The NIMAS Development and Technical Assistance centers strongly support the development and implementation of a market model for preparing and delivering specialized formats of instructional materials to schools. We understand that a number of publishers are moving in this direction, and we applaud those efforts. In addition to providing opportunities for schools to purchase specialized-format instructional materials for students with print disabilities, once a publisher owns electronic rights to all of a product’s text and images, that publisher will be able to sell resulting specialized formats to schools for any student that may need or prefer such formats.

We estimate that approximately 5% of the K–12 student population qualifies for specialized formats under the Chafee Amendment to copyright law. This includes students who are blind, have low vision, have physical challenges that prevent holding a book and turning its pages, and students with reading-related learning disabilities resulting from organic dysfunction. There are additional qualifications related to IDEA and certifications.

While developing a market model, it will be important to keep the following in mind:

1. In order to participate in adoptions and local district purchases, a publisher will quite likely still be asked to prepare and submit valid NIMAS filesets to the NIMAC. We suspect that high-quality products offered directly by publishers will do well compared with other options, but it seems unlikely that most publishers will be able to offer all of the current specialized formats (high-quality Braille or tactile graphics, for example) that would normally be prepared by highly qualified accessible media producers (AMPs).
2. Should a publisher decide to offer a full suite of specialized formats, we recommend that the following be made available: DAISY Talking Book (preferably DTB3), accessible HTML, large print, and audio (high-quality TTS to MP3 or human recorded voice ). We would expect that third-party experts would be required to produce high-quality Braille and tactile graphics.
3. Standards for each format should be carefully studied, and versions with images should include alternative text and long descriptions with those images for an HTML output and alternative text and producer notes for a DAISY output. Content of long descriptions and producer notes would be identical. Many, but not all, images will require long descriptions or producer notes.
4. Specialized formats should be tested with appropriate players and reviewed by experts who have experience acquiring and using specialized formats with K–12 students.

The NIMAS Development and Technical Assistance centers will continue to make NIMAS-related resources available on the NIMAS web site at http://nimas.cast.org, and we are more than willing to respond to any and all queries related to the NIMAS initiative.

Skip Stahl
Director
NIMAS Development Center