[blindkid] Bookshare - NIMAC News!

Sat Jan 31 23:20:00 UTC 2009

Thank you Steve.  I believe that we should all be very aware of this.  Our 
school systems now may be getting our student's books downloaded in braille 
(quickly and economically) and "fulfilling their obligation" but if the 
braille copy is not useful, it will be a lesson in frustration for our kids, 
esp. the ones that are still learning braille and aren't yet comfortable  
enough to know that something is wrong, and it is not their lack of skills.  
I am not sure how many VI teachers  and state resource/material centers are 
aware of this and may think that these books are fine.  

Sandy Taboada

-----Original Message-----
From: "Steve Jacobson" <steve.jacobson at visi.com>
To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List, \(for parents of blind children\)" 
<blindkid at nfbnet.org>
Date: Sat, 31 Jan 2009 12:11:52 -0600
Subject: Re: [blindkid] Bookshare - NIMAC News!

I thought that our resolution from last summer might be worth posting here 
since it lays out some of this very well.  While I 
would like to have seen some of our points addressed in BookShare's 
announcements, I am hopeful that this will be 
addressed by BookShare as I have no doubt that their intention is good.  I'm 
just a little afraid that braille formatting of K-
12 textbooks may be underneath their radar and they may not be aware of the 
possible problems.  

RESOLUTION 2008-03
Regarding Books Formatted for Braille from Bookshare.org

WHEREAS, Bookshare.org is a project dedicated to the legal distribution of 
books
and periodicals in accessible formats, including electronic Braille; and

WHEREAS, with creativity and ingenuity Bookshare.org offers unprecedented 
access
to general books and periodicals to blind readers through a mechanism 
enabling the
sharing of books scanned by thousands of individuals, which eliminates 
significant
duplication of effort; and

WHEREAS, in the fall of 2007 the project received a grant from the U.S. 
Department
of Education in the amount of $32 million over five years to expand 
significantly
the availability of accessible electronic books and to make them available 
without
charge to all students with qualifying disabilities in the United States; 
and

WHEREAS, according to its Website, Bookshare.org intends 
to make extensive 
use of
textbook files provided by publishers in the recently mandated National 
Instructional
Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS), to create high-quality, 
student-ready materials
in digital audio, large print, or Braille
; and

WHEREAS, it is widely known that, despite the many advances in the 
capability of
Braille-translation software, intervention by a Braille transcriber 
knowledgeable
in the rules set forth by the Braille Authority of North America is still 
required
to ensure that the often complicated layout and the increasingly 
graphics-intensive
content of textbooks is rendered properly and can be readily understood and 
navigated
by the Braille reader; and

WHEREAS, Bookshare.orgs process for converting books and periodicals from 
print
to accessible formats involves some checking by volunteers and staff to 
ensure basic
readability and navigability, but the process of converting to Braille is 
handled
automatically by translation software and involves no final proofreading to 
ensure
that the format of the Braille versions is correct, so in reality 
Bookshare.org Braille
files are not student-ready; and

WHEREAS, Bookshare.org has an obligation to indicate clearly to all 
concerned that
the Braille textbooks made available on its Website have not been proofread 
and are
therefore not student-ready; and

WHEREAS, the economics of special education, combined with the unfortunately 
pervasive
lack of knowledge about Braille production even in the special education 
field, leads
some people who work with blind children simply to download the 
Bookshare.org files
and provide them directly to the students rather than paying for 
professionally transcribed
books; and

WHEREAS, such a trend will have far-reaching implications, not only 
undermining ongoing
efforts to ensure that children who read Braille receive high-quality 
instructional
materials, but also eroding the already fragile infrastructure now in place 
for the
production of Braille textbooks; Now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the National Federation of the Blind in Convention 
assembled this
fifth day of July, 2008, in the city of Dallas, Texas, that this 
organization urge
Bookshare.org to have its Braille versions of K-12 textbooks professionally 
proofread
and corrected; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that this organization strongly urge Bookshare.org to 
use
its unique position to support efforts at improving the quality of Braille 
educational
materials for K-12 students.

