[BlindMath] FW: SPSS

Sat Sep 14 08:01:09 UTC 2019

Hello,

We've all been part of conversations as we acquire new knowledge.
To be fair, it's not the conversations that bother me; it's the waste of human resource, both professional support services and of the students themselves who are often set up to fail.

I've been on this list for something like twelve years. Yes, I see some conversations being repeated, but some of them need to be repeated so that the latest knowledge is shared. There was a time when people on this list would openly praise SPSS and support anyone wishing to use it. This month we heard  the deafening silence in response to a perfectly reasonable call for help.

It really concerns me that the success of a blind person often comes down to the level of support they can find though. Anyone who comes to this list has made a good start.

Part of my dream is that I stand or fall based on me and me alone, just like the bloke in the office next door. All too often though, my success and that of other blind people has been stifled by something well beyond my control. I'm actually willing to fail, because that means I tried. I'm far from happy though when it is the systems around me that are failing me, not me failing them.

I was talking with a blind woman about working in academia earlier this year. She was assuming that working in an academic institution would reduce her access problems. I really did not enjoy sharing with her that doing my job today is considerably harder as a blind person than it was on the day I got my job. I had much more capability with the university's administration systems ten years ago than I do today. I totally endorse Sina's contribution to this thread as a consequence.

I am fortunate that the primary software that my department uses is also the one that is the most accessible. Sure, I get to help determine the department's view, and yes, the fact that Minitab went from painful but workable to its current state of absolute uselessness to me was a factor in my contributions to our discussions but I'm willing to bet that even though my colleagues are perfectly likeable people, they aren't making a decision based on my needs as a blind person.

To the question of a consulting service: Well I guess some of us do that already. I answer all personal requests I receive by email. I get some thank you messages from time to time, and I have to say I read them out loud to my family, or at least I say where it came from. I've never asked for anything from the people I've helped aside from an occasional  small request for feedback.

I can't see anyone paying me for my expertise. I have offered to assist several corporates, but they have not expressed any interest to date beyond a Skype call or exchange of email messages. The problem here is that very few universities and software companies actually take access and inclusiveness seriously in everything they do. It's been a nice to have at best for many, and some have made some efforts in parts of their operations. I think we should acknowledge SAS here for the fact that they stand out as a STEM software provider in this respect, but they still sell JMP - yet another  product that is inaccessible, so even though I really appreciate what they have done with the SAS product, there is still room for improvement.

In the end, all I can do, and I suspect many of us are in a similar boat, is to make sure that everything I produce is as accessible as we can make it, and that we continue to strive for even better access in future. For me, that means fitting what I want to happen in the world into my day job, and it's working adequately right now, or at least, I can't do much more without jeopardising that day job.

Jonathan

From: Zach <zm290 at msstate.edu>
Sent: Saturday, 14 September 2019 2:36 AM
To: Godfrey, Jonathan <A.J.Godfrey at massey.ac.nz>
Subject: RE: [BlindMath] SPSS

Hello Dr. Godfrey,

Better words to express my opinions must exist, but they do not come to me at this time. You have voiced my exact feelings on the subject on software. You also point out  some of the most glaring issues to accessible STEM, those  being, in no particular order,  proper education of blind users of their adaptive technology in conjunction with other software * inadequate information regarding accessibility of software used by academic, government and industry institutions * and inadequate funding. Let me explain some ideas I have regarding a plan of action to address some of these issues. I would appreciate your feedback.

I've seen many repetitive conversations, and to be fair likely was a part of several myself, regarding accessibility in STEM. I've seen this happen across multiple mailing lists, not just BlindMath. Most of the questions being asked have been answered, but it seems students, faculty, staff, etc. are just not either able or willing to put in the time to access them. Or, they are incapable of using the available information to solve their problems.

If the availability of information cannot solve the issues, do you think there exists an opportunity for a consulting service?

Kind Regards,

Zac

[Cursive Signature for Signature Blocks]

Zachary Mason
M.S. Student
Animal and Dairy Sciences
Mississippi State University

-----Original Message-----

From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org<mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org>> On Behalf Of Godfrey, Jonathan via BlindMath

Sent: Thursday, September 12, 2019 7:34 PM

To: Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics <blindmath at nfbnet.org<mailto:blindmath at nfbnet.org>>

Cc: Godfrey, Jonathan <A.J.Godfrey at massey.ac.nz<mailto:A.J.Godfrey at massey.ac.nz>>

Subject: Re: [BlindMath] SPSS

Hello Lynn and all,

I really struggle to work out what to say to people who try to work with inaccessible software without expressing quite a lot of personal frustration. I've read Sine's message on using a Mac just now for inspiration on how to say something nicely. I'm not sure I can manage to match it, but there are things that need to be discussed.

Yes, there is plenty of software that is not working for blind people.

In addition though, I suggest that we have quite a few problems with software that are our fault, not the fault of the software itself.

- We do not learn from the experiences of others. All too often, I see people run the same experiments that lead to a failure and report it is if it was something unknown to the experts. I regularly check to see what comes up when I search for "statistics software blind" and rearrangements; the list is pretty good on Google today although this might be seen as blatant self-promotion. <smiles>

- We have resources that present information that was accurate at the time of writing but has gone stale. This is unfortunate as what worked for someone ten years ago is often assumed to still work.

