1. ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY OF ALASKA
Accessible Instructional Materials
www.atlaak.org

2. Accessible Instructional Materials
NIMAC | National Instructional Materials Access Center
provides the technical specifications designed to speed the creation of
student-ready accessible materials
NIMAS | National Instructional Materials Access Standard
a repository for the cataloging, storage and distribution of accessible files
CAST | Center for Applied Special Technology
educational research & development organization that works to expand
learning opportunities for all individuals through Universal Design for
Learning
AIM | Accessible Instructional Materials
specialized formats of curricular content that can be used by and with
print-disabled learners
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3. Accessible Instructional Materials
Problems addressed by NIMAS
Students • Consistency
• Timely delivery • Copyright issues
• Appropriate formats • Multiple outputs
• Breaks down one barrier • Market model
• Increases independence
Educators
• Reduces duplication effort
• Timeliness
• Increases awareness
Publishers
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4. DEED
District
SESA/AKCAM

5. Accessible Instructional Materials
My Workflow Publishers
NIMAC Locally Produced Publisher
Authorize User (DOE)
Accessible
Media Producer
(SESA)
+ =
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6. Accessible Instructional Materials
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7. Accessible Instructional Materials
What are “Specialized Formats”?
Embossed Braille
Digital Braille - BRF (Braille Ready Format)
Large Print
Audio
Digital Text
• DAISY (Digital Accessible Information SYstem)
• HTML eBooks
• Word and Rich Text files
• PDF
Digital does NOT always mean ACCESSIBLE
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8. Accessible Instructional Materials
Who REALLY qualifies?
The Library of Congress regulations (36 CFR 701.6(b)(1)) related to the Act to Provide
Books for the Adult Blind provide that "blind persons or other persons with print
disabilities" include:
• Persons who are Blind
visual acuity is 20/200 or less; angular distance no more than 20 degrees.
• Persons with Visual Disability
prevents the reading of standard printed material.
• Persons with Physical Limitations
unable to read, access, or use standard print
• Persons with a Reading Disability (of organic origin)
preventing reading printed material in a normal manner.
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9. Accessible Instructional Materials
Examples of Certifying
Disability Qualified/Not Qualified
Professionals
Visual Impairment (VI), such as blindness or
Qualified A family doctor, ophthalmologist,
low vision
neurologist, psychiatrist, optometrist,
physical therapist, or other medical
professional.
Physical Disability (PD) which affects the
ability to read print, such as inability to hold a Qualified Teacher of the visually impaired, special
book or turn pages education teacher, learning disability
specialist, school psychologist, clinical
psychologist with a background in learning
disabilities, resource specialist or other
educational professional
Students with a severe enough disability,
Severe Learning Disability that affects the and a professional certifying that the Certification from the National Library
ability to read standard print disability is severe enough and the Service
individual needs accessible formats.
Proof of membership with RFB&D
Autism
Emotional disabilities
ADHD Not qualified, unless accompanied by a
visual or physical disability, or a qualified Not applicable
Other Learning Challenges reading disability that has a physical basis
ESL and ELL
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10. Accessible Instructional Materials
AIM for the GOAL?
•AIM Explorer
•AIM Implementation Guide
•AIM Navigator
aim.cast.org
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11. Accessible Instructional Materials
Ready, SETT, GO!
Align accessibility with the needs of the student
• Does this STUDENT need instructional materials
in specialized formats to access the curriculum
and receive a free, appropriate, public
education?
• In which ENVIRONMENTS will specialized
materials be used?
• For which TASKS will the student require
materials in which specialized format?
• What TOOLS will the student and others need?
Formats? Teaching? Technology? Training?
Accommodations? Modifications?
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12. Accessible Instructional Materials
Bookshare Basics
Bookshare® is an online library of accessible media for readers with print disabilities.
• Over 125,000 Members
• Over 9,000 schools and other organizations
• Over 95,000 titles
• Over a thousand new books added every month
• Textbooks
• NIMAC textbooks with images
• Postsecondary textbooks
• Over 100 publisher partnerships
• 150 national and regional newspapers and magazines
• New York Times Best Sellers
• Young Reader’s Choice
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13. Accessible Instructional Materials
Bookshare Membership & Qualification
• Any K-12 school can complete a simple online application
to sign up for their FREE Bookshare Organizational
membership.
• Districts must add the names of all of their qualifying
students to a roster on the Bookshare web site.
• Districts must name one staff person as the Primary
Contact.
• Teachers may be added to the Bookshare account by the
Primary Contact as Sponsors, each receiving their own
unique login and password.
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14. Accessible Instructional Materials
Bookshare Membership & Qualification
• Sponsors may be teachers, resource specialists, media
specialists, teacher consultants for the visually impaired, etc.
Sponsors may download books for their qualifying students.
• Students who have been added to the Bookshare roster by
their school may also sign up for a Bookshare individual
membership, allowing them to download books at home.
• NIMAC books can only be downloaded by the educator
serving the qualified student with an IEP. The student must
have an IEP.
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15. Accessible Instructional Materials
Bookshare – The Process
1. Use search tools to find books on the Bookshare web site
2. Choose the format you need: DAISY or BRAILLE
3. Download the book to your computer.
4. Unzip and use the file
www.atlaak.org

