[Blindmath] {Spam?} Re: Reintroducing myself and beta test opportunity for new STEM accessibility service.
Dániel Hajas
d.hajas.lists at gmail.com
Wed Feb 8 21:22:11 UTC 2017
Hi Russell,
Let me start with XML as Jason covered it rather well. The point is, that as long as you can convert the xml format into html including MathML, it can be read by screen readers given they support MathML. For instance JFW and Voice Over does. This case both speech and braille should be rendered fine, disregarding minor issues that are inevitable in software development. You would typically open these documents in a web browser. However editing these documents are more difficult due to the nature of xml tags. Also, I am not aware of too many xml to html+MathML convertors that are easy to use out of the box.
Now LaTeX is just an other markup language. Normally this is the preferred language for writing publications, books, as it is easy to edit and also can be compiled into pdf files with chosen style sheets. It is more likely that authors that wrote their books after the 90s, will have done that in LaTeX. It is usually the publisher who transforms LaTeX sources into XML for further processing, e.g. Daisy, or ePub.
Also, even though authors with books written after the 90s can have a personal LaTeX copy, they might be hesitant to share these source code files, as in theory it could be edited and re published. In my case, we managed to get books from kind authors one of our faculty member knew as a friend or colleague and personally guaranteed that the copy won’t be distributed or misused.
These LaTeX source codes can be opened in a text editor. Using auxiliary software such as, the LaTeX Access the following LaTeX code:
\frac{2}{x}
would be translated into speech and read out as “2 over x”. As long as LaTeX Access is configured correctly, this can be achieved using JAWS, NVDA as well, both in speech and braille.
For speech translation I am not aware of any other translation tools, but for braille there are solutions like the Duxbury.
Hope this answers some of your questions. Don’t worry, there are never too many questions, just too little answers. So feel free to ask more.
Daniel
> On 8 Feb 2017, at 17:25, Russell Solowoniuk via Blindmath <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>
> Hi Dániel,
>
> I'm curious about your comment regarding obtaining a textbook from the
> author in LaTeX or xml formats. If an author is able to provide his text
> in either of these formats, would a student using Jaws or VoiceOver be
> able to read the textbook and understand all the math content within?
> I'm not at all familiar with LaTeX, so am not quite sure how this would
> work. What would be needed if a LaTeX of the text could be obtained?
> Math Player? Another software program? Do most authors of STEM textbooks
> have a LaTeX or xml format of their textbooks? Would an xml format be
> able to be read using a screen reader?
>
> Lots of questions, I know, but, thanks for any information you can
> provide.
>
> Russell
>
> Russell Solowoniuk
> AT Educational Assistant, Services to Students with Disabilities
> MacEwan University
> 7-198 D4, 10700-104 Ave.
> Edmonton, AB T5J 4S2
> E: solowoniukr at macewan.ca
> T: 780-497-5826
> F: 780-497-4018
> macewan.ca
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> Please consider the environment before printing this email.
>
>
>>>> Dániel Hajas via Blindmath <blindmath at nfbnet.org> 2017-02-07 4:07
> AM >>>
> Dear Lukasz,
>
> Excellent question. This is a topic that can not be fully explored
> within an e-mail but let me perhaps give a few key points that worked
> for me:
> * First and foremost, let*s establish that screen magnification and
> screen reading have very different requirements, which of course can
> often complement each other.
> * For writing, reading and editing mathematical content, let it be
> lecture notes, assessments and so on, I believe it is inevitable to be
> familiar the LaTeX markup language, and for screen reading purposes use
> for instance the LaTeX Access Project under Windows, which I am most
> people from this list are familiar with. It is good practise to provide
> lecture notes in LaTeX for this reason, which I know some UK Maths and
> Physics departments do.
> * I think it is also very important to have a basic understanding of
> how for instance JAWS for Windows and Voice Over can read MathML
> content, or other screen readers using products like MathPlayer by
> Design Science; and be aware of online resources such as, DLMF (Digital
> Library of Mathematical Functions) developed by NIST, which provide
> high-level content both in LaTeX and MathML formats.
> * Finding accessible mathematics books is a different chapter, often
> very difficult. Approaching authors, perhaps instead of publishers might
> speed up and increase chances of finding alternative formats of eBooks
> such as, LaTeX or XML instead of PDF. Daisy with MathML is an option,
> but I haven*t seen many examples for that yet.
