Editing Herzing Issues: ADA and Disability Accommodations (section)

=== HU-186: The click gesture the reporting student uses to trigger text-to-speech read aloud now opens a dictionary panel instead ===
{| class="wikitable" style="width:100%"
! style="width:14em" | Severity
| High
! Status
| CONFIRMED as to the software behavior, which was demonstrated on the call and acknowledged by the Elsevier representative; the risk of an actual academic integrity flag arising from it is prospective and has not yet occurred
|-
! Issue type
| Accommodation Gesture Triggers Prohibited Resource Display, Creating False Academic Integrity Flag Exposure
! Date added
| 2026-08-04
|-
! Owner
| colspan="3" | Elsevier / HESI product and technology teams; ProctorU (Meazure Learning); Emilie Thompson (ADA and Title IX Coordinator); Herzing academic leadership
|}
'''Finding.''' The reporting student stated on the August 4, 2026 call that the method he has used throughout the program to trigger read-aloud of examination text is to hover over and click the text. He demonstrated that within the current secure browser this gesture no longer triggers read-aloud and instead opens a macOS dictionary and thesaurus panel displaying the definition of the selected term, with an option to open full Wikipedia content. The reporting student identified the consequence directly on the call: if he performs his ordinary accommodation gesture and a dictionary panel appears on screen, a ProctorU proctor observing the session may flag the session for accessing unauthorized resources, after which the reporting student would bear the burden of a grade appeal to establish that he was attempting to use an approved accommodation rather than attempting to cheat. He characterized that as a materially harder appeal to win because the on-screen behavior superficially resembles misconduct. The Elsevier representative stated that the text-to-speech function should play and that he was not aware of this behavior, and escalated it together with the dictionary defect documented in {{HU|HU-185}}.

'''Evidence.''' Recorded call and transcript, August 4, 2026: the reporting student's description of his established read-aloud method, his live demonstration that the gesture produces a dictionary panel rather than audio, his statement of the resulting academic integrity exposure, and the Elsevier representative's acknowledgment that the text-to-speech function should be functioning and that he was unaware of the dictionary behavior. (Source Group: recorded video call, August 4, 2026, between the reporting student, a representative of Elsevier/HESI who stated he also works with the Meazure Learning side, and Dr. Danielle Laban, Associate Vice President of Student Affairs, who joined near the end of the call; transcript provided by the reporting student. Speaker attribution in the automated transcript is inconsistent and the same speaker is labeled variously; the substance is clear but individual lines should be attributed by reference to the underlying recording rather than to transcript speaker labels.)

'''Reported statement.'''
<blockquote>If I go to click on something and have it read it to me, and it opens a dictionary instead of reading it to me, then ProctorU flags me for cheating. They shut down my exam in the middle of exam. Well, I didn't mean to. I was trying to have it read it back to me.</blockquote>

'''Standards.''' Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, 29 U.S.C. §794, and Title III of the Americans with Disabilities Act, 42 U.S.C. §12181 et seq., together with 34 C.F.R. §104.44 (academic adjustments), require that approved accommodations be usable in practice and not merely nominally available. A configuration in which the act of invoking an accommodation produces conduct that the institution's own integrity controls treat as suspicious places a disability-related burden on the student that non-disabled students do not bear. Whether text-to-speech read-aloud is documented as an approved accommodation in the reporting student's June 2026 accommodation letter remains an open item, as noted in {{HU|HU-175}}, and should be confirmed before this entry is relied upon as an accommodation violation rather than a software defect.

'''Impact.''' The reporting student faces a choice between forgoing an accommodation he relies on for chart-heavy and split-screen items, or using it and risking an integrity flag he would then have to disprove through the appeals process. Given the volume of grade appeals already documented in this tracker arising from vendor-caused disruptions, an additional appeal predicated on an apparent integrity violation would be substantially more difficult and more consequential than the appeals filed to date.

'''Notes.''' It is recommended that written confirmation be requested from Herzing that no academic integrity finding will be initiated against the reporting student arising from a dictionary panel appearing during an examination while this defect remains unresolved, and that Emilie Thompson confirm whether text-to-speech read-aloud is documented as an approved accommodation. Cross-References: {{HU|HU-185}} (the underlying dictionary and outside-resource defect), {{HU|HU-175}} (the accessibility failure cluster and the open question of what the June 2026 accommodation letter documents), {{HU|HU-187}} (cumulative examination scheduling pressure).

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