JSET ejournal
Universal
Design for Learning
Associate Editor Column
David Rose
with Skip Stahl
The NFF: A National File Format for
Accessible Instructional Materials
As part of its efforts to ensure that No Child is Left Behind,
The Secretary of Education in September, 2002, authorized The
Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) to issue a supplement
to the National Center on Accessing the General Curriculum and
the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST), to convene
a technical panel to establish a voluntary national standard
a National File Format - for accessible digital instructional
materials for students with disabilities. This initiative seeks
to ensure that no child face an inaccessible curriculum
one that creates barriers to progress rather than opportunities
for learning.
The traditional print-based materials that dominate classrooms
raise barriers for many students with disabilities. For students
who cannot see the words or images on a page, cannot hold a book
or turn its pages, cannot decode the text or cannot comprehend
the syntax that supports the written word, each experience different
challenges, and each may require different supports to extract
meaning from information that is book bound. For each
of them, however, there is a common barrier the centuries
old fixed format of the printed book.
What Can Digital Materials Do?
Modern digital materials can present the same content as
printed books, but in a format that is much more flexible and
accessible. For students who cannot see the words or images,
the digital version can be produced in Braille or voice, and
provide descriptions of the images. For students who cannot
hold the printed book or turn its pages, the virtual pages of
a digital book can be turned with a slight press of a switch.
For students who cannot decode the text, any word can be automatically
read aloud. For students who lack the background vocabulary
in the text, definitions (in English or another language) can
be provided with a simple click.
The advantage of digital books is that these alternatives, and
many others, can be available on an individual basis available
for students who need them, invisible or non-distracting for
those who don't. Such customizable alternatives can substantially
reduce the barriers found in traditional texts, reducing the
effects of what are commonly called print disabilities.
Very few students with disabilities presently have access to
the accessible books they need. In some cases, the problem is
technical schools do not have the technology they need
to properly provide accessible versions to students, even if
they had such versions. In other cases, the problem is ignorance
many teachers and schools do not understand the issue of
access or the potential solutions that are available.
What is a National File Format?
A file format is a specification for filing electronic information
so that the content can be accurately and efficiently retrieved.
Just as a library or home filing system requires some sort of
organizational scheme to retrieve the information from it, an
electronic book or file also requires a consistent organization
or format to retrieve the information from it.
The goal of the National File Format Technical Panel is to assemble
a national file format (NFF) that will represent the best attempt
of a broad team of knowledgeable individuals to define a common
format, one that can serve as a foundation for accessible educational
materials. Such a common format will benefit the entire nation:
states, districts, publishers, advocates, disability organizations,
parents, and, most importantly, students with a range of disabilities.
What Are the Difficulties With the Present System?
For many students the problem is a frustrating distribution
system; students cannot obtain the accessible materials they
need in a timely fashion. Present policies and procedures for
disseminating accessible materials are archaic and inefficient,
raising barriers rather than opportunities. Indeed, every element
of the complex distribution system faces impediments:
1. Publishers are presently unable, largely because of copyright
constraints designed only for print world, to manufacture and
distribute accessible digital versions directly to students in
much the same efficient way they do their print versions. Instead
they, and their consumers, must depend upon various independent
third parties to render the printed books accessible. This dependency
on third parties for re-designing and re-distributing accessible
materials is not only an impediment to efficient distribution,
it also raises concerns for the publisher and consumer about
quality control, digital rights management, etc. In addition,
this process ensures that there are no financial incentives to
the publisher for facilitating the process of getting materials
to students who need them, or for improving the quality of their
original materials for students with disabilities. Publishers
who nonetheless try to support the process by providing digital
versions of their materials to third parties face a bewildering
array of requests for different formats and versions from different
states, disability organizations and individual teachers and
students.
2. Since schools and school districts cannot get accessible versions
of their curricular materials from the same sources as they get
their regular materials, they must turn to other agencies and
organizations that specialize in re-publishing accessible versions,
or they must create them themselves. Either path is complicated
and time consuming: districts must identify the format (or formats)
they will need for individual students and for the differing
technologies available in their various schools and classrooms,
select a vendor or process for creating the necessary formats
and then order materials, develop a repository and distribution
system to match versions to individual students and technologies,
and develop local capacity for utilizing and supporting teaches
in using accessible versions. All of this is vastly complicated
by the fact that there are a variety of technologies and formats.
These complicated procedures interpose a delay that often stretches
for months and all too often results in materials arriving in
classrooms long after the need has passed.
