[Social-sciences-list] Seeking Assistance for Statistics Class

Ed Summers Ed.Summers at sas.com
Wed Jan 9 18:18:53 UTC 2019


Hi Elizabeth,

I'm a blind Computer Scientist and Director of Accessibility here at SAS. SAS is a popular statistics package that is widely used in higher education and industry.

The EPUB format was designed with accessibility in mind and Bookshare makes all of their new books available in the EPUB format:
https://www.bookshare.org/cms/help-center/which-formats-are-books-available

I read EPUB files in iBooks on my iPhone. Note that VoiceOver on iOS renders MathML in both speech and braille on a refreshable braille display. You can choose between Nemeth or UEB in the Settings app under Accessibility.

You can read MathML in Chrome and other browsers using JAWS 2019. See this page for a description of how to do that:
https://doccenter.freedomscientific.com/doccenter/doccenter/rs25c51746a0cc/2014-11-05_mathml/02_MathMLWithJAWS.htm

You can read MathML in Firefox and Microsoft Word using NVDA. See this page for more information:
http://www.perkinselearning.org/technology/blog/how-read-math-expressions-screen-reader-windows-computer

You may also want to consider using SAS Graphics Accelerator for graphs. It is a free extension for Chrome that allows you to interactively explore graphs using sound. It currently supports most of the graph types you will need for descriptive statistics. Check out this video for a demo:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzqtOZvx7Sk&index=9&list=PLVBcK_IpFVi9kCxPXz4dd1HO5x_yLLEHJ

SAS Graphics Accelerator also integrates with the SAS platform. You or your professor can create accessible graphs that are accessible for everyone in the class because the sighted people can see them and you can explore them interactively using sound. Follow this guide to produce accessible SAS output:
https://go.documentation.sas.com/?docsetId=odsacoutput&docsetTarget=titlepage.htm&docsetVersion=9.4&locale=en

Good luck and let me know if I can help you et up and running with SAS or SAS Graphics Accelerator.

Best,
Ed

From: Social-sciences-list <social-sciences-list-bounces at nfbnet.org> On Behalf Of Elizabeth Mohnke via Social-sciences-list
Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2019 1:10 PM
To: nfb-science at nfbnet.org; social-sciences-list at nfbnet.org
Cc: Elizabeth Mohnke <lizmohnke at hotmail.com>
Subject: [Social-sciences-list] Seeking Assistance for Statistics Class


EXTERNAL
Hello All,

I hope this message finds you doing well and enjoying the New Year. I am currently enrolled in a statistics class. The good news is that my class does not require the use of SPSS. However, my professor is a bit old fashioned, and likes to use a lot of handouts for our course materials.

My professor provides all of the handouts electronically in addition to the print hard copies we receive in class. I also have a dedicated disabilities office who is willing to make sure all of the math equations and formulas in these electronic materials are accessible to me by using the Math Type program to make the math content accessible to me.

However, I have never been able to figure out how to successfully read math content element by element electronically using JAWS. My introductory math classes were totally inaccessible, so I primarily used readers and my limited use of Braille. However, if my disabilities office is able to create accessible Math ML content for me, then I would like to be able to figure out a way to read it.

The textbook we are using for my statistics class is The Basic Practice of Statistics (7th edition) by Moore, Notz, and Fligner if this information is helpful for anyone. Also, my disabilities office was able to get an epub version of this textbook from the publisher. However, I do not have any experience using this electronic format as I typically get my books from either NLS or Bookshare.

Does anyone have any experience reading books published in the epub format? If so, what will I need to do in order to read this textbook? And since I have found my textbook on Bookshare, how is the epub format different than what I can get through Bookshare?

Any information you could provide in regards to these questions as well as any other tips or advice for making it through a statistics class would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Elizabeth
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