[Athen] AltFormat Survey

[Kathleen Cahill]

Susan, you summed it up so well.  Especially Penguin and Random House. I would also add that science simulations online are difficult to make accessible and students with disabilities lose out on those important teaching tools.

STEM alt format is challenging since there are a number of ways to do it, all of which are somewhat convoluted and difficult.

Our faculty sometimes provides course materials and class slides with little to no lead time for conversion.  Getting them to think ahead more is tough.  I second Susan’s comment about the difficulties of what DAISY books work with what readers.

Susan’s point about professors and teaching staff thinking they understand how to provide alt format is also true.  We’ve had issues where the professors think they get it, the student isn’t always clear about their needs and the exam isn’t the right format.  We try to iron out these issues ahead of time, but it doesn’t always happen.


Kathleen Cahill
MIT Assistive Technology Information Center (ATIC)
77 Mass. Ave. 7-143
Cambridge MA 02139
(617) 253-5111
kcahill at mit.edu


From: Susan Kelmer <Susan.Kelmer at Colorado.EDU<mailto:Susan.Kelmer at Colorado.EDU>>
Reply-To: Access Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Date: Wednesday, April 2, 2014 at 10:13 AM
To: Access Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Athen] AltFormat Survey

Penguin
Random House

Only half kidding.  Actually, not kidding at all.  These two publishers give me the biggest grief. Aside from that:


1.       Publishers and others assuming that Bookshare is good enough.  It is good for certain types of students, but not for all of them.

2.       Difficulty in STEM alt format – the conversion process, how much manual labor is involved, how complex the tools are.

3.       The assumption that an alt format person is also a content expert.

4.       A hundred different formats for a hundred different reasons, and needing specialized software to access some of them (Learning Ally and Bookshare and ePub and Daisy and and and) rather than the tools the student may already have.

5.       Professors and teaching staff that don’t understand how important alternate format is, and how they can provide it easily themselves without our intervention.

Those would be my top five.  I’m interested to see what others come up with.

Susan Kelmer
Alternate Format Coordinator
Disability Services
University of Colorado
303-735-4836
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman12.u.washington.edu/pipermail/athen-list/attachments/20140402/a73d6a6a/attachment.html>