Accessibile Instructional Materials (AIM)
Accessible instructional materials (AIM) are printed textbooks and educational materials that are converted to alternate formats, such as Braille, large print, electronic text, and audio recordings, which are requested by a local school division for use by students with disabilities in the classroom. Under IDEA, all states are required to adopt and use the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS) when producing accessible instructional materials for students who are blind or who have other print disabilities. NIMAS is a technical standard used by publishers to produce source files that may be used to develop multiple specialized formats for instructional use.
While IDEA requires all state educational agencies (SEAs) to adopt NIMAS, SEAs and local education agencies (LEAs) may choose whether to coordinate with the National Instructional Materials Access Center (NIMAC), a national repository.
VDOE, through George Mason University, has created the Accessible Instructional Materials Center of Virginia (AIM-VA) to produce and provide – at no cost to school divisions – accessible instructional and educational materials meeting NIMAS requirements for blind students and those with print disabilities. These materials include core instructional materials, trade books, reading interventions, test preparation materials, etc. in accessible digital formats.
To create a single point of access and to facilitate required federal data collection and reporting, all accessible instructional materials requested from AIM-VA and their partners are to ordered through the online library catalog.
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