We’d like to welcome Flo Wong to the ARC-BC provincial team. Flo, a Teacher of the Visually Impaired and recent SET-BC regional consultant, has joined PRCVI and is now an ARC-BC team leader. She is really looking forward to supporting ARC-BC community members – if you have any questions about any aspect of the project, she can be reached at arc@setbc.org.

Thanks to all the teams who submitted an application to join the 2010/2011 Contribute to Collection project. We are very excited to announce the following districts who will be participating this coming year…

• SD#19 (Revelstoke), SD#23 (Central Okanagan), SD#43 (Coquitlam), SD#61 (Greater Victoria), SD#69 (Parksville-Qualicum), SD#73 (Kamloops-Thompson), SD#82 (Coast Mountains), SD#83 (North Okanagan-Shuswap)

Teams in these districts will be receiving mobile alternate format stations and two days of training in March and April. We know everyone in the ARC-BC community will benefit from their efforts in the coming year!

The ARC-BC collection is growing daily as our production team creates alternate formats for requested and new titles. We need your help! As the number of requests increase, we need community members to join us in producing and improving alternate formats. We are inviting teams to apply to be one of ten groups around the province who will take part in the “Contribute to Collection” project. Teams who participate in this project will receive an alternate format station with computer hardware and software, at least two days of training, and ongoing support to help team members create and improve ARC-BC materials. If you are interested in participating in this project, please see the Contribute to Collection information and application (doc) or contact us at arc@setbc.org for more information.

Your account may need updating! If you can’t log into our site, please contact arc@setbc.org for instructions. Updating is fast and easy!

If you are experiencing error messages when trying to open .kes files from ARC-BC it is likely because you have not patched your version to 4.02.  This patch or update will be available through the Kurzweil website eventually. If you would like to download the standalone version now, it is available by going to this online room, signing in as a Guest (no password required), and following the instructions in that room.  If you are looking for the network version, or have any questions about this, please contact us at arc@setbc.org.

This is an important reminder for all users who registered for ARC-BC prior to September 25th, 2009. Due to a change in the registration process, your user profile is no longer complete. Please go to the "My Account" area (link at top of the site) to edit user profile and add the necessary training, student, material use and agreement on alternate format use areas. This must be done before October 31st or we will assume you no longer require access to ARC-BC! If you have any questions about this or need any help, contact us at arc@setbc.org.

For those not familiar with the various file formats that are available through ARC-BC, there is a new document describing the technical requirements (software and operating systems) required to use them. It is a great resource to have on hand when searching and downloading materials and is available in Module One on the ARC-BC Support Resources page.

This Friday, September 25th, ARC-BC will be taken off line for several hours while we roll out the new update. We will start the process in the morning but are not sure how long the updating process will take – if everything goes smoothly (and it so rarely does with technology!) then the repository should be up and running within a few hours. If there are problems, it may take longer. If you anticipate needing alternate formats for your students next week, you should try and download them before Friday morning to ensure you have what you need.

After a lovely long summer, fall has returned and ARC-BC is preparing for its second year of providing alternate formats for BC students with perceptual disabilities. Not only has our production staff added hundreds of new titles and thousands of files, we have been working hard to update the repository with improvements and new features. We are almost ready to unveil ARC-BC v.2.0 - very soon you will see an exciting change to our site!

In the meantime, whether you are a new or returning user, please make sure you are aware of how the Canadian Copyright Act 32(1) applies to any materials you download from the collection (view presentation). If you require training on this or on how to use ARC-BC effectively contact your ARC-BC District Contact (view district list), consider attending one of our online training sessions (view Upcoming Events calendar), or visit our ARC-BC Support Resources for tutorials and demonstrations.

Summer has arrived and we would like to thank everyone for your kind words of support as we come to the end of our first year of operation. Thanks to all ARC-BC users who completed the Year End User Survey that was emailed to you recently – your feedback and suggestions will help us improve the repository over the coming year.

During the summer months, many people involved with ARC-BC take a well deserved holiday break. The repository will remain active, but any registration or title requests may take longer than usual. ARC-BC District Contacts may or may not be checking email over the summer – if you do submit a registration request during July and August, you may not be approved until school begins in September.

We hope everyone has a terrific summer vacation – look for many more titles and some new “surprises” on the ARC-BC site in the fall!

As announced earlier, there is now a patch or update available for Kurzweil 3000 Macintosh v.4 users which will ensure you can open the .kes files available through ARC-BC. This patch or update will be available through the Kurzweil website eventually. If you would like to download the standalone version now, it is available by going to this online room: http://breeze.setbc.org/k3000macupdate, signing in as a Guest (no password required), and following the instructions in that room.  If you are looking for the network version, or have any questions about this, please contact us at arc@setbc.org.

