[Blindmath] braille code changes and nemeth

George Bell george at techno-vision.co.uk
Mon Mar 23 10:52:00 UTC 2015 

And thanks from me too, Steve.

The UK is ahead of the States in implementing UEB, and speaking from a Duxbury support point of view, in that role we have been very close to the concerns of both teachers and users.

As far as the literary side of UEB is concerned, there have been and still are, many urban myths.  No, spelling is not affected.  No, it does not significantly increase volume.  No, UEB does not affect formatting. No, you are not being forced to use UEB for mathematics. And on they go.

UEB does remove many potential ambiguities and differences between English braille variants, and as has been pointed out, even relaxes some rules.  Back translation is far more reliable, especially when using software to do this.

At least here in the UK, now UEB is becoming more available, more anti-UEB readers are accepting it and agreeing that the changes are in fact relatively straightforward and understood.  Mandatory capitalisation is probably the major complaint amongst older readers, but as we've pointed out, this has been standard elsewhere for a long time.  If anything, this is now helping to teach correct capitalisation.

The bottom line is that this is all helping to keep the cost of producing braille down.

With Mathematics, it has been left to individual Braille Authorities to decide whether or not to use Nemeth or UEB for math.  There have been some issues regarding Nemeth indicators within UEB, but progress has been made there.  The net result is that you can use UEB for text and Nemeth for math.

George.

-----Original Message-----
From: Blindmath [mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Susan Mooney via Blindmath
Sent: 22 March 2015 23:32
To: Steve Jacobson; Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics
Subject: Re: [Blindmath] braille code changes and nemeth

Thank you, Steve Jacobson!  As a transcriber, I know I have been stressed by the changes and I hope there will be workshops to help us all learn and adjust and that the workshops will be within reasonable traveling distance.  (All my available crossable parts are crossed in hopes that will
happen.)  I thought I was the only one who remembered the Taylor Code.  UEB is awkward right now and it looks and feels funny to me, but I hope I will slide right into it and that the producers of braille translation software develop something affordable soon.  All those hopes!  As a former teacher of the blind--but still a transcriber--I have one more hope and that's for the teachers to firmly learn UEB as well.  Thanks for such a great post!

Susan M.

On Sun, Mar 22, 2015 at 2:05 PM, Steve Jacobson via Blindmath < blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:

