At the NFB conference last December (2011) the folks from CourseSmart
presented. Steve is correct that self identified students get a different
login that takes them to unprotected areas. Here they get HTML versions of
the digital books. As of last December, they were still primarily a PDF
process and the PDF is converted to their proprietary format; the accessible
versions go to HTML. They provided information about their automatic
process. One point made was that if students commented on the quality, or
lack of the quality, then they would put it through a process to upgrade
from the automatic process.

 

There has been discussion about going to EPUB 3 as more publishers have this
native accessible format available.

 

Best

George

 

 

From: Equal Access to Software & Information
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Debi Turner
Sent: Tuesday, July 10, 2012 9:54 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Does anyone have any experience with CourseSmart texts?

 

Hi everyone -

 

Doing some research/investigation into how accessible (or possibly not)
CourseSmart materials are.

 

Does anyone have any experience they could share.

 

TIA!

 

d:)

 

Debi Turner

Assistive Technician, Disability Services

Humber ITAL

Student Success & Engagement

Room A120, Lakeshore Campus

3199 Lake Shore Blvd. W.

Toronto, Ontario

M8V 1K8

Tel:   (416) 675-6622, ext. 3268

Fax:  (416) 252-8800

Email: [log in to unmask]

 

No pressure, no diamonds.

 - Thomas Carlyle