E-participation of Visually Challenged – A Case Study

Vijay Srinath KanchiLibrarian & Asst. Professor, Department of Philosphy,

MJ College, Jalgaon-425002vskanchi@gmail.com

Abstract: Moolji Jaitha College is a premier college of higher education in the North Maharashtra Region of India. Having assessed the academic, research and extension activities of the college over the past six and half decades, the National Assessment and Accreditation Council, an autonomous institution of University Grants Commission of India, conferred 'A' grade with a CGPA score of 3.63 on the college. Bracing the additional attention that this covetous reaccreditation grade brought on to it, the college decided to open its doors to the other disadvantaged sections and turned its attention to visually challenged people. The college quickly embarked on the project of setting up a facilitation centre for the students with visual impairment so that they could also be brought into the fold of higher education. Several accessibility measures have been incorporated by procuring the digital scanning equipment, Optical Character Recognition software, screen readers etc., apart from making the college website visually-challenged-friendly. This paper aims to describe the ongoing project Dreamy eyes, initiated by the college as a case study.

1 Introduction

In India, a great deal of populace living in semi urban and rural regions still are unaccustomed to technology usage in their daily lives and so fail to take advantage of vast information available digitally. This problem of digital divide is further aggravated by the language barrier, as quite a few are not conversant in English, the langauge of the digital world. While this is the plight of normal persons, persons with visual disability find these conditions all the more challenging. This forces them to be away from mainstream education. There aren't many support facilities available for the visually challenged from the institutions of higher education in this region and so the small percentage of students who somehow manage to complete their secondary and higher secondary education are left with no option but to move on to major metropolitan cities to pursue their higher education. The statistics reveal that India has the largest population of global blindness - of the 37 million people across the globe who are blind, about 18.7 million are from India.1. The National Federation of the Blind Maharashtra (NFBM) estimates that there are seven to eight hundred thousand blind people in Maharashtra alone2 while the census records of 2001 as shown by the minstry of social welfare, Government of Maharashtra show a figure of 5,80,930 for the blind3. The North Maharashtra Region being less developed than rest of Maharashtra has fewer facilities for visually challenged. There is only one school for the blind in a place called

Chalisgaon which is about 100 km., away from the Jalgaon city. Another blind school in Jalgaon city has virtually no activity going on as there is hardly any infrastructure worth reckoning there. The National Association of Blind, Jalgaon chapter has provided the following figures that were collected in a survey during 2006-07.

S. No.

Area Male FemaleTotal no. of Blind

1. Jalgaon Taluq (excluding City)

61 26 87

2. Jalgaon City 263 151 4143. Jalgaon District 1049 393 1442

Table 1: People with Visual Impairment in Jalgaon, Maharashtra, India

2. Technology - A Great Boon To The Visually Impaired

Before the advent of the information and communication technology, the world of the blind was virtually dark with only one window called Braille script. Visually impaired (VI) persons could gain the information about the world around them only through the limited window of material published in Braille. This greatly reduced the avenues of learning to the visually disabled and resulted in their economic impoverishment. Further visually challenged were deprived of the oppurtunity to mingle with the people with sight and learn about the world around them, as they were sent to specail schools offering Braille teaching. However, the technological advancements in the recent times particularly in information and communication has radically transformed the whole scenario and made the lives of the blind easier. Now, the new technology supplants the visual impairment with solutions that were never before available to them. So much so that the on screen readers let the visually challenged to use their computers with so much ease that they can read newspapers online, send emails, read ebooks, listen to audio books and what’s more, if the file is saved in a format suitable for VIs such as DAISY, they could even get the feel of the pictures, graphs, tables and other visuals as well! They could actively participate in the learning process in a regular school alongwith other students with sight, by carrying with them gadgets like Angel voice recorders to take down the notes and listen to it leisurely at some other time. This way, thanks to technological advancements, instead of joining a special school for the blind, they could be part of the mainstream education and enjoy the sense of equality with others. Further, the traditional white stick of the blind man now comes with low frequency sound emitters which informs the VI about the obstructions on the path. The ATM machines of many banks are now being made accessible to Vis so that they could operate the cash withdrawals on their own, without the aid of anybody. Similarly if a website is made accesible to VI, it could greatly help them access information whiich in turn contributes to their improved living standards.

