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Frequently Asked Questions
The following FAQ were compiled from questions that were raised by faculty and staff and were answered collectively by our Faculty-in-Residence of Accessible Instructional Materials, ATI committee on Instructional Materials, and the Center for Faculty Development and Support.
General Questions
1. Where can we find statistics regarding different types of disability?
A: The "Disability Snapshot" prepared by the DRC and located at http://www.sjsu.edu/cfd/resources/instructional/disability101.shtml features SJSU and national disability statistics along with relevant disability-related research findings.
2. Does the department need to provide an accessibility confirming report by 2012?
A: The University will comply with the CSU reporting format which has yet to be communicated.
3. How does SJSU enforce accessibility in instructional materials?
A: The University’s current focus is on educating the campus regarding the Accessible Technology Initiative (ATI) and all other appropriate mandates which will assist faculty in making instructional materials accessible. The Academic Senate has passed a policy requiring timely adoption of textbooks. Additional policies will be forthcoming. However, the University has a number of processes to investigate complaints and ensure compliance.
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Instructional Materials Questions
1. At least one faculty that I know of creates PowerPoint presentations but does not allow students to access to the slides. Will faculty be required to provide the slides in a digital format since it is part of the course instruction?
A: Intellectual Property rights are recognized; however, intellectual property rights are not exempt from legal requirements pertaining to students with disabilities. Faculty may NOT be required to give the actual slides if they are not given to other students and the presentation of them in class does not pose an access issue for students with disabilities. The faculty would also not be required to share the slides with the entire class if they chose to share them with the student with a disability. NOTE: All curriculum related materials that are used and shared in class or on the web must be accessible, which include: PowerPoint, podcasts, and all other electronic documents.
2. With the new Academic Senate policy “Timely Adoption of Text Books” faculty might ask how the policy will affect them. What would be the process to order textbooks?
A: The new policy requires that all faculty give their list of books to the Spartan Bookstore (due dates will be posted for each semester) so that the Disability Resource Center can provide alternative media for students. A good general rule will be to plan to have your book lists in 7-8 weeks in advance. Faculty are not required to order books from the Spartan Bookstore, but they are required to submit their list to them.
3. If a textbook is not available in a digital format, how should the faculty proceed?
A: Faculty will be able to review a database on the DRC web site to see what text books are already available in accessible formats. This may help when deciding upon the selection of textbooks they wish to use. However, faculty are NOT being asked to contact publishers or find digital accessible books. If the textbooks they need are not in the DRC database, faculty should their order books by the required due date posted in the Spartan Bookstore and on the DRC website (www.dr.sjsu.edu).
Course Readers: If the faculty member does not have an electronic version of their course reader than the Faulty member must provide a clean copy to the student for production into alternative format (Clean copies are those that can be easily scanned and made into a Word file. If the copy has any blurred print, it will not be useable).
4. In the disciplines of engineering, math and science, the instructional materials contain numerous equations. Do the equations need to be accessible?
A. Current technology does not allow for technical equations to be translated into an alternative format other than Braille. Because of this it is even more imperative that text books and class handouts be made available well in advance of the first day of instruction. Faculty should work with the Alternative Media Center for guidance and information related to equation formats. All text must be accessible, and alternative text provided to all images (i.e.: graphs, charts, etc).
5. How detail does the Alt text have to be? What is you have a lot of very detailed illustrations and visuals?
A: The idea is to prepare text equivalent content is to ensure all students, including students with different degrees of visual impairment, can access the same materials.
6. Is there a committee developing "undue burden" policy that takes into account the characteristics of engineering instructional materials?
A: The Instructional Materials Committee is working on an exception, extension and undue burden policy.
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Technology Related
Questions
1. How about accessibility features in Office 2007?
A: As the University is not currently supporting Office 2007, we are focusing our testing with 2003 version of MS Word and PowerPoint. In general, we believe what we covered in our accessible documents workshops should be applicable in concepts as well as procedure. It may be that the software features that implement the procedure might be nestled in different locations in the Office 2007 version.
2. Are WebCT websites accessible?
A:eCampus reports that according to Blackboard, the new CE 6.0 version to be launched in spring is accessible; however, there are still some tools that are not entirely accessible for screen readers, such as chat rooms etc.
3. Several of our faculty require their students to explore websites as part of the curriculum. Faculty cannot control whether commercial websites are accessible. What options are available to faculty?
