How to Produce Accessible Educational Resources
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Math for blind 20086 / 19
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00:00
MathematicsFraction (mathematics)Well-formed formulaExterior algebraOrder (biology)Category of beingDescriptive statisticsObject (grammar)Numerical digitAlgebraic structureProbability density functionModulformImage resolutionOpen setElement (mathematics)Slide rulePresentation of a groupStudent's t-testPhysical systemMathematical analysisMoment (mathematics)Generating set of a groupTranslation (relic)Function (mathematics)Observational studyArithmetic meanInsertion lossExpressionMatrix (mathematics)Statistical hypothesis testingDifferent (Kate Ryan album)Content (media)Interface (chemistry)Direction (geometry)Multiplication signNichtlineares GleichungssystemUniverse (mathematics)Materialization (paranormal)Metric systemNumerical analysisGenetic programming1 (number)Greatest elementContrast (vision)Process (computing)Product (business)Operator (mathematics)Group actionRule of inferencePhase transitionGoodness of fitAxiom of choiceGroup representationKontraktion <Mathematik>AdditionRight angleConfidence intervalMaß <Mathematik>Power (physics)Linear equationDimensional analysisStandard deviationMereologyComputer programmingMusical ensembleWater vaporCluster samplingMaxima and minimaSinc functionFlow separationParameter (computer programming)Letterpress printingFrequencyINTEGRALEvent horizonDivision (mathematics)Grothendieck topologyVariable (mathematics)Computer animation
Transcript: English(auto-generated)
00:00
Now I'm going to show how teachers or support services or even schoolmates can help visually impaired students to have their documents realized in an accessible way. Briefly, the topics that I'm going to touch during my presentations.
00:20
First of all, the scenarios in which educational resources useful. Then the problem in accessing scientific documents. What are the accessible output formats and how to produce documents in this format? Then I will show some examples of what visually impaired students read in accessible scientific resources.
00:42
And then I'll touch an experimental topic about editing using speech input. So the scenarios of the exploitation of educational resources are lessons and during lessons usually slide presentations are used.
01:01
Study materials which can be the slides projected during lessons, interactive web pages, digital documents and others and then textbooks. So briefly, what are the problems in accessing scientific documents? Scientific contents, for example, formula, equation, expressions and so
01:21
on are usually inserted in digital documents as images even though there are markup languages that can make these formulas different from images. And very often these images don't have a meaningful alternative description. And what I mean with alternative meaningful description is that,
01:44
for example, if the lesson is about Lorentz equations, a meaningful alternative text is the one that reports the equation as they would be spoken, not simply Lorentz equation because that doesn't help the student and get the content of the equations.
02:00
So for blind students, using images in documents there's no chance to explore these images. So the formula is not accessible at all. And without the appropriate plug-in, even the formulas or expressions that are inserted with a markup language, without the appropriate plug-in, this cannot be interpreted by mainstream screen readers.
02:23
For partially sighted students, usually images have low resolution. So when they magnify the image, they lose the contrast and the quality that they need to interpret what the image is. And also the contrast is not customizable.
02:43
What does make a formula accessible by visually impaired people? So first of all, adding an alternative description of every image of a formula. Of course, a meaningful description. And then embedding a markup for mathematics that can be interpreted to generate math and speech output.
03:02
For example, MathML. The accessible output formats that we consider in our analysis are LaTeX or TeX, Accessible and Structured PDFs, XHTML and MathML, and the Z plus MathML. So first of all, how to create accessible LaTeX documents.
03:23
LaTeX documents should be written as human readable. For example, edited using technique center. And tools that automatically generate LaTeX do not usually create human readable LaTeX. So LaTeX is not an accessible format per se, but if you edit that in a human readable way, it becomes accessible for blind people.
03:44
Then accessible PDF files. Also PDF files are not intrinsically accessible, but if they're done in a certain way, following certain rules, they become accessible. So a PDF is accessible if it is tagged, if it has an appropriate reading order.
04:01
And all formula and all images have an alternative descriptions. And for further reference, there's a guide published by Adobe creating accessible Adobe PDF files, where you find all the information you need to make accessible PDF files. How to create PDFs accessible.