> * It is good practise to have a high-standard calculator, e.g. the
> APH + Orbit Research developed Orion Texas Instrument audio-graphing
> display calculator. Equally, it is important to do these sort of
> computations or graph sketching on non GUI programmes, such as Python.
> The audio graphing calculator or alternative sonification software such
> as the vOICe can help students visualise the shape and trends of curves,
> functions, limits. While using Python or other interpreted languages
> enable students to sketch their own graphs fairly easily and have higher
> control over the output, than for instance Ms Excel, which on occasions
> might be a little inconvenient for this purpose.
> * Tactile Graphics embossers such as View+ Technologies provides can
> also help in the students understanding of graphs; however, this is
> something that needs practise and a fair amount of time to learn to
> use.
> * Obviously, not only the technical but the human support element is
> also rather relevant to be successful as a vision impaired maths or STEM
> student. Standards such as extra time for exams, assessments, additional
> office hours or someone who can help with taking notes from the
> blackboard if appropriate and necessary. We can not ignore the fact,
> that no matter how fluent someone is in using any of the above technical
> solutions, it will always take longer to view, or read, write a markup
> language, a graph etc.
>
> There are additional software solutions and accessibility concerns for
> instance with regards to the Infty Project to OCR mathematical documents
> in order to access further resources, or the often quoted accessibility
> questions around mathematical software such as MatLab, Wolfram
> Mathematica etc. How efficient these technologies are always a question
> one needs to evaluate.
>
> As I said this is just scraping the top of the ice-mountain, and there
> are many details, other options; but I hope this is a good overview for
> a starter and can trigger some further questions, conversations. The
> above are my practises, experiences from the few years of being a blind
> scientist and I am sure, as many students, teachers, educators, support
> workers there are concerned in this field, there are just as many,
> slightly different ways of approaching the same challenge.
>
> Daniel
>> On 6 Feb 2017, at 23:00, *ukasz Grabowski via Blindmath
> <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>
>> Dear Daniel,
>>
>> This is not directly related to your email to blindmath email group.
> I'm
>> a maths lecturer at Lancaster university (sighted). I was wondering
> if
>> you could tell me how do you learn advanced, university level,
> maths?
>>
>> I'm preparing some accessible lecture notes for a visually impaired
>> student at my institution. She currently reads the lecture notes on
> a
>> very high zoom level, but I'd be very keen to hear from succesful
> maths
>> students how do they cope, in order to potentially improve our
>> approach.
>>
>> Best,
>> Lukasz
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, 6 Feb 2017 22:25:25 +0000
>> Dániel Hajas via Blindmath <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Lucas, Zach,
>>>
>>> Lucas, thanks for your quick introduction. I don*t see why you
>>> wouldn*t be able to help as an undergraduate, especially with the
>>> great qualifications and skills you have been gathering during your
>>> degree. In fact, I would be happy if you could help with trying out
>>> IRIS and letting the Grapheel team know if you think it would
> assist
>>> you during your science learning, and if not, how it could be
> changed
>>> to be more useful. It*s great you*ve done physics and chemistry.
> IRIS
>>> currently supports maths, physics, and to a lower extent biology
> and
>>> chemistry. However, in the near future, computer science and
> finances
>>> support should be added.
>>>
>>> If you are happy to try IRIS, either let me know, or even better if
>>> you drop a line to contact at grapheel.com
>>> <mailto:contact at grapheel.com>, and I am sure the IRIS developers
> will
>>> get back to you soon with details.
>>>
>>> You really don*t need to thank me for proposing the initiative, I
>>> simply encountered challenges that I believe still need solutions,
>>> and we try to create these solutions in the best way we can.
>>>
>>> Zach, thanks for the enthusiastic reply, I*ll get back to you on
> that
>>> in a private message, to save the list members some irrelevant
>>> reading. If you don*t hear from me in the next 1-2 days, please
> send
>>> me a reminder in a private mail.
>>>
>>> Best wishes,
>>> Daniel
>>>
>>>> On 6 Feb 2017, at 16:11, Lucas Nadolskis via Blindmath
>>>> <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Hello Dr. Hajas.
>>>>
>>>> I am currently a student of computer science at the University of
>>>> Minnesota. I needed to take physics, and calculus courses last
>>>> year and I am currently taking chemistry and linear algebra. I
>>>> encountered numerous issues either on the past and on the current
>>>> semester on accessibility on this area of study.
>>>>
>>>> So first I want to thank you for this idea of making the study of
>>>> science and engineering more accessible for blind students. If
> you
>>>> think that me as a undergraduate student may help on the project I
>>>> would be extremely glade to help in any ways that i can.
