Southern Illinois U. student hopes to provide disabled students with
tailored texts
( University Wire ) Daphne Retter; 10-28-1999


(Daily Egyptian) (U-WIRE) CARBONDALE, Ill. -- In three years as a
graduate student at SIUC, Jeanie Akamanti says she has never started a
semester with all the texts and readings for her classes.


Because personal health problems, Akamanti, a graduate student in social
work, has to use books on tape for reading materials in her classes.
When instructors do not supply a syllabus or a book list with enough
time to make arrangements to obtain the text on tape, Akamanti and other
disabled students can fall behind.



Akamanti is looking for more efficient ways to provide books on audio
tape for disabled students. Tapes are provided to students with a
variety of disabilities, including blindness, dyslexia and learning
disabilities.



After years of frustration with the slow process of getting books taped
in time, Akamanti has put together an idea for a new policy to provide
adapted-format texts for disabled students in a more timely manner.



"I want to walk in on the first day of class and have complete access to
materials just like any other student," she said.



Currently, students who need books on tape must provide a list of
textbooks needed for the semester to DSS four to six weeks before
classes begin.



DSS then attempts to order the texts on tape from Readings for the Blind
and Dyslexic, an organization with nearly 80,000 audio taped books
available to individuals with documented disabilities. If the books are
not already available on tape, DSS will hire students to record the
texts.



Up to six months before the start of classes, Akamanti has tried to
contact professors to obtain book information. But she said each
semester some instructors have failed to provide a syllabus or a book
list in time for her to start classes with all of her materials.



Akamanti's proposed policy would require students to submit a written
request to their department and DSS eight weeks prior to the start of
classes. Department heads then would be responsible for supplying text
information to DSS six weeks before the beginning of the semester.



Akamanti has presented the policy to DSS and sent it to former
Chancellor Jo Ann Argersinger, Associate Vice Chancellor of Diversity
Seymour Bryson and interim Chancellor John Jackson, in the last 14
months.



"As long as SIU does not determine guidelines, there is no motivation
for either instructors or departments to achieve responsible and
responsive communication conducive to special needs students obtaining
texts on tape," Akamanti wrote in a letter to Argersinger.



Lisa Belville, a senior in English from Marion who is legally blind,
depends on audio-taped texts for classes and said Akamanti's policy
would be a positive move for the University.



"A lot of the problems could be addressed if they could just have a
deadline," she said.



Kathleen Plesko, director of DSS, said frustrated students got DSS
looking for options.



"The concern about how to get materials more quickly shined a light on
the need to do something better," she said.



But Plesko said Akamanti's proposal is not a practical way to solve the
problem.



"If I thought it would work, that would be the easy way for me," Plesko
said. "But I don't think it would work, and I don't think it's in all of
our students' best interests in the long run."



Plesko said there are several reasons instructors would not be able to
supply the texts six weeks before the semester begins. She remembered
one professor who spent his summers reading every new textbook in his
field to decide which book he would use.



"It was about his wanting to have the best texts available and the most
current, and that's right," she said. "There shouldn't be a policy that
would preclude that kind of conscientious decision-making."



Plesko said budgets for some departments are not determined until Aug.
1, which means some faculty members may be in the midst of negotiations
or not even hired by August. Plesko questioned the practicality of a
proposal that would require the department to make textbook decisions in
the absence of faculty members.



For Belville, the argument that departments wouldn't be able to
determine which texts will be used six weeks before the semester starts
is not good enough.



"It would mean that [professors] would have to get on the ball, and they
don't want to," she said.



Currently, professors must get book information to the bookstores three
months prior to the semester. Chris Aheart, textbook manager for Saluki
Bookstore, said some instructors make the deadline and some do not.



"To be honest, the majority of [book order forms] don't get returned for
the fall in a timely fashion," Aheart said.



Interim Chancellor John Jackson, who has been contacted on multiple
occasions by Akamanti, said he is eager to find an appropriate solution
to the problem, but the proposed policy is not feasible.



"I think I understand her sense of frustration," he said. "But it' s
hard to get the faculty to do something."



Plesko said the concerns of Akamanti and other students are valid, and
she responded to the complaints swiftly.



"I don't question for one minute our students' right to have their
material in whatever format they need," she said. "There are answers to
that problem that do not require a policy change."



Plesko said most of the problem will be addressed by a software system,
known as An Open Book, that reads computer texts with a voice
synthesizer that can then be recorded on audio tapes. Students with
similar software on home computers can use the scanner at DSS to place
readings on disks their computers then can read.



Using An Open Book will be so much faster than hiring readers that
Plesko said DSS will be able to deal with late book lists and last-
minute changes without putting the students behind in their work..



By the start of the spring semester, Plesko expects to have a new
scanner, a new computer and the software fully operational. Plesko said
80 percent of the volume of materials for which DSS currently uses
student readers will be done more quickly and easily with the new
software.



The remaining 20 percent of the material will continue to be taped by
hired readers.



"The scanner is not going to be able to do everything," she said. "Like
where the text is formatted in weird ways or where the book is heavy on
illustrations, or math text books where there is a lot of symbolic
language, we will still be using real readers too."



Akamanti said An Open Book will be an improvement, but the policy change
is still needed. Many of her difficulties have stemmed from the wrong
material being taped. Because the tapes were not finished as quickly as
Akamanti would have liked the first time, having them taped again could
make her fall behind in the class.



"If they were given this information a month prior to the start of the
semester and she could give me, at the beginning of the semester,
everything scanning on a disk in time that I could go back and I could
check it and make sure it is right, I think it would be a wonderful
idea," Akamanti said.



Owen Zimpel, a graduate student in rehabilitation from Minnesota who is
legally blind, used An Open Book at home while he got his master' s and
said he could not have accomplished what he has without it.



"I made it through 60 credits in two years even," he said. "Without [the
technology] I never would have been able to handle the course load."



But Zimpel still believes Akamanti's policy can be of use to DSS and
disabled students. He said being able to read ahead can be essential to
a student who cannot use printed text.



"I cannot simply grab a book and start skimming or skip to the bold
stuff or the headings which makes us slower," he said. "That is not
equal access unless you know ahead of time what to read."











(C) 1999 Daily Egyptian via U-WIRE


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