Conversion of course materials into accessible formats
Materials are only prepared in an accessible format for people with a visual or reading disability within the meaning of Section 45b (2) UrhG.
As an authorised body under the Copyright Act, the Contact and Information Centre for Students with Disabilities and Chronic Illnesses (KIS) catalogues the works converted into an accessible format within the meaning of Section 45c UrhG and presents the titles in a finding aid. The works are archived in a digital space protected from unauthorised access by third parties and made accessible for retrieval exclusively by persons with proof of visual or reading impairment.
For blind and visually impaired students as well as students with dyslexia from all departments and faculties, study materials are converted into Braille or large print, digitally recorded and stored on data carriers. The order for this is placed by the students concerned.
The realisation of the study materials is always oriented towards an exact adaptation of the scientific statements, so that, for example, the possibility of citing the original text page is ensured. The media form in which the study materials are converted depends on the needs or wishes of the visually impaired students.
If you have any questions, please contact us at kis@uni-wuerzburg.de.
1) 1 Persons with a visual or reading disability may reproduce, or have reproduced, published verbal works in text or audio format and graphic recordings of musical works for their own use in order to convert them into an accessible format.
2 This authorisation also includes illustrations of any kind contained in linguistic or musical works.
3 Reproductions may only be made of works to which the person with a visual or reading disability has lawful access.
(2) Persons with a visual or reading impairment within the meaning of this Act are persons who, due to a physical, mental or intellectual impairment or due to a sensory impairment, are unable to read linguistic works with the same ease as persons without such an impairment, even with the use of an optical visual aid.
The law came into force on 01.01.2019.
Note: Provision inserted by the Act implementing the Marrakesh Directive on improved access to copyright-protected works for the benefit of people with a visual or reading disability of 28.11.2018(Federal Law Gazette I p. 2014 (German only)), entered into force on 01.01.2019.
The Contact and Information Centre for Students with Disabilities and Chronic Illnesses (KIS) is an authorised body within the meaning of Section 45c (3) of the Copyright Act:
- Reproductions in an accessible format are only made available to people with a visual or reading disability or transmitted to other authorised bodies.
- A severely disabled person's pass with the mark BL for blind or TBL for deaf-blind or a medical certificate attesting to a visual or reading disability within the meaning of Section 45b (2) UrhG serves as proof.
- Users for whom materials are adapted must confirm in writing that they will use the adapted materials exclusively for their own study and scientific purposes.
- Any further reproduction, distribution, public reproduction or making available to the public (distribution on the Internet), in particular in social networks, is not permitted and expressly prohibited.
(1) Authorised bodies may reproduce published spoken works in text or audio format as well as graphic recordings of musical works in order to convert them into an accessible format exclusively for people with a visual or reading disability. § Section 45b (1) sentences 2 and 3 shall apply accordingly.
(2) Authorised bodies may lend copies made in accordance with paragraph 1 to persons with a visual or reading disability or other authorised bodies, distribute them and use them for making available to the public or for other public communication.
(3) Authorised bodies are institutions that provide educational services or barrier-free access to reading and information for people with a visual or reading disability on a non-profit basis.
(4) The author shall be entitled to payment of an appropriate remuneration for uses in accordance with paragraphs 1 and 2. The claim may only be asserted by a collecting society.
(5) The Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection shall be authorised to regulate the following by statutory order without the consent of the Bundesrat with regard to authorised bodies:
1. their duties in connection with the uses under subsections 1 and 2,
2. their duty to notify the German Patent and Trade Mark Office as authorised entities,
3. the supervision by the German Patent and Trade Mark Office of compliance with the duties under number 1 in accordance with section 85 (1) and (3) and section 89 of the Collecting Societies Act.
What is implemented and what is not?
All written materials that must be read by all participants in a course, such as thesis papers, scripts, readers, table presentations, PowerPoint presentations, articles from specialist journals, excerpts from books and so on, are converted.
In addition, the conversion service converts written examinations or other written examination documents so that compensation for disadvantages can be achieved.
How does the implementation service work?
In principle, the earlier the text to be implemented is available to the Contact and Information Centre for Students with Disabilities and Chronic Illnesses (KIS), the better. Study materials to be implemented by the implementation service can be received by the implementation service in printed form or as a PDF, PowerPoint or Word file and so on. You can bring the study materials to be implemented to the office, send them by internal mail or send them by email.
The estimated time of completion of the order will be agreed by arrangement, and the converted materials can then be collected from the conversion service.
In order to be able to realise the conversion of study materials quickly and efficiently and to avoid delays, the texts or files to be converted should meet certain requirements:
Paper texts to be converted (copies from journals or books, readers, scripts, etc.) must be in a form that can be easily copied. The same applies to PDF files.
The formatting of a text to be converted must be retained when it is converted into Braille and large print. In the case of texts available as WORD or RTF files, these should therefore only be formatted using the corresponding menu commands (in WORD, for example, ‘Format | Paragraph’).
Tables and graphics can only be adapted in individual cases and after consultation, as their implementation is organisationally, technically and time-consuming.
