[Blindmath] [Nfb-science] using the stats program R

[Roopakshi Pathania]

Hi Cheryl,

Before answering your question, I would want to mention that you might like to post your question on blindmath list as well. A lot of R enthusiasts are present on that list including myself.
One another thing, you also might like to google for the terms "R for blind users"

Yes, you can use R for statistical analysis. The catch here is that at present, you need to use the command line version of R called "rTerm.exe" that can be found in the same directory as the GUI version.
C:\Program Files\R\R-2.12.1\bin\i386
You can edit the desktop shortcut  that points to the GUI version to bring up R command line.

R GUI is accessible to some extent and you can explore dialog boxes and menus with your screen reader. The developers are always willing to do more work to make the GUI version completely accessible, but I'm not sure that's possible since it is written in TCL/ TK that is a native Linux user interface and generates no accessibility events for Windows based screen readers.

If you use R terminal, you are not going to have a spreadsheet like interface to browse data. I'm still investigating alternative user interfaces that have this functionality and are accessible.

Finally, when you enter the code to generate a graph, a new window pops up containing the wanted graph, but for obvious reasons the window can't be explored.
The only thing you can do is to save the graph as an SVG and view it with tactile viewers or embossers.

--- On Mon, 3/14/11, Cheryl Fogle <cfogle at unm.edu> wrote:

> From: Cheryl Fogle <cfogle at unm.edu>
> Subject: [Nfb-science] using the stats program R
> To: nfb-science at nfbnet.org
> Date: Monday, March 14, 2011, 8:36 PM
> Hi. Has anyone successfully used the
> stats program R with Jaws?
> 
> I've already searched the site http://www.r-project.org/ and haven't found anything.
> 
> A faculty member sent me sample code to generate graphs for
> confidence intervals around principle components
> analysis.  I have been using an older student version
> of spss for data analysis like descriptive statistics and
> ANOVA for measurements and chi-square for frequency data for
> qualitative variables.  Now I'm revising the data
> analysis chapter of my dissertation and the sample code was
> given to me along with more general revisions. 
> Basically, I'm looking for some information before I decide
> what I can do independently and what might require sighted
> assistance.  Thanks in advance for any suggestions.
> 
> Cheryl Fogle
>  Ph.D. candidate, Department of Anthropology, University of
> New Mexico
> 
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