[Athen] ePubs need Adobe Digital Editions PLUS Jaws to read?

Andrea L. Dietrich adietrich at cornell.edu
Thu Jul 12 08:22:44 PDT 2018


IMO, epubs would be great IF there was a good way for students using them to get the original textbook page numbers. In my experience, epubs don’t have easily found original pages, so if a professor says “read pages 23-50,” a student using an epub will be lost. Please correct me if I’m wrong – maybe I’m missing something obvious, which would be great – but for now that’s the biggest hurdle to switching to epub for me.

Thanks,
Andi :)
--------------------------
Andrea Dietrich
Cornell University
Student Disability Services
Cornell Health, Level 5
110 Ho Plaza
Ithaca, NY 14853
http://sds.cornell.edu<http://sds.cornell.edu/>

Tel. 607.254.4545
Fax. 607.255.1562

Office Hours:
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From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> On Behalf Of Rachel Comerford
Sent: Wednesday, July 11, 2018 9:07 PM
To: athen-list at u.washington.edu
Subject: Re: [Athen] ePubs need Adobe Digital Editions PLUS Jaws to read?

Hi Susan!
Adobe Digital Editions (ADE) is one of the many readers that will open epubs. It isn't a proprietary format (although they may have a format that they push as well). ADE is the platform (like ibooks, kindle, vitalsource, redshelf, and others) and EPUB is the format of the content (basically all of the text, design files, navigation files, etc). Students who use Kurzweil or Read and Write Gold can also open epubs in those platforms although those companies are in the process of doing some updating to allow for more ease of use of epub.

My favorite epub reader for textbooks is vitalsource. It's free to download the reader and the company has worked really closely with Benetech and DAISY to build an accessible ebook reader. There are a lot of good ones out there though.

I wholeheartedly believe that PDFs were a good solution for students using AT but EPUBs are a better one. The accessibility metadata that can be built into them, the clear navigation without remediation, and the ability to resize and reflow text (no more horizontal scrolling!!) are just a few reasons.

Just my 2 cents in case it helps. I know there will be some talk about this at AHEAD and AHG this year - maybe we'll get a chance to meet there!

If the file is DRM'd - have you tried reaching out through BookShare or AccessText Network for a file that isn't? I know we provide DRM-free files via those libraries... I'm sure other publishers do to.

Rachel

Rachel Comerford | Senior Director of Content Standards and Accessibility | T 212.576.9433

Macmillan Learning


Message: 5
Date: Mon, 9 Jul 2018 17:44:33 +0000
From: Susan Kelmer <Susan.Kelmer at colorado.edu<mailto:Susan.Kelmer at colorado.edu>>
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network
<athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Athen] ePubs need Adobe Digital Editions PLUS Jaws to
read?
Message-ID:
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Removing DRM to produce an accessible file for a student with a disability is legally allowed. Converting any type of file to another type of file for accessibility purposes is legally allowed.

We are not "illegals!"

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 chagnon at pubcom.com<mailto:chagnon at pubcom.com>
Sent: Monday, July 09, 2018 11:40 AM
To: 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Athen] ePubs need Adobe Digital Editions PLUS Jaws to read?

FYI, DRM (digital rights management) was developed to protect the copyright and control the distribution of the content.
Be careful what you post on a public list! <grin>

- - -
Bevi Chagnon, founder/CEO | Bevi at PubCom.com<mailto:Bevi at PubCom.com<mailto:Bevi at PubCom.com>>
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PubCom: Technologists for Accessible Design + Publishing
consulting * training * development * design * sec. 508 services
Upcoming classes at www.PubCom.com/classes<http://www.pubcom.com/classes><http://www.PubCom.com/classes<http://www.pubcom.com/classes>>
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From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu><mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu>>> On Behalf Of Susan Kelmer
Sent: Monday, July 9, 2018 12:20 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu><mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>>
Subject: Re: [Athen] ePubs need Adobe Digital Editions PLUS Jaws to read?

