Braille Literacy Canada and CAER celebrate the release of the National Guidelines for the Production of e-Text

Recognizing the Critical Role of Standardized e-Text in Supporting Students with Print Disabilities

Toronto, Ontario — June 29, 2026 — The Canadian Association of Educational Resource Centres for Alternate Format Materials (CAER) and Braille Literacy Canada (BLC) today acknowledge the official release of the National Guidelines for the Production of e-Text. These guidelines, developed collaboratively by CAER member centres and hosted by Braille Literacy Canada (BLC) on its website, represent the foundational standard for all e-Text produced for Canadian students with print disabilities.

CAER member centres produce or procure accessible alternate format educational materials for students with print disabilities — students who may not be able to perceive visual content, manipulate a physical book, or who face barriers to comprehension when using print materials. e-Text is one type of alternate format that can be produced to ensure these students can access educational materials. The National Guidelines address every stage of e-Text production: document structure, heading hierarchy, image description, table formatting, and the handling of complex multi-column layouts common in academic publishing.

Why the Guidelines Matter

For students with print disabilities, access to course materials is a prerequisite for equitable participation in education. e-Text produced to a consistent national standard ensures that students using screen readers, refreshable braille displays, and other access technologies can access learning content that is logically organized, and fully navigable. Without adherence to these guidelines, students risk receiving inaccessible documents that, for example, cannot be read aloud in the correct sequence, fail to convey image descriptions, or do not allow for the navigation of complex scientific notation and tabular content. Without equitable and timely access to learning materials, students with print disabilities are at a disadvantage that negatively impacts their learning experience and scholarly outcomes.

Key Collaborators

CAER extends its sincere appreciation to Braille Literacy Canada for generously hosting the National Guidelines for the Production of e-Text on the BLC website, making them freely and publicly available to producers, institutions, students, and advocates across the country. This institutional home lends the CAER guidelines an authority, discoverability, and permanence that benefits every student, producer, and institution seeking to understand national best practice in e-Text production.

CAER is also very appreciative of the National Network for Equitable Library Service (NNELS) for supporting the process of developing the National Guidelines for the Production of e-Text. Experts from NNELS were critical in applying both lived and learned access technology experience to ensure that the guidelines were functional and relevant to real-world applications.

Looking Ahead

With the release of the National Guidelines for the Production of e-Text in English, the committee’s focus now turns to the development of a French language version.

The National Guidelines for the Production of e-Text are available at https://www.brailleliteracycanada.ca/etext.

About CAER

The Canadian Association of Educational Resource Centres for Alternate Format Materials (CAER) was founded in 1993 and has a membership which reflects all regions and provinces of Canada. CAER members are a collective of publicly funded centres coordinating the provision of educational materials for persons with print disabilities.

About Braille Literacy Canada

Braille Literacy Canada is dedicated to the promotion of braille as the primary medium of literacy for those who are blind or have low vision, representing and serving braille readers, parents of blind and low vision children, classroom educators, specialized teachers of students with visual impairments, rehabilitation professionals, and braille producers and transcribers across Canada.