FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

STUDENTS WITH SPECIAL LEARNING NEEDS:
NEW BOOK PLATFORM FACILITATES INCLUSION

Montreal, May 12, 2020 – Copibec is pleased to announce that it has developed DONA, a new digital platform for downloading digital books adapted for students who have perceptual disabilities.

This new platform offering accessible digital content was developed with the financial support of Canadian Heritage. It will give teaching personnel, parents and students the opportunity to download books without digital locks so that they can be used with reading assistive technology tools. This platform will completely transform the service which Copibec has been offering to meet that need since 2010. The service has been called DONA (DOcuments Numériques Accessibles) since 2016.

“The popularity of our DONA service has been growing exponentially. We individually process hundreds of requests for specially adapted digital books every year,” explained Jean-Sébastien Vallée, director of Copibec’s education department. “The time had come for us to develop a Web platform to automate the requests and cut processing times.”

By taking advantage of the DONA platform developed in partnership with Montreal start-up Scenarex, students will be able to use materials and read content from Quebec publishers in a format adapted to their needs.

“The DONA platform’s purpose is to promote the inclusion of students who are faced with challenges in terms of their vision, motor skills or reading abilities, including dyslexia,” noted Frédérique Couette, Copibec’s Executive Director. “Thanks to DONA, those students will have access to the same educational materials as their classmates. They’ll no longer be penalized.”

The platform is scheduled to be launched in early 2021.

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About Copibec
Copibec is a non-profit social enterprise that belongs to the author and publisher community. It offers convenient, customized solutions that meet the needs of users of copyright-protected content. It is the Quebec counterpart of Access Copyright (Canada except Quebec), the Copyright Clearance Center (U.S.) and the Centre Français d’exploitation du droit de Copie (France).

Source
Kevin Charron
Communications Coordinator
[email protected] 
1-800-717-2022 #249
www.copibec.ca

This project has been made possible in part by the Government of Canada.