AIM Consortium

The 15-state Accessible Instructional Materials (AIM) Consortium is working to improve academic outcomes for approximately 1.3 million K-12 students with print disabilities within the member States through the timely acquisition and delivery of high-quality educational materials in accessible formats (audio, Braille, eText, large print).

To help students who struggle to decode or extract meaning from print-based materials, such as textbooks, federal law (IDEA 2004) requires State and Local Education Agencies to adopt the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS) and to determine efficient approaches to provide core curricular materials in accessible, NIMAS-compliant formats. IDEA also requires the education agencies to provide these specialized formats to all students who are identified as print disabled, whether or not they qualify for NIMAS-derived materials.

The goals of the Consortium are to:

• Help States develop systems for identifying, acquiring, and using accessible instructional materials;
• Ensure that these systems employ high quality procedures and practices; and
• Produce related products and services that can be made available to all States, Outlying Areas, and Freely Associated States.

Check this page for news and information updates on the Consortium's coordinated central services, focused State activities, and emerging and scalable best practices.

For news about the NIMAS specification, policies and implementation please visit http://nimas.cast.org.

The AIM Consortium, supported by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education programs (OSEP), works with 15 States to improve the timely delivery of high quality accessible education materials to students with print disablities. The AIM Consortium was launched on October 1, 2007. The project officer for the AIM Consortium grant is Glinda Hill. Opinions expressed herein do not necessarily represent the Department of Education's position or policy.