"Final Regulations" of NIMAS in IDEA 2004

§300.172 Access to instructional materials.

(a) General. The State must--
Adopt the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS), published as appendix C to part 300, for the purposes of providing instructional materials to blind persons or other persons with print disabilities, in a timely manner after publication of the NIMAS in the Federal Register on July 19,2006 (71 FR 41084); and
(2) Establish a State definition of "timely manner" for purposes of paragraphs (b)(2) and (b)(3) of this section if the State is not coordinating with the National Instructional Materials Access Center (NIMAC) or (b)(3) and (c)(2) of this section if the State is coordinating with the NIMAC.
(b) Rights and responsibilities of SEA. (1) Nothing in this section shall be construed to require any SEA to coordinate with the NIMAC.
(2) If an SEA chooses not to coordinate with the NIMAC, the SEA must provide an assurance to the Secretary that it will provide instructional materials to blind persons or other persons with print disabilities in a timely manner.
(3) Nothing in this section relieves an SEA of its responsibility to ensure that children with disabilities who need instructional materials in accessible formats, but are not included under the definition of blind or other persons with print disabilities in §300.172(e)(1)(i) or who need materials that cannot be produced from NIMAS files, receive those instructional materials in a timely manner.
(4) In order to meet its responsibility under paragraphs (b)(2), (b)(3), and (c) of this section to ensure that children with disabilities who need instructional materials in accessible formats are provided those materials in a timely manner, the SEA must ensure that all public agencies take all reasonable steps to provide instructional materials in accessible formats to children with disabilities who need those instructional materials at the same time as other children receive instructional materials.
(c) Preparation and delivery of files. If an SEA chooses to coordinate with the NIMAC, as of December 3, 2006, the SEA must--
(1) As part of any print instructional materials adoption process, procurement contract, or other practice or instrument used for purchase of print instructional materials, must enter into a written contract with the publisher of the print instructional materials to--
(i) Require the publisher to prepare and, on or before delivery of the print instructional materials, provide to NIMAC electronic files containing the contents of the print instructional materials using the NIMAS; or
(ii) Purchase instructional materials from the publisher that are produced in, or may be rendered in, specialized formats.
(2) Provide instructional materials to blind persons or other persons with print disabilities in a timely manner.
(d) Assistive technology. In carrying out this section, the SEA, to the maximum extent possible, must work collaboratively with the State agency responsible for assistive technology programs.
(e) Definitions. (1) In this section and §300.210--
(i) Blind persons or other persons with print disabilities means children served under this part who may qualify to receive books and other publications produced in specialized formats in accordance with the Act entitled "An Act to provide books for adult blind," approved March 3, 1931, 2 U.S.C 135a;
(ii) National Instructional Materials Access Center or NIMAC means the center established pursuant to section 674(e) of the Act;
(iii) National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard or NIMAS has the meaning given the term in section 674(e)(3)(B) of the Act;
(iv) Specialized formats has the meaning given the term in section 674(e)(3)(D) of the Act.
    (2) The definitions in paragraph (e)(1) of this section apply to each State and LEA, whether or not the State or LEA chooses to coordinate with the NIMAC. (Approved by the Office of Management and Budget under control number 1820-0030)
(Authority: 20 U.S.C. 1412(a)(23), 1474(e))

§300.210 Purchase of instructional materials.

(a) General. Not later than December 3, 2006, an LEA that chooses to coordinate with the National Instructional Materials Access Center (NIMAC), when purchasing print instructional materials, must acquire those instructional materials in the same manner, and subject to the same conditions as an SEA under §300.172.
(b) Rights of LEA. (1) Nothing in this section shall be construed to require an LEA to coordinate with the NIMAC.
(2) If an LEA chooses not to coordinate with the NIMAC, the LEA must provide an assurance to the SEA that the LEA will provide instructional materials to blind persons or other persons with print disabilities in a timely manner.
(3) Nothing in this section relieves an LEA of its responsibility to ensure that children with disabilities who need instructional materials in accessible formats but are not included under the definition of blind or other persons with print disabilities in §300.172(e)(1)(i) or who need materials that cannot be produced from NIMAS files, receive those instructional materials in a timely manner.
(Approved by the Office of Management and Budget under control number 1820-0600)
(Authority: 20 U.S.C. 1413(a)(6))

Appendix C to Part 300--National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS)

Under sections 612(a)(23)(A) and 674(e)(4) of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, as amended by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004, the Secretary of Education establishes the NIMAS. Under section 674(e)(4) of the Act, the NIMAS applies to print instructional materials published after July 19, 2006. The purpose of the NIMAS is to help increase the availability and timely delivery of print instructional materials in accessible formats to blind or other persons with print disabilities in elementary and secondary schools.

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS—THE BASELINE ELEMENT SET

The Baseline Element Set details the minimum requirement that must be delivered to fulfill the NIMAS. It is the responsibility of publishers to provide this NIMAS-conformant XML content file, a package file (OPF), a PDF-format copy of the title page (or whichever page(s) contain(s) ISBN and copyright information), and a full set of the content’s images. All of the images included within a work must be provided in a folder and placeholders entered in the relevant XML document indicating their location (all images must be included). The preferred image type is SVG, next is either PNG or JPG format. Images should be rendered in the same size/proportion as their originals at 300 dpi. Images should be named with relative path filenames in XML files (example: <img id="staricon4" src="./images/U10C02/staricon4.jpg" alt="star icon"/>).

