[nobe-l] Blind academics and Thomson Reuters

Tue Oct 26 04:49:20 UTC 2010

Thank you for bringing this to my attention. I started the process of 
getting together a group of blind academics. I have, unfortunately, been 
quite busy over the last few months but plan to get this formally 
organized before the first of the year.
All Best,
James

-- 
James Fetter
University of Notre Dame
Department of Political Science
217 O'Shaughnessy
Notre Dame, IN 46556
574-323-4891
jfetter at nd.edu

On 10/25/2010 12:31 PM, Chwalow, Judith (by way of David Andrews 
<dandrews at visi.com>) wrote:
> From: William Page [mailto:page at scipol.co.uk]
> Sent: Monday, October 25, 2010 7:19 AM
> To: Maurer, Patricia
> Subject: Blind academics and Thomson Reuters
>
> As always, academics need to be published in academic journals.
> Increasingly, journals are insisting articles are submitted online. 
> The market leader is ScholarOne Manuscript, a division of Thomson 
> Reuters and based in the US. Its websites have many buttons which are 
> graphics with no hidden text beneath them; I believe no screen reader 
> can read them. This limits the ability of blind academics to submit 
> articles to at least this major player. This is unhelpful to their 
> career development!
>
> I know this because I am a blind publisher who signed up to use their 
> service for our journals - and I cannot use it!
>
> Thomson Reuters agree they should be doing something about this, but 
> cannot see it being done for some time. Is there an association of 
> blind academics who might add pressure to get this changed sooner 
> rather than later? Below are my emails to Thomson Reuters about this; 
> they are clearly not trying to be difficult, but say this would be an 
> immense job for technical reasons.
>
> You are welcome to forward this email to anyone you think appropriate.
> Thanks for any help you can give.
>
> Bill Page
>
> --------------------------------------------
> William Page
> Beech Tree Publishing
> - Science and Public Policy
> - Research Evaluation
> - Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal 10 Watford Close, Guildford, 
> Surrey GU1 2EP, UK Telephone +44 1483 824871  Fax +44 1483 567497 
> Email page at scipol.co.uk Website www.scipol.co.uk (including links to 
> journal abstracts and full texts on the Ingenta Connect site)
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: tiffany.coker at thomsonreuters.com
> [mailto:tiffany.coker at thomsonreuters.com]
> Sent: 18 June 2010 18:58
> To: page at scipol.co.uk
> Cc: ryan.looney at thomsonreuters.com
> Subject: RE: MC and screen readers
>
>
> Dear Bill,
>
> Thank you for your note explaining the hardship you're experience using
> ScholarOne Manuscripts with Hal.  While I have heard that certain users
> with screen readers had various minor troubles using the system, I
> haven't become aware that the system was impossible to use until you
> mentioned it below.  From my understanding of screen readers, they rely
> heavily (if not solely) on "alt text" describing images and buttons to
> aid in navigation.
>
> I also appreciate your willingness to help prioritize changes in the
> sites you work with.  However, in the case of ScholarOne Manuscripts,
> the system is built in such a way that all sites rely on the same code
> base to work; each site, rather than being a unique deployment of unique
> code, is simply a branch of the main code for all sites.  Any changes we
> make to one site will and must affect all.  Adding "alt text" to each
> image throughout the site is a large undertaking, and is further
> complicated by the fact that the sites can be customized to display
> different images depending on workflow, configuration, and language
> settings.
>
> While I don't believe that we can expect any improvement in 2010, as our
> resources are completely deployed on other projects, I will speak with
> my supervisors here and at Thomson Reuters to evaluate this for the
> future.
>
> Please don't hesitate to contact me if you have further questions.
>
> Best wishes,
> Tiffany
>
> .................................................................
> Tiffany Coker
> Director, Product Management
> ScholarOne
> Healthcare & Science
>
> Thomson Reuters
>
> Phone: 434.964.4027
> Fax: 434.817.2039
>
> tiffany.coker at thomsonreuters.com
> thomsonreuters.com
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: William Page [mailto:page at scipol.co.uk]
> Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2010 8:26 AM
> To: Coker, Tiffany (Hlthcr&Science)
> Cc: Looney, Ryan (Hlthcr&Science)
> Subject: RE: MC and screen readers
>
> Hello Tiffany
> Around December, Ryan Looney kindly contacted you on my behalf. We had
> signed up for two of the journals I publish to be on Manuscript Central.
> It took me time to realize that I could not really use MC because I am
> blind and use a screen reader (called Hal). Although David Thomas knew I
> was blind when he did the demonstration, it did not become apparent
> until much later that this would be a problem.
>
> I appreciate your situation, of making all MC sites compliant will be an
> immense undertaking. However, I am currently signed up to a service
> which I cannot use! So I wonder if we can reach a compromise: might it
> be possible to make just our two sites compliant? By which I mean, that
> a competent screen reader can read?
>
> If it helps: I am actively involved as an editor as well as the
> publisher of one, Science and Public Policy, so this would be my
> priority. If the other, Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal, had to
> wait, I could survive because I am not actively involved in editing that
> one, only in publishing it.
>
> If there is anything I can do to help with this, please tell me.
>
> With thanks for any help  you can give me,
>
> Best wishes
>
> Bill Page
>
> --------------------------------------------
> William Page
> Beech Tree Publishing
> - Science and Public Policy
> - Impact Assessment and Project Appraisal
> 10 Watford Close, Guildford, Surrey GU1 2EP, UK
> Telephone +44 1483 824871  Fax +44 1483 567497
> Email page at scipol.co.uk
> Website www.scipol.co.uk (including links to journal abstracts and full
> texts on the Ingenta Connect site)
>
>
>
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