[Blindmath] R accessibility

Sun Nov 11 22:59:34 UTC 2012

Responding to Vince's message.

The GUI console in the latest version of R (2.15.2, released 26 Oct 2012) is
as accessible as the GUI versions going back at least three years. While I'm
pleased you think this version is usable and have made this call on actually
using the software, I'd like to know what it is that you think has changed
for you.

I've tested almost every major and minor release of R since mid 2008 using
both Jaws and NVDA on a mixture of operating systems. I have not yet found
anything in the terminal or console windows that have altered enough to get
excited. I have noticed the improvements in access we have to the help
systems as the information has moved to being presented in html as the
default (version 2.11.0 onwards for general pages and 2.14.0 for the search
pages).

My most noticeable access issues remain the inability to review material
that has slipped off the top of the screen as more work gets done (not just
a problem in R but in many similar applications) and the necessity to use
the screen reader's review mode to read back event he simplest output in the
GUI version of R.

If you type
Mean(1:5)
At the R prompt you do not hear the answer spoken aloud by the GUI version,
but if you use the terminal window you do get the answer read aloud. I use
the terminal window as my scientific calculator as a consequence.

Cheers,
Jonathan

-----Original Message-----
From: Blindmath [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of vincent
martin
Sent: Monday, 12 November 2012 9:46 a.m.
To: blindmath at nfbnet.org
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] Blindmath Digest, Vol 76, Issue 5

FYI
The latest release of "R" now has its GUI speaking with screen reading
programs in Windows!
I found out by accident and have been actively using it!
It sure makes some things much, much easier.

-----Original Message-----
From: Blindmath [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of
blindmath-request at nfbnet.org
Sent: Sunday, November 11, 2012 1:01 PM
To: blindmath at nfbnet.org
Subject: Blindmath Digest, Vol 76, Issue 5

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: [Social-sciences-list] [BlindAcademics] Math	Teaching
      Techniques (Arielle Silverman)
   2. Re: new publication about R accessibility (Michael Whapples)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Sat, 10 Nov 2012 13:19:13 -0700
From: Arielle Silverman <arielle71 at gmail.com>
To: Blind Social Scientists List <social-sciences-list at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Blind Academics Discussion List <blindacademics at mailman.rice.edu>,
	blindmath <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] [Social-sciences-list] [BlindAcademics] Math
	Teaching Techniques
Message-ID:
	<CALAYQJDRmEP5NUPdwvVJAekNoRGL_gz1CDdNpbaEna1qZEocxQ at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Thanks everyone for the helpful teaching suggestions. Right now my questions
are still pretty abstract since I don't even know if I want a  position that
includes teaching. However, it's good to know that several blind people have
successfully handled these  issues in case questions come up in a job
interview. If I do get a teaching position, then I will probably have more
specific questions.
I would plan to use PowerPoint a lot. One issue is that I have been totally
blind since birth, and can barely sign my own name, hence I would not trust
myself to draw anything and  expect it to be of educational value to others.
I like the  idea of making the classes interactive, but I am curious how
easy this is to do in a lecture of 350 students?
Best,
Arielle

