ATC-CAFE

ReadSpeaker Demo

Stephen R. Blosser — 2013-06-13T15:59:45+00:00

Dear Annette,

This Readspeaker demo (below) is of interest because it works with Desire to Learn books. I am skeptical of the value to us ($7000!) because it appears to be more of a service where books are converted by hand to read math equations. We already convert books at the RCPD into standard machine readable formats (html with mathML, Kurzweil 3000, Epub, etc.). If the Readspeaker demo is representative of what we would get (download delays and containing mistakes) I am worried that in production it would not serve our students well. It also is of limited use to [...]

Pearson Has commited to producing accessible versions of all future math books as of 2014!

Al Puzzuoli — 2013-05-07T18:31:51+00:00

Hi everyone, Very exciting news. Pearson has already produced 70 math and statistical ebooks in an accessible HTML format using MathML, and has commited that all such books produced as of 2014 will be accessible! Please spread the word to anyone else who might be interested: http://accessiblemath.dessci.com/2013/04/pearson-higher-education-commits-to-100-accessible-math-by-2014.html

--Al

Minutes from our last meeting

Stephen R. Blosser — 2013-05-02T13:06:52+00:00

Hello ATCers,

Attached are minutes for our last meeting. If you see any errors please report them to us. Graham, our web master, can post these next week.

We are very thankful for the help of Kaitlin Shea, our current secretary. We will miss you and congratulations on your graduation and move to Northwestern University in Illinois. [...]

Design Day Tomorrow

Stephen R. Blosser — 2013-04-25T14:47:07+00:00

Hello RCPD and ATC CAFE,

The RCPD has sponsored 40 exciting projects this semester, more than any other semester. Most of these will be on display tomorrow in the Engineering Building second floor from 8:00 AM to Noon. Our capstone projects will be formally presented in room 2250 with Smart Voting Joystick for Accessible Voting Machines at 9:30 AM http://www.egr.msu.edu/classes/ece480/capstone/spring13/group05/ Haptic User Interface Phase II At 10:10 http://www.egr.msu.edu/classes/ece480/capstone/spring13/group06/index.htm [...]

Final ATC CAFE meeting for this semester

Junus, Ranti — 2013-04-05T15:23:45+00:00

Hello All,

I'm sorry that I had to miss our last meeting for the semester. If there are any notes from the meeting, please share to the list?

thanks, ranti.

Final ATC CAFE meeting for this semester

Stephen R. Blosser — 2013-04-04T00:09:53+00:00

Dear ATC Members,

Tomorrow (Thursday April 4) at 3:00 PM the ATC CAFE will have its last scheduled meeting for the semester in Room 407 Computer Center.

Our agenda

1. Tom Davis has assigned Brendan Guenther to address us and hopefully answer any questions we may have.

2. We have been given a directive from the Provost http://webaccess.msu.edu/policies-and-guidelines/eTextsDDCmemo3_12_13.pdf that commits the RCPD, IT Services Teaching and Learning Support, Office for Inclusion and Intercultural Initiatives and the ATC's knowledge of technology to act. We will discuss this assignment and brainstorm ways to perform it. [...]

NFB Proposes Bill on Accessibility Standards for Digital Instructional Materials

Stephen R. Blosser — 2013-03-15T13:19:04+00:00

Dear Ranti,

The NFB is our friend who will help communicate to the publishers that textbooks need to be delivered to universities in universally accessible formats.

The RCPD is furiously working to reformat 418 books a year. Through this kind of legislation we will hopefully receive ready to use books from publishers. I am sad to say that, at this point, most authors and publishers are totally unaware of how to do it because they see a book as a print only object. [...]

NFB Proposes Bill on Accessibility Standards for Digital Instructional Materials

Junus, Ranti — 2013-03-14T15:44:52+00:00

[sending this to ATC-CAFÉ and WEBDEV-CAFÉ mailing list]

The news below came from the EDUCAUSE. I'm intrigued by the "including related delivery technologies" part, which could mean including mobile devices.

"The National Federation of the Blind (NFB) has released a fact sheet for proposed national legislation to enact a key recommendation of the Postsecondary Accessible Instructional Materials (AIM) Commission report released over a year ago. (For more on the AIM Commission, please see the end of this post.) NFB's legislative proposal would have Congress direct the U.S. Access Board, which develops accessibility guidelines under the Americans with Disabilities Act and [...]

FW: Featured Webcast: HTML 5 for Publishing Decision Makers

Stephen R. Blosser — 2013-03-06T17:41:03+00:00

Dear ATCers,

I am registered for this 1 hour event. If anyone is interested it is free to join.

Stephen Blosser Chair, Accommodating Technology CAFE, Advisory to Vice Provost David Gift of Libraries, Computing and Technology Michigan State University www.msu.edu/~atc 120 Bessey Hall East Lansing, MI 48824-1033 Cell: 517 648-9191 fax: (517) 432-3191 [...]

