Accessible instructional materials for students with disabilities enrolled in the University of Wisconsin System or the Technical College System

Under the bill, a request for instructional material in electronic format must certify that: 1) a copy of the instructional material in a standard format has been purchased for use by a student with a disability; 2) the student has a disability that prevents the student from using instructional material in a standard format; and 3) the instructional material is for use by the student in connection with a course at the institution of higher education in which the student is enrolled. In addition, the publisher may require the student to sign a statement agreeing that the student will use the electronic copy of the instructional material solely for his or her own educational purposes and that the student will not copy or distribute the instructional material for use by others.

Under the bill, instructional material provided by a publisher in electronic format must: 1) maintain the structural integrity of the original instructional material, which means that all of the information provided in printed instructional material, including the text of sidebars; the table of contents; chapter headings and subheadings; footnotes; indexes; glossaries; bibliographies; nontextual elements, such as pictures, illustrations, graphs, charts, and screenshots; and any other data that are pertinent to the instructional material, is included when that printed instructional material is provided in electronic format; 2) be compatible with commonly used Braille translation or speech synthesis software; 3) include corrections and revisions as necessary; and 4) be in an electronic format that is mutually agreed to between the publisher and the requester or, if the publisher and the requester cannot agree to a format, be in a format that is suitable for the creation of instructional material in an alternative format and that maintains the structural integrity of the original material as much as possible.

The bill permits an institution of higher education to use instructional material in electronic format provided under the bill solely to convert that material into an alternative format for use by a student with a disability or to otherwise assist such a student. The bill also permits an institution of higher education that converts instructional material into an alternative format to share the alternative format version of the material with any other institution of higher education that is serving a student with a disability, or with an entity that is authorized under the federal Copyright Act to reproduce and distribute previously published works in alternative formats exclusively for use by persons with disabilities and that commonly provides instructional materials in alternative formats to students enrolled in institutions of higher education.

In addition, current law prohibits any person from denying to another the full and equal enjoyment of any public place of accommodation or amusement because of disability (public accommodations law). This bill provides that a publisher of instructional material is considered to be a public place of accommodation or amusement and that any publisher that refuses to provide instructional material as required under the bill is in violation of the public accommodations law.

The requirements and prohibitions created in the bill, however, do not apply to a publisher or manufacturer of instructional material that is a member of a nationwide exchange network that facilitates the delivery of instructional material in alternative format to students with disabilities, if that material is delivered within seven days after a request for the material.