>>>>
>>>> Thank you again.
>>>>
>>>> Best regards.
>>>>
>>>> Lucas Nadolskis.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>> On Feb 6, 2017, at 8:04 AM, Dániel Hajas via Blindmath
>>>>> <blindmath at nfbnet.org> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Dear All,
>>>>>
>>>>> Let me reintroduce myself, as probably the memory of my person
>>>>> faded on this list, since I have to confess, I haven*t been
>>>>> posting or regularly reading the conversation going on between
> the
>>>>> BlindMath list members, even though I am signed up for a number
> of
>>>>> years and always found the knowledge exchange of the list very
>>>>> valuable, supportive and a friendly place. Personal and work
>>>>> related pressure prevented me from participating in this
> community
>>>>> in the past year, year and a half, which I wish to change now and
>>>>> catch up with all the unread e-mails, contribute with anything I
>>>>> can to new topics. As part of my reintroduction, please also
> allow
>>>>> me to bring your attention to a new STEM accessibility service.
>>>>> You can read more about it as well, and if you wish to
> participate
>>>>> and help shaping the service with your feedback and insights,
>>>>> please let the developer team or myself know about it.
>>>>>
>>>>> Now to the point:
>>>>>
>>>>> I am Daniel Hajas, a blind theoretical physicist at the
> University
>>>>> of Sussex, England; and founder of Grapheel, (www.grapheel.com)
>>>>> which is a initiative to enhance accessibility of science
>>>>> education for people with special needs, using a set of online
>>>>> services, hardware products and public engagement activities,
>>>>> partnering with other organisations to make scientific content
>>>>> more accessible.
>>>>>
>>>>> As part of the Grapheel initiative, me and a small team are
>>>>> designing an online, science community based image description
>>>>> service (called IRIS) to enhance the study experience of blind
> and
>>>>> visually impaired students in their education. Initially we would
>>>>> like to focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering,
>>>>> Mathematics) education, but later expand to subjects at arts and
>>>>> humanities and support image descriptions of financial graphs, or
>>>>> wave form visualisations in music editing.
>>>>>
>>>>> As we are at a very early stage of development, we would highly
>>>>> appreciate insights and feedback from the blind community
> familiar
>>>>> with accessibility considerations and state-of-the-art products
>>>>> and services. In particular, I would be grateful if members of
>>>>> this community could test and advise us on how to improve the
>>>>> service (please read more about it below). We have a feature
>>>>> incomplete test version, which we run in closed beta but before
>>>>> adding newer and new features we believe could be useful, we wish
>>>>> to start engaging with experienced, early adapter users, such
> that
>>>>> we can essentially build IRIS together from ground up.
>>>>>
>>>>> The service is very similar to initiatives such as, Be my eyes,
>>>>> Bespecular, TapTapSee and other; however, our service aims to
>>>>> focus specifically on educational needs, with a pool of
>>>>> volunteering experts at given academic disciplines.
>>>>>
>>>>> How does IRIS work?
>>>>> * blind or visually impaired (BVI) students upload an image of
>>>>> scientific content, graphs, diagrams. * BVI students select a
>>>>> field of study (tag) e.g. physics, maths, chemistry etc. and a
>>>>> level of difficulty. * BVI students can ask a specific question
>>>>> they would like to know about the figure. * A pool of sighted
>>>>> volunteers with the necessary knowledge are assigned to groups of
>>>>> chosen disciplines based on their user settings of competency.
> *
>>>>> When an image request is sent by a BVI student, the figure
> appears
>>>>> in a queue that all volunteers of a specific discipline can view
>>>>> and describe. * If a request is accepted, the volunteer should
>>>>> give a description of the image based on provided guidelines. *
>>>>> The recipient of the description can either accept the response,
>>>>> or ask for further clarification.
>>>>>
>>>>> What will I need to do as a tester?
>>>>> All you need to do is to log in whenever you can, upload a figure
>>>>> of scientific content, wait for the description and let us know
>>>>> what are the things you like, don*t like and suggest us new
>>>>> features you believe would be useful or could be done in a better
>>>>> way.
>>>>>
>>>>> If you feel you would be happy and able to help us, please let us
>>>>> know by getting in touch on contact at grapheel.com. Then we will
>>>>> send you a URL to access the service, your username, password and
>>>>> a *How to get started* instruction.
>>>>>
>>>>> Best wishes,
>>>>> Daniel
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>>>>
>>>>
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>>
>>
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