16. Formats available from Bookshare
Braille-ready
file (BRF)
format
DAISY book
without
pictures DAISY book with
pictures (note the
small picture icon in
the lower left corner)

17. Tabs found at the top of all
Bookshare web pages.
Most used tabs for
Log In box teachers:
Book Search box
1.Membership
2.Getting Started
3.Help
4.Home

18. Your personalized Task Bar
Once your district has an
organizational account, you will
be able to Log In here.
When you have successfully
logged in to your account,
your personalized Task Bar
will replace the Log In box,
and will look like this.

19. Click My Organization
Click Members to add Click Sponsors to
qualifying students to add personnel who
your schools Bookshare will be downloading
roster books for students

20. Adding teachers as Sponsors
From the My Organization area, Click Sponsors
Use the “Remove Sponsor” button
Use the “Add a Sponsor” button to delete the names of staff who
to add the names of staff who will have left the district or changed
be downloading books from responsibilities.
Bookshare.

21. Adding students as Members
From the My Organization
area, Click Members
Use these buttons to Add or Remove student members.

22. Fill in the new
student user
information
here
Choose a
qualifying disability
category
Choose whether
this student has a
IEP or 504 Plan
Click Save to add
this student

23. Individual student memberships
FREE for all qualifying students
STRONGLY recommended that you add student
members to your districts organizational roster
FIRST, and then add individual memberships for
students who need or desire them.
Students can have BOTH district and individual Bookshare
memberships! Students under 18 will need a parent/
guardian signature.

24. Helping your students get Individual
Bookshare memberships
Step 1: Be sure you have already added the student to your
district member roster – this makes the process of getting an
individual membership much easier!
Step 2: Log in to your organizational Bookshare account and click the
My Organization link.
Step 3: From your My Organization area, Click the Members link

25. Step 4: Put a check next to the name Step 5: Click Individual
of each student needing an individual Membership Form
Bookshare account
Step 6: Download the Individual Membership form.
(Bookshare automatically creates a unique Individual
Membership Form in PDF format for each student)

26. Step 7: Print the form, fill in the blanks and then fax or mail the form back
to Bookshare. The student will receive a Welcome email from Bookshare
within a week, and will be able to log in to Bookshare with their own unique
password.

27. Standard Search
The Standard Search box is found at the top of all Bookshare web
pages. To use it, type a book title (or partial title), or an author, into
the blank field, then click the Search button.
When using the standard and quick search fields it is important to
realize that full text search will automatically search for the words in
every title and content of the books in the entire Bookshare collection
yielding a lot of results. If looking for a very specific book it is best
to use Advanced Search.