On Fri, 30 Jan 2009 23:22:54 -0600, Robert Jaquiss wrote:

>Hello Steve, Mike and List:

>     I am somewhat involved with a project known as Braille-In-DAISY which
>seeks to create a suite of software to take DAISY books and translate them
>to braille. This group has two parts; a core group and a larger group of
>interested persons. The groups are drawn from an assortment of 
organizations
>in the U.S., Canada, Europe and India. As you might imagine the issues 
faced
>by this group are very complex. After lots of discussions, an effort is
>underway to update the DAISY standard to include enough markup so materials
>can be accurately translated. For those not familiar with the term, markup
>is a way to identify parts of a book. For example, the title of the book
>Little House in the Big Woods would be marked up as:
><title>Little House in the Big Woods</title>
>The author's name has markup:
><author>Laura Ingals Wilder</author>

>All the chapter headings, paragraphs etc. are marked up in a similar
>fashion. Some of us were amazed to find out that modern school books have
>become very visual with multiple fonts, words in color, boxes, sidebars 
etc.
>In short, the complexity of the task was far greater than anyone had
>thought. There is the added problem of symantics. That is in one book, 
words
>in blue might be vocabulary words while in another book they could be in
>read or yellow. The human transcriber who is reading the book knows what is
>intended and can take appropriate action while the computer has no clue. As
>for tactile diagrams, there is another group; SVG-in-DAISY. We are trying 
to 
>figure out how to code diagrams. SVG stands for Scalable Vector Graphics. 
>SVG is the concept that an image is made up of lines with defined lengths. 
>The image can be made larger or smaller by changing the lengths of the 
lines 
>keeping the relationship between all lines the same.

>     All this is being done by volunteers and little funding.

>     As for the NIMAS standard, It is my understanding that it was 
basically 
>copied from DAISY and given a new name. One issue vendors will have is that 

>the DAISY standard is evolving. I do not know if the NIMAS standard will 
>keep pace. Hope all this makes sense.

>Regards,

>Robert Jaquiss, Chairman
>SVG-in-DAISY

>----- Original Message ----- 
>From: "Steve Jacobson" <steve.jacobson at visi.com>
>To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)"
><blindkid at nfbnet.org>
>Sent: Friday, January 30, 2009 8:46 PM
>Subject: Re: [blindkid] Bookshare - NIMAC News!

>There are elements of this effort that hold out some real promise.  One
>concern that I and many others have is what sort
>of quality control will there be on braille formatting.  As an adult, I can
>live with poorly formatted materials, but I believe
>that the formatting is more important when dealing with education of kids.
>What I have learned from listening to people
>in DSS offices is that there is a wide variation of quality in e-texts that
>come from the publisher.  Even though there
>should be more consistency here, poorly formatted tables and missing 
tactile
>drawings put our kids at a great
>disadvantage.  My fear is that getting texts that can be read in braille
>quickly and cheaply may cause school districts to
>not be all that concerned about such things as the tactile drawings that
>were often created as part of the transcribing
>process, and the tendency is going to blame the child for not figuring out 
a
>poorly formatted table.

>This isn't a reason not to move forward with this, but I would like to see
>BookShare address this aspect of producing
>these materials.  They may have an answer or at least a plan, but I have 
not
>seen it addressed.  We should be happy
>about this but also watchful.

