Beginning with the Summer 2025 semester, Disability Resources is excited to pilot a new set of tools to support instructors and students regarding communication, clarity and collaboration for the Plan for Absences & Missed Deadlines accommodation.
Flex Plan is built into the AIM accommodations portal and helps to maintain details on what flexibility may be possible in a course and track when a student’s disability results in an absence throughout the semester.
This page offers information about Flex Plan and how it can support you and your students. You can also review step-by-step tutorials for working with Flex Plan in your AIM instructor Portal.
Plan for Absences & Missed Deadlines (PAMD) is an accommodation which promotes access when time-specific events (like a class meeting time or short-term assignment deadline) are in conflict with a disability-related absence due to a flare or episode experienced by the student.
The accommodation works to facilitate flexibility when a disability-related absence occurs. The accommodation establishes a plan for the number of disability-related excused absences allowed, alternative activities for receiving participation credit, arrangements for make-up exams or quizzes and up to 48 hours of additional time to complete short-term assignments.
Communication expectations are also provided to help ensure instructors are given timely information when a student’s absence is disability-related to allow for any alternative arrangements to be managed around the time of the event itself.
You can read more about the Plan for Absences & Missed Deadlines accommodation in the Faculty Resource Guide.
The AIM Instructor Portal is a hub to support instructors with notification, communication and facilitation of accommodations and accommodated exams scheduled with the Testing Center.
Flex Plan is a new dashboard found in the AIM Instructor Portal which provides tools to support instructors in identifying what level of flexibility may be possible with their course through a short questionnaire (similar to the former Modified Attendance or Plan for Absences & Missed Deadlines agreements). Once submitted, Disability Resources staff and the student with accommodations have guidance on what may or may not fit the expectations, objectives and activities of the course.
Additionally, the Flex Plan dashboard provides a tool for students to submit notification when an absence is related to their disability and request flexibility through the accommodation. Their submission is sent to both the instructor and their assigned Access Coordinator and can be tracked throughout the semester.
Flex Plan is intended to improve communication, clarity and collaboration for an accommodation that often works differently from course to course. Having this information maintained in AIM allows instructor, student and Disability Resources staff to work with the same information throughout the semester.
The intent and expectations of the PAMD accommodation are unchanged. Flex Plan simply supports the process of identifying, communicating, managing and monitoring how the accommodation is used throughout the semester, allowing greater support for instructors and students when disability-related absences are more frequent than anticipated or when flexible parameters are exceeded.
When a student requests PAMD in a course, the instructor will be asked to complete a Flex Plan in their AIM Instructor Portal. Because flexibility is most often tied to the specifics of the course and not necessarily the student’s disability, instructors only fill out one plan per course (which can be copied between sections and even from up to the 10 most recent semesters).
Instructors will also now receive a notification and see a report of disability-related absences and flexibility requests in their AIM Instructor Portal as students submit these events, along with any previous requests that have been made throughout the semester.
If the default parameters outlined in the PAMD accommodation language work for your course, you can simply log into your AIM Instructor portal to review and submit these defaults in AIM. You are always welcome to make adjustments and provide additional notes if more or less flexibility is possible given the design of your class.
One of the more challenging aspects of this accommodation has always been having clarity on the flexible parameters identified for a course, when and how often a student is absent due to their disability and the availability these details in order to advise both instructor and student when the accommodation does not seem to be working. Flex Plan is intended to streamline the availability of information about the level of flexibility determined by an instructor for their course, the communication that has occurred when the student uses the accommodation and the opportunity for Disability Resources staff to advise about options if issues arise throughout the semester.