A:In accordance with the CSU wide Accessible Technology Initiative (ATI) faculty are required to have an accessible course web site by 2012. Given that faculty cannot be held accountable for the accessibility of web sites beyond their control faculty should provide equally effective alternate web sites to students who are unable to access a web site.
Faculty have WebCT and the Spartan Web Wizard available to them. Both provide an accessible online presence for course materials.
4. Faculty scan numerous documents from various sources into PDF format. Is there support for the OCR translation on campus?
A: The Center for Faculty Development Faculty Lab located in IRC 202 has scanners, computers and OCR software for modifying documents. We have staff available to support faculty and staff to use the equipment. If there is a large demand for someone to prepare materials for the faculty, we will bring that message to the administration.
5. Will resources be available for departments to purchase more sophisticated scanners to allow this to happen easily? What advice can be given to lecturers who are not regularly on campus to facilitate this process?
A:The function of scanning that makes documents accessible is OCR software, not the hardware. Scanners with OCR software are available in the Center for Faculty Development Lab located in IRC 202 and in the Academic Success Center.
6. If a faculty photocopies a chart out of a book, magazine, etc. to give to students as a handout, I'm assuming they will also have to create a digital version. How does OCR handle tables, etc.?
A:OCR reads tables in the same way that it reads text, from left to right. Charts and graphs will have to be associated with descriptive files.
7. So, sounds like using Adobe Acrobat is one good resource, but the copy that I bought only allows me to install on two computers. Does the University have a site license for this software? Do we purchase this through the Student store?
A: For all University owned computers: The University does not have a site license for Adobe Acrobat. The faculty/staff member should contact their department IT representative who will let them know what licenses are available.
For personal computers, all faculty and staff are eligible for the CSU discount price. Until March 15, faculty and staff can buy the Adobe software at the CSU discounted price through Spartan Bookstore with the Tower Card. Faculty and staff can also purchase Adobe software at the CSU discounted price through ASAP Software. Call 847-465-3700, ask for the CSU discounted price known as the CLP price. Personal credit cards may be used.
8. When we use a slide design with background pictures, will a screen reader read the background image on every slide?
A. One would use software such as JAWS , Kurzweil, etc., to read the text in a document Any image element appearing in PowerPoint's background will not be read. However, if you have a text box containing words in the background for every slide, in Acrobat, that text box, similar to the footer information will be read on every slide. In PowerPoint, text information in the background will be ignored.
9. Several of our faculty use Microsoft Word headers/styles to structure their documents, but they do not use the built-in descriptions (e.g. Heading 1, Heading 2). They don't like the fact that if they modify Heading 1 to suit their own preference, it doesn't look the same when it transfers to other computers. Instead, they create their own new style and call it something like "greensheet title" and "greensheet subheading." My question is how does a screen reader (e.g. Jaws) handle this? Does it understand the different heading levels for the document structure even if they are not based on the existing heading 1, heading 2, etc. What should I tell my faculty to do?
A. The screen reader software can only identify headers that are named either using the existing Heading 1, 2, etc. or modified after an existing style with a new name, such as Heading 1 Greensheet, etc. You can save the styles as a template (.dot) and create new document base on this template. The modified names of the headings will appear the same in your Styles and Formatting menu in the new document.
10. When converting Word and PowerPoint to PDF, does the conversion preserve the accessibility features in Word and PowerPoint?
A. For converting Word to PDF, the styles will be preserved as long as you instruct Acrobat to add tags. Refer to the Accessible Word Workshop Tutorial available at http://www.sjsu.edu/cfd/resources/instructional/accessibilitv.shtml The tutorial is located under the heading, Accessible Documents).
The hyperlinks that originally appeared as URL links will be preserved, but not hidden links with descriptive labels. Formatting will be preserved in most cases. Currently we have not been successful at having Acrobat transfer the Alternative text. Therefore, it is necessary to create captions in Word for safe conversion, or add the alternative text manually once in Acrobat.
For converting PowerPoint to PDF there are several alternates: One way is to save/print/ as PDF by choosing the Outline View format. In the Print what field in the Print dialog window, only the text in the Outline pane/window (all text appeared in the Placeholders in slides) will be converted. JAWS or Read Out Loud in Acrobat will read the PDF document as a straight text document.
Another way is to save/print as PDF by choosing the Handout format. In the Print what field in the Print dialog window, the slides will appear as graphics to JAWS. However, JAWS will still read the text per slide while Read Out Loud will read text without commenting that they are graphics.
In both ways JAWS will not see the Alternative Texts. One could also use the print as Notes Pages so each slide could be accompanied by detailed description of the visual as Notes.
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