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Accessibility of Information 

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What does accessibility mean?

Accessibility refers to the freedom or ability of an individual to obtain or make full use of a product or environment. A product is accessible to an individual only if he or she is able to use it to carry out all of the same functions and to achieve the same results as individuals with similar skills and training who do not have disabilities.

The Need for Accessible Electronic Textbooks

Consider these common classroom uses of technology:

Now, focus on the students who are blind or visually impaired in these same classrooms:

Each of these hypothetical scenarios demonstrates the need for accessible electronic textbooks for all students. Obvious benefits are that the students will:

An accessible electronic textbook is one which allows students who have disabilities to use the textbook and achieve the same intended benefit as students who do not have disabilities. Moreover, they would be able to achieve the benefit with approximately the same amount of effort.

At a minimum, that means that the electronic textbooks should be:

Which textbooks should be made accessible?

Not all electronic instructional media can or should be made accessible to students with visual impairments. However, the decision as to whether to make the materials accessible cannot be based on technological ease or cost. It should be based on a consideration of the intended learning that is to be achieved from the particular program, and a determination that the medium will support the same instructional goals for students who are blind.

Textbooks that use graphic depictions and manipulation of the graphics to teach concepts may not be appropriate instructional methodology for someone without vision. For example, the electronic textbook might teach the concept of the piston engine by presenting a visual simulation of a model four-stroke engine where the user can manipulate the components by using a touchscreen or a mouse to grab the flywheel and turn it left and right in order to see how the pistons operate. One might think it would be sufficient to associate a tone with the position of the piston; as the individual used the arrow keys to rotate the flywheel, a rising tone would indicate the rising position of the piston. The individual could hear the piston going up until the sound of an explosion was heard at the same time that the simulation of the spark is given. The individual would then hear the piston tone going back down. In a four-cycle engine, they could hear the valves opening and the piston going up without an explosion, the exhaust valve opening and closing as the intake valve opens. The auditory sounds could be accompanied with a simple narration of the events as they were happening.

However, with this type of adaptation, the student who is blind would not achieve the same benefit as the other students. For him or her, the unintended learning might be that a flywheel is a left/right button. The noises would have no meaning unless they were the same as those coming from a real piston engine that the student has directly touched and manipulated. The student with a visual impairment; as well as the student with normal vision; cannot learn the concepts associated with a piston engine with noises and verbal descriptions, nor would participation in this activity reinforce learning that was achieved through other teaching strategies.

Selection of textbooks to be made accessible and the resulting adaptation should be determined for students with visual impairments only after careful analysis of the instructional goals of the program by experts in the education of students with visual impairments.

What must be made accessible?

It is useful to look at the different elements of electronic textbooks and to contrast them with the elements of traditional print textbooks, which are used as a point of reference.

The Texas Education Code defines electronic textbook as "computer software, interactive videodisc, magnetic media, CD-ROM, computer courseware, on-line services, an electronic medium, or other means of conveying information to the student or otherwise contributing to the learning process through electronic means." (Sec. 31.002 (1)) This definition defines only the physical delivery media (e.g., computer software, videodisc, and CD-ROM) which are often inaccessible to students with visual disabilities. However, if the electronic textbooks are not properly designed, it is possible to create electronic textbooks which are partially or completely inaccessible and unusable by students who are blind or have visual impairments.

In order to discuss accessibility, it is important to provide a common frame of reference. Many of the delivery media have common design and formatting elements that must be made accessible. The print textbook is an information delivery system with which most people are familiar and, therefore, is used as a point of reference in this section.

A print textbook is made up of the following formatting and design elements:

Electronic textbooks are made up of these same formatting and design elements as print textbooks-text, text formatting, graphics, and a navigation system. These formatting and design elements are enhanced because the information is provided electronically.

Electronic textbooks may also include the following elements, which are not typical of print textbooks:

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Last Revision: July 30, 2002

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