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DIAGRAM Center & Developments in Math Accessibility CSUN, San Diego – March 1, 2013

csun 2013 math accessibilityv2.ppt

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DIAGRAM Center & Developments in Math Accessibility CSUN, San Diego – March 1, 2013

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DIAGRAM Center

● Make it easier, faster, and cheaper to create and use accessible– Tools

– Standards

– Research & Training

– Strong community of content and technology creators and users

● 5-year Research & Development Center funded by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP)

● Awarded to Benetech along with partners:– The Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible

Media (NCAM) at WGBH

– U.S. Fund for DAISY

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● STEM Image Accessibility is Challenging

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What We’ve Done So Far

● Tools:– Poet: A Web based Tool for Creating Image Descriptions

– Image Accessibility Coverage Checker for DAISY Books

– Tobi integration: DAISY tool for multi-media production

● Standards: – DIAGRAM Content Model: data model for providing image

metadata, including accessible alternatives

● Research and Training: – Training webinars, product evaluations, surveys

– http://diagramcenter.org

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DIAGRAM and Math

● Improving access to math is among our goals● Community with strong math expertise● DIAGRAM Math Working Group● Exploring some core math challenges. . .

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Math Accessibility Challenge #1

Mathematical expressions are often presented as images in textbooks.

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The Case for MathML

● Normalized, unambiguous expressions that can be rendered or transformed in many different ways

● Standard gaining traction globally ● NIMAS recommends:

...MathML be used to improve the accessibility of mathematical and scientific content in core instructional materials ...as the most effective method of providing accessible print instructional materials involving mathematical and scientific content to students who are blind or who have print disabilities.

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Math Accessibility Challenge #2

MathML can be difficult and expensive to tag.

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Poet Image Description Tool

● Open source, web-based tool for adding image descriptions to eBooks (DAISY)

● For use by authors, publishers, accessibility providers

● Designed to:– Quickly identify all images in an eBook

– Allow tagging of “essential” images

– Create and edit descriptions by multiple authors

– Moderate and approve descriptions

– Enable crowd-sourcing

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Math Helper in Poet Tool

Converts ascii math input into MathML

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Math Accessibility Challenge #3

Math diagrams, graphs, and other related images

can also benefit from multi-modal accessibility.

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In Beta: Web MathTrax

● Web-based version of NASA’s MathTrax graphing calculator

● Select a shape or equation, input parameters and receive back – Automated text description of resulting graph (developed

with experts)

– SVG of resulting graph to facilitate tactile production

● Gives content creators accessible images for common graphs

● Pilot targets automated text descriptions for first year algebra

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Web Math Trax

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Math Accessibility Challenge #4

It’s difficult to author math in an accessible manner (e.g., how to show work for an online course)?

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WAVES

● DIAGRAM subcontract with gh, LLC to tackle this issue

● Dave Schleppenbach will cover in his talk

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Math Accessibility Challenge #5

Even with underlying MathML, math can be

difficult to render effectively and to

navigate.

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Voicing MathML via MathJax

● Experimental only● Leveraging MathJax makes it available to more

users● Benetech project via Google Summer of Code● Project uncovered lots challenges● Demo available at

http://benetech.github.com/mathjax/

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Math Accessibility Challenge #6

Training and research is required to help

educators, publishers and others create effective

accessible math.

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DIAGRAM Training and Research in Math

● DIAGRAM webinars: http://www.diagramcenter.org/standards-and-practices/training.html – “I’m using it TODAY to get math instructors excited about

accessibility resources and creating lab manuals as accessible eBooks!”

● MathML support chart in DIAGRAM Product Matrices: http://diagramcenter.org/research/product-matrices-complete.html

● Collaboration with MeTRC to study effectiveness of math description

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Other Emerging Math Tools from the DIAGRAM Community

● LEAN Math (John Gardner, ViewPlus)

● Stanford SCRIBE (Sean Keegan, Stanford)

● Voicing MathML

– iBooks Author and VoiceOver on iPad

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For More Information

JOIN THE COMMUNITY AND THE CONVERSATION!

●http://diagramcenter.org●http://benetech.org

Anh Bui

Director of Product Strategy and the DIAGRAM Center

Benetech

[email protected]