Supporting Literacy Skills with Alternative Formats.

EA Draffan.

Highlighted text

Issues arising

• Web Accessibility

• E-learning

• Course management tools may be accessible but the content that is loaded into them may not be

• Alternative Media Formats

• Many alternative formats require Assistive Technology for production and/or access of alternate format course materials

Strategies

• Encourage an understanding of Copyright legislation, publication issues, production of formats that suit a variety of needs.

Research has shown that only 4.4% of our publications are in accessible format but this does not include educational materials - 26.3% Adult Fiction, 1.9% Cookery and 1.8% Gardening. (“Availability of Accessible Publications” Lockyer, Creaser & Davies, 2005)

• Enable students to become skilled users of the appropriate technologies.

Services Available

• A growing number of companies and charities offering ‘Transcription Services’.

• Universities and Colleges developing ‘Alternative Formats Services’

Access Ability Centre

Equal

Opportunities Office

Skills and Access TechnologiesCurriculum Access Service

Learning and Disability SupportAlternatives and Print

Student Support

Learning Resources

Transcription ServicesAccessible Resources Acquisition and Creation Unit

Selection of alternative formats available:

• CD recordings in DAISY format

• Audio Cassette recordings

• Large print photocopies

• Photocopies on coloured paper

• Scanned material in Word format

• Scanned material in PDF format

• Personal readers

What do the students say they want?

• Clear Layout

– Only Provide Meaningful Content

– Simple and Consistent Navigation

• Chunk Information

• Use Logical and Sequential Layout

• Provide Meaning for Meaning

– Graphical Representation of Text

– Textual Representation of Graphics

• Maximise Opportunities for Learning

Practical Advice• Offer templates/style sheets for making Daisy

and Braille documents.

• Check the chosen journal or books are not already on the Revealweb/RNIB catalogues.

• Get copyright clearance when supporting dyslexic students. HE different CLA guidance from other organisations.

• Break up the process of recording, editing and checking – one hour can seem very long at times!

More Practical Advice• More than 250 pages – put it on 2 CDs –

always back up work! Pen drives/memory sticks are useful.

• Quick audio recordings using for example Plextalk - a mic is not even essential - check the work carefully.

• Combine text with speechand text highlighting,

• Use left justification, • Line breaks, Sans serif fonts.

Software that can help…

• Dolphin Easy Converter

• Dolphin Easy Producer/Publisher

• Screen Readers

• Text to Speech & save to MP3

• ScreenShot Reader

• Scanning and Optical Character Recognition Plustek

OpticBook does not like lilac!

Making it work with PowerPoint

Making it work with all presentation tools

• Provide an outline equivalent• Provide an HTML equivalent

– Create in HTML originally. Do not use “Save as Web”

– Use a Conversion Utility such as the The Illinois Accessible Web Publishing Wizard http://www.accessiblewizards.uiuc.edu/

• For the more adventurous - use accessible flash tools such as Xerte

http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/xerte/

Making it work – Adobe Acrobat PDF’s

EasyConverter

Screenshot Reader

Making it work – Adobe Acrobat PDF’s

• Properly Structure Source Files

• Proper reader configuration

• Ensure PDF is properly tagged

• Provide alternative formats such as Daisy, audio, print, braille or tactile drawing

• Convert - virtual scan settings – 300 dpi, use grey scale

“We find those who use CCTVs often tire when reading so swapping over to using Daisy format has helped.”

“Our Dyslexic students

and those with literacy

issues benefit from using

Daisy formats because

they are concentrating

on learning the content

of the material instead

of struggling to read it. It

can also back up their

literacy lessons as we

put the content on CD or

onto the network.”

With thanks to Ailsa from RNCB who gave me these comments over the phone.

Comments from a tutor

Thank YouE.A. Draffan

Research Fellow

Learning Societies Lab

University of Southampton

Mobile 07976 289103

E-mail: ead@ecs.soton.ac.uk

LexDis Project website

www.lexdis.ecs.soton.ac.uk