project has also changed how faculty think about presenting information for every student in the class, not just one.
Why do accessibility remediation projects become a bigger lift than expected?
New Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title II digital accessibility requirements have many institutions reviewing their course content. UCR recently bought a tool that crawls its Canvas LMS and flags files that are likely inaccessible.
To work through the reports, the campus teaching and learning team set up an “A-team” of around 10 student workers. Will trained them to remediate PDFs, Word documents, PowerPoints, scanned images, and handwritten files.
The mechanics are learnable. The scale is what surprises people. Fixing one slide is simple, but working through 200 of them, many rebuilt from scratch, takes time.
A few practices have made the project work:
- Pairing students with faculty: Faculty are the subject matter experts, so they write the alt text or tell the student worker what it should say.
- Starting with the heaviest lift: Prioritizing PowerPoints and inaccessible PDFs takes pressure off braille production.
- Looking for the source first: Before running Optical Character Recognition (OCR) on a scanned PDF, check for a credit or website at the bottom. Finding the original digital version saves hours.
What’s one piece of advice for Disability Services professionals this semester?
Even in a small office, every colleague brings a different perspective. Ask before you guess. Learn the basics of every area, from alt text to housing accommodations and financial aid, so you have a fuller view of the student experience. Build contacts across campus, so that when a student brings you a problem outside your specialty, you know who to call.
The result is less trial and error for students and staff, and what Will calls “informed course correction.”
How does Genio Notes support Disability Services teams?
Will’s advice is clear, get students set up early, then step back so they can learn on their own.
Genio Notes is built for that moment. Students capture audio, slides, and their own notes in one place, then use built-in study tools to check their understanding. That covers STEM courses too, with accessible math in both notes and transcripts.
Want to see how Genio Notes can help you to support students this semster?
