Bookshare.org Announces Results of National School Initiative

Support from the NEC Foundation of America Enabled Successful Pilot Outcomes

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Palo Alto, CA, July 22, 2004: Bookshare.org has announced the results of a successful national school pilot initiative, funded in part by the NEC Foundation of America. Launched in 2003, this initiative partnered Bookshare.org with disability student service (DSS) staff at post-secondary institutions and K-12 teachers in several states. These partnerships created and implemented a set of recommendations to facilitate the use of Bookshare.org’s online library of more than 18,000 accessible digital books by students with visual impairments or other disabilities that affect reading.

Pilot partners helped establish Bookshare.org as an important resource for students with disabilities. The flexibility of accessible e-text helps teachers and DSS providers optimize the student’s reading experience based on disability and reader preference, allowing use with Braille reading devices, portable book readers and software that supports learning disabilities. Bookshare.org’s extensive range of both required literature and outside reading, encourages broader student literacy. Furthermore, access to the full text of the books helps students exercise essential spelling and punctuation skills.

The school pilots also produced a number of recommendations for improvements to the service, including the creation of an Institutional Access model for downloading. This complementary option, designed with partner input and launched in February 2004, enables the staff of a school or other organization to purchase a pre-set number of books to be downloaded on behalf of students with qualifying disabilities. Institutional Access is ideal for schools favoring staff control over book downloads, as well as schools with younger students or students who may not have individual access to the Internet.

Pilot partners garnered further usability recommendations, including the need for easier school account creation and signup and quicker access to select books. As a result, the process was streamlined, and Bookshare.org produced a K-12 Teacher Recommended Reading List to help teachers find important books by grade level as well as by title, author and category.

Pilot partners also stressed the importance of required textbooks and the value of proofread scans. Through Bookshare.org’s partnerships with post-secondary institutions, thousands of textbooks scanned by DSS providers have since been tapped for inclusion on Bookshare.org. Bookshare.org is also targeting K-12 state-adopted textbooks, many of which are being proofread for inclusion over the next three to six months.

Funding from the NEC Foundation America contributed to the implementation of each of these recommendations. The pilot partnerships established as part of the initiative, now entering its second year, will continue to provide valuable feedback about Bookshare.org’s use in educational settings.

About Bookshare.org

Bookshare.org offers a collection of more than 18,000 accessible digital books to its members. The books are protected by a comprehensive digital rights management plan, which features extensive controls, including file encryption, watermarks, fingerprinting and a security watch program. Bookshare.org builds on 15 years of work in the adaptive technology field, originally under the Arkenstone name.

About Benetech

The Benetech Initiative is a Silicon Valley nonprofit that develops sustainable, technology-based solutions to address pressing social challenges in areas such as disability, human rights, education and literacy. Many beneficial technologies have compelling social applications that are not developed because such efforts do not meet for-profit investors’ financial expectations. Benetech specifically pursues endeavors with a strong social, rather than financial, rate of return on investment, bringing commercial technology and private sector management techniques to bear in creating innovative, non-traditional solutions to challenging social issues. More information on Benetech and its projects can be found at www.benetech.org or by calling (650) 475-5440.

# # #

- Back to Top –