A pilot program to improve access to e-textbooks for students with disabilities that make it hard for them to read print got a $1.1-million grant from the U.S. Department of Education, the program announced today.
The Student E-rent Pilot Project, or STEPP, a public-private partnership, will digitally format and distribute digital versions of textbooks for use by students with disabilities like blindness and dyslexia. Presently, most of these students have to rely on limited college resources to access these books, but in this program, books will be electronically reformatted so that they can be read out loud by computers or e-book readers in a way that makes sense to students. The grant will help the project add 1,000 books, including 80 percent of the best-selling textbooks on college campuses.
The partnership is being co-sponsored by digital textbook provider CourseSmart along with the Alternative Media Access Center of the University System of Georgia, and the AccessText Network, a nonprofit organization working with disabled student-services offices on campuses across the country.
Typically, college students who have trouble with standard book formats could only turn to their disabled student-services offices to have textbooks translated into braille or scanned with rudimentary text-to-speech computer software. “That process is time consuming and costly,” said access center director Christopher Lee. “The staff basically have to be publishers.”
With more advanced technology, CourseSmart—a joint venture supported by several major textbook publishers—and other developers are digitally reformatting hundreds of books that can be rented online at a much lower cost to the students and the institutions. Tom Hadfield, chief technology officer for CourseSmart, estimates that renting e-textbooks will save students up to 50 percent on their course material. “Rental is a big movement in the higher-ed course-material fields,” but without STEPP’s reformatting efforts, “renting textbooks excludes people with textual disabilities,” he said.
7 Responses to Feds Give $1.1-Million for E-Textbooks for Vision-Impaired Students
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combed - October 15, 2010 at 9:20 am
This is very good project
wmartin46 - October 15, 2010 at 10:03 am
1,000 e-books for $1.1M is about $1,100 per e-book. Seems like a lot of money.
Well, at least the DoE isn’t suing people to stop using e-Books, that is not only a lot of money, but a waste of money.
lakemendota - October 15, 2010 at 10:20 am
What does the Department of Energy (DOE) have to do with issue? Do you mean ED? If so, I’m glad they and DOJ took the position they did as did our University.
wmartin46 - October 16, 2010 at 2:13 am
> Do you mean ED?
Yes .. my particular abbreviation is DoE for the Ed. Dept.
> Took the position they did ..
And what position might that be?
ebarkas - October 16, 2010 at 7:41 pm
Overall, this seems like a great endeavor. However, it does seem like piece of the information are missing.
“1,000 e-books for $1.1M is about $1,100 per e-book. Seems like a lot of money.” wmartin46 – At first this comment frustrated me but as I thought about, it raised the question of whether this grant made the ebooks available at no cost to the students or not. For no cost to the student I could rationalize 1,100 per book as the xpense to reproduce the book and then publication rights that will not be reimbursed by students.
What ever the cost, I am glad that the DOE continues to recognize the need for various modes of learning and is providing some support in the endeavors. I do wish it was more.
Elizabeth
websforeveryone.org
kbro3116 - October 18, 2010 at 3:13 pm
A couple of interesting points, 10/18/10:
- The Dept. of Ed. does not include this announcement anywhere on its website. Why wouldn’t this be on their news page?
- Coursesmart, the largest textbook provider in the U.S., is not only a successful for-profit venture, but it also is required to provide alternative access to its textbooks for vision-impaired and print-disabled. If they are already required, and are doing so, why are we funding their efforts with taxpayer money?