[nfb-talk] Blind academics and Thomson Reuters

Brian Miller brian-r-miller at uiowa.edu
Tue Oct 26 14:44:28 UTC 2010


Dear Bill,

Many academic associations are establishing disability interest groups and
divisions.  For example, the American History Association (AHA) has a
"Disability History Association" division (DHA), and the AHA recently sent
out a survey to all its members seeking input about access barriers to its
scholars, teachers, and students.  

I completed the survey myself, but did not mention this particular issue as
it was not on my radar when I submitted the survey.  But nonetheless,
contacting the AHA, and in particular, Penny L. Richards, the DHA president,
would be a good place to start.  

I'm sure other associations, such as the MLA, are undertaking similar
efforts, although I should say that academics have not exactly lept  on to
the disability bandwagon.  Therefore, some conciousness raising seems in
order.

I'll forward your message on to the disability humanities listserv I am on
to see if that can generate some action as well.

Best,

Brian Miller
Alexandria, VA

-----Original Message-----
From: nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org [mailto:nfb-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On
Behalf Of Chwalow, Judith
Sent: Monday, October 25, 2010 12:32 PM
To: david.andrews at nfbnet.org
Subject: [nfb-talk] Blind academics and Thomson Reuters

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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