Graphic by Mari Al Tayb '26.
By Jesse Hausknecht-Brown ’25 & Emma Quirk ’26
Managing Editor of Layout & Features Editor | Staff Writer
This semester, students approved by Disability Services for note taking were encouraged to opt in to the new Glean software program while still having the option to use a peer note-taker. An email to students approved for note taking from C. Ross, an accessibility coordinator in Disability Services, via ds-notetaking@mtholyoke.edu , stated that “starting in Spring 2023, all students approved for note-taking will be using Glean, except in cases where Glean is not compatible with the course, or does not adequately support the student’s needs. We strongly encourage trying Glean this semester to start.”
According to its website, Glean is a “flexible and effective note-taking platform” with the ability to record lectures, “generate a transcript, listen back to key moments and add text notes, images, slides and tasks to create the ultimate personalized learning resource.”
“[Glean is] really helpful because we can say here’s one thing, it’s one license, but within that, you can do a lot of different things and you can customize it to how it best supports you, without having to then go to a different app or something else,” Ross said.
According to Ross, there are currently over 50 students using Glean, and “the number is slowly growing over the course of the semester.” At this time, it is hard to predict how many students will use Glean and how many will have peer note-takers next semester.
Ross outlined a few key reasons why Disability Services is trying Glean this semester. Students have had varied experiences with note-takers and have received notes of “mixed quality,” according to Ross. A system like Glean would be more reliable across the board.
Glean has been effective for students within the other four colleges in the Five College Consortium, Ross explained. Ross cited this as a reason why the College wanted to switch to this program. “We can look at a lot of the data and ascertain that it’s a good product and from talking to a lot of other colleges that use it, they’ve had positive experience[s] with their students,” Ross stated.
It was difficult for Disability Services to communicate back and forth with students receiving notes, students taking notes and sometimes with professors. However, with Glean, “it’ll be much more possible to directly connect with the students that are needing the notes and working with what’s actually going on with them,” Ross said. “Personally, I like that aspect a little bit more, in that it’s kind of like active troubleshooting or problem solving.”
Additionally, Ross described that it was difficult to know if and how students are using the notes they receive. Ross explained that another potential positive outcome of the Glean system is that it can help students learn how to take notes in a way that best benefits their learning. “It’s really hard to get data on if students are looking at the notes that are being uploaded, and in general to gauge … how well this is actually working for people,” Ross said. “So we had these focus groups and a lot of questions and thoughts came up around skill building, and students want to learn how to take notes, it’s just really hard for them.”
However, Cindy Ruiz Garcia ’24, who received peer notes, explained that they enjoy being able to see how another student in their class takes notes. When reviewing notes for an exam, Ruiz Garcia likes being able to see how a different student interpreted a lecture or what their main takeaways were.
“[There are] some things that I feel like weren’t necessarily important and then I’ll be studying for a final or a midterm and I realize a professor does want us to focus on that and, let’s say a peer has taken notes on that, where[as] I thought it wouldn’t have been as important,” Ruiz Garcia said.
Clara Murphy ’25, who is a note-taker, explained that they try to incorporate what the professor says, what other students say and their own thoughts into their notes. “[I] try to figure out how the class as a whole is working and not just type down what’s on the lecture slides,” Murphy said.
While Ross made it clear that the peer note-taker position will not be eliminated entirely, they are not sure at this time how many students will use Glean and how many will continue to use peer note-takers. Murphy expressed concern over the prospect of not being able to rely on the note-taker job as a source of income.
“As a low income student, I really appreciate having a job like that where I can just go to class and not have it take up extra time,” Murphy said. “I think that there are a lot of other people like me on this campus that could really use these jobs.”
Jenny Watermill, a Senior Associate Director at the Career Development Center, explained that in 2018, student jobs were lost when the new Blanchard Community Center was opened. When this happened, the Student Employment Office worked with other campus supervisors to offer new student jobs. She stated that they will do a similar thing if a significant amount of student jobs are lost to Glean.
“If the new notetaking system does ultimately reduce student jobs in Disability Services, we will again develop and implement a strategy that ensures our work-study-eligible students continue to have adequate access to student jobs,” Watermill said.
One known drawback of Glean is that it is not entirely compatible with language classes. “Languages are the one [difficulty] that we know about given we’ve talked to other colleges and [asked] them when they’ve … struggled with Glean,” Ross said. Glean doesn’t offer transcriptions for other languages, but students can still take notes in other languages and listen to recorded lectures.
Ruiz Garcia, who opted out of using Glean this semester, expressed concerns over Glean’s transcription function, noting that they believe it may be difficult for Glean to pick up what everyone says when they are wearing masks.
“So if certain things don’t get transcribed down and you don’t catch them on your notes, it’d be kind of difficult to go back and make sure you got everything,” Ruiz Garcia said. “If you did go back and listen to the audio, you’d kind of have to listen to the whole class lecture to … be sure that you got everything down.”
Ross is aware that there could be issues with the quality of the transcription, but noted that it is hard to know how big of an issue that is at this time. “That might be something else that we [will] probably work with students if they’re having trouble or if their transcription is consistently showing up wonky. … Glean is also pretty … responsive about getting feedback,” Ross said.
One anonymous Mount Holyoke student said that they signed up to use Glean for one of their courses and then almost immediately switched back to using a peer notetaker.
“It didn't function well for my needs. The system it uses for notes doesn't work with how I prefer to take notes, and the general interface didn't flow well for me at all,” the anonymous student said. “I stopped using it because it would have made note taking more difficult for me … It's a very audio centered approach, which isn't great for me because I process written information better.”
However, while they explained that they are not planning on trying Glean again in the future, they “would consider trying Glean again if it could be used in conjunction with a notetaker, at least for a trial period.”
Ross is hopeful about Glean and encourages students to approach the new software with an open mind. “It’s a tool for managing characteristics of a disability,” Ross said. “And sometimes even that switch is difficult, which I understand, but what I’m hoping that most folks do is that they give it a try.”