Access to Antidote Web will be restored

UQAM is making an about-face by restoring access to Antidote Web for the current year, we learned in an email sent internally on Thursday.

The Antidote Web software was no longer available outside UQAM since 1^is last July, and the decision caused an outcry within the student body. “The management committee has decided to reconsider the question and allow access to Antidote Web for the current academic year,” announced the rector of UQAM, Stéphane Pallage, in the press release.

Druide Informatique, which produces Antidote, had exceptionally offered the license free of charge to all universities in the context of the pandemic.

UQAM will therefore have to pay $125,000 to purchase the license.

It is to avoid this expense that the UQAM management committee did not renew the license earlier this year. Stéphane Pallage indicates that this sum represents one or two salaries, without specifying which ones.

He justifies his decision by mentioning that “the State does not provide new money to support […] financing of universities. However, UQAM does not present any concrete game plan to maintain access to Antidote for years to come, although it says it is open to “finding a solution”.

A united and astute student community

Worried about having to pay out of pocket to have access to it at all times, and frustrated at being dispossessed of this tool, Uqamians are not remained passive when Antidote was no longer accessible outside UQAM.

The Faculty Student Arts Association (AFEA) proposed, during its general assembly on September 18, a collaboration between the faculty associations to restore the free license of Antidote Web outside UQAM.

On the student association’s Instagram page, it is stated “that Antidote is essential to academic success (especially for students with learning difficulties), that UQAM is a French-speaking university which must maintain impeccable language quality and the cost of living increases.” The proposal was unanimously adopted by its members.

A petition demanding the maintenance of free access to Antidote outside campus was also circulating on social networks.

The annual subscription to Antidote costs $59.95 plus tax and the lifetime subscription costs $129.95 plus tax.

Review your schedule

“My academic reality and my student life are affected, since I cannot go there at any time and I cannot stay after my classes. It’s like a big game of Tetris », says the student in kinesiology Alexia Quesnel.

As evidenced by the dozens of comments on posts on the @uqam.confessions Instagram page, several students find themselves in similar situations. They were forced to rethink their routine and adapt their schedule according to their visits to the computer laboratory or the library, the only two places where Antidote was still available free of charge before the rector’s recent announcement. .

More than just software

For students with learning disabilities, like Rémi Grenier, student at the Master’s degree in political sciencelimited access to this educational resource involved more than just additional travel time.

For him, not being able to work with Antidote from home would have generated unforeseen expenses, but above all, difficulties in accomplishing his academic tasks.

*The Montreal Campus is a partner with Antidote. This has in no way influenced the content of this text. THE Montreal Campus has remained independent since 1980.