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<b> September 24, 2009<br><br>
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<dd>WGBH's National Center for Accessible Media Publishes Free Guidelines
for Describing STEM Images for Use within Digital Talking Books and on
Web Sites<br><br>
<dd>Free Webinars Scheduled<br><br>
</b>
<dd>A significant amount of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math
(STEM) information is presented visually, from graphs and tables to
diagrams and math equations. Students and professionals in the STEM
fields who are blind or have low vision must find methods of accessing
this data. In many cases, they rely on assistants to read and describe
images in order to stay current with content in their fields of study.
This creates a dependence that is inefficient, expensive and time
consuming. Access to text through electronic files and digital talking
books (DTBs) has created a great deal of independence for these users.
NCAM's publication of these new guidelines means that presenting
meaningful information about the images accompanying text can be more
readily achieved. <br><br>
<dd>"Effective Practices for Description of Science Content within
Digital Talking Books" is the result of a seminal 4-year effort
encompassing multiple surveys with describers and with students and
scientists with vision loss to research preferred practices for
description of visual information in textbooks and journals. WGBH's Carl
and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM)
undertook this research thanks to a grant (# 04535663) from the National
Science Foundation (NSF). <br><br>
<dd>WGBH worked in close collaboration with the American Foundation for
the Blind (AFB), and together they assembled a broader network of
researchers and experts including Recording for the Blind and Dyslexic,
Inc. (RFB&D); the American Printing House for the Blind (APH);
scientist and former NSF program officer Lawrence Scadden, and DAISY
(Digital Accessible Information System) Consortium Secretary General
George Kerscher. The DAISY Consortium is the world-wide network of
libraries, publishers and service organizations that developed the DTB
standard. All project partners contributed to the DAISY/NISO standard and
all partners were among the 40 members of the National File Format Panel,
which produced the National Instructional Materials Accessibility
Standard (NIMAS).<br><br>
<dd>Chapters of the new guidelines cover description of a variety of
information types, including bar charts, line graphs, Venn diagrams,
tables, pie charts, flow charts and complex diagrams and illustrations. A
resource section is also included, providing links to many organizations,
tools and standards which all contribute to generating more accessible
STEM materials. The guidelines are available online at:<br><br>
<dd><font face="Times New Roman, Times" color="#0000FF">
<a href="http://ncam.wgbh.org/publications/stemdx/intro.html">
http://ncam.wgbh.org/publications/stemdx/intro.html</a><br><br>
</u></font>
<dd>NCAM staff will provide training for implementing these STEM
Description Guidelines through free webinars. The dates and times for the
webinars, which last an hour and a half, appear below. The same
training is offered at each webinar; you can register for the time most
convenient for you by sending an email to
<a href="stemdescription@wgbh.htm">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" color="#0000FF">
stemdescription@wgbh.org</a><br><br>
</u></font>
<dd>Wednesday, September 30 at 10:00 a.m. EST<br>
<dd>Monday, October 20 at 1:30 p.m. EST<br>
<dd>Thursday, December 3 at Noon EST<br><br>
<dd>Additional dates will be offered in 2010. These sessions are
available at no cost thanks to funding from the National Science
Foundation (grant # 0833608).<br><br>
<dd>Comment from a recent webinar participant:<br><br>
<dd>"It was an excellent program and very helpful. I will be using
what I learned to train my students to create more accessible image
descriptions. Thank you."<br><br>
<dd>Donna M. Kachlic<br>
<dd>Disability Support Services Specialist<br>
<dd>The University of Texas at Tyler <br><br>
<dd>"Effective Practices for Description of Science Content within
Digital Talking Books" joins several other NCAM publications and
tools that enable and promote access to media for all users. Among
them:<br><br>
<dd>• "Accessible Digital Media: Design Guidelines for Electronic
Publications, Multimedia and the Web"<br>
<dd>• "A Developer's Guide to Creating Talking Menus for Set-top
Boxes and DVDs"<br>
<dd>• "IMS Guidelines for Developing Accessible Learning
Applications"<br>
<dd>• MAGpie, the Media Access Generator (free, do-it-yourself software
for creating captions and descriptions for multimedia)<br><br>
<dd>Links to all these resources are available at NCAM's site,
<<a href="http://ncam.wgbh.org">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" color="#0000FF">
http://ncam.wgbh.org</a></font>><br><br>
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<dd>About NCAM<br><br>
</b>
<dd>The Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media
at WGBH is a research, development and advocacy entity that works to make
existing and emerging technologies accessible to all audiences. NCAM is
part of the Media Access Group at WGBH, which also includes The Caption
Center (est. 1972) and Descriptive Video Service® (est. 1990). Follow the
Media Access Group on Facebook.<br>
<dd> <br>
<dd>About WGBH<br>
<dd> <br>
</b>
<dd>WGBH Boston
<<a href="http://www.wgbh.org">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" color="#0000FF">
http://www.wgbh.org</a></u></font>> is America's preeminent public
broadcaster, producing such celebrated national PBS series as
Masterpiece, Antiques Roadshow, Frontline, Nova, American Experience,
Arthur, Curious George and more than a dozen other award-winning
primetime, lifestyle and children's series. WGBH is the leading producer
of online content for pbs.org-- one of the most-visited dot-org sites on
the Internet-- a major producer for public radio and a pioneer in
developing educational multimedia and new technologies that make media
accessible for people with disabilities. For its efforts, WGBH has been
recognized with hundreds of honors, including Oscars, Emmys, Peabodys and
duPont-Columbia Journalism Awards. <br><br>
<dd>Contact:<br><br>
</b>
<dd>Mary Watkins, WGBH<br>
<dd><font face="Times New Roman, Times" color="#0000FF">
<a href="mary_watkins@wgbh.htm">mary_watkins@wgbh.org</a><br>
</u></font>
<dd>617 300-3700 voice<br>
<dd>617 300-2589 TTY<br>
<dd><font face="Times New Roman, Times" color="#0000FF">
<a href="http://access.wgbh.org">http://access.wgbh.org</a><br><br>
</u></font>
<dd>-end-<br><br>
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