GW Micro teaches Yahoo - The Desert Skies

Courtesy of The Desert Skies blog:

Check out this very interesting post to the Yahoo User Interface blog.

GW Micro is getting more and more press about their involvement in newer technologies. The link is a blog post with videos where Doug Geoffray [President of GW Micro] is teaching the Yahoo engineers all about screen reader technology.

ATHEN Business Meeting @ CSUN 2007

The minutes of the ATHEN business meeting will soon be available on the website. Herein are some highlights. The assembled members formally voted to move the annual meeting (for the purposes of officer elections, bylaw modifications, spending allocations, and the like) to the November Accessing Higher Ground conference Boulder, Colorado. This had been agreed upon at AHG 2006 but needed to be put to a formal vote at the annual business meeting which for this purpose was CSUN 2007.

Speaking of Colorado, Howard Kramer broached the topic of renumeration for the Accessing Higher Ground opening speaker – much to the consternation of E.A. Draffan who was sitting across from him (and would not take compensation for this gig even if pressed upon her such is her support and belief in the work of both ATHEN and AHG). An agreement was reached on a sharing of her travel expenses, hotel, per diem, etc. This kept poor E.A. from having to slink down under the table during any subsequent discussion. Cheers E.A.!

We were treated to a visit by Caroline Van Howe, the Director of Programs for ATIA who invited ATHEN to take on oversight of the postsecondary education strand for their 2008 conference. Dan Comden and Howard Kramer both expressed interest in being responsible. This is an exciting opportunity not only for ATHEN as a whole but individual members. The one drawback immediately obvious is the conference dates (January 30 to February 2, 2008) which coincide with one of the busiest times of the academic calendar. More discussion to follow on the e-mail list.

Apple and the iPod were in evidence at the conference as both sessions and special meetings about the accessibility of iTunesU and iPods were discussed. Tentatively ATHEN is looking to put together a group tasked with exploring this topic and reporting on findings that would be beneficial to both Apple and iTunes institutions. Joe Humbert (that's J-O-E) of Purdue has agreed to lead this effort and will be putting a call out soon for interested assistance.

Terry Thompson also provided an update on the ATHEN survey. Several of the committee met the night before the business meeting - and when Dan Comden was not distracting us - got quite a bit accomplished. A general consensus is that the last survey was a bit large and overwhelming for a single answer session. Plus it touched upon a myriad of areas that - especially at larger institutions - are best informed by different people. The survey itself is being separated into a half-dozen smaller surveys that can be answered by targeted members. In addition, by introducing a short survey every week or two instead of one big one we hope to get a better response rate.

There was brief discussion of the logistics of membership and current members can expect to be contacted soon regarding their status. If any readers of the blog would like information about joining ATHEN, please eMail the membership coordinator at membership@athenpro.org.

AAP Update on Accessible Textbooks

"Phase l of the Association of American Publishers' Alternate Format Solutions Initiative (AFSI) is being completed . The findings and options developed during the initial research phase are to be presented to the AAP's Higher Education publishers for study. The shape of AFSI's Phase II will largely be defined by the results of Phase 1, and the nature of and timetable for Phase ll's next steps are expected to emerge shortly. This session will provide an opportunity for attendees to get updated on the efforts so far and to contribute their insights, pose questions, engage in discussion, and thereby contribute to the AAP's ongoing collaborative effort to develop a practical set of effective solutions to the real challenges of getting textbooks into alternate formats on a timely basis for post-secondary students with disabilities."

Rick Bowes provided a very broad and informative report of where the publishers stand in terms of their interest and comfort with postsecondary DSS alt-text/E-text creation and provision. In general it appears that the two sides are getting more comfortable with each other and the gap is starting to narrow with some concessions on both ends. The publishers look-up service has made locating the right people and communicating with them to get digital files of textbooks much easier - but is not being used as much as they woould like. Though not perfect – this service was and continues to be a concrete example of what the publishers and educators can do when they find common ground. (Not so subtle hint --- this service will only continue and improve if we on the postsecondary disability services side use it and provide appropriate and honest feedback.)

Publishers are looking to implement 'next steps' by mid-year 2007 and are looking to DSS (through Rick) to provide additional information about what we do with the files (both those we produce in-house and those we obtain via the lookup service) and how we workflow both. Rick will be contacting DSS and Higher Education entities in the coming weeks with questions and scenarios for response. All he desires is honest feedback and your questions and suggestions. ATHEN firmly supports the work he is doing and thanks him (and the publishers) whole-heartedly!

The Bel Air room in the LAX Marriott was quite full for this report with attendees and representatives from a good cross section of postsecondary service providers, industry representatives, non-profit entities and other interested parties. Shortly after his presentation, the room was abuzz with the sort of questions and feedback Rick is seeking.

In-hand with this work, AHEAD will soon (Ron hopes) be rolling out the next version of the E-Text Survey [PDF link]. The British contingent (E.A. Draffan and the chaps from the Royal National Institute for the Blind) brought to our attention the work being done across the pond. Gaeir Dietrich summarized a number of issues quite nicely and reminded everyone how fast the technology is moving – for example how well the newest version of Adobe Reader (v. 8) audibly renders tagged PDF. If anyone reading this blog took took notes at the meeting I'd appreciate you sending them to me for posting. Thanks.