Thanks, Bevi. I will likely be experimenting with some cracking, to see if I can get it out of DRM.

I've had success in the past doing this. This will be no different.

-Susan

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu><mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu>>> On Behalf Of chagnon at pubcom.com<mailto:chagnon at pubcom.com><mailto:chagnon at pubcom.com<mailto:chagnon at pubcom.com>>
Sent: Monday, July 9, 2018 10:01 AM
To: 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu><mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>>
Subject: Re: [Athen] ePubs need Adobe Digital Editions PLUS Jaws to read?

Adobe Digital Editions is a proprietary eBook format (not EPUB) that does indeed require software or plug-ins in order to access the file.

Since its proprietary rather than open source, we generally stay away from it. Plus, Adobe charges a small fortune to developers to create and publish titles in Adobe Digital Editions.

And it's not EPUB, the universal open source ebook reader file format that pretty much anyone can open on any device.

Adobe's website does say it is now accessible. See https://www.adobe.com/solutions/ebook/digital-editions.html

- - -
Bevi Chagnon, founder/CEO | Bevi at PubCom.com<mailto:Bevi at PubCom.com<mailto:Bevi at PubCom.com>>
- - -
PubCom: Technologists for Accessible Design + Publishing
consulting * training * development * design * sec. 508 services
Upcoming classes at www.PubCom.com/classes<http://www.pubcom.com/classes><http://secure-web.cisco.com/1fPUvjX9jiMIJMlgPZfalTDuqonDjkDCjL_1-xyRROP-epedYN3ZF8eWpxwLvkq-mbtdMmZVNI1QW0X3m3NyxiB_r1vyLsMypmPJ6hITcaZsPvEUw2ygWovsqJUfGgTrY8hqL9JHdHQ4u7YYztxqR46IcpBd-_6C_COQlPuls5MAaoDzY4M-FAiqP-McYNcCUuq2X60RnXytBPU9P64kaOhpWodRLmuU4irYx1cXiH4GoAZ5nyEsia220xQFXXYpAsyM2cwYDjVwSjWzERGL3v2gMA0YWy9OrIDxgihRUaTKZ1Y76bU_R5Km9UoVGpqSOL9mrx34SR9ue8Em5xiS2AalJtmmVdFAT52LaKQfHqzlSLuz3m7pqLrf9t2o9d1Qm7r3dUdjWvnFX_pzigCLVXa0dUYcoXsCPcnzA6_vssGKgHJpThqfczezxTK3Rjby6l5t_BpYfWC-TuVZV261d9A/http%3A%2F%2Fwww.PubCom.com%2Fclasses>
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From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu><mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu>>> On Behalf Of Susan Kelmer
Sent: Monday, July 9, 2018 10:51 AM
To: ALTMEDIA at LISTSERV.CCCNEXT.NET<mailto:ALTMEDIA at LISTSERV.CCCNEXT.NET><mailto:ALTMEDIA at LISTSERV.CCCNEXT.NET<mailto:ALTMEDIA at LISTSERV.CCCNEXT.NET>>; Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu><mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>>; athes at lists.colorado.edu<mailto:athes at lists.colorado.edu><mailto:athes at lists.colorado.edu<mailto:athes at lists.colorado.edu>>
Subject: [Athen] ePubs need Adobe Digital Editions PLUS Jaws to read?

Sorry for the cross-posting...some of you may see this more than once.

A colleague brought this to my attention. My understanding was that Jaws could read EPUBs already, but one she just received from a publisher requires the download/installation/use of Adobe Digital Editions in addition to Jaws to read.

Is this new, or have I missed something? Since publishers are now foisting ePubs onto us, I need to know if we are going to run into these types of problems. "It will work, but, you need this thing and this thing and this other thing too..."

My biggest gripe is needing to give students yet another way they have to read their materials, when what they had in the first place was working just fine before publishers decided to take it upon themselves to tell us what our students need and want.

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

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