The Accessible Content ePortal (ACE) service team is very happy to announce the launch of a new staff portal and public-facing website.Since ACE’s establishment in 2013, requests for making materials accessible been submitted using an online form and tracked on a spreadsheet. Over 12,500 requests were processed using this method. As the service grew, it became clear that a more sophisticated system would be needed to support the volume and variety of requests, both for the service team and for local staff.
The new portal allows accessibility staff at partner institutions to submit, edit, and track their accessibility requests. The portal, which is developed in-house at Scholars Portal, also provides more streamlined workflows for the ACE team and reduces ACE’s reliance on external commercial service providers. As of Monday, September 16, all new digitization requests are being processed through the staff portal.
The staff portal is also part of a new public-facing website that provides information about the ACE service. More features, including reporting functions, are currently in development. A webinar providing additional training for local coordinators will be held later in the fall.
Connect to the new website at ace.scholarsportal.info.
About ACE
ACE supports the research needs of verified students and faculty with print disabilities. This service empowers users with immediate access to thousands of accessible texts, fostering the process of serendipitous discovery and learning. ACE users request materials held in print by their local library. These requests are managed by ACE staff, who work with Internet Archive Canada to digitize the books, convert them into five accessible formats, and make them available through the Scholars Portal Books platform to all participating institutions that hold a copy locally. By building a shared repository, ACE has enabled each participant to access materials that have already been digitized upon request by other institutions across the province, minimizing duplication of labour and building sustainable progress towards eliminating barriers to access. This initiative has helped participating institutions to comply with Accessibility for Ontarians with Disabilities Act (AODA) regulations.
To learn more about how titles are added to ACE, watch our behind the scenes video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsURuUpnqTc
For more information about the digitization service, please see the staff guide: https://learn.scholarsportal.info/all-guides/ace/digitization/
For questions or comments, please contact Katya Pereyaslavska: katya@scholarsportal.info