2 Dreamy Eyes – The E-participation Project

The college has conceived a project titled Dreamy eyes to ensure inclusion of visually impaired in the mainstream higher education. A facilitation centre with the same title was established in December 2012 and a workshop demostrating the accessibility solutions such as talking gadgets (thermometers, weighing machines, liquid level indicators, etc.), online accessing of newspapers and magazines using talking software in laptops, talking mobile phones etc., was organized in which a good number of Vis from Khandesh region participated. The centre procured JAWS talking software, Devnagari Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software, Angel voice recorder, high resolution digital camera for scanning reading material and other necessary gadgetry. A couple of computer terminals in the electronic reading room of the library known by the name Digital Learning Resources Access Centre have been exclusively dedicated for the prospective visually challenged students. Scanning of the syllabus related material and and creating a dedicated database was initiated, as the latest amendment to the Copyright Act of India in 2012 clearly allows such activity for better accessibility 4 for the people with visual impairment. With the help of a few volunteers from within the college, the syllabus content needed for the VIs was read out and recorded in a studio so that such audio material could directly be put to use by the students with visual impairment. For optimizing the accessibility of the reading material, the files needed to be saved in DAISY format. It was soon realized that the college website is also to be made accessible to the visually challenged.

2.1 Website Accessibility

The college website is the gateway for receiving information on various courses and programs offered by the college. It also provides various useful links that provide government and university related circulars, notices and information. The library section of the college website also provides a list of links to other websites offering electronic reading material. The website is also an interface for submission of applications for various courses and efforts are on to conduct admissions through online mode only for the courses and programs offered by the college in the next academic year.

With respect to enhancing website accessibility for people with various degrees of visual impairments inclusion of website accessibility features such as the following are being identified and implemented. Some of the most common eye disorders such as Retinopathy, Glaucoma, Cataract and Retinitis Pigmentosa in which the strength of the vision gradually deteriorates, the contrast sensitivity of the eye is greatly affected causing insensitivity to different levels of brightness and similar shades. To help such persons with low vision, a second version of the college website with greater contrast is being considered for design. The webpages are being recoded with semantically meaningful HTML so that the visually challenged can have easier maneuverability and navigability across the webpages using the text to speech software. The measures include providing textual description for images, easy to understand descriptions to links, etc. Keeping the webpage viewers with low vision in mind, the facility to scale the images and view them enlarged is also being incorporated. The webpages are being

redesigned using alternate stylesheets with regular and larger font sizes, ensuring the layout of the pages is not compromised when text-only zoom is enabled in the browser. In case of webpages where a lot of description is present, text only versions are also being offered so that such text can be manipulated suiting the requirement of the user. For people with color vision deficiency, use of red and green colors are minimized as far as possible. A lot of standard keyboard shortcuts are also incorporated into the webpages ensuring easier navigation with keyboard and reducing the use of mouse cursor.

Figure 2: Different Kinds of Visual Impairments and Web Accessibility Options Incorporated

It is also realized that the use of college website can be greatly enhanced if the website is made available in other langauges. Using the Google's free online language translation service that instantly translates text and web pages, language translation plug-in tool is added to all the webpages of the college website. Thanks to Google Traslate, now the college website is available in over 60 languages, of which six are indian languages.

