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S upporting print impaired students in your department

S upporting print impaired students in your department. Who we are Melissa Steiner and Michael Wheare: Assistant Librarians (Library Disability and Dyslexia Support). Range of services including :

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S upporting print impaired students in your department

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  1. Supporting print impaired students in your department • Who we are • Melissa Steiner and Michael Wheare: Assistant Librarians (Library Disability and Dyslexia Support). • Range of services including: • One-to-ones with students supporting their use of assistive software and navigation of Library’s resources • Book fetching, scanning, photocopying • 2 study areas with adjustable lighting, orthopaedic chairs, height adjustable tables, scanners and assistive software.

  2. What is meant by print impairment? • Anyone who has difficulty accessing text • This could be people with: • Dyslexia • Visual impairments • Motor difficulties (difficulty turning pages or clicking a mouse) • ADHD (concentration) • ….etc • At Birkbeck, 16% of students identify as having a disability, and the largest group of students are those with dyslexia.

  3. Software useful for print impaired students • Text-to-Speech (TTS) software • Birkbeck has ClaroRead installed on all PCs in College. • Reads online text aloud • As well as reading retention/comprehension, it can help with grammar checking etc. • In order for the software to work, the online text must be in an accessible format (machine readable).

  4. What the software cannot read • Image PDFs, e.g. scanned readings uploaded to Moodle. • Many e-books with digital rights management. This depends on the publisher/platform. • Image PDFs can be converted into something the software can read (Word is the most accessible, but can also a readable PDF). • There is no way round the problem of DRM e-books as students cannot print, copy and paste or process these through conversion software.

  5. Conversion of scanned PDFs on Moodle • Students can use ClaroRead to convert the document themselves • or… • SensusAccess: free online tool available on the Library website on the Disability page which just involves uploading the file. • Conversion is easy. It’s the editing that is hard. Can take hours to edit a document to ensure conversion is accurate. • Common problems include footnotes disappearing and numbers or unusual typeface changing.

  6. How does the Library help? • We convert scanned Moodle readings for students with visual impairments and other students who cannot manage the conversion for themselves. • We can order textbooks in accessible format (PDF) directly from publishers when an e-book has DRM, or when only available in print. • Can’t get texts published before 2000 (but places like the Internet Archive often have open access accessible older material). • The Library must own a copy of the book already before we can get the PDF. • Can take up to a month before the publisher sends us the PDF of the textbook (and sometimes they refuse, e.g. US publishers).

  7. How can you can help the Library help your students? • Moodle • Place digitisation requests for all of your scanned readings via the Library’s digitisation service. • This ensures the readings are part of our workflow so we know what needs converting. • Create your other teaching materials in an accessible format. Use Birkbeck For All (link on the Library’s Disability webpage) for guidance.

  8. What you can do to help the Library help your students continued… • Textbooks • Ensure your core/essential readings have been ordered via your Subject Librarian otherwise we cannot order them as accessible PDFs. • Prioritise your reading lists so it’s easier for the Library to know what needs to be ordered. We are not experts in your subject, and would prefer not to make these decisions for the student – but we can’t order everything!

  9. Finally… • There is currently no clear process for identifying print impaired students. The Library is aware of visually impaired students via the SSP, but we do not know whether other students require textbooks or Moodle conversion service unless… • You tell us • The student tells us • A student picks up one of our leaflets/reads our website. However, information overload + print impairment means this is unlikely! Autumn term workshops: Get the most from your readings with text to speech software Library Seminar Room Tuesday 17th October 12:30 and 18:00 Monday 6th November 13:00 and 18:00

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