EPUB (Non-Assistive Technologies) – Getting Started

Below you will find video tutorials for completing accessibility evaluations of eTextbooks in EPUB format using Non-Assistive Technologies (NAT).  Click here to view the EPUB NAT Manual as a PDF. 

  1. Getting Started
  2. Software Requirements and Checkpoint 1
  3. Checkpoint 2: Text Access 
  4. Checkpoint 3: Text Adjustment
  5. Checkpoint 4: Reading Layout
  6. Checkpoints 5, 6 and 7
  7. Checkpoint 8: Hyperlinks
  8. Checkpoint 9: Color and Contrast 
  9. Checkpoint 10: Language
  10. Checkpoint 11: Images
  11. Checkpoint 12: Multimedia
  12. Checkpoint 13: Flickering
  13. Checkpoint 14: STEM (Markup and Notation)
  14. Checkpoint 15: Interactive Elements

Getting Started 

Transcripts

Welcome to the EPUB Accessibility Evaluation Training Video for Nonassistive Technologies. The 15 accessibility checkpoints that you will be evaluating include: accessibility documentation, text access, text adjustment, reading layout, reading order, structural markup and navigation, tables, hyperlinks, color and contrast, language, images, multimedia, flickering, STEM, and interactive elements. To begin the evaluation, contact your project manager or accessibility trainer to acquire the e-textbook. If this option is unavailable, you can download the book from the Cool4Ed website. To access the website, navigate to the cool4ed reviews page at www.cool4ed.org/reviews. This will take you to the cool4ed website, where you can find and download the electronic textbooks and more information about the Cool4Ed project. From the cool4ed website, scroll down the page or use your browser’s find function to find your assigned book and click on the link for that book. From this page, click on the “get this book” link. Online texts are available in various formats, but for this training, we will focus on the EPUB format. If the EPUB format is available, click on that link, and the e-textbook should download automatically. If EPUB is not listed, it may still be available. To check if EPUB is available, click on the “Web View” link and select “Get this book”. From this page, look for the “EPUB” link to download the file. If you still cannot find the file, contact your project manager or accessibility trainer. To conduct the evaluation, you will fill in a spreadsheet checklist. To access this spreadsheet, contact your project manager or accessibility trainer. At the top of the checklist, enter the general subject of the textbook in the “content area” cell. In the “Name of book” section, enter the name of the book. In the Format section, enter NAT EPUB. In the OS used section, enter Windows 10 or 7, depending on the operating system used to conduct the evaluation. For these e-textbook accessibility evaluations, only Windows operating system may be used. In the Total number of pages section, enter the number of pages in the textbook. You can see those sections on this slide.

After filling out the top section, the rest of the spreadsheet will update with the amount of content that needs to be evaluated. All decimal values should be rounded up. For example, if the checklist says 172.6 pages, you should evaluate 173 pages throughout the book. These values are an example of how to round the page numbers. The actual numbers for your specific textbook will be displayed automatically when you fill in the spreadsheet. At each checkpoint, you will be entering whether the checkpoint passes or fails, though you may also enter “N/A” in some instances.  You will also rank each checkpoint on a scale from 1 to 10, and will be entering the rank in the spreadsheet. For each checkpoint, evaluate the amount of material included in the checklist, and in the pass-fail column, enter whether the textbook passes or fails the checkpoint. Scores 7 and above pass and scores 6 or below fail. For scoring, you should always round down if the value is not a whole number. For the Ranking 1-10 column, enter the value or percentage of content that passes the checkpoint. Again, scores 7 and above pass, and scores below 7 fail, so do not give any checkpoint that should fail a score 7 or above and do not give a checkpoint that should pass a score under 7.  If the ranking is not a whole number, like 6.8, you will round the ranking down to 6, rather than round to the nearest whole number.