[Nfb-science] Assistance Needed with Math Software

[David Andrews]

Dear fellow NFB members and Associate members:



My name is Chun Chao (I go by Alan) and I am helping a good friend 
and member of ours in Northern Nevada with an issue regarding the 
mathematic program that is being used by the community college for 
student placement in particular levels of academic curriculum.

The community college uses a math program called ALEX as its entrance 
exam for student placement in college curriculum as well as for many 
other uses by the math department.

However, it is completely inaccessible to blind and visually impaired 
students as well as blind and visually impaired staff using screen 
reading technology.

The community college states that the reason why they use ALEX is 
because of its accuracy in detecting the level of math in which 
students perform.

Now, the community college has very much become a role model in 
presenting itself as a highly accessible campus for the Northern 
Nevada region in that all student workstations (whether it be in a 
classroom laboratory or in a library research center) have access via 
campus network to JAWS, Magic, and Open Book as well as a variety of 
additional resources such as NVDA and Premiere scan & read.

There were potholes in getting the community college to become 
accessible along the way but the effort to make the campus accessible 
has presented itself to be successful.

Nevertheless, the main roadblock that is being focused on now is 
finding an accessible alternative to a mathematic program such as 
ALEX while at the same time being able to keep the same level of 
reliability that ALEX offered.

In addition to what the community college is doing on its own part in 
making the campus to become as fully accessible as possible, I am 
reaching out to the NFB community and associated community for aid 
and support in finding a possible resolution to this issue.

Any suggestion or lead as to a possible resolution for implementing a 
college mathematic program that is accessible to all students and 
staff members will be appreciated as well as explored.

The best way to get a hold of me is via email at 
<mailto:zerone1683 at gmail.com>zerone1683 at gmail.com.



Sincerely,



C.C. Alan

Northern Nevada NFB