ACM/AFT

What is ACM?

ACM stands for Accessible Course Materials. This accommodation is also known as “Alternate Format Text (AFT)". ACM is an accommodation that allows students to have the materials for their courses (e.g., textbooks, articles, exams, etc.) in formats other than how they are usually provided. 

You may need ACM if you:

• need to enlarge text or images to read
• experience mobility challenges, and cannot carry printed textbooks
• process information by listening to a text to speech reader

ACM Intake

Once a student is approved for the “ACM/AFT Accessible Course Materials/ Alternate Format Text” accommodation by their ODS coordinator, they should get an email with a link to schedule an ACM Intake. We are currently only conducting online intakes appointments, so students should get an email with a zoom room link near the day of their scheduled appointment.

During an ACM intake, a student will meet with an ACM specialist(s) from our office to discuss the student’s needs. Then, the ACM specialist will demonstrate resources and solutions based on what the ACM specialist determines to be fit for the student.

How does ACM work?

Our office typically provides a way for students to get their readings in a digital format (pdf, word, epub, etc.) This is so that the presentation of the content can be readable and transformed by a computer to best fit the student’s experience. The following is included in every ACM accommodation:

• Bookshare accounts, which gives students access to a collection of books. These books are  available to download as Word, and EPUB files.
• ACM Request Form allows students to request our office  procure books not available on Bookshare. Please note this requires the student have ownership of the book first.
• Adobe Acrobat Pro is a pdf editor that is available through the Adobe Suite Rutgers Software Portal. The “Scan and OCR” tool lets images be recognized as text.
• SensusAccess is an online file conversion tool. Choosing “accessibility conversion” will attempt make images recognized as text. It also allows file type conversion.

Text to Speech

Students who are also approved for the “Use of a Screenreader/Text to Speech” accommodation are given a Text to Speech (TTS) reader. TTS readers will read documents out loud to students, so they can listen to content rather than relying on their eyesight to read. Since the TTS is a software on a students computer, it must read from electronic documents such as ACM.

• Kurzweil 3000 is used for pdf and word documents. Every time you open a document (PDF or Word) in Kurzweil, it will convert it to ACM.
• Texthelp’s Read and Write is used for already accessible PDFs, webpages, and other things on the user’s screen. This is used for quicker reading but does not do conversions on inaccessible text.