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Committee Begins Work to Improve Standard for Accessible K-12 Materials
NIMAS Publishing Guidelines Will Improve Learning for Print Disabled Students

WAKEFIELD, Mass.—More than two dozen educators, publishers, disability advocates, parents, policymakers, and technologists gather today in Orlando, FL, for the inaugural meeting of the NIMAS Development Committee to further develop the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS).

NIMAS is a technical specification for the production of digital versions of textbooks that can be more easily converted to a variety of accessible formats, including braille and text-to-speech. See http://nimas.cast.org for details.

"Many students with disabilities are at risk for school failure because they lack basic access to the same standards-based materials used by most students," says David H. Rose, co-executive director of CAST, which heads the NIMAS Development Center. "In an era when technology provides powerful alternatives to inaccessible classroom materials, we can - and we must - level the playing field for special-needs students. NIMAS will help us accomplish this."

CAST, a nonprofit research and development organization, convened the panel that wrote the original standard, which the U.S. Department of Education endorsed in 2004.

NIMAS-derived materials should help schools better meet the federal mandates—including No Child Left Behind and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA 2004)—that guarantee students with disabilities an equal opportunity to participate in the general curriculum.

IDEA 2004 calls on state and local education agencies to adopt NIMAS and provide alternate-format instructional materials to print-disabled students in a timely manner.

In revising NIMAS, committee members will account for changes and advances in technology, the education sciences, education policy, and the publishing industry. They will also consider free-market distribution models for NIMAS-based materials.

The NIMAS Development Center and its partner organization, the NIMAS Technical Assistance Center, are led by CAST under a collaborative agreement with the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP). In October, CAST received a five-year, $3.25 million grant from OSEP to establish the Centers.

CAST is a not-for-profit education research and development organization based near Boston, Mass., whose mission is to make education accessible to all learners, especially those with disabilities, through innovative uses of digital technologies. To learn more, visit www.cast.org.