Alt-text and Its Disparate Consumers

Frequently, and I am guilty of this too, alt-text is referred to as a single thing. We are learning to be a little more careful about this with the proliferation of commercial E-books. E-books, we are finding out, are not all that accessible for people with print disabilities.

Even in the world of providing alt-text to college students with print disabilities there are very different needs. Ignoring these differences can lead to wasted time, money and effort. Even worse, it may be short changing the student. When contemplating your alt-text services, define it in student terms.

At my school there a generally two types of students getting alt-text services and both have valid print access disabilities. One group has learning disabilities and the other group has vision issues. The fact is, these two groups get very different alt-text “products.” I’d like to share our system with you and I invite your comments.

Alt-text for Students with Learning Disabilities
The basic reading issue for college students with learning disabilities is comprehension of long chunks of text and not basic reading remediation where the student struggles with identifying single words.
These students typically have full visual access to their books. While some follow highlighted text on the computer screen, others read along in the original text. These students typically use Kurzweil, WYNN, text, pdf, or mp3 files.

Our student orientation includes demonstrating a range of tools from lab-based Kurzweil to Natural Reader that can be used on their own computers. The student decides which is the appropriate tool.

The files we make for these students are unedited and the process is fairly automated. Students are either looking at a picture of the text or following along with the original text. They know that there may be an occasional discrepancy between the audio and the print, but this has never caused a problem for our students.

For students with learning disabilities we convert whole books only. The students are expected to convert short runs or articles themselves on equipment provided in our labs. This promotes independence and usually students can convert their own short runs faster than going through the bureaucracy to have us do it.

Alt-text for Students with Vision Issues
The needs of a student whose print disability is vision related is different from the student with a learning disability. Our students who do not have visual access to the original material get a different set of services.

The first thing we do is assign a dedicated editor to each student receiving services. This gives the student flexible and responsive management of their alt-text production. That is, a student can instruct his/her editor to cancel chapter four and do chapter six instead based on class assignment changes.

Some of our students have developed distinctive and unique preferences for table and chart descriptions. They can convey this to their editors and get more meaningful conversions. Some may say such custom work could become a disadvantage later on and that is a possibility we remind our students of.

As to file type, that is up to each student. Word processing “doc” files and Braille embossing remain the bulk of our production for this population. We are, however, prepared to offer other file types when requested.

Be Student Driven
We try to look beyond technology and stay focused on student academic success. For students with learning disabilities a small program adjustment may encourage adoption. Recently, we have started demonstrating small, free or low cost alternative readers that students can load onto their own computers. These programs lack many of the features of their expensive counterparts, but for some students the portability and independence is just what they need to adopt this form of support. For our students with vision disabilities, managing their own work flow seems to be most helpful. They get to know their editor and know that they set the priorities for their alt-text production.