§1140l Establishment of Advisory Commission on Accessible Instructional Materials in Postsecondary Education for Students with Disabilities

Summary

Create an advisory commission to improve how colleges and universities get accessible textbooks and course materials to students with print disabilities. The Secretary must appoint up to 19 members. The group must include one representative each from 11 named offices and organizations and two representatives each from four categories (college staff with experience, producers of accessible formats and technology, people with visual impairments including at least one current student, and people with dyslexia or similar reading disabilities including at least one current student). Appointments must happen within 60 days after the commission is set up. Members pick a chair and vice chair. The chair calls meetings. The first meeting must occur within 60 days after all members are appointed. A majority of members makes a quorum. The commission must do a full study of barriers and technical fixes for getting timely, high-quality accessible materials and how faculty and staff can use them. It must use existing research when it can. The commission must make recommendations to inform federal rules and laws, to support related model programs, to identify best systems for producing and sharing specialized-format materials at costs and timing comparable to materials for nondisabled students, to help faculty use materials while following copyright law, and to suggest changes to certain federal definitions. It must consider timely access, comparable cost, standard electronic file formats (such as NIMAS), a possible national repository or sharing network, market-based partnerships, universal design, and solutions for rare high-cost requests. A report is due no later than one year after the first meeting to the Secretary and authorizing committees. The commission ends 90 days after sending that report.