The Maryland Higher Education Commission is committed to providing access to information on our web site for all visitors. Web pages on the MHEC web site are in HTML format and viewable with a web browser. In addition there are many reports and publications that require Adobe Acrobat Reader® or Microsoft Office Viewer in order to view them. Below you will find information and links to obtain the necessary plug-in software to enable you to download and view reports and publications on our web site. The software is free and available from the provider at no charge to the user.
Access to information for the hard of hearing, deaf or speech-disabled
Visitors who are hard of hearing, deaf or speech-disabled and who use a TTY or text telephone can contact MHEC via Maryland Relay (Dial 7-1-1 or 800-735-2258).
Nonvisual Access
To promote nonvisual access MHEC has identified methods to meet Maryland Information Technology Nonvisual Access Regulatory Standards under COMAR 17.06.02.
- Web pages are designed to be generally accessible to people who use screen readers. Screen readers produce synthesized voice output for text displayed on the computer screen.
- There are many reports and publications in Adobe PDF format on this web site. PDF documents can only be opened using the Adobe Acrobat Reader®. It is recommended you use version 7.0 or later. You can download and get help using the Acrobat Reader® at the Adobe Systems, Inc. site. The downloadable Acrobat Reader® software is available at NO CHARGE.
- For nonvisual access it is recommended that you download the PDF document to your personal computer. Open the document in Adobe Acrobat Reader® , and use the Read Out Load feature (Short-cut keys CNTL+SHIFT+V) to listen to the report.
- For your questions concerning accessibility of the documents on our web site please contact us by
email or phone. The phone number is 410-767-3301 or toll-free (800) 974-0203.
Adobe Acrobat PDF Files
We have many reports and documents in Adobe Acrobat® Portable Document Format (PDF). PDF format is used to preserve the content and layout of our hard copy publications. Publications in PDF format can only be viewed and printed using the Adobe Acrobat Reader®, version 5.0 or higher. It is recommended that the user download the version 7.0 or later . You can download and get help using the Acrobat Reader at the Adobe Systems, Inc. site. The downloadable Acrobat Reader software is available at NO CHARGE from Adobe.
Microsoft Excel, PowerPoint and Word Files
You can view our online publications that are in Microsoft Excel® (.xls) format if you have any version of Excel installed on your computer. For those who don't have the software, the Microsoft Corporation offers a FREE Excel file viewer. You can download and get help using the Excel viewer at the Microsoft Download Center.
You can view our online publications that are in Microsoft PowerPoint® (.ppt) format if you have any version of PowerPoint installed on your computer. For those who don't have the software, the Microsoft Corporation offers a FREE PowerPoint file viewer. You can download and get help using the PowerPoint viewer at the Microsoft Download Center.
You can view publications in Microsoft Word® (.doc) format if you have Word, version 6.0 or higher, installed on your computer. Word documents can also be viewed with many other word processing software programs. Additionally, Microsoft offers a FREE Word file viewer that you can download at its Microsoft Download Center.
RSS Feeds
RSS (an abbreviation for Really Simple Syndication) is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated works - such as blog entries, news headlines, audio, and video - in a standardized format. An RSS document (which is called a "feed", "web feed", or "channel") includes full or summarized text, plus metadata such as publishing dates and authorship. Web feeds benefit publishers by letting them syndicate content automatically. They benefit readers who want to subscribe to timely updates from favored websites or to aggregate feeds from many sites into one place. RSS feeds can be read using software called an "RSS reader", "feed reader", or "aggregator", which can be web-based, desktop-based, or mobile-device-based. A standardized XML file format allows the information to be published once and viewed by many different programs. The user subscribes to a feed by entering the feed's "URL" (uniform resource locater) into the reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process. The RSS reader checks the user's subscribed feeds regularly for new work, downloads any updates that it finds, and provides a user interface to monitor and read the feeds.
