EASI Free Webinar: The Cutting Edge of E-book Accessibility
  Friday June 15: 11 PM Pacific, Noon Mountain, 1 PM Central and 2 PM Eastern
  Presenter: Norm Coombs, Ph.D. CEO EASI, Professor Emeritus RIT

The explosion of e-books is changing the face of book publishing and changing
the role of book stores. Different vendors of e-books created their unique,
proprietary document formats which required their being read in e-readers
designed specifically for that format. Imagine having to use different glasses
to read print books depending on who was its publisher! Of course, the 
document
format and the specialized e-readers were inaccessible to many people with 
what
used to be called "print disabilities". The DAISY document format opened up a
wider and richer reading experience for people with disabilities, but DAISY
books were incompatible with commercial e-readers like the Kindle or Nook, and
commercial e-book formats were incompatible with DAISY.

All this is changing while we ponder these problems. Some software and 
hardware
DAISY players have added the ability to read some books in the epub format, 
and
the next version of that standard will include even more features that will
support accessibility for users with disabilities. This promises to open up a
new and larger collection of e-books for this population.

What will happen to the divergent proprietary e-book document formats? Either
all publishers will adopt a common e-document standard or, as is happening
already, tools to convert different formats will become common. This Webinar
will explore this complicated picture and try to simplify it for the audience.

Webinar participants will learn which formats are already accessible to them,
and they will be introduced to some tools for document format conversion.

  Register for this June 15 Webinar 
:https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dEFRVmhpOGFlTVN5T09ScWREeDdsVWc6MQ

EASI is sponsoring another free Webinar on June 26
Free Webinar-Accessibility and Usability: Working Together at MIT
Tuesday, June 26, 11 Pacific, noon Mountain, 1 Central 2 PM Eastern
Presenters: Katherine Wahl and Stephani Roberts from MIT
The Usability and Accessibility teams in MIT's Information Services and
Technology Department (IS&T) always worked closely together, but were formally
merged during a department-wide reorganization in 2009. Our goal in 
blending the
teams was to provide a comprehensive service to clients without diluting our
individual practices.
After two years, we have strengthened our ability advocate persuasively for 
both
usability and accessibility with clients, have provided more comprehensive
services, and have observed standards applied more consistently.
This Webinar will share the MIT experience as a model for other 
institutions to
emulate.
Register for this free June 26 Webinar: http://bit.ly/JiIYW8



  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
It's never too late to become what you might have been. George Eliot
Once you choose hope, anything's possible.  Christopher Reeve
Norman Coombs [log in to unmask]

Making Online Teaching Accessible: Inclusive Course Design for Students 
with Disabilities by Norman Coombs published by Jossey-Bass Oct 10,2010
http://www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-0470499044.html

---------------------------
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