[nabs-l] Textbooks for disabled, Particularly College Students

[Serena]

This is really awesome!

Serena


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "David Andrews" <dandrews at visi.com>
To: <david.andrews at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, September 03, 2009 10:42 PM
Subject: [nabs-l] 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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>>
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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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