3. Present Status

The centre signed Memoranda of Understanding with several voluntary organizations working for the cause of VIs and conducted several workshops and training programs. Since the centre was newly established and did not have the technical expertise to produce DAISY format books, the centre approached Technical Training Institute (TTI) located in Pune, Maharashtra for support. The college also entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with TTI for such support. With tthe help of TTI the centre organized several workshops on Reading Without Seeing, Use of technology for Improved Lifestyles etc. Another workshop on ‘Reading and Typing in Marathi using Non Visual Desktop Access (NVDA)’ conducted by the centre received great response from the Vis. The centre also conducted the first state level two day conference of VI teachers in association with National Organization for the Blind, Vasai, Mumbai to bring to the limelight the challenges faced by the VI teachers in their day to day lives in general and

Visual Impairment

Blindness Low VisionColor Blindness

Webpage development using Semantic HTML

Textual description for images& links

On screen text readers

Keyboard shortcuts for easier navigation.

Text Enlargement Options

Facility to scale images

High Contrast designUse of alternate style

sheets. Text only versions of

webpages.Development of

Second Version of Website

Minimal use of red & green colors.

Keyboard shortcuts for easier navigation.

in imparting education to others, in particular. As on July 2015, the Centre is serving over 15 visually challenged students by providing them with educational material in accessible formats, conducting frequent specialized training programs and workshops and offeing training in computer, touch screen mobile handling, spoken English programs, etc. The Centre, keeping in view the needs of old generation VIs who are accostomed to Braille reading material, has procured Braille printer and Braille books are being produced by the Centre and subscribes to Braille magazines. The Librarian of the college is acting as the Administrative Coordinator and a VI is appointed as a full time Academic Coordinator.

The mechanism conceived for making available the syllabus related reading material to the students with visual impairment is graphically represented hereunder:

Identification of Syllabus Related Material

Digitization Using high end Digital Camera

Data Storage in dedicated computers of electronic reading room (DLRAC) of the Library

Scanned image conversion into Rich text format using Devnagari OCR software

Conversion of Audio Output usingJAWS/NVDA software

Visually Challenged End User

Soft Copy Sent to TTI

for Conversion into DAISY

Format

Recording of Classroom Lectures

through Angle voice recorder

Audio files directly received from TTI

Figure 1: Dreamy Eyes project: Inclusion of Visually Impaired in Mainstream Higher Education

4. Conclusion

The technological advancements witnessed in the recent times have the potential to considerably ease the difficulties faced by the visually impaired in functioning normally in their day to day lives and accessing the information that has the potential to transform their lives. With a little bit of effort on part of the administrators, these less advantaged groups can also be brought into mainstream and enable them lead a decent lifestyle.

References

[1] Natl Med J India. 2001 Nov-Dec;14(6):327-34. Estimation of blindness in India from

2000 through 2020: implications for the blindness control policy. Dandona L, Dandona

R, John RK.Source International Centre for Advancement of Rural Eye Care, LV Prasad

Eye Institute, Hyderabad, India. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11804362

[2] http://www.nfbm.org/Img/nfbmpride.pdf

[3] http://www.maha-socialjustice.gov.in/index.php/2011-08-26-07-12-23

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A national survey done in 1986-89 reported that 1.5% of the Indian population (12 million people) was blind with a presenting visual acuity of < 6/60 in the better eye. Recent population-based data on the age-, sex- and cause-specific blindness rates from the Andhra Pradesh Eye Disease Study for the entire age range were applied to the population distribution of India to estimate the number of blind persons in 2000. The number of blind persons in India in 2000 was estimated to be 18.7 million (95% confidence interval [CI]: 15.2-22.3), of which 9.5 million were cataract-related and 3 million refractive error-related. If there is no change in the current trend of blindness, the number of blind persons in India would increase to 24.1 million (95% CI: 19.7-28.4) in 2010, and to 31.6 million (95% Cl: 26.4-36.9) in 2020.

4 Section 52 (1)The following act shall not be an infringement of copyright, namely:(zb) the adaptation, reproduction, issue of copies or communication to the public of any work in any accessible format, by —

(i) any person to facilitate persons with disability to access to works including sharing with any person with disability of such accessible format for private or personal use, educational purpose or research; or

(ii) any organisation working for the benefit of the persons with disabilities in case the normal format prevents the enjoyment of such works by such persons:Provided that the copies of the works in such accessible format are made available to the persons with disabilities on a nonprofit basis but to recover only the cost of production.