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NCAC: National File Format: Notice For Comments Regarding NFF

Notice For Comments Regarding National File Format (NFF)

As part of its efforts to ensure that No Child is Left Behind, the U.S. Department of Education seeks to ensure that no child face an inaccessible curriculum that raises barriers to progress rather than provides opportunities for learning. Unfortunately, too many students with disabilities do find inaccessible curricula in their classrooms.

As a step towards overcoming that impediment, the Department has asked the National Center on Accessing the General Curriculum (NCAC), housed at the Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) www.cast.org , to convene a Technical Panel to make recommendations on a voluntary National File Format for the electronic transmission of instructional materials for students with disabilities.

Request for Public Comments Regarding the Development of a National File Format

At the direction of and in consultation with the Department of Education, NCAC has assembled an NFF Technical Panel consisting of approximately 40 members, representing: 1) Consumers, including advocacy groups and state and local educational representatives; 2) Technical experts, such as assistive technology professionals, textbook administrators, software developers, standards organizations, and data conversion experts; and 3) Feasibility experts encompassing national standards agencies, curriculum publishers, technology researchers, and ex-officio members from the Department of Education. The charge of the Technical Panel is to present the Secretary of Education with “a set of technical specifications to facilitate the efficient delivery of accessible instructional materials, a timeline for the implementation of the proposed standards, and process for assessing the success of standards implementation.”

The goal of the National File Format Technical Panel is to assemble a National File Format (NFF) that will represent the best attempt of a broad team of knowledgeable individuals to define a common format, one that can serve as a foundation for accessible K-12 educational materials. Such a common format will benefit the entire nation: states, districts, publishers, advocates, disability organizations, parents, and, most importantly, students with a range of disabilities. In order to accomplish this work, NCAC intends to convene a series of at least three Technical Panel meetings over the next seven months to address the interests of each of the three key constituencies represented by the panel members: the Consumer Group, the Technical Group, and the Feasibility Group.

In order to ensure that the proposed NFF is responsive to the target consumers, specifically, children with print disabilities in grades K-12, CAST is requesting that parents, students, advocates, professionals and anyone else with relevant knowledge or experience in these issues submit comments on the following issues:

1. The impediments facing students with print disabilities, including the context in which these impediments arise.
2. A list of particular features and functions that would benefit students with print disabilities, and a description of how those features and function would be beneficial.
3. A statement outlining any objections or concerns with regard to the creation of a National File Format.

We request that you submit any comments to:

National File Format Technical Panel
c/o CAST
40 Harvard Mills Square, Suite 3
Wakefield, MA 01880-3233
Email to: nff@cast.org

Why do we need a National File Format?

The traditional print-based materials that dominate classrooms raise barriers for many students with disabilities. Modern digital materials can present the same content as printed books, but in a format that is much more flexible and accessible. The advantage of digital books is that these alternatives, and many others, can be available on an individual basis – available for students who need them, invisible or non-distracting for those who don’t. Such customizable alternatives can substantially reduce the barriers found in traditional texts, reducing the effects of what are commonly called “print disabilities”.

There is great promise in using new electronic materials as a way to improve access to the curriculum, but that promise is not being adequately realized. Very few students with disabilities presently have access to the accessible books they need. One important impediment is the lack of a common format that publishers, agencies, schools and teachers can utilize in providing accessible electronic materials for their students.

While there are many barriers to accessibility, the problems that are caused by multiple formats are particularly frustrating and easily remedied. The adoption of a common, or standard, format is a simplifying step that has been crucial to progress in many other fields – from railroads (adopting a common track gauge), to video technology (adopting a common format for DVD, and HDTV). Similarly, progress in accessibility will be greatly abetted by defining a common national file format. With that single change, a number of barriers at many points in the educational materials distribution system can be addressed.

1. With one clear and consistent file format to produce, publishers would be able to deliver a high quality digital version expeditiously and simultaneously to all authorized entities for further conversion and distribution.
2. With one consistent file format coming from different publishers, “authorized entities” would be able to efficiently transform these common formats into accessible formats (accessible digital versions and printed Braille, for example) and deliver them to local schools and school districts expeditiously.
3. With one basic digital format from vendors, schools and school districts could adopt vastly simpler, less costly, and more timely methods for acquiring materials, storing and retrieving them, purchasing additional assistive technologies, and training teachers and others in their use.
4. With one basic digital format from their districts, teachers could get their accessible materials in a timely fashion, in a consistent format that will work with their classroom technologies, and in a consistent format that will be easier for them to learn.
5. With one basic file format, students would finally get the accessible materials they need, when they need them.

What is a National File Format?

A file format is a specification for filing electronic information so that the content can be accurately and efficiently retrieved. A file format is a specification for filing electronic information so that the content can be accurately and efficiently retrieved - just as a library or home filing system requires some sort of organizational scheme to retrieve the information from it.

More technically, information is stored in an electronic file type with a data structure, referred to as the format, so that the content stored is usable by one or more application programs (word processor, Web browser, assistive technology program). Because of the consistent format, an application program can recognize and access data within the file. Several common file formats are Microsoft Word documents (.doc), Adobe Acrobat (.pdf), and Web pages (.html).

Some file formats have been developed specifically to enhance accessibility – for example, to facilitate the use of assistive technologies, like screenreaders. Some examples of formats developed to enhance accessibility are accessible HTML, ANSI/NISO Z39.86-2002 (DAISY Digital Talking Book) and “tagged” PDF.

The NFF is envisioned to be the foundation format provided by publishers and other curriculum developers for subsequent transformation into accessible digital outputs. Most considerations relating to the NFF have centered on XML (Extensible Markup Language) as the core technology for the storage of digital information. Extensible Markup Language (XML) is a syntax for marking up data or information. One of the most significant benefits of XML is that it is possible to generate multiple output formats easily and efficiently from a single XML source. This would be considerably more difficult if the source formats were HTML, PDF, Quark or RTF.