A presentation to the Statewide Academic Affairs Committee January 25, 2005

1. CSU Center for Alternate MediaProviding Timely Access to Instructional Materials for Students with Print Disabilities A presentation to the Statewide Academic Affairs Committee January 25, 2005

2. Today’s Presentation • Background information • The Work of the CAM • Current Critical Challenge: Timeliness in Providing Alternate Formats of Instructional Materials

3. What is the CSU Center for Alternate Media (CAM)? • Authorized center coordinating the request and distribution of electronic text (e-text) for students with print disabilities in the CSU • Established in July 1, 2004 • Housed at the San Bernardino campus • Mission is to expedite the delivery of alternate formats of instructional materials (primarily e-text) to students with disabilities

4. Legal mandate to provide accommodations • Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act • Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), Title II “Reasonable” “Equally effective”

5. Office of Civil Rights (OCR): Components of Effective Communications • Timeliness of Delivery • Accuracy of Translation • Appropriate Manner and Medium

6. Electronic Text – A New Tool • Electronic Text (E-text) is digitized text • Read aloud by Screen Reader software on a computer • Fonts can be enlarged onscreen rather than through copier enlargement • Can be transformed to Braille through Braille translation software • Multimodal, searchable, portable • Better learning tool

7. Students Talk about E-Text • “The Gift” produced by students and faculty at Tompkins Cortland Community College • http://www.tc3.edu/bcl/altformhandbook/

8. How do we get e-text? • Produced by campus disability services via a scanning process: - Debind book - Scan pages (image file) - Convert to digital text via OCR process - Edit for spelling, page #s, columns, spacing, headers, formulas, tables, graphs - Secondary conversion to appropriate format as required (i.e. MP3) - Braille requires much more effort • Obtained from publishers via state law (AB 422) Publishers doing business in California will supply electronic file of textbook free of charge to eligible students with disabilities provided certain conditions are met (proof of purchase of book etc.)

9. CAM’s Role Help campuses deliver effective alternate formats of textbooks to eligible students in a timely manner by • Enabling the sharing of e-text files to reduce redundancy • Streamlining publisher request processes • Working to increase publishers’ timeliness of response and to improve quality of e-text files

10. CAM Database Allows campuses to • input e-text titles they’ve produced or received from publishers • browse for needed titles • request a title from another campus and obtain it electronically • order books from publishers

11. Increase in the number of e-text files obtained from publishers 2001-02: 167 (27%) publisher files 451 (73%) campus-scanned *2004-05: 1171 (46%) publisher files 1394 (54%) campus-scanned. * As of 9/6/05, complete files

12. Cost Savings and Return on Investments • Actual e-text files shared: 182 • Based on a calculation of $675 for converting a book to e-text, the estimated savings is $122,850 • CAM operating expense in 04-05: $96,000 • CAM in its first year has exceeded its projected return on investment.

13. Publisher Requests Made By Campuses: 6 month comparison Increase in 98% from 04-05 to 05-06 for the 6 month period

14. Intercampus Sharing Activity: 6 month comparison Increase in 115% from 04-05 to 05-06 for the 6 month period

15. A Picture of Timeliness (or lack thereof) • Student registers during advance registration and turns in request (student does not register during advance registration or courses are added and dropped) • Disability Services (DS) staff researches for textbook titles based upon course registration (no textbook is identified for the course) • DS staff attempts to contact instructor to find out textbook title (can’t reach instructor or don’t know who is assigned to teach the course) • 1st day of term: student buys book and brings in to DS office (usually doesn’t happen on the first day) • 1st and 2nd week of term: DS office checks CAM and other repositories for available alternate format (not available in CAM or other repositories) • Order e-text from publisher (publisher takes 2 to 6 weeks to respond) • 4th week of term: DS office receives file from publisher (file needs editing) • 5th week of term: e-text file is cleaned up and alternate format of textbook is finally ready for student

16. Responsibilities in Meeting the Timely Provision of Instructional Materials • Student: registering in advance and submitting request to DS office in a timely manner • DS Office: obtaining or producing the alternate format of instructional materials in a timely manner • CAM: enabling the sharing of e-text files and working with publishers to increase their response time and e-text file quality • Faculty: identifying textbooks in a timely manner

17. How can faculty help? • Early adoption of textbook • Make syllabi available online or at least available at the department • Allow use of an older edition of a textbook (especially for books in Braille) • Use digital materials as much as possible, for example, in course readers (course packs) • If using a course reader, provide a copy of the to the DS Office in advance of the term • Follow the suggestions outlined in the “Q&A”

18. Academic Affairs Committee Support • Request for your help to get faculty on board to assist with this critical issue that has ethical and legal ramifications – the timely provision of instructional materials to students with disabilities

19. Contact Information CAM@csusb.edu • CAM Supervisor Mike Ross, Director of Academic Media Computing, CSU San Bernardino, mross@csusb.edu • CAM Database Consultant Evans Kahuthu, Webmaster, CSU San Bernardino, kahuthu@csusb.edu • CAM Interim Liaison Rosa Padilla, CSU San Bernardino, padilla3@csusb.edu • Director of Accessible Technology Initiative, Mary Cheng, Chancellor’s Office, mary.cheng@csueastbay.edu