>Best regards,

>Steve Jacobson
>>>
>>>----- Original Message ----- From: "Robert Jaquiss"
>>><rjaquiss at earthlink.net>
>>>To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)"
>>><blindkid at nfbnet.org>
>>>Sent: Thursday, January 29, 2009 9:59 AM
>>>Subject: Re: [blindkid] Bookshare - NIMAC News!
>>>
>>>
>>>Hello Eric and list:
>>>
>>>     I believe you are correct. The braille files could be read on a
>>>BrailleNote or other device, or used to emboss a braille copy. It will be
>>>interesting to see how well this actually works.
>>>
>>>Regards,
>>>
>>>Robert
>>>
>>>----- Original Message ----- From: "DrV" <icdx at earthlink.net>
>>>To: "NFBnet Blind Kid Mailing List,(for parents of blind children)"
>>><blindkid at nfbnet.org>
>>>Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2009 9:21 PM
>>>Subject: Re: [blindkid] Bookshare - NIMAC News!
>>>
>>>
>>>Does this mean that Middle & High School textbooks will be available for
>>>downloading to a braille noting device?
>>>Eric
>>>(PS: Sorry, about the misfired messages.)
>>>
>>>
>>>----- Original Message ----- From: "Bookshare.org (by way of David
>>>Andrews<dandrews at visi.com>)"
>>><Bookshare.org at mail.vresp.com>
>>>To: <david.andrews at nfbnet.org>
>>>Sent: Wednesday, January 28, 2009 16:36
>>>Subject: [blindkid] Bookshare - NIMAC News!
>>>
>>>
>>><http://cts.vresp.com/c/?Benetech/5d787704f2/0ae99e823c/f8a1a1dc74>
>>>Bookshare: Books Without Barriers
>>>
>>>
>>>Bookshare and NIMAC Announcement
>>>
>>>NIMAC books:
>>>
>>>To find NIMAC books, go to:
>>><http://cts.vresp.com/c/?Benetech/5d787704f2/0ae99e823c/8cec87bc2a>http://nimac.us
>>>
>>>
>>><mailto:nimacrequest at bookshare.org>Then email us
>>>to request the book be added to Bookshare
>>>
>>>Dear David Andrews:
>>>
>>>Have you heard the good news? There is a simple
>>>new NIMAC process that will enable Bookshare to
>>>provide NIMAC books to your students in a week or
>>>less at no cost, thanks to funding from the U.S.
>>>Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs.
>>>
>>>You can now name Bookshare as one of your
>>>Authorized Users (AU) at the NIMAC. You need to
>>>sign an updated NIMAC coordination agreement,
>>>which the NIMAC recently sent directly to all
>>>NIMAC state coordinators, and then appoint
>>>Bookshare as an AU. The new coordination
>>>agreement is available online at the NIMAC's
>>>website at:
>>><http://cts.vresp.com/c/?Benetech/5d787704f2/0ae99e823c/07a24a3dec>http://www.nimac.us/2009
>_NIMAC_COORD.DOC.
>>>
>>>
>>>Then, when one of your students needs a book:
>>>    * Any public school staff person (including
>>>classroom teachers, special educators and
>>>librarians) can send an email to
>>><mailto:nimacrequest at bookshare.org>nimacrequest at bookshare.org
>>>requesting the book after confirming that it's in
>>>the NIMAC at:
>>><http://cts.vresp.com/c/?Benetech/5d787704f2/0ae99e823c/64f515c348>http://nimac.us.
>>>We just need to know the title, author, publisher and/or ISBN number.
>>>    * We'll download the book, convert it into
>>>accessible digital text formats (DAISY and BRF)
>>>within a week and let the requestor know the book is in Bookshare.
>>>    * The requestor logs into their Bookshare
>>>account and downloads the book for a qualified
>>>student with an IEP. Two different accessible
>>>software packages that read the books are also
>>>available free for download, as well as high quality synthetic speech.
>>>
>>>After you send the AU request to the NIMAC, we
>>>will inform those educators in your jurisdiction
>>>who are Bookshare Members about the process and
>>>we'll include the information in communications
>>>to appropriate personnel in all districts, regardless of Bookshare
>>>membership.
>>>
>>>Together, let's get accessible textbooks flowing
>>>smoothly from the NIMAC to students in a timely manner!
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>Best regards,
>>>
>>>The Bookshare Team
>>><http://cts.vresp.com/c/?Benetech/5d787704f2/0ae99e823c/1303295a4d>
>>>Ideas That Work
>>>
>>>
>>>© Copyright 2008, Beneficent Technology, Inc. (The Benetech Initiative)
>>><http://cts.vresp.com/c/?Benetech/5d787704f2/0ae99e823c/b2c9e7bf48>Benetech
>>>is a California nonprofit organization.
>>>
>>>Your responses will be kept strictly confidential
>>>according to Bookshare.org's privacy policy. This
>>>email was sent out by our market services
>>>provider. Bookshare.org does not keep a copy of
>>>your email address. For inquiries about upcoming
>>>events such as webinars, please email us at
>>><mailto:events at bookshare.org>events at bookshare.org.
>>>If you have further questions or encounter any
>>>problems, please email us at
>>><mailto:info at bookshare.org>info at bookshare.org or call us at
>>>1-800-833-2753.
>>>
>>>
>>>----------
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>>>----------
>>>Benetech480 California Ave., Suite 201Palo Alto, California 94306US
>>>
>>>
>>>
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