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AAP Meeting Covers Latest Developments in NIMAS Implementation

June 13, 2006—The NIMAS meeting held by The Association of American Publishers (AAP) on June 13 in Washington, DC, gave new details on what to expect as we move toward implementation of the new provision. Staff from AAP, the NIMAS technical assistance center, and the US Department of Education presented to an audience of publishers and their respective staffs.

NIMAS Technical Assistance Center
Chuck Hitchcock from The Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST) and the NIMAS Technical Assistance Center presented similar information during the AEP May 18 web seminar. From policy implementation to the technical standard Chuck explained the entire process. He also moderated a discussion on the technical implementation of the standard and can be contacted for more information at nimas@cast.org.

USED – State support and final rule making
Bonnie Jones, Ph.D., Education Program Specialist, Office of Special Education Programs and US Department of Education (USED) updated the group on how they plan to help states develop contract language on the implementation of the rules.

• The rules are currently in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) for review.  The OMB received them on June 1, 2006, and have 90 days to review. The assumption is that final rules will be published in the federal register either at the end of August or beginning of September. 

• The Department of Education will be holding a national call regarding the development of contract language with state officials. Many of the states have various agencies within their education departments that are responsible for contract language, so they are reaching out to the appropriate agencies across the US to help them develop contract language to accompany purchase orders.
• State special education directors will be having their annual meeting at the end of August; NIMAS is one of the top nine issues that USED will brief them on.  This will be followed up by regional trainings and rollouts for State Education Agencies, and Local Education Agencies.

Ms. Jones hinted that one of the significant changes in the regulations may be who the standard will serve. According to her, "print disabled" is not currently in the spectrum of the 13 legal disability categories for public education. She is not  permitted to give more information than that, and would not comment further on what the content  of the final rules will be. It could mean USED intends to expand or limit the category in the rules.

APH and NIMAC make progress on file repository
Julia Meyers, Director of Resources, American Printing House for the Blind (APH), updated participants on preparations to open the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Center by the end of the year (NIMAC). The NIMAC is the central repository that will receive and catalog publishers' electronic files of print instructional materials in the standard NIMAS format. She also gave the most recent information regarding who can access the NIMAC. Emphasis was placed on the NIMAC's neutrality - it will only accept, hold and validate the materials; it will not have a policy making role in the process.  

Ms. Meyers expressed that they need files to test the validation system. These files can be sent to the APH.  The system will be operational by December 2006. 

In an attempt to clarify who has access to the NIMAC, the terms were defined this way. 

An authorized entity is referred to in the Chafee amendment as "a nonprofit organization or a governmental agency that has a primary mission to provide specialized services relating to training, education, or adaptive reading or information access needs of blind or other persons with disabilities." This is primarily the State or Local School Districts. 

Authorized user in this document simply means an individual who has signed the NIMAC Limitation of Use agreement and who has been provided a user ID and password that enables him/her to access the NIMAC database and download NIMAS file sets in accordance with that agreement.

According to Ms. Meyers, OSEP recently communicated some key principles that should be followed while developing the policies and procedures for access to the NIMAS file set and NIMAC.

• In the policies and procedures, access to NIMAC should only be granted based on a contract agreement. Only SEAs and LEAs who have contracted with publishers and requested that NIMAS files be deposited will have access to the NIMAC.
• The SEAs and LEAs must guarantee that a print equivalent will be purchased for each copy of an accessible instructional material produced from the files.
• The conversion houses with valid contracts for specific files will have direct access to the NIMAC. The conversion houses such as APH, RFBD and for profit entities will be operating under contract as an agent of the SEA or LEA.
• The appropriate language for describing print disabled in the limitation of use agreement is the statutory language

NIMAC and USED are attempting to make access to the repository a very structured process with each state controlling who gets access. For example NIMAC wants SEAs and LEAs to designate vendors as authorized entities, giving them limited access to files that expires after the files are downloaded.

Watermarking of the files, secure passwords for the authorized users, and embedded fingerprinting for downloads are some of the ways that the file sets are protected. NIMAC is asking each state to limit the number of users to about five.  There was also mention that the available funding will limit the number of users from 200 to 500.

OverDrive, a leading provider of eBook technologies and Digital Rights management services based in Cleveland, OH, will provide the storage, validation, and authentication for the repository. They have extensive experience in digital content services and have launched a digital library as well.

They are in the process of developing the validation tool. It will be online and will require Internet Explorer 5.5 or higher and a Windows-based offline platform. The tool will determine if the files conform to the NIMAS standard.  Publishers will receive a digital certificate when the files have been accepted, and they won’t have to resubmit materials that are requested by other SEAs or LEAs.  If there are problems with the files, this information will also be returned to the publisher and the files can be corrected. 

While in storage at the NIMAC publisher content is segregated.  Each publisher can see and manage inventory, but only authorized users can complete authorized tasks.  The connection is secure and content is not accessible from the web. 

Accounts will be provided to the authorized users who will need to download the files for conversion.  The users may also be able to set up sub accounts, and that may be necessary due to the existence of open territory states where each Local Education Association contracts to purchase materials.

State Panel describes potential obstacles
Finally, a panel of State education officials provided some perspective on how the new standard will apply to them. Three states were represented: New York, Missouri, and Indiana. 

Two of the states - New York and Missouri - are open territory states and have almost 1,200 school districts between them. In open territory states, each school district adopts their own materials. That means core print materials can be different for each of the districts, making the number of authorized entities and users much higher than the NIMAC expects or is designed to handle at this time.

In textbook adoption states such as Indiana, the state will determine what constitutes printed instructional materials.  These states will find it easier to name four or five authorized users for access to the NIMAC.

There were many concerns voiced by the publishers attending the NIMAS training. Even though protections were outlined in detail, many stated that once their products were downloaded from the NIMAC, a district or “user” could reproduce the book at no cost.

Steve Driesler, a consultant with AAP, explained that publishers giving their files to schools to copy today have even fewer protections.  Although that is the current practice, publishers responded that files currently provided are not the full NIMAS file set that can be easily converted into a quality textbook. 

This meeting revealed there is much left to be resolved in the implementation of NIMAS and the NIMAC. Textbooks are the primary focus of what printed instructional materials will be requested thus far. It remains to be seen how many supplemental materials will be requested for NIMAS file sets. Even so, supplemental publishers need to be prepared for the reality of the law going into effect in December 2006.

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