E-Text and Accessibility: What We Need to Know Bruce Maas, UW-Milwaukee Alice Anderson, UW-Madison Emily Baker, University of Chicago Jeffry Archer, University of Chicago Beth Schaefer, UW-Milwaukee

Introduction Welcome Introductions Overview

Institutional challenges Primary Stakeholders Early Adopters The Enterprise Perspective

Institutional challenges Strategic Direction Consider the TCO Planning to offer a quality service to your institution

Institutional challenges Understanding What the Law Requires Institutional Alignment Institutional Resources

Considering accessibility Top 10 Things CIOs Need to Know About Accessibility Accessibility is like Security: Just like security, no one wants to allocate resources to support accessibility, but it needs to be done from a usability, legal and moral perspective. Design and Planning: Designing in accessibility is much more cost effective than trying to “fix” deployed resources, so accessibility must be a part of the planning process for new and updating existing IT resources and services. Procurement: Accessibility must be a included in purchasing requirements and RFPs. Accessibility testing must be integrated into the evaluation of products for purchase. Products will only become more accessible when vendors are held accountable to accessibility standards.

Considering accessibility Top 10 Things CIOs Need to Know About Accessibility Managing Accessibility: IT staff and units must have specific goals and responsibilities to support the improvement in the accessibility of IT resources they create and manage. If accessibility is to be more than just a wish it must be managed. Evaluating Accessibility: A common set of protocols and procedures should be used to evaluate the accessibility of IT resources developed and purchased. Accessibility Standards: Campus standards must be defined and publicized to all campus units and administrators (i.e. Section 508 and/or WCAG 2.0).

Considering accessibility Top 10 Things CIOs Need to Know About Accessibility Best Practices: Develop and use best practices to support the accessible design of IT resources developed or purchased for use on campus. Training: IT staff must be trained in accessibility policies, procedures and use of best practices. Use Accessible Technologies: Select technologies that support accessibility for campus projects and evaluate new technologies for accessibility features before using them. Participation: Include students, faculty and staff with disabilities in setting priorities for making IT resources more accessible on your campus.

Considering accessibility Define e (eText and e-Reader/Book) e-text (from "electronic text"; sometimes written as etext) is, generally, any text-based information that is available in a digitally encoded human-readable format and read by electronic means

Considering accessibility An electronic or digital version of a text Plain text HTML Portable document Format (PDF) DIGITAL LIBRARIES:
Electronic Journal and
Text Archives E-mails and Other Personal Communications Other proprietary or software-specific

Considering accessibility STANDARDS - Ebook formats and file types continue to develop and change through time through advances and developments in technology or the introduction of new proprietary formats. While printed books remain readable for many years, e-books may need to be copied or converted to a new carrier or file type over time. PDF and epub are growing standards, but are not universal. The lack of a single universal standard could significantly affect the longevity of some works and their availability or readability in the future as a result of the format(s) used at the time of production http://www.freewritingadvice.com/index_files/ebookprocon.htm

Considering accessibility What's an ebook (or e-book)?  An ebook is an electronic (or digital) version of a book. The term is also used to refer to either an individual work in a digital format, or a hardware device used to read books in digital format. Some prefer a more precise term to define “ebook device.”  The 'multimedia ebook' term is used in contrast to media which only utilize traditional forms of printed or text books.

Considering accessibility AWARENESS Do we know what accessibility and usability is – do we have a relationship with the student disability services to better understand access to the e-world

Considering accessibility VENDOR- raise awareness among vendors-those who are developing the products-that are using education, or in society, need to be aware of accessibility, how to build accessibility into products at all levels of product development and design, from planning, to development, to Q&A. Ask vendors about their product and engage them in terms of how a person who is blind can access this product or service. Have they given some consideration to that? Is there something built in to their development process that addresses that? If somebody can't use a mouse, are they still going to be able to use this software application? Raising vendor awareness and helping to push the development of accessible products are we going to have accessible products to choose from.

Considering accessibility At our institutions - influence vendors. It's not enough to let the vendors know that they need to do this because it's nice. There has either a legal stimulus, or probably even more realistically, a market-based incentive. We have seen this in California and with the federal government - that model is working, that market driven model.

Considering accessibility Electronic textbooks. The representative from McGraw-Hill said that we're at the first at-bat in the first inning of the game in terms of producing electronic texts. In terms of accessibility, It has been a lot longer than that. It's been a very long process; probably since the Rehab Act of 1973 -trying to get accessible textbooks for individuals with disabilities. And kind of the de-facto approach at the moment is for disability services offices, primarily, are charged with making materials accessible, to rip the book apart and scan it, and do OCR on it, and to try to convert it in a timely fashion into an accessible document. It's very difficult to get materials out of the publisher.

Technology and support considerations Devices / Readers (not all formats readable on all readers) – Tablet like computers, smartphones (iPhone, Blackberry, etc) Amazon Kindle Android Devices Apple iOS Devices Barnes and Noble Nook COOL-ER Classic Foxit eSlick Kobo eReader Microsoft Reader

Technology and support considerations On-the-ground perspective on service to patrons Fulfilling requests for research materials Converting "regular" e-reserve documents that are assigned course readings

Technology and support considerations Scenario: Your institution has decided to propose a pilot of an ebook reader. What considerations would your group need to consider to implement the pilot? Legal Office Disability Services Office Student Faculty Library Technology Others? Where do the power and authority sit on your campus? What are the real life examples of where you see this on your campus?

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