[Blindmath] CFA for Visually Impaired Candidates: Math and OtherChallenges

[Greg]

Hello,
The school I attend, DeVry University online, is currently demoing Vital 
source.  I was fortunate enough to be one of the participants.  The best way 
to use vital source is to go to there site and log into your account.  View 
the books online.  From what testing I  have done it is very accessible. 
Once you log into your account and open up your book you can copy and paste 
the text you need.  So you could copy and paste the whole book into a 
document type of your choice.  It may take some time because you will have 
to copy and paste each page.  Another good thing about it is that all tables 
and figures are seperated out from the main page and are accessed seperatly. 
I really encourage you to take a look at the online version of Vital source.
Hope this helps,
Greg Wocher
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Roopakshi Pathania" <r_akshi_tgk at yahoo.com>
To: <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
Sent: Thursday, February 17, 2011 11:36 AM
Subject: [Blindmath] CFA for Visually Impaired Candidates: Math and 
OtherChallenges


>
> For those who are intrigued enough to read the email based on the subject, 
> here is the story.
>
> I have gone and done yet another crazy thing in my life: registered for 
> Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) June 2011 exam.
> I knew that there were going to be problems especially since CFA people 
> informed me that they do not have any special provisions for the Math 
> portion of the course. No LaTeX source, no MathML, and no Braille.
> But I thought that I’ll use InftyReader to solve that problem.
>
> At this point of time, I’m guessing that there are probably around 10 – 20 
> blind individuals who have taken this exam. And if anyone on this list 
> knows of such a creature, I would appreciate knowing about her or him.
>
> Registration was tough as CFA institute’s website isn’t particularly 
> accessible. Anyway, I’m use to inaccessible websites.
>
> Now comes the interesting part. The curriculum ebooks have to be 
> downloaded through a Bookshelf application by a company called VitalSource 
> Technologies.
> This application is accessible to a certain extent. However, I haven’t 
> been able to download a single book. The folder that Bookshelf creates 
> within My Documents is empty even after the download/ cancel button has 
> disappeared for the book. No way of finding out the download progress.
> There is also an app for iPhone/ iPod Touch. On my first try, it took so 
> long to download a book that I got a “request timed out” message. Will try 
> out again later.
>
> But I’m now worried about the quality of the PDFs that would be provided. 
> What if they have low resolution or what if they are only scanned images?
> InftyReader doesn’t play well with those kinds of books.
> Also, they might not allow me to move PDFs out of the folder.
>
> As if that’s not enough, here is what they need to allow me the privilege 
> to use a writer.
>
> “4. In addition to Parts I, II, and a comprehensive evaluation, you must 
> attach all relevant professional documentation such as: all past 
> professional evaluations, school records, report cards, transcripts, 
> special education reports, previous test results (such as SAT/ACT), 
> faculty comments, job performance reviews, a personal statement, or any 
> other documentation demonstrating a history of significant impairment.”
>
> Why should I submit all these documents? Don’t they trust evaluation 
> performed by a medical professional?
> This is way more than what GRE guys ask for.
> I’ll keep more of my personals views off-list.
> All in all, I’m rather disappointed. I thought ADA compliance should be 
> better than the kind of treatment I get from examination authorities in 
> India.
>
>
>
>
>
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