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Digital Copies of Course Texts & Handouts
Creating Personalized Coursepacks & Textbooks
Locating Digital Copies of Course Texts
Student Requests

 

Digital Copies of Course Texts & Handouts

How do I arrange for my texts to be scanned?

• Digital Text Services will receive a copy of the books being used for the semster from the bookstore. At that point, we will aquire as many texts as possible from Publishers, and other digital sources. If books can not be aquired digitally, a copy will be ordered from the bookstore and scanned.
• Books received after the 1st week of classes begin will be scanned on a first come, first serve basis.

Can I check to see if the textbook I am considering is available digitally?

Yes! Search by ISBN at Access Text Networks: Accessible Text Book Finder. Here you can search many digital databases. If the text is available from Acess Text Network, or Alternative Media Access Center, then Digital Text Services can order the book for you and your students. 

How do I get digital copies of my course handouts (supplemental readings), like quizzes, readings, and/or assignments?

• “Digitize” with Word:
  • If you have already created the handout (readings, quizzes, assignments) in Microsoft Word, it is a simple and straightforward process to share this digital copy with your students.
  • Share the document with your students in your Moodle Site.
  • Simply ask students to download the Word document, and open it with Kurzweil. Kurzweil has no difficulties reading most Word fonts.
• Link to online readings:
  • If the reading is online, you can type or copy the URL onto a Word doc, or Moodle page to share with students.
  • Using the Readabilty Add-on for Firefox, students can remove the excess text and pictures on the page, then print to Kurzweil using the Kezi Virtural Printer.
  • Students who have had Kurzweil training with Melissa Wetherby know to use Mozilla Firefox rather than Internet Explorer for reading text online with Kurzweil, but still may prefer to print to Kurzweil to read.

 

Creating Personalized Coursepacks & Textbooks

How do I create a coursepack?

• You select what you would like your students to read: which chapters, short stories or poems from books; or articles from journals or from the web.
• You collate them to be made by Coursepacks, Etc. into a copryright-cleared and photocopied course pack to be sold for a modest price at the Bookstore.
• Coursepacks, Etc. will even repaginate the coursepack for you if you wish.

DTS can help:

• Provide you with the hard copies of any of the books that the Bookstore has purchased for courses that have been scanned.
• Obtain clean copies of articles. Copies of copies or copies with highlighting or margin notes will copy and scan poorly.
• Collate your "pack" with every text prepared in the same way with duplexed clean copies.

How do I create a textbook?

• You can publish a custom book with Pearson Custom Publishing

 

Locating Digital Copies of Course Texts

Where can I search for digital course texts available from the publishers?

• Finding a book at CourseSmart will save the students money; faculty get a free digital copy of the text; the text book is available 24/7 from on or off campus.
• Flat World Knowledge is the world's largest publisher of free and open college textbooks. You can even create your own textbook using different sections of the books in their database. Or, if you have a desire to write a textbook, look into publishing with Flat World Knowledge, as explained on their Author Page.

How do I find the digital copies of my texts?

Here's How To Find Your Digital Text [PDF]

 

Student Requests

What do I tell my students who need a Kurzweil version of my texts?

• Refer them to the Student Request page.