Alternative Media FAQ
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1. What is alternative media?

Alternative media is an alternative medium of presentation from that in which the work was originally done; in other words, it is a different form.  It includes not only e-text, large print, and Braille; but also tactile graphics, audio files, closed captioning, and accessible web sites.

2. What are e-texts?

E-text, or electronic text, is a computer readable electronic file which duplicates a physical text such as a textbook. There are many types of e-text such as ASCII, RTF (rich text format), PDF (portable document format), PageMaker, QuarkExpress, Tiff, EPS, and so on..

3. How do I use e-texts?

There are a number of mediums in which e-texts can be utilized.  Some of these include: Text-to-speech software, which allows computer text to be processed and then synthesized or "spoken" by the computer.

Screen enlargement software, which allows computer text to be displayed in a magnified size. For example, a typical sentence could be magnified and displayed one word at a time. Specialized Braille printers allow computer text to be processed and embossed.

In order to make use of these technologies, the material to be processed must be in a digital format. Because of its digital nature, e-text can be distributed via electronic media; i.e., floppy disks, e-mail and FTP.

4. How do I create e-texts?

E-text is created via a process which scans any printed text and converts it into a computer file which can be read by word processors and other document programs. There are five distinct processes required to create e-text:

Scanning (the process of creating a graphic file of the original printed document);

Zoning (the process of identifying the text portions of the scanned page (as opposed to graphic portions such as figures and tables);

Optical character recognition (the process of taking a graphic image of text and producing a text representation of the original material;

Recognition checking (basically, checking the document accuracy by performing a spell-check of the document)

Saving and archiving the file in the appropriate format.

5. What is Large Print?

Inkprint or electronic text displayed at a size great than or equal to 14 point.  It needs some specific requirements in contrast, leading, style, letter spacing, and alignment.

6. What is Braille?

Braille is a system of tactile reading and writing in which raised dots represent the letters of the alphabet.  Braille also contains equivalents for punctuation marks and provides symbols to show letter groupings.  Braille is read by moving the hand or hands from left to right along each line.  Both hands are usually involved in the reading process, and reading is generally done with the index fingers.  The average reading speed is about 125 words per minute, but greater speeds of up to 200 words per minutes are possible.

7. What are Grade One Braille and Grade Two Braille?

Grade One Braille consists of the 26-letter alphabet, numbers, and punctuation.

Grade Two Braille adds 189 contractions and short-form words.

8. What is Tactile Graphics?

Graphic images produced as raised images.  Such raised images may be produced by a device using heat and heat-sensitive paper.  This enables high quality tactile graphics, suitable for blind and visually impaired people, to be made quickly and easily.  Some tactile graphics can also be produced using a braille embosser.

9. How to make the tactile graphics?

There are three steps of making tactile graphics:

a. Photocopy the image onto thermal paper.
b. Raise the image in a thermal enhancer.
c. The image is ready to use.

10. What is audio format?

Audio material is commonly recorded on cassette tapes, but it may also be stored on CD-ROM or other storage media.  It is also possible to produce material in audio format by having E-text read with a speech synthesizer.  Providing materials in a recorded audio format is one method of making information accessible to persons who are blind or visually impaired.

11. What are caption, closed caption, and open caption?

The caption in a book is the text under a picture, captions on a TV screen are text located somewhere on the picture. 

Closed captions are captions that are hidden in the video signal and are invisible without a special decoder.  The place they are hidden is called Line 21 of the vertical blanking interval.

Open caption are captions that have been decoded, in other words, it cannot be turned off.

12. What are offline captioning and realtime captioning?

Offline captioning consists of putting captions on a prerecorded program, typically on videotape.
Realtime captioning, also known as stenocaptioning, is the contemporaneous creation of text from speech.

13. What is web accessibility?

Web accessibility is the process of making Internet and Intranet sites compatible with assistive technologies used by people with disabilities. For example, people who are blind, deaf, severely dyslexic, cannot use a mouse or keyboard, or have other special needs often use assistive technologies to work with computers.

14. What is Section 508?

In 1998, the Workforce Investment Act established Section 508 as an amendment to the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. This federal mandate requires that electronic and information technology developed, procured, maintained, or used by the Federal government must be accessible to people with disabilities.

Most of Section 508 compliance concerns making Web sites, Intranets, and Web-enabled applications accessible. Government agencies must make their Web sites and Intranets accessible according to the standards, and can only create or purchase Web-enabled applications which comply with the Section 508 standards. Corporations who do business with the government also must make their Web-enabled applications and any Web sites built for government clients accessible as well.

The final Section 508 standards were determined on December 21, 2000 by the Access Board, an independent Federal agency devoted to accessibility for people with disabilities. The law went into effect on June 25, 2001.

15. What is AB 422?

On September 15, 1999, California Governor Gray Davis signed into law Assembly Bill 422 (Steinberg) which requires publishers of instructional material to provide the material at no cost in an electronic format for use by students with disabilities at the University of California, California State University, and California Community Colleges.  This new law, which became effective January 1, 2000, will assist colleges in meeting their pre-existing obligations to provide instructional materials in alternate media.  The electronic text supplied by a publisher may be used to produce large print, translated and sent to a braille embosser, or accessed directly with speech synthesizers or refreshable braille displays.