[Athen] Accessible Textbook Platforms? (long)

[via athen-list]

Hi,
 
Great comments from DeBee. I have been saying for a long time that a
university should offer course credit for students with disabilities around
learning Assistive Technology and Applications used at the University. I
have run such independent studies for individual students, and they got 2
credits. Once completed, they had more of the skills they needed to be
successful. IMO every student with a disability that uses AT should take
such a course in their first year. Of course, this is difficult because it
needs to be specialized. It also means identifying the right technology for
that individual. Hopefully, the student would then be able to explore
solutions on their own and identify support groups to help solve the issues
they will face throughout their lives.
 
Best
George
 
Best
George
 
 
From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman22.u.washington.edu> On Behalf
Of Deborah Armstrong via athen-list
Sent: Tuesday, October 21, 2025 9:47 AM
To: Ali Steenis <ali.steenis at bellevuecollege.edu>; Access Technology Higher
Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Accessible Textbook Platforms? (long)
 
What I  want to say about this, is  more opinion than fact.
Definitely spend some time with George's epub tests.
As a screen reader user I've found BryteWave/RedShelf (I think they are the
same--  easy to use. Also VitalSource. I also can cope with Adobe Digital
Edditions but wish it showed more of a book's structure to the screen reader
user. George likes Thorium which can read unprotected EPUB books.
I have found both the eBook platforms integrated in to labs from Pearson and
McGraw-Hill work well for me also.
But this has not been the experience of many of my students. In cases of
blind and low-vision users, it seems they don't have the advanced screen
reader skills to work effectively with these platforms. They get lost in the
toolbars, sidebars, footers and the like. You need a firm grasp of jumping
to,  in and around html elements to be successful with these platforms.
Another issue is how these platforms want to show you a little section at a
time, so you are always trying to locate the next button or the table of
contents button. Learning to use bookmarks for web navigation can help
there.
Sometimes, if you can get the book in a reasonable format and convert it to
something the student knows, like Word, that student will be more
successful.
But Word is not my favorite platform for reading either. For one thing, it's
a word processor, so the wrong keypress can modify the document. Also Word
will insert soft page breaks, messing up pagination.
The first thing I do if I have a textbook converted to Word is to save it as
HTMl, making it accessible and read-only. 
The biggest problem I think our non-techie students have is the constant
requirement to change reading platforms. One semester it's Pearson. Next it
is VitalSource or RedShelf.  Next it's some weird publisher-supplied
platform that none of the DSS staff has ever heard of. And then, the
instructor puts his own book in google docs, or it's in libretext,
Openstaxor Merlot or someplace else on OER commons. 
This is particularly a big deal for my learning disabled students. Having to
switch to and master a new platform is very stressful even though, unlike
blind students, they can use a mouse.
So the biggest barrier I think is not the platforms, though not all are
accessible of course, but the mastery of tech skills.
For one recent example, one of my blind students complained his book was
inaccessible. It was an OER textbook on the Libretext platform. He went to
the platform, arrowed down to "download PDF" selected that, and presto, an
inaccessible PDF appear. It was over 500 pages, so asking JAWS to OCR it
would not have been a fun experience.
Next he pulled up the page on his iPhone. Again he did "download PDF"
knowing it would appear in Apple books. It did, but it was still just an
image.
I went to the platform scrolled past "download PDF" wen to an unlabeled
button and chose it.
The table of contents appears, I selected various sections, opening each in
a different tab. The book was fully accessible after all, and even included
some picture descriptions. It was the button to pull up the table of
contents and the accessible text-based HTML view of the book that was
inaccessible;  One lousy little button was the only inaccessible thing!
My student's problem was impatience! 
 
A couple of tips: be sure to look for "text view" or some other clue that
when an image of a page is displayed, the platform also has a way to read
the book as text. For example, a Pearson lab I used showed the book as page
images. I was poking around looking for some study aids, when I found a link
labeled "accessible resources". When I chose it, the full text of the book
appeared, and the link to it was outside of the paywall!!! So you really
have to explore and poke around before you determine that the thing is not
accessible even when the default presentation of an eBook might be.
If your book has images and your student is blind, teach them to use AI to
get good descriptions. Sure, AI hallucinates, but we can hallucinate too
when listening to a human describe. With the latest CoPilot app, you can
actually share your screen and chat with it voice-to voice, asking it to
tell you about a graph; it will even tell you to scroll up or down so it can
"see" the image better. JAWS has Picture Smart and there are several NVDA
add-ons utilizing AI for image description.
Consider too, if your student prefers a device for reading and if you can
extract the book from the publisher, that they might be happier reading it
on their phone, in Kurzweil 3000 or 1000, on a Victor reader stream, or a
Braille display. One of my long-term sighted students is in love with his
Plextalk player, which these days is pretty deprecated. I cannot always
format a book for his player, but I try!
Some students simply cannot look at a book for long periods, but they can
see, and we should respect that they want to use their vision. Maybe all
they need is for you to point out the "read out loud" button in the platform
and that makes it accessible for that student, even though it is generally
considered an inaccessible platform. Maybe they should buy or rent the
electronic version on Amazon and have Alexa read it to them while they look
at specific sections in their browser or their Amazon device. I've rented
textbooks on my Fire tablet and read them without trouble and saved a lot of
money too. But if it is stuck inside an online platform, and a power user of
a screen reader can access it, then I'd generally call that platform
accessible. 
Remember too, that if there is a text view, all those apps and browser
extensions that "read the web" with synthesized speech are useful for
low-vision and learning disabled students.
For English and humanities, especially you can often borrow the book from a
local library so any student majoring in these subjects should procure many
library cards.
As a lover of science fiction and someone who uses a Fire tablet, and
borrows tons of eBooks from libraries, I have a lot less trouble with
diverse reading platforms than either my blind or learning disabled
students. The desire to fuel my reading addiction has forced my screen
reader competence in to a higher plane, because if I don't have something to
read always, I'm in serious withdrawal. But the vast majority of students I
serve dislike reading, which already reduces their ability to work with
eBooks wherever they are located. "If you like horror flicks", I tell them,
"Read some Stephen King over the summer using your library card and don't
wait to master online platforms until you have to".
 
 --Debee
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