[Blindmath] Accessible Physics Concepts for Blind Students

Wed Jun 15 21:39:36 UTC 2011

As I indicated earlier

"I expect to be updating many of the modules as time goes on to improve on
the availability of graphics. As I do that, I will delete the term "for
Blind Students" from each module when I need to revise it for some other
purpose, and I will omit that term from new modules as I publish them"

Regarding advertising, links, and publicity, perhaps someone who considers
this to be a worthwhile project would like to contribute to the project by
spearheading a publicity effort. In the meantime, I will invest my time
writing about physics.

Dick Baldwin

On Wed, Jun 15, 2011 at 2:22 PM, Peter Donahue <pdonahue2 at satx.rr.com>wrote:

> Hello Richard and everyone,
>
>    I would crack open some CNXML documentation to determine how meta data
> is handled by this environment before making assumptions.
>
> Second whether the phrase "For Blind Students" is included on your pages
> has
> nothing to do with  the site's rankings with search engines. If you want
> search engines to find the site why not register it with them? Problem
> solved.
>
> Peter Donahue
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Richard Baldwin" <baldwin at dickbaldwin.com>
> To: "Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics"
> <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
> Sent: Wednesday, June 15, 2011 1:15 PM
> Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Accessible Physics Concepts for Blind Students
>
>
> Good comments everyone. I will reply to each comment individually.
>
> John, you wrote
>
> "Any reason we cannot use the link directly to the beginning of your
> collection?  Ie
> http://cnx.org/content/m37432/latest/?collection=col11294/latest"
>
> Because I'm not blind and don't use a screen reader or a Braille display to
> read online material, I don't have a good answer to that question. Someone
> earlier suggested that the landing spot should be the Table of Contents for
> the collection instead of the main page for the collection. Apparently that
> individual was having difficulty getting to the Table of Contents for the
> collection. I am unable to assess the degree of difficulty involved. I am
> thinking of modifying my material and providing two links whenever I
> provide
> links, one to the main page for the collection and the other to the Table
> of
> Contents. I will let you be the judge as to which you should use on
> Access2Science.
>
> Ken, you wrote
>
> "Hmm then could you not just put that stuff in the meta tags rather than
> the
> titles?"
>
> If this were a typical web site that stores volumes of html files, the
> answer would probably be Yes. However, this web site is different, and what
> I am getting ready to tell you also applies to Christine's comment later.
>
> This web site doesn't store html files. Instead, it stores CNXML files,
> which are a flavor of XML. Thus, the concept of meta tags may not have the
> same meaning here as in a web site that stores html files.
>
> The html files that you see when you land on the page don't exist in any
> permanent sense. Instead, they are generated on the fly by a program that
> converts one or more CNXML files into a very temporary html file for
> transmission to the client.
>
> This is a type of website organization for which I have no prior
> experience,
> and I'm not sure what a search engine sees when it visits the site.
> However,
> I am sure that I don't have an opportunity to insert meta tags into the
> CNXML file that I create and submit to the site. When i publish a module, I
> am given an opportunity to specify a set of keywords, but it is my
> impression that they are used strictly for local searching on the site.
>
> I am pretty certain that there is not what you might think of as a
> permanent
> collection of a set of CNXML modules. Instead, there is a document
> somewhere
> on the website that defines the contents of a collection in the form of
> pointers of some kind, and that document is used to organize a collection
> when the time comes to generate an html file on the fly and send it to the
> client.
>
> Here is the meta data for the html file that you receive when you land on
> one of the modules.
>
>    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="application/xhtml+xml;
> charset=utf-8"/>
>    <meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7"/>
>    <meta property="og:title" content="Units and Dimensional Analysis
> for Blind Students"/>
>    <meta property="og:type" content="article"/>
>    <meta property="og:image" content="http://cnx.org/book_icon_cnx.png"/>
>    <meta property="og:url"
> content="http://cnx.org/content/m37480/latest/?collection=col11294"/>
>
>    <meta property="og:site_name" content="Connexions"/>
>    <meta property="fb:admins" content="100002202416123"/>
>    <meta property="fb:page_id" content="81379287964"/>
>    <meta property="og:description" content="The purpose of this
> module is to explain units and dimensional analysis in a format that
> is accessible to blind students."/>
>
>
> As you can see, one of those items is the title of the collection, so in
> effect, my title is being converted into metadata. The last item is a
> sentence that I provide as a summary when I submit the module for
> publication.
>
> Christine, you wrote:
>
> "1)  Regarding the Google and other similar search tools, if you type in
> those same keywords, because of the fact that blind students is on the
> title
> of the book, which appears at the beginning of each module, you will still
> get the hits on Google regardless of whether the chapter titles contain it.
> Thus, if they type something like trig and blindness and students they
> should hit your trig page..."
>
> As I mentioned to Ken earlier, there is no concept of a book in any
> permanent sense. Instead, there is simply a document somewhere containing
> pointers to CNXML files, that become a collection when someone is
> interested
> in viewing the collection. The "title of the book" only exists at the
> beginning of the html file for a given module when you ask to see that
> module and the html file is generated on the fly for your benefit. Once
> that
> html file is transmitted to you, it ceases to exist. In fact, it probably
> never exists on the website in complete form. My guess is that each html
> element is probably generated, transmitted to you, and then it ceases to
> exist. Once again, however, I don't know what a search engine sees when it
> visits the site and you may be entirely correct in your assessment of the
> situation.
>
> You also wrote:
>
> "2)  I am not quite sure I get why the blindness comment is necessary for
> your second argument. Although these are stand alone, the title of the book
> and again the fact that the page states the book title should provide the
> distinction you seek."
>
> My earlier comments about the lack of a book apply here also.
>
> Finally, you also wrote:
>
> "As a speech software user, it gets a bit irritating having to hear blind
> students at the end of every title."
>
> And I do appreciate that and will honor your concern. I expect to be
> updating many of the modules as time goes on to improve on the availability
> of graphics. As I do that, I will delete the term "for Blind Students" from
> each module when I need to revise it for some other purpose, and I will
> omit
> that term from new modules as I publish them. Along the way, I will monitor
> the position of the modules on the search engines to see if the position
> suffers. If so, I will go back and reinstate the term where it has been
> omitted or deleted.
>
> Thanks to all of you for your comments.
>
> Dick Baldwin
>
>
>
>
> --
> Richard G. Baldwin (Dick Baldwin)
> Home of Baldwin's on-line Java Tutorials
> http://www.DickBaldwin.com
>
> Professor of Computer Information Technology
> Austin Community College
> (512) 223-4758
> mailto:Baldwin at DickBaldwin.com
> http://www.austincc.edu/baldwin/
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-- 
Richard G. Baldwin (Dick Baldwin)
Home of Baldwin's on-line Java Tutorials
http://www.DickBaldwin.com

Professor of Computer Information Technology
Austin Community College
(512) 223-4758
mailto:Baldwin at DickBaldwin.com
http://www.austincc.edu/baldwin/