[Athen] New e-reader for Cengage Brain and Cengage Unlimited users

[Deborah Armstrong]

I agree that learning a new reader is a serious pain. Blind students who enjoy technology like me can do it and not really stress over it too much if it is accessible. My experience is that our low-vision students struggle more, simply because they often have vision which keeps changing and they are expecting interface elements to appear in the same place on the screen. Plus in the community college, we see many who are slowly loosing their vision and transitioning to a new way of living; asking them to learn multiple reading systems is so unfair!

Physically disabled folk also need consistency in interface elements, which is something that multiple readers don't give you very often.

It's even worse for someone with learning differences who has enough on their plate to just get a passing grade in class. Learning a new reader is not just a burden: it's a barrier!

This may sound like preaching to the choir, but I submit all this to justify to professors why adopting the shiniest and most heavily marketed new platform may not be the best choice.  If you can use some of my reasoning when chatting with them, go for it!

--Debee


From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> On Behalf Of George Kerscher
Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2019 11:44 AM
To: 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] New e-reader for Cengage Brain and Cengage Unlimited users

Hello folks,

Yes, Benetech and many others are testing EPUB readers and the results are at epubtest.org

I have just contacted Cengage about the possibility of testing their new reader.

Also at Benetech, they are testing the content from publishers to make sure it conforms to the EPUB Accessibility standard, which is based on WCAG 2.0

Macmillan  is the first publisher to pass that rigorous set of tests and receive certification. To be clear the EPUB is opened in a reading App.   And there are many available.

It will be interesting to see how Cengage compares on accessibility. They have agreed to be in my session accepted for AHG.

Personally, I find it hard to think that publishers will want their own reader. As a blind user, I want to learn a Reading App inside and out and become efficient. I would not like to learn a new reader for each book I purchase. I will be advocating for publishers to distribute their born accessible content through multiple sources so I can choose where to buy the titles.

Best
George

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu>> On Behalf Of Wershing, Alice D.
Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2019 11:10 AM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Athen] New e-reader for Cengage Brain and Cengage Unlimited users

Hello,
I wonder what Benetech will say about the accessibility of a new internal reader.  They have been working with all of the reading systems to determine their accessibility.   The only publisher that I'm aware of that has passed Benetech's Accessibility program is Macmillan.

Alice D. Wershing, M.Ed., A.T.P., C.P.A.C.C.
Disability Services, Technology Specialist Pellissippi State Community College
865-694-6751
865-539-7699 (fax)

East TN Region Accessibility Specialist<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.tnecampus.info_specialists&d=DwMFAg&c=WORo6LNFtQOb4SPVta8Jsg&r=K_2Yg4I05GGnHlSOevlp3QeE5-JEqtmoUnmP0YVj9ZM&m=PG4Ty_eeH3cG1FCkC_Os72hnaSHZAqzc5sSwRCh47mI&s=0axRy0dWIEg1TTjiZhijkMzNhefl17JVN4ghAkR6hgU&e=>
Tenessee Board of Regents-TN eCampus

PSCC Access for All Blog<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__blogs.pstcc.edu_access4all_&d=DwMFAg&c=WORo6LNFtQOb4SPVta8Jsg&r=K_2Yg4I05GGnHlSOevlp3QeE5-JEqtmoUnmP0YVj9ZM&m=PG4Ty_eeH3cG1FCkC_Os72hnaSHZAqzc5sSwRCh47mI&s=QONStXrZVEAA45C2cFzs5wsw08TgNKUUrCMJNRF-bEQ&e=>
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From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu>> On Behalf Of Susan Kelmer
Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2019 11:26 AM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Athen] New e-reader for Cengage Brain and Cengage Unlimited users

As usual, publishers are deciding how our students are to access their materials.  This is not their job, nor their purview.

Publishers like to say they are listening to us.

They are not.  They never have.  And this is unfortunate for our students.

On the plus side, none of us will be unemployed anytime soon, as there will still be a need for us to remediate materials to fit the student's needs!

Susan Kelmer
Alternate Format Production Program Manager
Disability Services
University of Colorado Boulder
303-735-4836



From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu>> On Behalf Of Deborah Armstrong
Sent: Wednesday, July 24, 2019 9:20 AM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Subject: [Athen] New e-reader for Cengage Brain and Cengage Unlimited users

https://blog.vitalsource.com/update-for-users<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__blog.vitalsource.com_update-2Dfor-2Dusers&d=DwMFAg&c=WORo6LNFtQOb4SPVta8Jsg&r=K_2Yg4I05GGnHlSOevlp3QeE5-JEqtmoUnmP0YVj9ZM&m=PG4Ty_eeH3cG1FCkC_Os72hnaSHZAqzc5sSwRCh47mI&s=QMM4kByaB_A9ZuJWOu0YZH6O1bAatSM-OD8jRrph-dI&e=>
This is from the VitalSource blog. Apparently Cengage is pulling many of their textbooks off VitalSource and their new home will be an internal e-reader.

My experience with students is even when an e-reader is fairly accessible, the students want to stick with a tool they know, whether it's their Kindle, Balabolka, K3000 or Read and Write.

I'm guessing that Cengage, like Pearson is going to "certify" more and more of their content as accessible  and encourage students to buy  a textbook in the e-reader.

I have some experience with Cengage Brain, and  on the positive side, there seems to be a "read aloud" button on every page so you can use the voice built in to your OS to listen to that page, as long as your browser and OS supports that. There also seems to be captioning on most of the videos for the two courses with which I have experience.

On the negative side, a book that has charts, tables and similar visual content may or may not have descriptions, and even when descriptions exist, if the image is just a picture of text - such as a picture of a spreadsheet or computer screen, the description won't contain the actual text.

--Debee

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