ATC meeting this thursday is cancelled

Stephen R. Blosser — 2013-03-04T19:28:32+00:00

Dear ATC Members,

Many of us are enjoying spring break so our ATC meeting this Thursday is cancelled.

Our final meeting time for this semester will be Apr 4 from 3:00 PM to 4:30 PM Eastern Time in room 407 Computer Center MSU.

Thank you all for helping deliver our APP&R

Stephen Blosser Chair, Accommodating Technology CAFE, Advisory to Vice Provost David Gift of Libraries, Computing and Technology Michigan State University www.msu.edu/~atc 120 Bessey Hall East Lansing, MI 48824-1033 Cell: 517 648-9191 fax: (517) 432-3191

ATC 2013 APP&R

Stephen R. Blosser — 2013-02-15T14:40:18+00:00

Dear David Gift and Tom Davis,

Attached is our CAFE's requests for this year. We have had some very interesting discussions on our ATC-CAFE@LIST.MSU.EDU about the work being performed at MSU to examine electronic textbook formats. We are sad that publishers have not done well in these pilot studies. We wish they would listen to our ATC CAFE and follow our lead. [...]

Cost to process textbooks

Stephen R. Blosser — 2013-02-15T14:11:29+00:00

Dear Graham and ATC members,

Tom's response was focused on text documents. If the book contains math equations they would need to be converted to Nemeth Braille, a very laborious task that can easily have errors if the translator (person doing the work) is not skilled in Braille and Nemeth.

If the original document is EPUB3 the math would already be in a format (MathML or LaTeX) that lends itself to automatically be converted. [...]

Cost to process textbooks

Tom Hwang — 2013-02-14T21:08:34+00:00

Hi Graham,

Let's say a book in text-accessible PDF file is provided by the publisher and the student needs it in embossed Braille format. The Braille production processes would be: 1. Save the PDF file into Word format. 2. Editing: making sure every elements/text are included in the saved Word file format. Text is arranged in the order to be read by the user, such as sidebar, inlet, two-column text, etc. Any visual icons and graphic elements, etc., are to be determined to include, how to include or not to include, etc. If editor's note is to be included as [...]

Follow-up from Telecom

Phillips, Anne — 2013-02-14T15:33:16-05:00

Thank you for the opportunity to present at the ATC meeting last week. I truly look forward to finding ways to expand this conversation in the future.

I took various follow-ups from the meeting and am making some progress on several items.

1. Does Telecom have phones with larger keypads? We do not have digital or IP phones with larger buttons, but can provide an analog telephone that has larger buttons. [...]

Cost to process textbooks

Graham L. Pierce — 2013-02-14T12:56:45-05:00

If the books were available in an accessible digital format, would the only change to the Braille production costs be the removal of the first step?

Cost to process textbooks

Stephen R. Blosser — 2013-02-13T23:06:18+00:00

I want to thank Tom Hwang for finishing these in time for us to mention it in our APP&R this year.

"We have estimated the cost to MSU of converting the textbooks we purchase. We have discovered that accessible media production costs vary per book when these books are not provided in an accessible format from the publisher. The following are example cost calculations for our different production formats. E-Text only production is $1096, and Braille production is $2639.90. Math Braille & Tactile Graphic Production, costs $8304" [...]

ATC APP&R

Stephen R. Blosser — 2013-02-13T21:58:32+00:00

Hello ATC CAFE members,

Attached is our edited request for this year. I will be sending this to David Gift and Tom Davis tomorrow. Tom Davis is managing Dave Gifts business for now, since Dave retired.

Thank you all for helping with this request.

We combined our request for a Mac computer into the request for all the new workstations. [...]

2013 APP&R

Stephen R. Blosser — 2013-02-07T19:44:13+00:00

Hello ATC members,

Attached is the draft we are working on, comments are welcome or simply make changes and send your edited copy to me.

Stephen Blosser Chair, Accommodating Technology CAFE, Advisory to Vice Provost David Gift of Libraries, Computing and Technology Michigan State University www.msu.edu/~atc 120 Bessey Hall East Lansing, MI 48824-1033 Cell: 517 648-9191 fax: (517) 432-3191

ATC meeting tomorrow Feb 7 407 Computer Center

Stephen R. Blosser — 2013-02-06T22:04:45+00:00

Dear ATCers,

In our final meeting before we submit our APP&R we have two presenters. We currently support reading and literacy software across campus. This year Kurzweil has quoted to MSU $5000 per year for a contract. This seems high and we will be reviewing what features and costs TextHelp, a competitor to Kurzweil, can offer. [...]

ReadSpeaker

Stephen R. Blosser — 2013-02-04T16:33:47+00:00

Dear Annette,

Thank you so much for this info on ReadSpeaker and it's possible use with Desire2Learn. We have been installing a similar free product called Natural Reader http://www.naturalreaders.com/ that also highlights words as they are spoken. This feature is very important for our students with learning disabilities.

You might ask ReadSpeaker today when you call to see if they are planning to implement the reading of math ML equations. [...]

