When you put a text on AU's learning and examination platforms, it must be able to be read aloud by the text-to-speech software used by students with dyslexia and visual impairments – in accordance with the Danish Act on web accessibility. Read more about accessibility in systems on AU’s website.
When you scan a text from a book or printed page, the scan is saved as a digital image. Scanned images of text cannot be read by text-to-speech software. Texts on the LMS and examination platforms must be able to be marked and copied, and they must not be saved as images.
There are several ways to make sure that texts on AU's learning and examination platformscan be read by text-to-speech software.
As a general rule, if your text can be marked and copied, it can also be read aloud by text-to-speech software.
If you have scanned and subsequently converted a text to PDF format using OCR software, please check the quality of the OCR process (read more below). You can do this by copying the text from a PDF document to a Word document. In Word, you can see the text that will be read aloud. The layout of the text in Word will often differ from the layout in PDF, but the main thing is that the text itself is the same. If there are mistakes in the text, these should be corrected in the OCR programme during the OCR process or, if necessary, subsequently in the same programme (read more below).
The OCR conversion process works a lot better on pure text, such as prose, as opposed a text with a complicated layout, for example a text that combines images, formulae, mathematical symbols and forms, etc. For some texts with a complicated layout, the OCR conversion process will be impossible and will not provide an acceptable text-to-speech solution.
In order to ensure the OCR software can recognise the text, please scan a ‘clean’ text, without highlighted passages or notes, etc. You should also avoid scanning the text in a way that leaves dark marks on the page (for example, along the spine of the book).
Several products offer OCR software. These include:
On www.ordlab.dk, you can find short video guides on text-to-speech programmes, scanning and ABBYY FineReader Pro. All staff and students at AU have access to OrdLab via WAYF.
Log in via the link below and read i.a. about the reading program and the OCR program that dyslexic students will be granted if they receive SPS support:
Questions regarding functionality or technical issues:
See if there are any general problems on Brightspace on serviceinfo: