[Blindmath] WGBH Releases Guidelines for Describing STEM Images Within Digital Talking Books and on Web Sites

[Jamal Mazrui]

Is it possible to download the complete set of guidelines as a single
file (in any format)?  Unlike other publications on your site, I could
not find a version that combined the individual web pages.

Regards,
Jamal
 


-----Original Message-----
From: blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org]
On Behalf Of Mary Watkins
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2009 3:14 PM
To: david.andrews at nfbnet.org
Subject: [Blindmath] WGBH Releases Guidelines for Describing STEM Images
Within Digital Talking Books and on Web Sites


         September 24, 2009

WGBH's National Center for Accessible Media Publishes Free Guidelines
for Describing STEM Images for Use within Digital Talking Books and on
Web Sites

Free Webinars Scheduled

A significant amount of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM)
information is presented visually, from graphs and tables to diagrams
and math equations. Students and professionals in the STEM fields who
are blind or have low vision must find methods of accessing this data.
In many cases, they rely on assistants to read and describe images in
order to stay current with content in their fields of study. 
This creates a dependence that is inefficient, expensive and time
consuming. Access to text through electronic files and digital talking
books (DTBs) has created a great deal of independence for these users.
NCAM's publication of these new guidelines means that presenting
meaningful information about the images accompanying text can be more
readily achieved.

"Effective Practices for Description of Science Content within Digital
Talking Books" is the result of a seminal 4-year effort encompassing
multiple surveys with describers and with students and scientists with
vision loss to research preferred practices for description of visual
information in textbooks and journals. 
WGBH's Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media
(NCAM) undertook this research thanks to a grant (# 04535663) from the
National Science Foundation (NSF).

WGBH worked in close collaboration with the American Foundation for the
Blind (AFB), and together they assembled a broader network of
researchers and experts including Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic,
Inc. (RFB&D); the American Printing House for the Blind (APH); scientist
and former NSF program officer Lawrence Scadden, and DAISY (Digital
Accessible Information System) Consortium Secretary General George
Kerscher. The DAISY Consortium is the world-wide network of libraries,
publishers and service organizations that developed the DTB standard.
All project partners contributed to the DAISY/NISO standard and all
partners were among the 40 members of the National File Format Panel,
which produced the National Instructional Materials Accessibility
Standard (NIMAS).

Chapters of the new guidelines cover description of a variety of
information types, including bar charts, line graphs, Venn diagrams,
tables, pie charts, flow charts and complex diagrams and illustrations.
A resource section is also included, providing links to many
organizations, tools and standards which all contribute to generating
more accessible STEM materials. The guidelines are available online at:

<http://ncam.wgbh.org/publications/stemdx/intro.html>http://ncam.wgbh.or
g/publications/stemdx/intro.html

NCAM staff will provide training for implementing these STEM Description
Guidelines through free webinars. The dates and times for the webinars,
which last an hour and a half, appear below.  The same training is
offered at each webinar; you can register for the time most convenient
for you by sending an email to
<stemdescription at wgbh.htm>stemdescription at wgbh.org

Wednesday, September 30 at 10:00 a.m. EST Monday, October 20 at 1:30
p.m. EST Thursday, December 3 at Noon EST

Additional dates will be offered in 2010. These sessions are available
at no cost thanks to funding from the National Science Foundation (grant
# 0833608).

Comment from a recent webinar participant:

"It was an excellent program and very helpful. I will be using what I
learned to train my students to create more accessible image
descriptions. Thank you."

Donna M. Kachlic
Disability Support Services Specialist
The University of Texas at Tyler

"Effective Practices for Description of Science Content within Digital
Talking Books" joins several other NCAM publications and tools that
enable and promote access to media for all users. Among them:

* "Accessible Digital Media: Design Guidelines for Electronic
Publications, Multimedia and the Web"
* "A Developer's Guide to Creating Talking Menus for Set-top Boxes and
DVDs"
* "IMS Guidelines for Developing Accessible Learning Applications"
* MAGpie, the Media Access Generator (free, do-it-yourself software for
creating captions and descriptions for multimedia)

Links to all these resources are available at NCAM's site,
<<http://ncam.wgbh.org>http://ncam.wgbh.org>

About NCAM

The Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media at
WGBH is a research, development and advocacy entity that works to make
existing and emerging technologies accessible to all audiences. NCAM is
part of the Media Access Group at WGBH, which also includes The Caption
Center (est. 1972) and Descriptive Video Service(r) (est. 1990). Follow
the Media Access Group on Facebook.

About WGBH

WGBH Boston
<<http://www.wgbh.org>http://www.wgbh.org> is America's preeminent
public broadcaster, producing such celebrated national PBS series as
Masterpiece, Antiques Roadshow, Frontline, Nova, American Experience,
Arthur, Curious George and more than a dozen other award-winning
primetime, lifestyle and children's series. WGBH is the leading producer
of online content for pbs.org-- one of the most-visited dot-org sites on
the
Internet-- a major producer for public radio and a pioneer in developing
educational multimedia and new technologies that make media accessible
for people with disabilities. For its efforts, WGBH has been recognized
with hundreds of honors, including Oscars, Emmys, Peabodys and
duPont-Columbia Journalism Awards.

Contact:

Mary Watkins, WGBH
<mary_watkins at wgbh.htm>mary_watkins at wgbh.org
617 300-3700 voice
617 300-2589 TTY
<http://access.wgbh.org>http://access.wgbh.org

-end-


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