[Blindmath] BANA still considering abolishing the Nemeth braille code

[Birkir R. Gunnarsson]

Hi

What, more than anything, I take from this discussion is, as others
have pointed out, the need for an international review of existing
math braille codes with a view to adapting a more unified braille code
across the world, one that does not rely specifically on the mechanics
or contraction rules of a particular language, and one that would
facilitate, to the extent possible, automatic software translation,
for use with computers, braille devices (refreshable braille displays,
whatever else may come along in near future, I doubt there is much as
braille hardware has not developed significantly from a reading
perspective for years), and embossing software.
I do not claim that UeB math or Nemeth does not already meet some or
most of these requirements, but I want to see an objective review of a
braille science committee, preferably international in nature, of
existing standards, their strenghts and their weaknesses.
I fully realize I am not suggesting anything remotely simple or easily
doable, but I feel the role of braille in the future of mathematics,
and the access of millions of blind people who want success in the
sciences may depend on how braille for math in combination with
computers develops over the next years and decades.
Wit the current number of systems in use combined with the lack of
braille users in math intensive fields, exchange of accessible
material is very difficult, in most cases expensive manual
transcription is required for most math material, and the most
convenient way to author math is using raw LaTeX for the task (though
I am in the process of studying specific software, such as Chatty
Infty, for the task, they cetainlyhave a novel and neat approach to
authoring math as a blind person). The requirement to use LaTeX for
mat authoring has already pushed countries like Denmark to say "jeez,
there is no braille code out there we can agree on, so why not use
LaTeX and teach people to use it, as well as providing them with raw
LaTeX text for their math needs, people can author math however they
want to using a standard keyboard, we can denote every single math
symbol by combining an 8-dot braille code with LaTeX, and there is a
huge amount of mainstrream software out there for converting between
LaTeX and MathML and creating printed math from text files)). While it
is a good standard in many ways, I find it extremely irritating and
unwieldy to work with, when I work with long expressions, in  the
process of doing actual calculations or transcriptions, so I do not
believe it is the optimal way to do mathematics as a blind person.
But the bottomline is that it is so hard to get accessible math
braille, that it definitely creates significant barriers for those who
want to get into STEM fields. This is particularly true for
non-English speaking countries, with minimal support in braille
translation software such as Duxbry or other software that can take
standard notation such as MathML or, to some extent, LaTeX as its
input and transform it into braille math code used for that particular
language.
In the Netherlands, for instance, I believe only one person has
attempted to study a STEm related subject at the university level
recently (though ths was word of mouth info I got last year, hopefully
thins may have changed since, I was not present at the most recent
math university in CCzech).
As someone from a non-English speaking country, tasked with finding a
solution for our users, students attempting to go through Computer
Science at a university level, this leaves me with a dilemma. I have
learnt Nemeth to a decent degree, nowhere near expert, but with
rsources proposed by people like Susan and others, I feel I am at a
point where I could work with Nemeth transcribed braille math in a
text book. I don't know it well enough to compare it, step by step and
point by point, with UEB math. Still I believe this is absolutely
needed, because each side seems to hold staedfastly to its claims of
superiority, without doing much work to back them up officially
(though unofficially I have gotten quite a bit of info, particularly
about Nemeth).
All this being said. for printed text, math represents a somewhat
universal way to comunicate. Printed math in various countries is
understandable by most readers very easily (there are silly
differences, for instance on the use of . vs , for a decimal marker,
to name but one example).
When it comes to braille, the picture is wildly different and systems
have been created, both partial and complete, and evenwithin countries
that speak the same language, there remain significant differences in
how math is denoted in braille, making it very difficult for software
vendors, whoever they are, to support embossed math thoroughly and
accurately, the market is simply too small and the standards are too
incplete or badly documented.
The reason I am "preaching", or bringing all of those points up, is
that I am attending the General Assembly of the EBU (European Blind
Union), in 3 weeks, and I want to mention this problem at every
opportunity within the meeting, to gain a more international
perspective.
I believe the U.S. can lead the way, at leat English speaking
countries, the technology is here, this list proves there are a lot of
smart people, but I believe the benefits of involving other contries
and trying to at least get the large nations, French, Spanish and
German, to agree on a system that is similar would be the ideal world,
but at least starting with all English speaking countries agreeing on
a superior and unified math code for braille would really be a huge
step forward, especially if said code was specifically geared towards
use on refreshable braille displays and compatibility with eBooks.
When we are at a point where epub3 is, hopefully, going to
revolutionize software access to math in mainstream text books, it
feels like this is a critical time to make things happen.
Cheers
-B

