CREATING A SYSTEM WIDE MODEL
FOR SERVING STUDENTS WITH LEARNING DISABILITY IN POST- SECONDARY SETTINGS
Presenter(s)
Day
Email:
leecm@uga.edu
Presenter
#2
Day Phone: 770—423—6443
Email: cpope@kennesaw.edu
Presenter
#3
Carolyn
Phillips
Georgia Assistive Technology Project, Tools for Life
Day Phone: 404—759—5364
Email: carolynpp@mindspring.corn
The
purpose of this paper is to outline a pilot project to establish a University
System of Georgia Alternative Media Access Center. Under federal law (1973
Rehabilitation Act/1990 Americans with Disabilities Act) students with print
disabilities are entitled to the academic and intellectual resources of the
nation’s colleges and universities. Through accommodation, these important laws
have evened the playing field, providing this population with access to all the
possibilities that education can offer. For institutions like the University
System of Georgia CUSS), this mandate presents an important challenge - the
timely conversion of a diverse and complex array of printed materials into
accessible and user-friendly formats. With a growing population of eligible
students enrolled in most of the USG’s 34 institutions, it was time to explore
better ways to produce and deliver alternative media to students in
post—secondary education settings with print disabilities.
During
the past three years, a program has been under development at the USA Learning
Disabilities Center called the
This
delivery system has become the centerpiece of the Alternative Text Model moving
steadily toward electronically delivered text (e—text) as the mot accessible,
user—friendly, efficient, and cost—effective option to providing this
accommodation to students with print disabilities. The recent expansion of
on-line learning at all USG colleges and universities makes it possible to
apply this model system—wide.
At
the completion of the pilot, the program may be expanded to include another
segment of USS colleges and universities or all 34 institutions. This program
has the potential to streamline and improve the delivery of alternative media
to all eligible students with print disabilities system-wide and it is the
recommendation of the authors that the USS Alternative Media Access Center be
established on the
The
term “alternative media” has been chosen in preference to “alternative text”
because it is more representative of the final product of document conversion.
However, these terms are used interchangeably throughout the proposal.
In
2002/03 there were 131 students who had VI and 346 students with LD who
accessed alternative text in USC schools. However, there were 97 students with
other types of disabilities who also received alt—text. So the impact of this
group must also be considered. For the purposes of this project, however, we
will refer primarily to students with LD and visual limitations.
While
the numbers of students with VI and ID have not increased at the same rate as
the overall number of students with disabilities served, this group continues
to grow steadily. It is important to note that with the addition of even one
student with a print disability you can add, on average, five textbooks to be
provided in alt-text per year (based on the USA LDC experience). System-wide,
the number of textbooks requested per student is closer to two per student.
This is most likely because some institutions are simply not equipped to fill
all requests.
Approximately
20 to 25 percent of students with learning disabilities who registered for
services at the USA LDC typically requested printed materials in alternative
text. A larger group was actually eligible to receive the accommodation, but
did not consistently use it from semester to semester, requesting only the
occasional text or reading to be converted.
Overall,
the numbers translate into an enormous job for disability service providers (dsps) within the USC. For instance, the actual number of
pages produced (scanned, read, etc.) in—house at the UGA LDC, from Spring 2000
through 2002/03 totaled nearly 160,000 pages. Between the academic years of
1998/99 and 2002/03, eligible students at the LDC requested on average 4.3
books per year. It is estimated that the actual number of pages requested by
467 students in 2,030 readings (primarily textbooks), during the entire
five—year period, exceeded 800,000 pages in all (based on a conservative
estimate of 400 pages per book).
While
no comprehensive survey has been conducted with dsps
serving the USC’s population of students with print
disabilities, more informal information has been gathered by groups such as
CADSPHS (Georgia Association of Disability Service Providers in Higher
Education) which is now Georgia AHEAD (Association for Higher Education Access
and Disability). Many of these dsps are struggling to
keep up with the students’ requests. Some operate one-person departments that
serve all students with disabilities and provide all services with the aid of
only a few student workers.
Many
have never tapped publishers for electronic files (e-files) and don’t have the
time or personnel to clean (proofread, format, add page numbers, etc.) when
they do. Some are handing e-files to students directly from publishers, while
others ask students to scan in all their own materials. The means and methods
are very diverse, prompting the question:
A similar question was the basis of litigation in
Clearly,
there is a critical imperative for USC institutions to provide timely textbooks
in acceptable alternative formats to students with print disabilities - an
imperative that currently may not be met across all USC schools.