28. After logging in to your
Quick Search Bookshare Account, from
your Task bar, choose
Quick Search
Type in a books title, partial title, or author
name, then click the Search button
Quick Search gives the user a simple “Google-like” interface, with your
search results displayed “Google-style” in what is called “List View”

29. Advanced Search
From the Standard Search box at the
top of any Bookshare page, choose
Advanced Search
Fill in your
search
information,
then click
Advanced
Search

30. Browse by Category
From the Standard Search tool at the
top of any page, choose Browse
Click on any category and
proceed to browse the
Bookshare collection by
viewing (sometimes large)
lists of books or other
reading materials

31. Choose:
Viewing Search Results Table
View
or
List View
Books displayed in Table View
look like this on your screen…

32. Download a book
Both Search Views contain download buttons as
shown here. Choose which format you want to
download (DAISY or Braille Ready File - BRF) by
clicking the DAISY icon or the BRF icon

33. Select which student needs the book
Note: Name of book being
downloaded is shown here
Put a check next to the name of the student who will receive
this book, then click the Download Book button

34. Confirm Book
Download by
clicking the
Download
button
Note: If more than one
student needs the same
book, put a check on
multiple names

35. Create a “Download Password”
The first time you download a book, you will be asked to create a
Download Password which is used to unzip the books you
download. This is NOT the same password you use to log in to the
Bookshare web site. It is a special password that is used only to unzip
a book that you have already downloaded to your computer. :
NOTE: In most cases, teachers will use the download password to unzip the
book themselves, and then distribute the usable unzipped version to the
student.

36. Once you have created a Download
Password, Bookshare will continuing
using that same password for all of
your future downloads. If you ever want
to change your Download Password :
From your Task Bar, choose “My
Account”. Click “Preferences”, and
at the bottom of the page fill out this
box, then click the Save button.

37. After creating your download password, the
book is displayed as a zip file, ready to
download – Click on the book title to start the
download.
Note: each book title you download contains student identifying
information (blocked out in the example above)

38. Another search option: “Advanced
Search” for NIMAC-sourced textbooks
To use the Advance Search feature, click
here in the Standard Search box.
Fill one or more
of these boxes,
and in the Books
to Search menu,
choose NIMAC
books.

39. Textbook Search Results
A NIMAC-sourced textbook that is found at Bookshare is
displayed with the Download icons visible, indicating that this
book is available from Bookshare
A NIMAC-sourced textbook that is NOT YET in the Bookshare
collection does not have Download icons visible (only shows a
“Request From NIMAC” message)

40. Downloading NIMAC-sourced textbooks
Click this icon to
download the DAISY
Click this icon
version without pictures
to download the
Braille Ready
File (BRF)
Click this icon to download the
DAISY version WITH pictures

41. DAISY books with pictures:
Download icon for a DAISY book with pictures
If you choose to download a DAISY book with pictures, be aware that
the file size may be substantially larger than a book without
pictures, and the download time may be substantially longer
During the download process, you will be prompted to select the
image quality (High or Lower) as shown here:

42. Once the DAISY book with pictures has been
downloaded, opening it using
Free Software from Bookshare
• Read:Outloud
• VictorReader Soft Bookshare Edition
If the book with high quality pictures does not
work well with your computer, try downloading the
same book again with lower resolution pictures, or
with no pictures at all.

43. What about textbooks that do not appear in your
search results at all? (indicating that they are not
found at either Bookshare or at NIMAC)
• Contact ATLA
–akcam@atlaak.org,
–akaccessiblemedia.org)
• Contact the publisher to inquire about how to receive an
accessible version (.rtf or .pdf) of the book.
• Contact Bookshare to see if they will scan the book for
you. (You may be asked to send a hard copy of the book
to Bookshare)
• Check Learning Ally to see if the book is available from
them.

44. You may be able to purchase an accessible format
version of a book directly from the publisher. An
accessible book purchased from the publisher may be
used by any student without the restrictions
currently imposed by copyright law.
Publishers need to hear from their customers that, if
available, K-12 school districts would purchase
accessible versions of textbooks.

45. Accessible Instructional Materials
There’s an app for that!
Read2Go
• Complete control of font size, color and
background color
• Word-by-word highlighting
• Optional text-to-speech with high-quality
Acapela voices
• Supports all levels navigation in book, up to
6
• $19.99
www.atlaak.org

46. Accessible Instructional Materials
Remember – you do have CHOICES!
• CK-12
• FlatWorld
• Curriki
• Learning Ally
• iTunes
• Amazon
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