- We have blind people claiming that software is accessible when it is not. Often this is because we have a power user making a claim that is not appropriate for a novice.

- We have blind people who do not know how to use the tools they do have. I see this most often as a consequence of not knowing how to use their chosen screen reader properly. All too often, this is then blamed on the mainstream software.

- We have blind people using the wrong blindness tools for a job. I've seen students using new equipment that they shouldn't have purchased in the first place. As an aside, I see this happen for many sighted students too, but that doesn't make it OK.

- I've seen far too many people with low-vision struggle because they haven't yet worked out that working sighted is harder than working blind. Thankfully, the contrary is also true because I have met low-vision students who use braille and print interchangeably.

- We have let ourselves be supported so much that our first port of call is a disability support service. This is good in a student's first year of university, but employers don't offer such services. Perhaps the biggest problem here is that the onus of support gets shifted from the teaching department onto the disability support staff. With respect to STEM subjects that is often a recipe for sub-optimal results. I have to say though that I receive about as many requests for assistance from the three groups of people - students themselves (best in my opinion), their teaching staff (good, but even better if this has followed a conversation with the student), and disability support staff (OK, but I see this as a backstop measure and while helpful, I still think it is far from ideal).

- We have not complained about inaccessible software enough. Vendors continue to sell their inaccessible products to universities, sometimes with false information about the accessibility of their software. No one complains so nothing changes. Universities continue to purchase substandard software because they don't know any better.

- we do not have reliable systems for sharing the knowledge we do have. If we did, the above list would be considerably shorter.

- there is very limited resource to assist every blind student in need by way of comprehensive support. It is over five years since anyone fully funded me to assist blind students. The only way I've managed to do so is to seek research funding and claim that my interactions with the students benefit my work or to piggy back workshops around conference travel.

On the bright side:

- there are numerous people who are looking out for blind people's needs in STEM subjects. This is the season for people making contact with me. I can report that I've handled a dozen requests in the last month alone.

- there are software solutions that do work for blind people doing statistics courses. R and  SAS are the only two that get any real support for blind people. A student using anything else does so at their own peril; a student who does so without the support of their teaching staff does themselves no good at all.

- Publicly available accessible resources to support students and teaching staff do exist.

Please note: this is not a get at Lynn message. I've seen too many people just like Lynn and unless something changes, there will be another one soon.  I actually think it is well past the time when blind people ourselves stood up and said that the current way things are working is not working for us. We need to do so knowing what we're doing well, and what we're not doing so well though.

Jonathan

-----Original Message-----

From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org<mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org>> On Behalf Of Lynn Wilson via BlindMath

Sent: Friday, 13 September 2019 4:06 AM

To: 'Blind Math list for those interested in mathematics' <blindmath at nfbnet.org<mailto:blindmath at nfbnet.org>>

Cc: Lynn Wilson <admin at nadp-uk.org<mailto:admin at nadp-uk.org>>

Subject: Re: [BlindMath] SPSS

Hi

I spent a lot of time trying to assist a blind student use Jaws and SPSS. We eventually got in a specialist VI trainer who set the systems so most were workable with copying and pasting to a document so she could read the data.

Even then she required sighted assistance for some tasks. I was later advised that it would be better to use R Statistics from the R project.

https://secure-web.cisco.com/1YjdEfIivipGyCvXl82ERmC2q8KGXs2nMuwelgi_9DxRmveyJunf8XHw1X6O2Fe2lurmjMtk4SoZTgG5yPk7yoXbu3Uvy1-pPiBVT5yuzkIHLwcxLT90MiUvxA1Oa3QfC7mKLvWrdQCFfiynYYleNb6hQzFoJSCv9IItM4XBdcc5dFpuX_WJG0-ZDACo04vuNSrFYWOEANEftfz-YPPxMtQOv88dVomwz0kU-GEkMbjkE6aYaI4tcFkrplrbdm21Vr_EearaY5YrADvTak2kX_0qDCwM0jDHMMS04lZjPMUAlahOOfSdK9ENy28M4k36cju4UbCZfoEPYPHgCzmvNdw/https%3A%2F%2Fwww.r-project.org%2F

Hope this helps

Lynn

Lynn Wilson AMNADP

Operations Manager

National Association of Disability Practitioners Ltd Lansdowne Building, 2 Lansdowne Rd. East Croydon, CR9 2ER Tel. 02082636220; Mobile: 07984405456

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-----Original Message-----

From: BlindMath <blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org<mailto:blindmath-bounces at nfbnet.org>> On Behalf Of Jeannie Massay via BlindMath

Sent: 30 August 2019 03:59

To: BlindMath at nfbnet.org<mailto:BlindMath at nfbnet.org>

Cc: Jeannie Massay <jmassay1 at cox.net<mailto:jmassay1 at cox.net>>

Subject: [BlindMath] SPSS

Hello all-

Does anyone have experience using SPSS and JAWS? When installing the program asks if you are using JAWS. However the menus and thus, the program seems to be inaccessible. Any thoughts or suggestions?

Thanks,

Jeannie

Jeannie Massay, President

National Federation of the Blind of Oklahoma

405-600-0695

president at nfbok.org<mailto:president at nfbok.org>

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