Availability
of Alternative Formats
In 2000, the UGA LDC was serving an increasing number of students requesting
books on tape. The alternative text coordinator began outsourcing or procuring
as many texts as were already available in alternate formats. It was the quest
to “procure” rather than “produce” alternative text that led to: 1) the
development of a protocol to search for texts that may already be available in
other formats; 2) the establishment of a formal library database of audio
collections that were already recorded at the LDC; and 3) the search for better
ways to produce alternative text using technology.
Procuring
or outsourcing alt-text is a time-consuming but worthwhile task. A dsp at a USC college or university need not conclude that
s/he will have to hire a reader, recruit a volunteer, or scan every textbook
requested. But few dsps have the time or resources to
make a comprehensive search of all available sources for every book requested
in alt—text.
In
2002/03, 64 students requested 257 textbooks and other readings in alt—text at
the UGA LDC. That year, the percentages of methods of procurement or production
at the QUA Regents Center for Learning Disorders.
A
total of 71 percent of requests were procured or produced using the most time-
efficient and cost—effective methods (i.e. outsourcing and scanning), 29
percent was recorded by paid readers. This moved the UCA LDC closer to the
alt—text model than ever before, making better use of all available resources.
It is important to note, however, that there will always be a component of
students with print disabilities for whom a human reader is the optimum choice
of alternative formats and any system-wide program should be designed so that
this option continues to be available.
Costs
The cost of the methods of procurement and production vary markedly, with the
hiring of student readers representing the most expensive method of producing
alternative text. Procuring alt-text from the RFED and the NUB (Special Needs
Libraries) are the least expensive options. For example, the cost to convert a
single textbook, Herbaceous Perennial Plants by Allan M. Armitage,
in a variety of methods. The UGA LDC converted this reference book for a
student during the spring 2004 semester. It contains 1,091 pages of species and
individual plants in both Latin and English terms. This represents one of the
most challenging types of texts to read due to its content and length and would
cost approximately $720 for a hired reader to record. This figure is based on
the formula that a reader can record approximately 20 pages per 90-minute
cassette tape.
Adding
in administrative and media costs, the total cost of reading and recording this
book is approximately $720. In this instance, the LDC actually obtained an
electronic file from the author, a UGA professor. A staff worker was then able
to clean the text. It was saved in a Word file on CD and given to the student
who accessed the text using Kurzweil 3000. This
method cost $299 by comparison, a savings of $421.
Remarkably,
these are the types of books dsps are most often
called upon to convert in—house — chemistry, biology, statistics, and
references — because of the frequent turnover of editions. Faculty members
typically prefer to use the latest editions in their classes. Even though every
effort was made to obtain these texts in alternate formats using other
resources, the LDC needed to convert 47 percent of all texts (29 percent
recorded by human readers and 18 percent scanned) requested in 2002/03.
References
1. Board of Regents of the University of Georgia. Annual Reports on Students
with
Disabilities, 1998/99—2002/03.
2. UGA Learning Disabilities Center. Alternative Text — A Five Year Comparison
of
Data, 1998/99—2002/03.
3. Chancellor’s Office, California Community Colleges. Guidelines for Producing
Instructional and Other Printed Materials in Alternate Media for Persons with
Disabilities. Preface and Part 1, April 2000.
4. Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic. Stats for College Level Borrowers,
National and Georgia, May 2004. This data was collected, compiled and presented
by a blind student, Brian Oglesbee, who is a graduate
of the University of Georgia.
5. Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic. University System of Georgia Colleges
and Universities with Institutional Memberships to the RFB&D, as of March
2004.
6. USA Learning Disabilities Center. The Cost of Alternative Text Production,
March 2004.
7. Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic. Proposed Global Institutional
Membership for the University System of Georgia, March 2004.
8. UGA Learning Disabilities Center Website. Alternative Text (Books on Iape) online order access and forms.
http:/ /w ww cc e.u ga ed u/ id ce nt er /s er
vice /bco ks/r eguest
9. UGA Learning Disabiiities Center. Alternative Text
Request Form (paper).
10. UGA Learning Disabilities Center. Alternative Text Summer Orders 2004
Database.
11. UGA Learning Disabilities Center. Alternative Text Summer Readings 2004
Database.
12. UGA Learning Disabilities Center. Alternative Text Production Options Demo
(CD
with purple cover).
13.
UGA Learning Disabilities Center. Copyright Statement which appears at the
beginning of each online reading in Vista/WebCT.
14. Chancellor’s Office, California Community Colleges. Guidelines for
Producing
Instructional and Other Printed Materials in Alternate Media for Persons with
Disabilities. Part 1, Legal Requirements and Appendix V, April 2000.
15. UGA Learning Disabilities Center. Alternative Text Student Agreement.
16. US. Postal Regulation E040 Free Matter for the Blind and Other Physically
Handicapped Persons.
17. UGA Learning Disabilities Center. Alternative Text Library Collections
Database.
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