3. Not-for-profit agencies or vendors have evolved to meet the
widespread need for accessible materials in schools. These agencies
called authorized entities in the Chafee amendment
transform inaccessible published materials (like books)
into more accessible versions. The largest , like Recordings
for the Blind and Dyslexic or American Printing House for the
Blind, are national and have long served students by creating
alternative versions (audio, large print, Braille, etc.) of print
materials. Because of the advantages of digital materials, many
of these agencies have begun migrating to digital versions as
a better way to serve their clients. But their progress is hampered
by the diversity of potential formats. For example, differing
publishers tend to use different proprietary formats or templates
for digital production and distribution. As a result of that
format complexity, it is difficult for authorized entities to
develop an efficient process most find it easier to begin
with the printed book itself, then recreate a digital version
backwards from that. Format complexities similarly inhibit the
production and distribution from vendors to students. Since
there is no standard format, different states and districts (even
schools or classrooms) may request differing formats or versions,
enormously complicating the processes of production and distribution.
The lack of uniform format thus impedes both the evolution to
superior digital materials, and their timely delivery to individual
students.
4. Teachers, in turn, face many impediments to using digital
accessible versions in their classrooms, impediments that are
exacerbated by complexities in format and technology. They have
two choices. First, they can determine a format that is appropriate
for their student(s) and compatible with their existing classroom
technology and then find a vendor or repository that can supply
it. Or, they can accept a format provided for them and then
adapt their classroom technologies to the format provided for
them and find training in how to navigate and use it in their
classrooms. Either of these is complicated when each vendor
or repository may provide different formats and player technologies
that teachers will have to learn to use.
5. Students with disabilities continue to face learning materials
that are inaccessible in many different formats, from print to
digital.
How will Digital Materials Help?
While there are many barriers to accessibility, the problems
that are caused by multiple formats are particularly frustrating,
in part because they are so easily remedied. The adoption of
a common, or standard, format is a simplifying step that has
been crucial to progress in many other fields from railroads
(adopting a common track gauge), to video technology (adopting
a common format for DVD, and HDTV). Similarly, progress in accessibility
will be greatly abetted by defining a common national file format.
With that single change, a number of barriers in the educational
materials distribution system can be addressed.
1. With one clear and consistent file format to produce, publishers
would be able to deliver a high quality digital version expeditiously
and simultaneously to all authorized entities for further conversion
and distribution. Further, with careful planning, collaboration
and design, it is conceivable that ALL existing and varied state
requirements for accessible instructional materials could be
met with a clear and comprehensive national file format.
2. With one consistent file format coming from different publishers,
authorized entities would be able to efficiently transform these
common formats into accessible "presentation" formats
fot students (accessible digital versions and printed Braille,
for example) and deliver them to local schools and school districts
expeditiously.
3. With one basic digital format from vendors, schools and school
districts could adopt vastly simpler, less costly, and more timely
methods for acquiring materials, storing and retrieving them,
purchasing additional assistive technologies, and training teachers
and others in their use.
4. With one basic digital format from their districts, teachers
could get their accessible materials in a timely fashion,
in a consistent format that will work with their classroom technologies,
and in a consistent format that will be easier for them to learn.
With one basic file format, students would finally get the accessible
materials they need, when they need them.
Making all Students Eligible
In the best of all circumstances, accessible and universally-designed
digital curriculum resources could be made available to any and
all students as an alternative to the traditional print versions.
A next best option would be the provision of accessible digital
curriculum materials to any student whom an IEP or Section 504
Team considers to be "Print Disabled". Either of these
options is potentially viable as long as authors/publishers retain
intellectual property rights, the metering of content is controlled,
and developers and distributors of proprietary materials are
compensated for their work.
At the present time, the qualification of students eligible to
receive material in a specialized format is determined by Section
121 of the Copyright Act (Chafee Amendment), as referenced by
the Library of Congress, National Library Service statement of
eligibility.
Students who are blind, have low vision or have other physical
disabilities that render them "unable to read or unable
to use standard printed material" qualify, as do students
"having a reading disability resulting from organic dysfunction
and of sufficient severity to prevent their reading printed material
in a normal manner". (NLS Factsheet, Talking Books and Reading
Disabilities, Issued March 1997).
Advances in neuroimaging studies indicate that many of the disabling
conditions that result in a print disability have an organic
and identifiable neuroanatomical basis. In order to not inadvertently
exclude students who qualify for accessible materials now, and
those who may be deemed eligible in the future, the work of the
NFF Technical Panel will address the functional needs of any
student who could possibly qualify under the existing guidelines.
Further, it is hoped that the work of this panel is only the
first step towards establishing the benefits of accessible (and,
ultimately, Universally Designed) instructional resources in
instructional settings, and how these alternatives can extend
the potential of all students.
For more information on the National File Format Technical Panel,
please visit the NFF web site at www.cast.org/ncac/nff.