[Athen] VitalSource

[Petri, Kenneth]

Alexa,

This thread is a little old, but in case you are still looking at VitalSource, one thing to note in the accessibility results on the epubtest.org site is that VitalSource only supports highlighting and notetaking if the user has purchased the book through the VitalSource/Ingram system. The test results on EPUB Test note these features are not supported, but that is because the EPUB Test Suite is “side loaded.” VitalSouce’s reader is one of the few EPUB3 reading platforms that supports usable note-taking and highlighting for screen reader users – with the caveat that those features are only available if you buy the books through the VitalSource system itself.

Overall, it seems clear that VitalSource has done significant accessibility work. It’s too bad the system has the preference for native rather than side-loaded content.

Additionally, I second what George says about the accessibility of the source EPUB. It can be a crap shoot. We’ve found that many of the EPUBs produced by publishers lack good HTML semantics, alt text on images, etc., and often have poorly implemented tables and sometimes have poor/interrupted source order (blocks of text that are interrupted by sidebar or other text elements that negatively affect reading flow).

ken
[The Ohio State University]
Ken Petri, Program Director
Web Accessibility Center, ADA Coordinator's Office and Student Life Disability Services
102D Pomerene Hall | 1760 Neil Ave. Columbus, OH 43210
614-292-1760 Office | 614-218-1499 Mobile | 614-292-4190 Fax
petri.1 at osu.edu<mailto:petri.1 at osu.edu> | wac.osu.edu<http://wac.osu.edu/>

From: athen-list [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman13.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of George Kerscher
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 1:37 PM
To: athen-list at u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: [Athen] VitalSource

Last post bounced for some reason…
Hi,

You might want to check out the accessibility rating at www.epubtest.org<http://www.epubtest.org>

View the support grid with 78 reading systems; Vital Source is in there under their different platforms.
The direct link to the grid is:
http://epubtest.org/results/

The far right column is for accessibility. Follow the link for the details, like with JFW or NVDA, etc.

Also, when books are brought into the Vital Source collection (or any other company), there is a big difference between good EPUB and bad PDF, so that handshake between content and reading systems should be considered.

The epubtest is testing with good EPUB.

Best
George


From: athen-list [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman13.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Alexa Schriempf
Sent: Friday, October 31, 2014 10:46 AM
To: Alternate Media; Access Technology Higher Education Network
Subject: [Athen] VitalSource

Hello All,

Has anyone had an opportunity to experience VitalSource as a place for books that are accessible to JAWS users? I've got a request for a stat book published by Wiley, which is using VitalSource as its eBook platform.

Thanks!


--
Alexa Schriempf, PhD
Access Tech Consultant
https://sites.psu.edu/aschriempf/


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