[real-eyes] Re: .: [leadership] Textbooks for disabled, Particularly College Students
- From: Tim Sears <tufftimsears@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: real-eyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Wed, 9 Sep 2009 18:51:29 -0700 (PDT)
Once again Community Colleges are treated like stepchildren, but this is a good
start.
--- On Wed, 9/9/09, Erika Wolf <wolferika@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> From: Erika Wolf <wolferika@xxxxxxx>
> Subject: [real-eyes] .: [leadership] Textbooks for disabled, Particularly
> College Students
> To: real-eyes@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Date: Wednesday, September 9, 2009, 5:36 PM
> Please read this article as it
> pertains to a very important
> subject--education.
> Erika Wolf
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: American Council of the Blind of Nebraska [mailto:acbn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx]
>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 09, 2009 6:26 AM
> To: Jim Jirak
> Subject: Fw: [leadership] Textbooks for
> disabled,Particularly College
> Students
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Denny Huff, (MCB - A Great Place To Be)" <dhuff@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> To: "'ACB Leadership'" <leadership@xxxxxxx>
> Cc: "Missouri-L" <Missouri-L@xxxxxxxxxxx>;
> "'Adaptive technology information
>
> and support.'" <ati@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> Sent: Sunday, September 06, 2009 5:33 AM
> Subject: [leadership] Textbooks for disabled,Particularly
> College Students
>
>
> > Subject: [Training-center-professionals] Textbooks for
> disabled,
> > Particularly College Students
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > From http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/08/28/access
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Textbooks for the Disabled
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > 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 AccessText <http://www.accesstext.org/> , 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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