Independent Schools Video Transcript

This video will cover ARC-BC, the services that it offers, and information about which students qualify.

At the accessible Resource Center British Columbia, we take hardcopy textbooks and novels, cut the spine off of them, scan them, and turn them into digital accessible versions.

While these resources are copyrighted, we're able to do this work under a special provision in the copyright act of Canada.

The Copyright Act allows for materials to be converted into formats specially designed for people with perceptual disabilities.

A perceptual disability is a disability that results in difficulties seeing, holding or understanding a work in its original format, and broadly encompasses learning disabilities, physical disabilities, and visual impairment.

An important distinction is that ARC-BC is a repository rather than a library.

With a library, you're typically going to gain access to resources that you don't already own.

With ARC-BC users are required to have access to a physical copy of the print material.

A simple example of this is that if you have 30 students in a class and you're working through BC Science 9, you're still required to have 30 copies of the textbook, but for the one student in your class with a perceptual disability, you're able to go download the digital accessible version of that textbook.

ARC-BC files enable a number of features and functionality that are useful to students with perceptual disabilities. Here are some examples.

The most common feature that we find beneficial for students, including those with learning disabilities, is the ability to have a book read aloud.

Students can simply click part of the book and have the book start reading aloud and highlighting as it moves along.

Students are also able to make highlights inside of the book.

Normally, with physical textbooks, we don't want students to mark them up.

Since these are digital files, they're able to do so.

And some of the apps will allow students to export those highlights to a separate document so that they can instantly create study notes, or a vocabulary list.

Students are able to instantly look up the definitions for words, as well as quickly and easily navigate around the file.

Some formats such as EPUB will also allow you to do things like adjust the font size, the theme, or even allow you to change the font.

Many apps even support fonts that are useful for people with dyslexia.

Inside of the ARC-BC repository, we have files in a number of formats. Currently, our most requested formats are PDF, DOCX and EPUB.

Registered users are able to search the repository, add files to their cart, and download the files so that they can be added to a student’s device.

If we don't have a resource that you're looking for, you're able to request it.

Fill out the request form form the title of the book and and the date the book is needed, and ARC-BC will acquire the book and begin creating a digital accessible version for you to download.

ARC-BC serves educators serving students with perceptual disabilities in:

* All BC Public Schools Districts

* All BC Group I and II independent schools or education authorities

* Educators in the Yukon Territory

If there are students in your school that would qualify to receive ARC-BC materials, please click the ‘Register your Independent School with ARC-BC’ button on this page.

Thanks for taking a few minutes to learn about ARC-BC. For general inquiries, please email: independentschools@prcvi.org