Students with disabilities

Receiving note-taking support means that a fellow student on the course shares their notes with you after each lecture.

Access to note-taking support requires a decision from your accessibility officer. You can ask a fellow student who you think takes good notes, but you can also get help from Disability Support Services to find someone. Fees for note-taking support are paid by the Disability Support Services.

Borrow a SmartPen

If you would prefer to try to take notes yourself, you can borrow a SmartPen. This also requires a decision from your coordinator. An Echo SmartPen is a special pen used to make notes while recording the lecture at the same time. With the help of a few notes on a special notepad, it is easy to jump around within the sound file to listen to different parts of the lecture. You can then choose to add to your notes or just listen to what was said at a specific point.

The education officer at Disability Support Services can help you address problems with study techniques. By mapping your study technique, you will determine the shortcomings in your approach to studying and – most important of all – what you can do about them.

Sometimes you can get stuck in your studies. You procrastinate until it's too late and your study results perhaps fall short of your expectations. In that case, a mentor could be helpful.

A mentor is a student with experience of studying successfully at university. The mentor can function as a sounding board and help you to plan and organise your studies.

Academic Support Centre

You can discuss the writing process with staff at the Academic Support Centre and get support in structuring your work. When you need to write your degree project or other major assignments, you can get support at the various stages of the writing process.

Contact information to the Academic Support Centre

University libraries

Your library can provide help with information searches and finding the right literature.

Find contact information for our libraries through the Lund University Libraries website

If you often make reading errors, read slowly or have problems concentrating when you read, you may find it very helpful to listen to your required reading.

Talking book recordings

Many course textbooks are available as talking book recordings.

About recorded talking books in the Legimus database on the Lund University Libraries website

Your library provides you with a downloading account for Legimus, so that you can download the literature you need. You do not need a certificate to obtain a downloading account.

There is a specialist librarian available at every library to assist you.

Find contact librarians on the Lund University Libraries website

Your contact librarian can order any literature that has not already been recorded as a talking book. Remember that it can take two to three months to produce a talking book.

TorTalk speech synthesis

You can use TorTalk speech synthesis software to listen to all digital texts, such as

• webpages
• e-books
• articles in full-text
• Word documents and
• scanned documents.

TorTalk is available on many of the University’s computers and you can install the program on your own computer.

About TorTalk on the Lund University Libraries website

If you have a disability, your exams may be adapted as needed. Perhaps you need additional time for written exams or to sit in a smaller group to be able to concentrate better? 

Requests for special arrangements for exams are always subject to approval. Your examiner has the last word on whether to grant the request. Sometimes, the student’s wishes are incompatible with the learning outcomes of the course and can therefore not be granted.

If you have recommendations on support during examinations, you must notify the study advisor at the department. This notification is to be made no later than two to three weeks before the exam in question. You discuss alternative examination forms with the study advisor or the teacher.