How can you improve the offer of textbooks in alternative format for disabled learners, particularly for those hit by changes to the DSA?
The best solution is, ideally, to already have an accessible e-book on an accessible e-book platform. Even if the book or platform lacks accessibility they may often be more than adequate for the needs of a particular user.
If you don’t have the book in e-book format there are four things you can do before you should consider hardcopy scanning:
- Empower the student to identify and meet their own needs.
- Use a centralised service like RNIB collections, BookShare or the CLA Digital Content store to get an accessible version.
- See if you can crowd source a copy from a relevant library list like LIS-Accessibility
- Contact the publisher for a digital version.
Want some more details?
For more information have a look at this online guide to obtaining textbooks in alternative formats as well as our recommended workflow diagram for alternative formats.
…and don’t forget to give us comments on how we might improve it. If you do something clever that we haven’t thought of yet we’d love to learn.