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  2. Abigail Royal Abigail Royal joined the community
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  4. Kim Coleman Kim Coleman joined the community
  5. Peggy Barker Peggy Barker joined the community
  6. Timothy Wynn
    Hello Heather, Thank you for letting me know. I have filed the report, though it is not specific to just one book, but an actual pipeline issue which *can* can effect other books as well if style or format changes are done mid-word. Do I need to delete this topic so as to not clutter this forum? Thank you once again for quickly responding with the proper place to report these kind of things.
  7. Anna Stewart Anna Stewart joined the community
  8. Heather Collins
    Hi Timothy, Thanks so much for sharing this. In order to directly alert our Collection Development team who handles all book scanning and collection maintenance to issues like this, you can always submit a Book Quality Report. You can submit a Book Quality Report by following the steps below: 1. Log in to your Bookshare account at: https://www.bookshare.org/ 2. Locate the book. 3. Select the Book's Title. 4. Select the Report Book Quality Issue link. If you choose the option to be notified, you will receive an email from the Collection Development Department when an update is available. Learn more about these reports here: https://www.bookshare.org/cms/help-center/report-book-quality-issues
  9. Amreen Ahmed Amreen Ahmed joined the community
  10. Cara Fleming Cara Fleming joined the community
  11. Timothy Wynn started following Bug report: Remove prettified code transformation for epub downloads
  12. Timothy Wynn
    I'm not exactly sure where this bug report should go, or if the forums is the right place to do this sort of thing, but if whichever processor Bookshare uses to process the epub downloads, it would be of great help if the prettifying transformations were disabled so that there would be a proper render for some problematic books. Because I purchased this Book from a commercial ebook source, I wanted to compare the epub output with the one from Bookshare, since the book in question was publisher quality. Reading the Bookshare version had a lot of truncated words, so I opened the same book from the commercial source, and no truncated words. Opening the source in a text editor, the only major difference between the sources is that for Bookshare, every HTML tag has been prettified, i.e., they are on their own line with indentation. If I removed the prettification manually, i.e., the only tag where line breaks exist in the source are for paragraphs, the epub render is identical to the commercial source. The reason for the truncation is that for almost all renderers, a line break in the source is considered to be a space in the output. This is problematic when there are format changes mid-word, e.g., if I bolded the letter `O' in "word". Because each nested tag is on its own line, spaces would be inserted into the output, such that the output would be "w o rd", for example. This makes for an irritating reading experience, which can be easily solved if the original source for the epub output is left untouched, i.e., no source prettifying. I am not sure how much control Bookshare has on its epub generation pipeline, but I figure this would be a bug report worth bringing up if for nothing else than to bring awareness to the issue.
  13. Christi Berry Christi Berry joined the community
  14. Timothy Wynn Timothy Wynn joined the community
  15. Lilly Campbelle Lilly Campbelle joined the community
  16. Joseph Meyer Joseph Meyer joined the community
  17. Heather Collins

    student graduating

    Heather Collins replied to Mary Binder's topic in Feature Suggestions

    Hello Mary, The best way for a student to continue using Bookshare when moving on to higher education is for the student to have an Individual Membership account and upgrade their student status. Bookshare services are free to all US students, which includes college and graduate level classes. If your students currently have Organizational Memberships, they can upgrade their accounts to Individual Memberships by following the steps on this page of our website: https://www.bookshare.org/cms/help-center/how-can-my-student-upgrade-their-account-full-individual-membership you can also help them to upgrade their accounts by following the steps on this page of our website: https://www.bookshare.org/cms/help-center/how-do-i-create-individual-membership-my-student
  18. Mary Binder

    student graduating

    Mary Binder posted a topic in Feature Suggestions

    When a visually impaired student graduates from High school and is going on to higher education what is the process for continuing with Bookshare?
  19. Earlier
  20. Heather Collins

    How to present text to students in a Google classroom/online

    Heather Collins replied to jlindell@siuslaw.k12.or.us's topic in General Discussion

    Hello, Sponsors can download books on behalf of their students in order to view the books themselves, but they do not have access to the Bookshare Web Reader. In order to download a book from your sponsor account, please follow the steps below: 1. Log into your sponsor account. 2. Find the book you would like to access by using the search bar at the top of the page. 3. Click on the "Download" button located in the "Action" column for the book you wish to download. 4. On the next page, check the box next to the name(s) of the member(s) for whom you wish to download the book and choose the file format you would like it to be downloaded in from the drop down menu in the last column. (We recommend downloading the book in either EPUB or Word, as most devices have programs that can read files in these formats) 5. Click the blue "Prepare Books" button and then click "Confirm" in the pop up window. 6. On the following page, wait for the loading symbol in the "status" column for the book to change to the word "Available." When this word appears, click on it to download the book to your computer.
  21. jlindell@siuslaw.k12.or.us
    My students are able to download/access the text through Bookshare, however, I can't figure out how to download the book on my end. I would like to be able to share/present the text while in class online.
  22. Heather Collins

    Amazon Alexa reading books on voice command

    Heather Collins replied to Bryce Weintz's topic in Feature Suggestions

    You can click on this link for information regarding beta testing the smart speaker skill: https://www.bookshare.org/cms/help-center/alexa-smart-speaker-beta-early-2021 If you have further questions or issues, please send an email message to smartspeaker@benetech.org for additional assistance.
  23. Ninette LeGates

    Amazon Alexa reading books on voice command

    Ninette LeGates replied to Bryce Weintz's topic in Feature Suggestions

    How do I find navigation commands for BookShare linked with Alexa?
  24. Heather Collins