> Heidi and others,
>
> First, I really do not think that you will find that your daughter's 
> education or stress level will be significantly raised by this change.  
> I say that having been required in the 1950's and 1960's to switch 
> from the Taylor Code for math, to the first version of Nemeth Code and 
> then a second version of Nemeth and there were profound differences 
> with each change.  I experienced some substantial changes to Grade Two 
> braille as well, and there were a lot of texts that were written in 
> what was called grade one-and-a-half then.  Would my life have been 
> easier if that were not the case, probably, but we didn't think a lot about it.
>
> More generally, your friend who said change was not inevitable may 
> have been referring specifically to changing to UEB, I don't know, but 
> I believe changes to the braille code in general are inevitable.  
> Either braill had to change or it was destined to become less 
> relevant.  I believe this is the case Partly because print has changed 
> dramatically during the past three or four decades.  Also, we, as 
> blind people, are more affected by print presentation now than was the 
> case before computers, optical character recognition, and electronic 
> texts.
>
> It has been more than twenty years now since serious discussions began 
> as to how to make it possible for braille to better reflect changing 
> print conventions and to make better use of our ability to get text 
> electronically.  The debate has often been very emotional, and at 
> times, there was considerable polarization.
> This means that even today, emotions run high regarding what should be 
> done with braille.  Those of you who have read "War of the Dots" know 
> this is nothing new.  I think it is safe to say that people tend to 
> get emotional when discussing something that means a great deal to 
> them.  What makes the issue even more complicated is that there is no 
> perfect solution, including doing nothing at all.
>
> Over time, Unified English Braille has emerged as the code that most 
> of us have gotten behind as a path forward, but certainly not all of 
> us.  In particular, some of UEB's detractors were very upset with the 
> UEB's code of mathematics.  Ueb developers did a credible job of 
> making it possible for math symbols and numbers to be written 
> consistently whether in text or within mathematics, but there seemed 
> to be a cost.  It was demonstrated by some that many mathematical 
> expressions could take as many as twice as many symbols to write, and 
> this raised concerns for many of us.  In addition, mathematical texts 
> are still particularly dependent upon humans to accurately transcribe 
> them, and changing to UEB for math would have required major 
> retraining, much more than in the case of literary braille.  For that 
> reason, a reasonable compromise seemed to be to stick with our current 
> Nemeth Code for math rather than changing both literary and 
> mathematical braille.
>
> If one reads the War of the Dots one learns that in the early part of 
> the twentieth century, different schools for the blind in the united 
> states taught different versions of braille.  New York Point was 
> nothing like the braille we read today, even having a differently 
> shaped cell, but it had a good deal of support a hundred years ago.  
> In addition, there were multiple versions of 6-dot braille that used 
> different sets of contractions.  It took some time for a single system 
> to evolve and to gain widespread use.  This experience makes it 
> obvious to me that we need a group to set standards, even if 
> voluntary.
> This is pretty much what BANA is.  They don't have, to my knowledge, 
> any legal power as your friend said, but are made up of 
> representatives of many diverse groups.  Your friend is right, people 
> could ignore BANA, but where does that leave us?  Is this approach so 
> bad that it is worth fragmenting braille when it is already under such 
> pressure from other forces?  The current approach isn't perfect, but 
> neither is any other system that has been examined.
> However, it does seem to me that the current approach of using UEB and 
> Nemeth Code for math gives us the best approach to open up braille to 
> accommodate changes in the future with the least disruption to braille 
> readers, teachers and transcribers.  Work needs to be completed as to 
> how to integrate Nemeth Code with UEB but a lot has already been accomplished.
> There is now a symbol that indicates that Nemeth Code is starting, for 
> example, that was not part of UEB even a few years ago.  The challenge 
> of how to handle short mathematical passages has not been completely 
> resolve yet but there is awareness of difficulties that can arise if 
> there are a lot of indicators switching in and out of Nemeth code.  
> Interestingly, the math books I used some years ago used the literary 
> braille numbers for page numbers and within the table of contents, and 
> even to number word problems.  Some of these conventions changed over 
> time, I understand that, but math books simply have not necessarily 
> been all Nemeth Code as was suggested.  Science texts that are less 
> mathematical have had to bounce between literary braille and Nemeth 
> Code all along and some of this will remain and it isn't really new.
>
> Perhaps it is too strong a statement to say that the changes are a 
> "done deal."  However, there does come a time when we need to move 
> forward and think about the path that is ahead of us, how to make it 
> better, how to make the transition as smooth as possible, and how to 
> increase our rate of literacy.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Steve Jacobson
>
> On Sat, 21 Mar 2015 18:51:39 -0400, HPS via Blindmath wrote:
>
> >Yes to all Susan states, I'm a parent and my daughter is in 9th 
> >grade. I
> don't know how this will affect her right at a critical point in high 
> school, and I'm not looking forward to dealing with all the extra 
> stress this will bring.
> These are not simple changes as some have mentioned.
>
>
> >I like to know what to expect, and what to prepare her for. This is 
> >not
> just the job of her VI Teacher, who is still not sure what all the 
> changes are either.
>
>
> >So, it seems that a lot was done and I had no idea about it til about 
> >1
> year ago. Seems that if you don't belong to some organization you are out.
> There
> was not a lot of talk about this in any list, that seems weird to me.
>
>
> >I also since discovering this list have been interested in what all 
> >of
> your points of view are, specifically how these changes will impact 
> any math and science students and professionals.
>
>
> >As with any change there are good things and bad things that come 
> >with
> it. In this case I do not care for the bad that this will bring, and 
> these are my daughters feelings, she is not happy with any of the 
> changes with Nemeth.
>
>
> >I apologize for any grammar mistakes as English is not my first language.
>
>
> >Thank you,
>
>
> >Heidi
>
>
>
> >-----Original Message-----
> >From: Susan Jolly via Blindmath <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
> >To: blindmath <blindmath at nfbnet.org>
> >Sent: Sat, Mar 21, 2015 6:31 pm
> >Subject: [Blindmath] braille code changes and nemeth
>
>
> >I can't speak for others but here's why I'm still discussing it.
>
> >1. A done
> >deal doesn't always stay done.  I thought UEB was done with in the US 
> >back when NFB passed Resolutions 2002-04 and 2002-05.
> >2. I assume BANA is taking
> >into consideration how the transition was and is going to be 
> >implemented in other countries, especially in Australia and New 
> >Zealand where the implementations are pretty much complete.  These 
> >two countries took a phased approach so that older students weren't 
> >confronted with a code change at critical points in their educational 
> >careers.
> >Hopefully the more that parents,
> >teachers, and braille learners themselves understand about the 
> >details, the better the individual decisions they can make as to 
> >timing.
> >3. To my
> >knowledge no country other than the US has combined Nemeth math with 
> >UEB text so my guess is that the exact rules for how this is going to 
> >be implemented are still evolving and this is where the expertise of 
> >the Blindmath community will be helpful.  For example, the person who 
> >started this thread pointed out that there are questions about how 
> >best to integrate the use of Nemeth for displayed math with 
> >associated inline math references to that displayed math.
>
> >Sincerely,
> >Susan Jolly
>
>
>
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