Accessible Educational Materials

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Step 3: Acquiring Materials

After establishing that a student needs accessible formats, and selecting which formats are needed for what materials, the decision-making team determines how and where to acquire the materials. Accessible formats of materials can be acquired through three general means, each of which is described in this section:

Publishers
Accessible Media Producers (AMPs)
Local Conversion

Once the team has acquired the necessary accessible materials, the next step is to ensure the student(s), staff, and families have access to the supports and services needed to utilize the materials. Proceed to Step 4: Supports & Services.

Accessible Formats from Publishers

Communicating accessibility requirements and expectations to publishers is the best way to minimize access barriers for students with disabilities. When accessible ebooks and related digital materials are purchased directly from publishers, the need to acquire accessible formats for individual students can be significantly reduced. People in positions of selecting and purchasing educational materials from publishers can reference the document linked here for sample language to request accessible materials and key features to look for during review of AEM.

Further information can be found at AEM Center’s best practices for vetting accessible digital materials and technologies: https://aem.cast.org/acquire/vetting-accessibility

Accessible Media Producers

Accessible media producers (AMPs) are services that convert materials, including textbooks and related curriculum materials, to one or more student-ready accessible formats. AMPs are permitted to provide accessible formats to qualified individuals without publisher permission under a U.S. copyright exemption commonly known as the Chafee Amendment. Details about the Chafee Amendment can be found on the AEM Center website at https://aem.cast.org/acquire/chafee-amendment.

The resources linked below are common AMP providers educators can use to acquire accessible digital versions of books and materials.

Accessible Media Producers (AMP's) create fully-accessible student materials in formats such as braille, large print, digital, and/or audio. Below are commonly used AMP's where you can find access to a variety of AEM in digital and audio formats, including textbooks, chapter books, and periodicals. For more information on braille and large print materials, contact your local teacher consultant for the visually impaired, or click here to locate a library for the visually impaired.

Bookshare is an accessible electronic library offering free access to digital and audio books for students with print disabilities.

Learning Ally is a subscription-based service featuring access to human-recorded audiobooks.

The Michigan Electronic Library provides access to a variety of educational databases.

Muskegon County Library system provides access to ebooks and periodicals.

Accessible Formats from Local Conversion

Some educational materials are not available in accessible formats from AMPs or publishers. Accessible versions of these materials need to be created by local staff or volunteers. Audio recording and scanning materials with optical character recognition (OCR) software are common methods of converting materials using local means.

Accessible versions of free, open, or teacher-developed materials can be provided to any and all students. Giving all students choice in format means they can independently make their own selection, whether based on need or preference. Providing options for accessing materials is foundational to Universal Design for Learning (UDL). Developed by CAST, UDL is recommended in federal education policies that span K-12, higher education, and career training.

In addition to the methods referenced above, the Muskegon Area ISD Assistive Technology team provides support to schools within Muskegon County for conversion of curricular materials to accessible digital formats. Other avenues for acquisition, including contacting the publisher and exploring commonly used AMP's should be explored prior to requesting local conversion. If you've pursued the aforementioned options and would like assistance with local conversion of materials, please complete the form below. (Click here to open this form in a new browser tab.)

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