More and more we are seeing alt-text conversion becoming an issue on our campuses as digital media becomes the norm. Many is the time I wish we could all have resources such as the
HTCTU and
ATPC in California or resources such as
Badger Accessibility. As our institutions on the whole become more and more technologically advanced, it appears that DSS offices are being left behind. It can be very frustrating to know what needs to be done in order to serve our students but be unable to have the resources (both technology and personnel) on order to get the work completed. One would think that the Cal-State Fullerton OCR ruling would serve as a wakeup call but it does not appear to have had an impact outside of CA.
Even though we are encouraged by the efforts organizations such as
RFB&D,
BookShare and the
AMXDB (just to name a few) to create, store, and provide digital texts there is simply no way they can keep up with the demand - and the myriad of materials such as class handouts, in-house productions, etc. To make matters even more confusing, we are at a point where
audiocassettes are being phased out but digital formats have not yet taken hold (though the roots are starting to take hold). In this crossover period we have students using both tapes and eText - tapes being both 2-track and 4-track as available and eText including MP3, TTS and now
DAISY as available. It can be quite daunting for students as they need access to a selection of playback devices and need to keep all of this stuff organized.
Speaking of
DAISY - at minimum it appears that the DAISY international standard is starting take hold in the U.S.
RFB&D is phasing out cassette tapes and companies such as
Dolphin Publishing are working with
AHEAD and other organizations to make the production and use of DAISY as easy as possible. Some publishers are even getting better at providing the raw materials we need to produce DAISY or other electronic formats. All of this is a start but there is still much to be done.
More and more on the listservs we are seeing questions such as the one posted here. What we need is a central location where the answers to the questions can be organized and stored. A location where information about best practices and reviews of technology can be made available. Fortunately, the home for such information exists in the form of the Access Technologists Higher Education Network website:
https://www.athenpro.org/In addition, at the urging of our leader - Ron Stewart - I am taking it upon myself to start a blog as an entry portal for ATHEN related items of interest. I am opening access to the blog to any members of ATHEN who are interested in contributing. My idea is that this will become a clearing house of Q&A and best practices, etc. will eventually find its way to the main ATHEN site. The blog address is
https://athenpro.blogspot.com/ and this will be the first post. Some of you may be familiar with my personal blog related to my graduate studies:
https://bloggertation.blogspot.com/. There may be information there that is useful to the community. Bear with me/us as this is a work in progress.