This Saturday the power will be interrupted to the entire SET-BC Provincial Centre from at least 3:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. This is a scheduled power interruption to allow critical building maintenance and will affect all SET-BC services including ARC-BC. Hopefully, once power is returned, the site will be available, however there may be a continued period of interruption should there be problems restarting our systems. If you are attempting to access ARC-BC during the weekend, please be patient – we will have things restarted as soon as possible. This is a highly unusual event and we do not anticipate this type of interruption in the future!

For those Macintosh Kurzweil 3000 v.4 users who were having difficulty opening opening our .kes files, you will be pleased to hear that the supportive team at Cambium (Kurzweil 3000) has developed an update or patch which, once installed, will allow you to open all our .kes files. Kurzweil 3000 v.4.02 will be available for download from the www.kurzweiledu.com site soon. If you would like a copy of the patch sent to you after spring break, please contact your ARC-BC District Contact or the ARC-BC Provincial Team.

We have recently discovered a problem with our Kurzweil (.kes) files and the Macintosh version of Kurzweil 3000.  Some Macintosh users are reporting that, while they can download the files successfully, they are not able to open them using Kurzweil 3000 v.4 (Mac).  We are currently investigating a solution to the problem.  In the meantime, we would appreciate hearing from any Mac users who are either having problems or who are able to open their downloaded files successfully.  Please note: This problem does NOT occur with the Windows version of the program.  Thanks to those affected for your patience!

The roll out of ARC-BC across the province continued on March 2nd as ten new BC school districts began registering users interested in accessing alternate format materials for their students with perceptual disabilities.  SD#6 (Rocky Mountain), SD#10  (Arrow Lakes), SD#20 (Kootenay-Columbia), SD#38  (Richmond), SD#40 (New Westminster), SD#45 (West Vancouver), SD#48 (Sea to Sky Howe Sound), SD#61 (Greater Victoria), SD#64 (Gulf Islands) and SD#78 (Fraser-Cascade) have put their ARC-BC plans into action as their district contacts oversee the training and registration of various user groups.  Some districts are hosting face-to-face informational meetings and training sessions while others are using the availability of online informational sessions to educate their users on not only how to use the repository effectively but which students, according to copyright, can use the materials in the classroom.

As of the end of February, ARC-BC has over 700 users with the numbers of daily downloads increasing exponentially as each group of school districts begins accessing the collection. 

With the January 2009 launch of ARC-BC just three weeks away, we are delighted to announce the second group of ten school districts who have joined the ARC-BC Community. Their users will begin accessing the repository no later than early February 2009. The next group of school districts include…

SD#22 (Vernon), SD#33 (Chilliwack), SD#34 (Abbotsford), SD#37 (Delta), SD#42 (Maple Ridge – Pitt Meadows), SD#44 (North Vancouver), SD#46 (Sunshine Coast), SD#57 (Prince George), SD#68 (Nanaimo – Ladysmith) and SD#73 (Kamloops – Thompson).

As we welcome this next group to the ARC-BC Community, we also wish to extend our sincere thanks to the eight original school districts who participated in the ARC-BC Pilot Project. These districts will be finishing the trial phase by December 19th. These districts have provided invaluable assistance and support in the early planning and design phase, have contributed many of their own alternate format materials, and have helped test the use of the repository over the past three months. The ARC-BC Provincial Team sends its sincere appreciation to these districts for their hard work and support throughout the past year – we couldn’t have done it without you!

Applications for joining the ARC-BC Community have been submitted since they became available at the beginning of October.  Many BC school districts are also participating in the online informational meetings in preparation for applying in the next few weeks.  We are adding the following ten school districts in January 2009…

SD#8 (Kootenay Lake), SD#19 (Revelstoke), SD#23 (Central Okanagan), SD#43 (Coquitlam), SD#47 (Powell River), SD#62 (Sooke), SD#63 (Saanich), SD#72 (Campbell River), SD#85 (Vancouver Island North) and SD#100 (Independent Schools).

We would like to welcome these districts to the ARC-BC Community!

BC school districts interested in accessing the alternate format materials available in ARC-BC beginning in January are now invited to submit an ARC-BC Community Application (doc). Completed submissions will be taken on a “first come, first served” basis with school districts being phased in beginning January 2009. For more information on applying to join the ARC-BC Community, please view the presentations and materials available on the ARC-BC Support Resources page.

With the anticipated success of the ARC-BC Pilot Project by the end of December 2008, BC school districts will soon have the opportunity to join ARC-BC.  Beginning September 30th, those school districts who are interested in accessing the ARC-BC collection can submit an “ARC-BC Community Application”.  That application will contain information about the technical requirements and support needed to effectively use ARC-BC.  Information and applications will be available here after September 30th, 2008.

With ARC-BC entering its final pilot phase, eight school districts from around the province will be testing the repository beginning in September 2008. The SE Kootenay, Quesnel, Langley, Surrey, Boundary, Okanagan-Skaha, Parksville-Qualicum, and Comox Valley districts will be meeting online to finalize plans early in September with their educators expected to begin accessing the collection throughout October, November and December. Once the trial phase is complete, ARC-BC will become available to other districts across the province beginning in January 2009.