    Book which does not translate properly into Braille

    Heather Collins replied to Nannette DeCook's topic in Bookshare Help

    Hello Nannette, I would recommend reaching out to the Bookshare tech support team for assistance with this issue. You can send an email to support@bookshare.org or call us at 650-352-0198 and request to speak to our advanced tech support team.
  25. adi.krauthammer@go.sfcolle

    Supporting Students During School Closures

    adi.krauthammer@go.sfcolle replied to Jessy Haugh's topic in General Discussion

    Yes you can
  26. adi.krauthammer@go.sfcolle

    Supporting Students During School Closures

    adi.krauthammer@go.sfcolle replied to Jessy Haugh's topic in General Discussion

    I agree Adi
  27. adi.krauthammer@go.sfcolle

    Book which does not translate properly into Braille

    adi.krauthammer@go.sfcolle replied to Nannette DeCook's topic in Bookshare Help

    I have cerebral palsy
  28. adi.krauthammer@go.sfcolle

    Book which does not translate properly into Braille

    adi.krauthammer@go.sfcolle replied to Nannette DeCook's topic in Bookshare Help

    this is my first time using Bookshare
  29. Nannette DeCook started following Book which does not translate properly into Braille
  30. Nannette DeCook
    Hi Bookshare community, I have a high school student who uses the Braille note touch plus with Dolphin Easy Reader app who was reading I Still Believe by Jereme Camp and the code is messed up because some of the words are smashed together. This also happened with Chain of Gold by Cassandra Clare. Have any of you experienced this? What can we do to fix this. It was downloaded from Dolphin Easy Reader app. Thanks so much, Nan
  31. Heather Collins

    Download Limit Reached

    Heather Collins replied to Allyson Bendfeld's topic in Bookshare Help

    Hello Allyson, Usually, when a new organization receives that message, it is because you have signed up for a paying organization and have not yet purchased an organization subscription. I would recommend sending an e-mail to support@bookshare.org to request pricing information for your organization. Our Customer Support team can then generate and invoice for you.
  32. Allyson Bendfeld started following Download Limit Reached
  33. Allyson Bendfeld

    Download Limit Reached

    Allyson Bendfeld posted a topic in Bookshare Help

    Good afternoon, I just signed up for Bookshare and tried to assign books to students but it says that my Organizations download limit has been reached. I haven't downloaded any books and haven't found a way to find out how many downloads I have available or how to get more. Someone please help.
  34. Heather Collins

    Qualifying Professional

    Heather Collins replied to Kathi Fui's topic in Bookshare Help

    Hello Kathi, Yes, Special Education Teachers can serve as Qualifying Professionals to sign Bookshare Proof of Disability forms. You can visit this page of our website for other examples of Qualifying Professionals: https://www.bookshare.org/cms/bookshare-me/who-qualifies
  35. Kathi Fui started following Qualifying Professional
  36. Kathi Fui

    Qualifying Professional

    Kathi Fui posted a topic in Bookshare Help

    Who would qualify as a "Qualifying Professional"? My parent wants to add a personal bookshare account, but needs a "Qualifying Professional". Would that include me as her SPED Teacher?
  37. Heather Collins

    parent letter

    Heather Collins replied to Nadine Urban's topic in Feature Suggestions

    Hello Nadine, While we do not have a specific letter designed for this purpose, there are a number of helpful resources on our Learning Center including videos demonstrating different ways to access Bookshare books: https://www.bookshare.org/cms/help-center/learning-center
  38. Nadine Urban started following parent letter
  39. Nadine Urban

    parent letter

    Nadine Urban posted a topic in Feature Suggestions

    Do they have a parent letter that would help the students to sign in at home?
  40. Heather Collins
    Hello Joellen, Bookshare must abide by an amendment to copyright law called the Marrakesh agreement, which allows us to distribute copyrighted materials to only qualifying individuals. The guidelines listed on this page of our website come directly from the language of copyright law: https://www.bookshare.org/cms/bookshare-me/who-qualifies . Unfortunately, ADHD is not considered a qualifying print disability under current law. However, it is quite possible that a person with one or more of these disabilities would qualify for Bookshare because of an accompanying disability. For example, a person who is both deaf and blind, or who has ADHD and a reading disability that impacts their ability to effectively read printed works, could qualify.
  41. Joellen started following ADHD individual is not a valid disability for Bookshare alone?
  42. Joellen
    I have ADHD along with my three daughters. Two are freshman in college. Sometimes I find it better to hear a book then read it. Not every book that I’d be interested in listening to can be found at Audible. Is this the case that someone like me who is not blind or dyslexic can’t obtain membership? Thanks.
  43. Heather Collins

    Saving books, with highlighting, for the future

    Heather Collins replied to Catherine Van Aerden's topic in Bookshare Help

    Hello Catherine, If you are interested in marking up a text and having the text to speech available at the same time, I would recommend downloading your books from Bookshare in the EPUB format and reading them in an EPUB reader such as Apple Books (comes automatically on all Apple devices) or Thorium Reader (Free for download on the Microsoft app store for Windows computers). Both of these programs have bookmarking options available where you can highlight a part of the text to bookmark it in order to return to that section at any time. They both also have text to speech audio available. If you are interested in exploring other options, please feel free to browse different reading tools that you can use to read Bookshare books on this page of our website: https://www.bookshare.org/cms/reading-tool-wizard
  44. Catherine Van Aerden started following Saving books, with highlighting, for the future
  45. Catherine Van Aerden

    Saving books, with highlighting, for the future

    Catherine Van Aerden posted a topic in Bookshare Help

    Hello. I am very new to Bookshare. I tend to like to go back to books, especially items that I highlight, a while after I've read them the first time. Is there a way to do this in Bookshare? I am not currently downloading books because I wanted access to the audio reader and also have a Kindle (which seems to be difficult to download to from Bookshare). I hesitate to read a book I can not highlight for future reference. Thank you. Cathy
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