On 9/14/11, Susan Jolly <easjolly at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
> Thank you Steve for the additional information.
>
> In case this email is also reposted elsewhere, I will start with some of my
> credentials.  I apologize to those of you who are already familiar with my
> background but I feel that it is important to make it extremely clear why my
> opinions deserve consideration and respect and also to make it extremely
> clear that I would benefit neither professionally nor financially from any
> decisions BANA makes. Those of you who aren't interested please free to skip
> down to the row of asterisks.
>
> I just turned 71 years old and have been retired from paid work for quite
> some time. I earned an A.B. in chemistry from Oberlin, an M.A.T. in
> chemistry education from Johns Hopkins, and a Ph.D. in theoretical chemistry
> from U. C. Irvine.  My first, pre-Ph.D., career was as a high school
> chemistry teacher but, although I loved teaching, I did not have the
> patience to deal with the public school bureaucracy which was bad even many
> years ago. After obtaining my Ph.D. I had a sucessful career as a
> computational scientist working at a National Lab on several different
> science-based programming teams where I developed and implemented numerical
> algorithms, helped with code maintenance and extensions, and worked directly
> with numerous in-house users. Just in case it isn't obvious, the point of
> this brief vita is to make it clear that I have a very strong background in
> both mathematics and computer software.
>
> I am sighted and became interested in braille by happenstance after I
> retired because braille had long been an interest of my father's.  My
> father, an emeritus professor of chemical engineering, was active as a
> volunteer in the braille field in the early 1970's and attended numerous
> meetings including at least one NFB meeting.  He developed hardware
> prototypes related to tactile graphics and hard-copy reproduction and wrote
> a print-to-braille translator in Snobol. I have many of the newsletters and
> other artifacts that he collected during that period.
>
> Since April 2001 I have spent many more than the 10,000 hours supposedly
> required to achieve mastery in a field. I've learned about the history of
> braille and the history of automated braille production, learned EBAE and
> Nemeth, carefully studied the technical details of the UEBC proposal,
> written programs in Java and ANTLR to interconvert EBAE and print and to
> backtranslate from Nemeth to print, and developed and maintained my
> dotlessbraille.org website.  (I'm leaving out much more.)  I've kept up with
> the field of braille education by closely following several other lists in
> addition to Blindmath, by attending two conferences, and by a great deal of
> reading.
>
> An accomplishment I'm especially proud of despite its ending in tragedy is
> that I was instrumental in getting Prof. Eitan Gurari of the Ohio State
> Department of Computer Science and Engineering interested in automating the
> conversion of technical material to Nemeth braille. In July 2003 he obtained
> NSF Award #0312487 to support this effort.  Dr. Gurari most unfortunately
> passed away unexpectedly two years ago and his work was lost.
>
> The best thing about my volunteer effort has been the many friends and
> acquaintances I've made both here in the US and in at least eight other
> countries.  This group includes braille users and other persons who are part
> of the braille community including parents, TVIs, transcribers, software
> developers, and DSS officers.  I won't name names but I've visited at least
> four Blindmath members in their hometowns and have exchanged countless
> emails with many of you as well as with many others in the braille
> community. I am especially grateful for your generosity in answering my many
> questions! Thank you.
>
> ******
>
> Now to some of the points in Steve's email.
>
> First as to the history of the UEBC.  As best as I can tell, Tim Cranmer,
> who died in 2001, was indeed well-loved, well-respected, and unusually
> talented.  However, he was primarily self-taught and his doctorate was an
> honorary degree awarded by the University of Louisville where his friend,
> Dr. Emerson Foulke, a blind professor of psychology, taught.  Dr. Foulke,
> who died in 1997, was also part of the original UEBC committee and he was
> the one who was so adamantly committed to upper numbers, that is, to using
> the same braille cells for the decimal digits as are also used for certain
> Latin letters. You can read more about Cranmer and Foulke in these two
> articles posted on the NFB site.
> http://nfb.org/legacy/bm/bm02/bm0201/bm020117.htm
> http://nfb.org/legacy/bm/bm98/bm980214.htm
>
> Happily, both Joe Sullivan, Duxbury CEO, and Dr. Abraham Nemeth, retired
> professor of mathematics, who were the other two members of the original
> committee, are still alive.
>
> I read Part I of the BANA three-part article when it first came out.  I
> agree that there have been significant changes that the US braille community
> needs to consider.  First, the shift from teaching braille users in special
> schools to mainstreaming has obviously had a large impact on the amount and
> variety of materials that need to be transcribed to braille.  Second, the
> multiple changes to the formatting of print documents due to electronic
> publishing has created great difficulties in adhering to the principle that
> a braille transcription should reflect all aspects of the corresponding
> print edition.
>
> I don't have any idea what changes to the braille rules, if any, would help
> address these and other problems.
>
> I do, however, feel very strongly that it would be much more difficult to
> read and write mathematics if the same characters were to be used for the
> digits as for certain letters.
>
> I'm also sure that the change BANA notes is continuing and that the pace of
> change is increasing. One other example is the growing use of online
> educational materials and e-books. These factors imply to me that the best
> solutions will require a new international effort that incorporates input
> from a variety of smart, talented, and knowledgeable people.
>
> You might at first be surprised at the word "international."   However, when
> you stop to realize that formatting is much more of a problem for braille
> transcription than is translating, you can see that a big part of the
> problem is independent of a particular language.  Moreover digital standards
> such as MathML, SVG, and software algorithms are not tied to a particular
> natural language.
>
> There are many software applications that successfully address problems that
> are much more difficult than automatically transcribing print to braille. It
> is my belief that the primary reason why braille textbook production is
> still so expensive has to do with the lack of resources, not to any unique
> difficulty of the problem. Consider, for one simple example, the success of
> predictive-text algorithms such as T9 which allow you to enter text using
> only nine keys where each key represents three or four letters.  The
> algorithm figures out which letter is intended. I would not have guess that
> this was possible.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Susan Jolly
> www.dotlessbraille.org
>
>
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