[blindlaw] Textbooks for disabled, Particularly College Students

[ckrugman at sbcglobal.net]

While this sounds good on the surface a drawback to this is that disabled 
students are losing their choices to be independent by having to register as 
being disabled and allowing the college to assume responsibility for 
producing and locating textbooks. I realize I'm dating myself here but I 
learned many valuable skills by having to procure and arrangement for use of 
text materials in an available format. These skills included the supervision 
of personnel (readers) a valuable skill transferable to the real work of 
employment where supervision of staff is necessary, procuring materials in a 
timely manner a transferable skill of meeting deadlines and insuring that 
materials would be available. and an ability to be self-reliant learning to 
find and create available resources and development of increased problem 
solving skills. Unfortunately, too many disabled students blind or otherwise 
lack these skills today and as a result are ill equipped to adequately 
compete in the real world of employment when programs such disabled services 
do not exist in the real world. In many cases the development and use of 
such systems prevent students from addressing individual needs with faculty 
members as they would have to do when they are on their own in an employment 
setting.
Chuck
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Andrews" <dandrews at visi.com>
To: <david.andrews at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 03, 2009 7:42 PM
Subject: [blindlaw] Textbooks for disabled, Particularly College Students


>
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>> From 
>> <http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/08/28/access>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/08/28/access
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>>Textbooks for the Disabled
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>>August 28, 2009
>>
>>The Association of American Publishers and the University of Georgia this 
>>week unveiled an electronic database aimed at making it easier for blind, 
>>dyslexic and otherwise impaired college students to get specialized 
>>textbooks in time for classes.
>>
>>The database, called <http://www.accesstext.org/>AccessText, is designed 
>>to centralize the process by which electronic versions of textbooks are 
>>requested by colleges and supplied by publishers. Experts say it will 
>>allow disabled students to get their textbooks more efficiently, help 
>>colleges save money and avoid lawsuits, and protect publishers' 
>>copyrights.
>>
>>For students whose disabilities prevent them from using traditional texts, 
>>the normally straightforward task of acquiring books for their courses can 
>>be tedious and frustrating. Federal law requires that colleges and 
>>universities provide disabled students equal access to educational 
>>materials, but this is often easier said than done. College officials have 
>>to track down and contact the publisher of every textbook that each of its 
>>disabled students buys and request an electronic copy. If such a copy 
>>exists -- the likelihood shrinks the older the book and the smaller the 
>>publisher -- college officials still have to convert the file to a format 
>>that can be read by whatever reading aid the student uses. If not, the 
>>college has to wait, sometimes weeks, to obtain permission to scan the 
>>book and create its own electronic version.
>>
>>Once a college has an electronic copy, converting to a readable format can 
>>be another complex process, says Sean Keegan, associate director of 
>>assistive technology at Stanford University. Math and science texts often 
>>arrive as scanned pages, and cannot always be easily read by the 
>>character-recognition software the university uses to turn them into 
>>standard electronic files, Keegan says. "That can take a longer amount of 
>>time to process that material internally and turn it around and give that 
>>to the student efficiently," he says.
>>
>>Meanwhile, delays in the process can make it impossible for disabled 
>>students to prepare for and participate in classes. "Students need to have 
>>a book in time so they can do the assigned reading and study for tests and 
>>papers," says Gaeir Dietrich, interim director of high-tech training for 
>>the California Community Colleges system. "So if the book doesn't come 
>>until the term has been in session for three or four weeks, that puts that 
>>student very far behind." Some students have sued colleges over such 
>>delays, she says.
>>
>>AccessText aims to mitigate these woes by streamlining the request and 
>>delivery process, says Ed McCoyd, executive director for accessibility 
>>affairs at AAP.
>>
>>"There's a lot of transactional friction taking place currently," says 
>>McCoyd. "What AccessText is trying to do is take some of that out of the 
>>transaction by having parties agree to streamlined rules up front."
>>
>>Having colleges submit requests using the AccessText portal should 
>>eliminate the need for the publishers to require endless paperwork with 
>>each request to protect its copyrights, McCoyd says. Under the system, the 
>>copyright protection agreements can be handled once, during registration, 
>>and the requester's bona fides can be verified by a log-in.
>>
>>Currently, colleges that get tired of waiting for publishers to process 
>>the paperwork and procure an electronic copy of a text sometimes just scan 
>>a text themselves to try to satisfy the needs of disabled students in a 
>>timely fashion, says Dietrich.
>>
>>AccessText is also set up to eliminate the need for different colleges to 
>>convert the same text to a readable format once it is acquired. Currently 
>>"numerous schools could be doing the exact same thing, converting the same 
>>text," says Bruce Hildebrand, executive director for higher education at 
>>the publishers' association. Under the new system, "if one school has 
>>already spent the time and the money to convert a file to a format, they 
>>could advise the AccessText network, which could then make the info 
>>available that it was still available in that format, and that school 
>>could share it with another school" -- thereby sparing those colleges the 
>>time and resources it would have used to convert the file themselves, he 
>>says.
>>
>>Eight major publishing houses paid a total of just under $1 million to 
>>develop the AccessText network and maintain it through its beta phase, 
>>which will end next July. From then on, it will sustain itself by billing 
>>member colleges between $375 and $500 annually, depending on size.
>>
>>Dietrich notes that community colleges might not benefit from the 
>>AccessText network as much as other institutions, since "we have a lot 
>>more vocational classes and basic-skills classes, and a lot of those books 
>>don't come through those big publishers, they come through specialized 
>>publishers," she says. "It doesn't solve that part of the problem for us."
>>
>>The network includes 92 percent of all college textbook publishers and is 
>>recruiting even more, according to AAP officials.
>
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