Alternative Text Materials

Disability Support Services (DSS) provides alternative format materials to ensure equal access to course materials for qualified students. These materials include, but are not limited to, Braille, digital accessible formats for supporting screen readers/audio output and enlargement. An alternative format, when possible, is provided only for courses for which the eligible student is currently enrolled. All materials will be provided in accordance with all copyright laws and exceptions.

DSS will make every attempt to provide the desired format, however this process can take up to six weeks. All alternative textbook requests must be submitted when course registration is complete each term.

Alternative Text Materials

Students who are requesting books in alternative formats should complete the following steps:

Register with DSS and meet the eligibility criteria for alternative text materials.
Enroll or be enrolled in the course for which the materials are being requested.
Review textbooks required for the course. If your textbooks are not listed at the time of registration, contact your professors to identify the required textbook for the course(s). Students can also engage the GW bookstore to search for textbooks as well.
Locate your books using the Useful Resources listed below first. Many publishers now provide both print version and e-book options, check if the e-book is accessible for your needs. If you’re purchasing Kindle eBooks, the built-in VoiceView Screen Reader reads everything onscreen aloud, including the menus and the pages of e-books, and it will even automatically turn pages as it reads aloud. Please test VoiceView against your purchased books before submitting the Alt-text Materials request. Other resources for purchasing eBooks include Vital Source, RedShelf, Amazon Audible, etc.
Please follow the instructons below to submit your book request if:
- You are unable to locate your textbook.
- Your textbook is unavailable in an electronic format or the digital version is not accessible.

Requesting Alternative Format Accommodation in AIM

Log in to the DSS Student Portal.
On the Overview page, check the boxes next to the classes for which you are requesting accommodations.
Click Step 2: Continue to Customize Your Accommodations.
Under Select Accommodations, check the box next to Alternative Text Materials.
Click Submit Your Accommodation Requests.

Once you submit your accommodations requests, you will be able to submit book requests through the Alternative Formats module.

Submitting Alternative Format Requests in AIM

In the menu on the left side of the screen, click on Alternative Formats listed under My Accommodations.
All of the textbooks are listed for the classes for which you requested alternative format accommodations. Click Select next to each textbook for which you are requesting an alternative format.

NOTE:

If “EBK” is listed in the textbook title, then you DO NOT need to request this text. Instead, you should purchase the eBook version available from the GW Bookstore.
If a textbook you need is not listed here, please add the book information as much as you can. It will help us find the correct edition.
If you know that the book is available through the Gelman Library, please include the catalog link in the Notes section.
If you only need specific page ranges, or if you need an alternative text by a specific date, please indicate this in the Notes section.

Click Submit Request

Uploading Receipts

You do not need to have purchased a book to submit an alternative format request for it. However, we may not be able to fulfill your request until a receipt is uploaded. For students who are eligible for a Bookshare membership, if a book is available in Bookshare, no proof of purchase is required. Please email dssatgwu [dot] edu (dssat[at]gwu[dot]edu) if you have questions about Bookshare membership.

On your Alternative Formats module, under Receipt Needed, upload your proof of purchase for each of the books you requested. You may upload scans of physical receipts or copies of emailed receipts. The file should indicate the title of the book and the amount paid.
Select the course that the receipt is for, then click Upload Receipt.

Accessing Requested Alternative Formats

Once your request has been fulfilled, you will receive an email with a download link to access your book. A Download Book button will also appear next to the book request on the Alternative Formats page.
Click the Download Book button. This will direct you to a Google folder which contains the alternative format files requested.
Download the files to your computer to open and read with your preferred computer program. We encourage you to utilize the text-to-speech tool available in Kurzweil, a study tool that GW provides to all students.

Manually Converting Books

If we cannot obtain the books from the publishers or known networks, we can manually scan and convert the content to an electronic format. This process requires that the bookbinding be cut off to allow the pages to be scanned and that it be replaced with a spiral binding. Not all textbooks can be manually converted. We will always contact you first via email to gain your permission to have your book(s) cut.

Publishers usually don’t accept proof of purchase of rental books. It is possible that you will be asked to change your purchase option in order to receive an accessible format from the publisher. You may also want to check with your retailer about returning a rental book in spiral binding before agreeing to cut-and-scan.

Upon being rebound, the original hardcopy textbook(s) will be returned to you, and you will be able to sell the book(s) back to the university bookstore at the end of the semester, should you wish to do so.

In the event that you opt not to have your bookbinding cut after we exhaust all resources to acquire the accessible formats, DSS may not be able to provide the alternative format accommodation.

Useful Resources

Please utilize the following resources to identify if your texts may already be available in electronic format on the web at no cost.

DSS Resources

Sponsored Licenses for All GW Students

JAWS, ZoomText, and Fusion

Bookshare

Collections: The largest online repository of digital content.
Benefits: No need to submit proof of purchase or a service request to DSS; instantly download the available text or listen to the content using BookShare Reader.

Visit BookShare.org to learn more. Contact dssatgwu [dot] edu (dssat[at]gwu[dot]edu) if you have any questions regarding a BookShare account.

Other Resources

Project Gutenberg

Collections: Classical studies, philosophy, literature, and history books.
Student membership is not required.

Visit Gutenberg.org to learn more.

Librivox

Collections: eBooks of various genres recorded by volunteers in the public domain in USA.
Browse the Catalog

Visit Librivox.org to learn more.

Open Library

Collections: Books in BookReader, PDF, and ePub formats. BookReader editions can be read online at any time, in any web browser, and on any device.
Create an account

Visit OpenLibrary.org to learn more.

DC Talking Book and Braille

Collections: Books and magazines in audio and braille format
Instructions on account creation

Visit DC Talking Book and Braille for those who are Blind/Low Vision or print disabled.

HathiTrust and Text Mining

Digitized books for research and educational computational investigation
Browse the full HathiTrust Digital Library (HTDL)

Visit HathiTrust and Text Mining to learn more.