Assistive Technology and Accessible Educational Materials Center
The Assistive Technology and Accessible Educational Materials (AT & AEM) Center is a centralized, responsive resource center that empowers individuals with disabilities by providing accessible education materials, access to assistive technologies and highly specialized technical assistance and professional development support.
The Ohio Department of Education, Office for Exceptional Children funds the AT & AEM Center to meet the federal requirements of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA) and the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standards (NIMAS).
IDEA 2004 addressed the timely delivery of print textbooks in specialized formats including braille, large print, audio and digital text to school-age students who have visual impairments or print disabilities. Publishers must submit electronic files of textbooks and related core print instructional materials published after August 18, 2006 in the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS) to the National Instructional Materials Access Center (NIMAC).
NIMAS is the standard established to be used in the preparation of electronic files suitable and used solely for efficient conversion into specialized formats (braille, large print, audio or digital text). NIMAC is a repository for the NIMAS-conformant files and is located at the American Printing House for the Blind, Inc. The NIMAC receives the NIMAS files from publishers. These files are downloaded by the AT & AEM Center to be converted to the required student-ready format.
Last Modified: 5/26/2017 11:31:42 AM