On 11/9/12, Cary Supalo <cas380 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Arielle,
> I use Power Point slides for lots of my lectures. Further, book 
> publishers make available to teachers pre-drawn slides. I work with a 
> reader to select the ones I want to use from the database the 
> publisher provides. I can then supplement these slides with other ones 
> I have made.
> I then use hard copy Braille for the text on the slides. I run the 
> presentation using a text-to-speech screen reader. I want to try using 
> the ViewPlus Iveo with tactile drawings of phase diagrams and other 2d 
> visuals. I will have to add text descriptions to the graphics which 
> are already Braille labeled of additional details to be mentioned. I 
> have not done this yet, but this is something I intend to try before 
> to long.
> Hope this helps.
> Cary
> At 08:42 PM 11/8/2012, Arielle Silverman wrote:
>>Hi all,
>>I was just curious whether any of you have experience teaching 
>>quantitative subjects at the college level (i.e. math, chemistry, 
>>statistics etc.) and if so, could you share a little bit about any 
>>alternative methods you use for teaching sighted students? As a 
>>soon-to-be psychology Ph.D. I am qualified to teach statistics 
>>courses, but I've observed that at least at the introductory level, a 
>>lot of the content is traditionally presented in a very visual way, 
>>i.e. with histograms, emphasis on the graphical properties of 
>>probability distributions, etc. I didn't learn that way myself and so 
>>I'm a little lost as to how I would present this kind of material in a 
>>way that is accessible to sighted students. How have you handled these 
>>kinds of issues?
>>Best,
>>Arielle
>>_______________________________________________
>>BlindAcademics mailing list
>>BlindAcademics at mailman.rice.edu
>>https://mailman.rice.edu/mailman/listinfo/blindacademics
>
>
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------------------------------

Message: 2
Date: Sun, 11 Nov 2012 09:57:52 +0000
From: Michael Whapples <mwhapples at aim.com>
To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
	<blindmath at nfbnet.org>
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] new publication about R accessibility
Message-ID: <509F76A0.5000808 at aim.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Hello,
Sorry for not getting to this earlier, but good work. I think you capture
many of the issues one can have well and explain things well.

A few small notes:
* On Linux for console applications I probably would choose to use the
speakup screen reader http://www.linux-speakup.org/. Orca is really designed
as a GUI desktop screen reader where as speakup is just a text console
screenreader and so is optimised for that use. Also cross-platform
accessibility is a very difficult problem, even toolkits like WX can have
problems, normally on non-windows platforms, probably due to the lower
number of users. WX and SWT use native widgets of the platform, but to make
all features common across platforms sometimes they need to use custom
controls in which case it depends on whether they have done the
accessibility stuff for the control. Sun Micro went a different route,
having a common accessibility API for all platforms and needing the user to
have access bridges, but we know how that is. While I agree cross-platform
accessibility is a nice goal to aim for, probably realistically for a
project where accessibility is not one of the main concerns (only a small
number of users) then to have it working well on one platform may be more
achievable.

Michael Whapples
On 27/10/2012 00:01, Jonathan Godfrey wrote:
> Greetings all,
>
> For some time now, I've been working on making the R community more 
> aware of what R has to offer the blind community. (And vice versa
> also!)
>
> Courtesy of links made via this email list and conferences/workshops 
> attended, I have been able to submit an article to the R Journal. This 
> is the main journal where those people involved with the development 
> of R present their work and findings. After some refereeing processes 
> and some editing, I have just learned that the article will be 
> published in December this year.
>
> The submission now appears online on the journal's web
> site: http://journal.r-project.org/accepted/2012-14/Godfrey.pdf
>
> This is a pre-print so the volume/issue/page numbers will change but I 
> felt that this community deserved to see the fruits of my labour and 
> the snippets of  wisdom collated over the last five or so years. As an 
> academic myself, I think it is important to recognize those whose 
> shoulders you have stood on. Several list participants get an explicit 
> mention (John Gardner and Neil Soiffer) but others will know that they 
> have pointed me and other list members in the right direction to 
> excellent resources.
>
> Let me now extend my sincere thanks to those people: John, Neil, 
> Michael, Susan, Dominique, and those people too numerous to name 
> explicitly whose feedback has been invaluable. Thank you all.
>
> Jonathan
>
> _____
> Dr A. Jonathan R. Godfrey
> Lecturer in Statistics
> Institute of Fundamental Sciences
> Massey University
> Palmerston North
>
> Office: Science Tower B Room 3.15
> Phone: +64-6-356 9099 ext 7705
> Mobile: +64-29-538-9814
> Home Address: 52 Linton St, Palm. Nth.
> Home Phone: +64-6-353 2224 (Just think FLEABAG) 
> _______________________________________________
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