NIMAS-conformant content must be valid to the NIMAS 1.1 [see ANSI/NISO Z39.86 2005 or subsequent revisions]. In addition, files are required to use the tags from the Baseline Element Set when such tags are appropriate. Publishers are encouraged to augment the required Baseline Element Set with tags from the Optional Element Set (elements not included in the Standard) as applicable. For the purposes of NIMAS, appropriate usage of elements, both baseline and optional, is defined by the DAISY Structure Guidelines. Files that do not follow these guidelines in the selection and application of tags are not conformant to this Standard. Both optional elements and appropriate structure guidelines may be located within Z39.86-2002 and Z39.86-2005 available from http://www.daisy.org/z3986/. Use of the most current standard is recommended.

The Baseline Element Set

Document-level tags

Structure and Hierarchy

Block elements

Inline Elements

Tables

Images

1. The Optional Elements and Guidelines for Use

Publishers are encouraged to apply markup beyond the baseline (required) elements. The complete DTBook Element Set reflects the tags necessary to create the six types of Digital Talking Books and Braille output. Because of the present necessity to subdivide the creation of alternate format materials into distinct phases, the Panel determined that baseline elements would be provided by publishers, and optional elements would be added to the NIMAS-conformant files by third party conversion entities. In both circumstances the protocols for tagging digital files should conform to the most current ANSI/NISO Z39.86 specification. Content converters are directed to the most current DAISY Structure Guidelines (http://www.daisy.org/z3986/) for guidance on their use.

Since the publication of the original National File Format report from which the NIMAS technical specifications were derived, ANSI/NISO Z39.86-2002 was updated and is now ANSI/NISO Z39.86-2005. It may be best to avoid using the following optional elements which are no longer included in ANSI/NISO Z39.86-2005: style, notice, hr, and levelhd.

Also, the following new elements were introduced by ANSI/NISO Z39.86-2005 and should be considered optional elements for the NIMAS: bridgehead, byline, covertitle, dateline, epigraph, linegroup, and poem. Please refer to ANSI/NISO Z39.86-2005 for additional information regarding these elements. To access the ANSI/NISO Z39.86-2005 specification, go to http://www.daisy.org/z3986/.

2. Package File

A package file describes a publication. It identifies all other files in the publication and provides descriptive and access information about them. A publication must include a package file conforming to the NIMAS. The package file is based on the Open eBook Publication Structure 1.2 package file specification (For most recent detail please see http://www.openebook.org/oebps/oebps1.2/download/oeb12-xhtml.htm#sec2). A NIMAS package file must be an XML-valid OeB PS 1.2 package file instance and must meet the following additional standards:

The NIMAS Package File must include the following Dublin Core (dc:)metadata:
dc:Title.
dc:Creator (if applicable).
dc:Publisher.
dc:Date (Date of NIMAS-compliant file creation—yyyy-mm-dd).
dc:Format (=‘‘NIMAS 1.0’’).
dc:Identifier (a unique identifier for the NIMAS-compliant digital publication, e.g., print ISBN + ‘‘-NIMAS’’—exact format to be determined).
dc:Language (one instance, or multiple in the case of a foreign language textbook, etc.).
dc:Rights (details to be determined).
dc:Source (ISBN of print version of textbook).

And the following x-metadata items:
nimas-SourceEdition (the edition of the print textbook).
nimas-SourceDate (date of publication of the print textbook).

The following metadata were proposed also as a means of facilitating recordkeeping, storage and file retrieval:
dc:Subject (Lang Arts, Soc Studies, etc.).
nimas-grade (specific grade level of the print textbook, e.g.; Grade 6).
nimas gradeRange (specific grade range of the print textbook, e.g.; Grades 4–5).

An additional suggestion references the use of:
dc:audience:educationLevel (for the grade and gradeRange identifiers, noting that Dublin Core recommends using educationLevel with an appropriate controlled vocabulary for context, and recommends the U.S. Department of Education’s Level of Education vocabulary online at http://www.ed.gov/admin/reference/index.jsp. Using educationLevel obviates the need for a separate field for gradeRange since dc elements can repeat more than once. A book used in more than one grade would therefore have two elements, one with value ‘‘Grade 4’’ and another with value ‘‘Grade 5.’’

A final determination as to which of these specific metadata elements to use needs to be clarified in practice. The package manifest must list all provided files (text, images, etc.). (Note: For purposes of continuity and to minimize errors in transformation and processing, the NIMAS-compliant digital text should be provided as a single document.)

3. Modular Extensions

The most current DAISY/NISO standard, formally the ANSI/NISO Z39.86, Specifications for the Digital Talking Book defines a comprehensive system for creating Digital Talking Books. A part of this standard is DTBook, an XML vocabulary that provides a core set of elements needed to produce most types of books. However, DTBook is not intended to be an exhaustive vocabulary for all types of books.

Guidelines for the correct approach to extend the DAISY/NISO standard have been established. Mathematics, video support, testing, workbooks, music, dictionaries, chemistry, and searching are some of the extensions that have been discussed. Visit http://www.daisy.org/z3986/ to learn more about modular extensions.

• Read the Preamble
• Read the Analysis of Comments and Change