ICAI launches Audio Reading Facility for Visually Handicapped Students

The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) is very sensitive to the needs of its students, especially, the differently abled ones. For Blind students having difficulty in reading the Study Materials, the ICAI provides Audio Study Materials. It provides Soft Copy of the Study Materials in CD as a part of the kit issued to the students on registration for the respective courses - Common Proficiency Test, Intermediate (IPC) Course and Final Courses. A soft copy of the Study Material, as updated from time to time, is also available on the BoS Knowledge Portal on the Institute Website at www.icai.org.

Read Out Loud: The Soft Copy of Study Materials available on the CD and on the BoS Knowledge Portal is available in the Adobe Acrobat PDF Format with the file name extension ".pdf".

The Adobe Acrobat Reader has the facility to "Read Out Loud" under the VIEW Tab, as depicted in the following screenshot, that enables users to hear the content:: The Adobe Acrobat Reader, in the option View ® Read Out Loud, provides the

following options for the file we have

opened:

For using the Read Out Loud the First time, we need to Activate this facility by clicking on the first option ® Activate Read Out Loud. As noted in the in the diagram above, the Short Cut to activate Read Out Loud is

to press the Y key while keeping Shift and Ctrl Keys depressed. It is important to note that selecting this option or pressing the said key combination would deactivate this facility, if it has been already activated.

Once you have activated the Read Out Loud feature, the remaining options become operational to Read this Page Only, Read to End of Document, Pause Reading or to Stop reading.

Podcasts in e-Learning on Students Learning Management System (LMS)

Besides, the e-Learning facility available to the students on the Students Learning Management System (LMS) at http://studentslms.icai.org, has a facility to download Podcasts/ MP3 files, that students can download and hear on their Desktop/ Laptop Computer and/ or Mobile Phones.

Students are encouraged to make greater use of these facilities.