One point that Rick got across is that of money. For good or bad – the publishing houses are businesses and they need assurance (and evidence) that at best they are going to see some profit from their efforts and at worst that they will not be throwing money down a hole. The publishers are more and more open to the burgeoning best practices in the field and want to provide what our students need. However, all of this comes with a cost – be it in human resource terms of having publisher based staff to gather materials and create the formatted files – to hardware and software and document storage – to the development of practices on their end from development, to assembly to security to delivery to tracking and on and on. Rick pointed out that if even one of the publishers is able to configure a profit from their efforts then the others will jump on the band wagon “within hours”.

ATHEN at CSUN 2007

The ATHEN membership will be meeting at CSUN

Date: Thursday, March 22nd.
Location: Renaissance Hotel, International Room*
Time: 6:oo pm

*Note that this is not one of the main conference hotels; it's around the corner from the Marriott: 9620 Airport Blvd

ATHEN 2007 CSUN Presentations [by date and time]

BLV-2117 - Wednesday @ 9:20 AM
Planting Textbooks & Harvesting DAISY's: A Model Program for E-Text Production
Daniel Berkowitz
Boston University

PSE-2107 - Wednesday @ 10:40 AM
Accessibility of Electronic and Online Assessment Tools
Saroj Primlani and Lisa Fiedor
North Carolina State University

PSE-1106 - Wednesday @ 12:00 PM
TAAT: Technical Assistance on Access Technology
Teresa Haven
University of Arkansas

PSE-1105 - Wednesday @ 12:00 PM
Innovative Practices in AT Training for LD (Dyslexic) Students
E.A. Draffan, Paul Blenkhorn and Gareth Evans
University of Manchester (UK)

WWW-1117 - Wednesday @ 2:50 PM
PowerPoint & Friends: Accessible Slides on the Web
Terry Thompson
DO-IT, University of Washington

BLV-1164 - Thursday @ 9:20 AMRemote Access Bridge: Cross-Platform Accessible Remote Access to the LinuxDesktop
Sina Bahram and Mike GraceNorth Carolina State University

YRS-2100 - Thursday @ 1:45 PMVoice Recognition Ready for Transcriptions - A Reality Check,Saroj Primlani and Hal Meeks
North Carolina State University

PSE-1103 - Friday @ 10:40 AM
The Power of Story: Changing a Faculty Culture
Jean Wells
CSU East Bay

WWW-1139 - Friday @ 10:40 AM
Opening Doors: Mentoring on the InternetSheryl Burgstahler and Scott BellmanDO-IT, University of Washington

WWW-1118 - Friday @ 1:45 PM
Research on Accessibility of Higher Education Websites
Sheryl Burgstahler and Terry Thompson
DO-IT, University of Washington

PSE-2104 - Saturday @ 9:20 AM
'Sound Beam' as Adaptive Technology in Post-Secondary SettingWink Harner and Keith Heffner
Mesa Community College

Inside Bay Area - University working to put world's library online

Courtesy of the Chronicle of Higher Education Wired Campus Blog:

Scanning for the Future

In the eyes of most librarians and archivists, digitizing books is an important and timely task. Unfortunately, it is also a tedious one, as the Tri-Valley Herald points out.

The Herald stopped by the University of California's Northern Regional Library Facility and found about 12 young men and women [employees of San Francisco-based Internet Archive] each wearing headphones and "sitting under black tents that keep out extraneous light," quietly scanning page upon page. Building the library of the future is not a glamorous task, says Scott Miller, the facility's operations manager: "We kind of think of it as a 21st-century Industrial Revolution type of job."

Since the university partnered with Google last summer, the company has scanned about 130,000 UC volumes at its Mountain View headquarters. Every afternoon, a panel truck arrives at the Richmond site to drop off one load of books and pick up 3,000 more.

E-Text in Maryland is Back in the Spotlight

I tend to keep up with the goings on in Maryland because I grew up there and still have friends and family in the area. Last year a bill was filed that would require NIMAS files be provided for college students as well as K-12. It was vetoed by the Governor. Now a new push is on for similar legislation.

I like this article from the Baltimore Sun because it really lays out the difficulties faced by students in a matter of fact tone. For example, the intern interviewed for this story "had to drop a 17th-century British literature course two weeks before the first 10-page paper was due. His professor had selected a more than 1,000-page anthology as the textbook, but not indicated what sections were required." How well we feel his pain -- whether a visually impaired individual or a service provider.

What we are also familiar with are the misconceptions that one-size fits all language will convey the proper message. From the article: "People keep calling this 'the blind bill,'" [the sponsor]said. "Electronic and audio texts help students with dyslexia, learning disabilities and a whole host of other diseases that weaken eyesight. ... Coining this a Braille textbook bill narrows the scope and the population that it would help, and is a good strategy to try and kill it."

An Alternative to the Computer Mouse

A user interface, being developed at Stanford University, that tracks eye movement may provide an alternate way to use a computer. Originally developed for individuals with disabilities, the Gaze-enhanced User Interface Design (GUIDe) is designed to be more useful for able-bodied computer users. Since nondisabled users tend to have a higher standard for easy-to-use interfaces and thus eye-tracking technology that designed for the disabled hasn't appealed to them. Read more at the MIT Technology Review.