FW: EPUB 3 as an option from ATN

Stephen R. Blosser — 2013-01-16T13:25:39+00:00

From: Christopher Lee [mailto:christopher.lee@amac.gatech.edu] Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 5:26 PM To: Stephen R. Blosser Subject: Re: EPUB 3 as an option from ATN

agreed. AMAC and ATN had a follow up meeting this afternoon on the issue. More to come, Christopher ________________________________ From: "Stephen R. Blosser" > To: "Christopher Lee" > Cc: "Bob Martinengo" >, kerscher@montana.com, ATC-CAFE@LIST.MSU.EDU, "Tom Hwang" > Sent: Tuesday, January 15, 2013 2:05:19 PM Subject: RE: EPUB 3 as an option from ATN Dear Chris, [...]

EPUB 3 as an option from ATN

Stephen R. Blosser — 2013-01-15T19:19:47+00:00

What you don’t know can hurt you.

From: George Kerscher [mailto:kerscher@montana.com] Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 12:07 PM To: 'Bob Martinengo'; Stephen R. Blosser Subject: RE: EPUB 3 as an option from ATN

Bob,

If other formats are not listed as being able to be requested, we must stop saying that people are not requesting EPUB 3 )or DAISY in the past). [...]

EPUB 3 as an option from ATN

Stephen R. Blosser — 2013-01-15T19:05:19+00:00

Dear Chris,

Someday in the future the wisdom of these decisions will be very obvious.

Stephen Blosser

From: Christopher Lee [mailto:christopher.lee@amac.gatech.edu] Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 4:47 PM To: Stephen R. Blosser Cc: Bob Martinengo; kerscher@montana.com Subject: Re: EPUB 3 as an option from ATN

Thanks Stephen for the feedback. We hear you loud and clear. Bob will follow up with you after the Feb 3rd ATN Advisory Committee meeting. [...]

Information about eText@Illinois

Stephen R. Blosser — 2013-01-11T16:20:36+00:00

Dear George,

Thank you so much for your time yesterday. Below is a description of the Illinois etext system that will be part of the planned pilot study this fall.

“EDUCAUSE and Internet2 continue to collaborate on a series of pilot efforts to evaluate diverse technologies and business models as textbooks evolve from print to electronic form. We plan to offer several options in a fourth pilot scheduled for the Fall 2013 semester, each available under a simple “Evaluation Pilot Participation Agreement.” We expect to provide the formal application for this pilot, along with more detailed information about the effort, [...]

EPUB 3 as an option from ATN

Stephen R. Blosser — 2013-01-11T16:04:51+00:00

Hello Bob, Chris, and George,

We were all very excited that Bookshare is going to offer EPUB3. If AccessText can offer it to our students as well, we will be blessed and our work of translating textbooks at MSU will become more manageable. This step is the beginning of resolving the following problems: [...]

FW: Letter of Participation in NIDRR project proposal being developed by Jon Gunderson

Stephen R. Blosser — 2013-01-10T17:41:06+00:00

Hello ATC members,

This request comes from a friend of one of our previous ATC members, Mike Elledge. Anyone involved in CIC at MSU can help.

Let our CAFE know if you are going to follow through with Jon's request below. He needs to know by tomorrow.

Thank You,

Stephen Blosser Chair, Accommodating Technology CAFE, Advisory to Vice Provost David Gift of Libraries, Computing and Technology Michigan State University www.msu.edu/~atc 120 Bessey Hall East Lansing, MI 48824-1033 Cell: 517 648-9191 fax: (517) 432-3191 [...]

ATC meeting tomorrow with live conversation with George Kersher

Stephen R. Blosser — 2013-01-10T16:04:36+00:00

Dear Dave and Nate,

I am excited to have an instructional designer involved in our work. We need to be aware of the expected changes and opportunities in communication technology for the future so we can help direct MSU to remain accessible.

Welcome Nate Evans!

To join our ATC listserve just sign in at http://list.msu.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=ATC-CAFE&A=1 [...]

ATC meeting tomorrow with live conversation with George Kersher

David J. Goodrich — 2013-01-10T10:25:29-05:00

Looking forward to this, Stephen.

I would like to join and bring one of our new LearnDAT instructional designers, Nate Evans , along with us today. Could you add him to this ATC Cafe Discussion group email list? His email is: natevans@msu.edu

Thanks, Stephen!

Dave

On Wed, Jan 9, 2013 at 11:30 AM, Stephen R. Blosser wrote: [...]

ATC meeting tomorrow with live conversation with George Kersher

Stephen R. Blosser — 2013-01-09T16:30:33+00:00

Dear ATCers,

George Kersher Ph. D., Secretary General of the DAISY Consortium and president of the International Digital Publishing Forum will be joining us by phone tomorrow at our ATC meeting. Dr. Kersher recently received President Obama's "Champion of Change" honor at the white house as part of the Winning the Future initiative. He also received the 2012 Migel Medal and several other honors for his work with the Advisory Commission on Accessible Instructional Materials in Postsecondary Education for Students with Disabilities. http://kerscher.montana.com/vita-2012-may.html [...]