Universities and colleges have a legal obligation to provide resources in accessible formats to print disabled students. However, many of the e-book platforms they subscribe to have limited accessibility or are tied-in to scarcely accessible third-party tools like Adobe Digital Editions. So it is not unusual to need to get the raw file from the publisher […]
Tag: alternative format
Sarah George is a Subject Librarian at the University of Bradford. She was made a National Teaching Fellow in 2017 – and her accessibility remit contributed significantly to that recognition. Here she gives a personal take on e-book accessibility and accessibility activism via research and evidence. I am an academic librarian at the University of Bradford, covering the subjects […]
It seems tautological to write a blog post on open access and accessibility. Surely if something is open access then it is open to anyone and therefore accessible to anyone? Alistair McNaught argues that the link between open access and accessibility is more nuanced than you might expect. Authors and institutions need simple guidelines to […]
Technology often overtakes ethics. Lecture capture is one such example, with powerful (and sometimes controversial) implications for accessibility. Sue Watling, Academic Advisor for Technology Enhanced Learning at the University of Hull, muses on the issues in this guest post. Opt-in? Opt-out? When it comes to institutional policies on the recording of teaching, the answer […]
The good – it works The e-book accessibility audit (August 2016 to November 2016) was a joint project between several UK Higher Education Institution disability and library services, Jisc and representatives from the book supply industry. More information on the partners is available. The audit had three main purposes: To create a sort of “accessibility Esperanto” […]
We’ve already blogged on supporting reading and using built in browser tools but a question we often get is “What’s the difference between screen reading and text readers (or ‘text to speech’ technology)? Often the terms are used interchangeably but, in reality, they are two different kinds of technologies used in different ways. Margaret McKay helps […]
If you’re currently working in a library service and preparing for the impact of changes to the disabled student allowance this blog post is designed to give you a helpful overview of how Jisc can support you. Our three main areas of focus for inclusive libraries has been advocacy, guidance, and case studies. Advocacy: We […]
When you are procuring new institutional platforms (such as eBook, VLE, content creation platforms) or licences have come up for renewal again, check which of the following features are available. If a significant number of these features are missing you might renegotiate costs based on the extra costs you might incur in supporting print impaired […]
There is no single ‘ideal’ way of sourcing your alternative formats because so much depends on the nature of learner, the nature of the resource and the amount of information required. However, just because there is no unique ‘magical workflow’ doesn’t mean it’s not worth looking at what’s available and putting together a starting point […]
Providing alternative formats for staff and students can be a challenging business. What happens when an external library member or an ex-student library user makes a request? This question came to us recently so we put it to our subject specialists for technology and the law – John Kelly and Jackie Milne worked together to give […]