04:21
So you can create a structure and accessible PDF using Adobe Acrobat Standard or Acrobat Professional, starting from different sources. Those that we analyzed are MS Word or PowerPoint or Excel, so Microsoft Office Suite, or the Open Office Suite, writer, and impressed for presentation, and so on.
04:42
The important thing you have to keep in your mind is that in order to produce a structure PDF, you have to use styles in your documents. So a style for heading, one for text, and one for all the other elements in the text. You can also add text to your PDF documents in Acrobat Professional on an existing PDF document
05:03
after it is exported to PDF. But this is not the best, neither the most efficient way to do it. How to create accessible PDF with scientific content. There are different options, and those that we analyzed are using Microsoft Word
05:20
plus Design Science MathType, and then Adobe PDF Maker to create the Adobe PDF. Or using Open Office Writer and Open Office Math, and then the embedded combat export to PDF. So how to create an accessible PDF with scientific content, of course, from Microsoft Word.
05:42
You should have at least Microsoft Word, Design Science MathType, and Adobe Acrobat Standard on your computer, if you have Professional is better. Then you edit your Microsoft Word document using the styles, as I told you before. In this screenshot, there's a heading, one title highlighted, and on the right,
06:06
you can see the Word window with the formatting styles. When you need to insert a formula, you can go to Design Science MathType menu and choose Insert Display Equation.
06:23
Why display equation and not inline equation? Because there's a known bug in Adobe PDF Maker, and when you choose to insert inline equations, when you create the PDF, the formatting is not preserved. For example, the equation is put at the end of the sentence. This does not preserve even the meaning of the document.
06:45
Then, once you have chosen Insert Display Equation, you edit your expression in MathType. For the alternative text, the easy way is to set the preferred translator to LaTeX.
07:03
Here are the steps in detail. Go to Preferences menu and click on Translators. Then check the option Translation to other language. From the drop-down Translator menu, select one of the LaTeX or Tech options. Then confirm your choice, of course, by pressing the OK button.
07:20
Once you've done that, you can select your formula you've just inserted and copy it to the clipboard. Go back to Word, insert the formula. Once you've done that, right-click on it, and on the Web tab of the Format Object menu that pops up,
07:40
paste the LaTeX or Tech content you've just copied from Design Science MathType. Now save the document and convert it to Adobe PDF. Here, there's a screenshot that displays the document with a matrix. Now, how to create accessible PDFs from OpenOffice.org Writer.
08:04
Of course, you need Writer and OpenOffice.org Math installed on your computer. Notice that with this approach, you don't need to have Adobe Acrobat stand-up, nor professional, installed on your computer. Edit your document in OpenOffice.org Writer using styles exactly as you did in Microsoft Word,
08:25
so that your document will be structured. Again, there's a title here called Affraction. It's highlighted, and on the left, there's the window with formatting styles, and heading 1 is highlighted. Then, insert your formula using OpenOffice Math, which uses its own language to edit equations.
08:45
OpenOffice Math opens up at the bottom of the writer window, and you have to insert the formula using the language you can refer to in their guide to know what symbols you have to insert to get your equations.
09:02
Then, edit the alternative text of the formula. You can copy-paste the markup of OpenOffice Math, which, of course, presumes that the target user should know OpenOffice Math syntax. Or, edit the lat-tech alternative text of the formula, either with a lat-tech editor or by hand, if you know lat-tech.
09:26
Then, you should add it to the formula using the object voice of the drop-down menu, and copy what you've paste, and paste what you've copied on the alternative text tab.
09:41
Then, save your document and directly export your document to PDF using the openoffice.org command. Now, this is the screenshot of an accessible mathematical document. Of course, all sighted users will notice that this is just as a PDF should be. So, there's a title and there's a matrix.
10:01
What a blind person reads in this document is the title matrix, and then the lat-tech that you edited for the matrix. This is the site, a very, very, very large matrix that a partially sighted student could see of the document.
10:22
You can notice that there's no loss of definition in the aspect of the matrix. Now, how to create XHTML plus MathML documents? Using either Microsoft Word, Design Science, MathType, and Design Science MathPage,
10:42
or an editor, if you're already coding a web page, you can insert the MathML markup created with Design Science, MathType, or other kind of MathML markup editor, which are, anyway, not as accurate as MathType is. So now, the first case, using Microsoft Word and MathType and MathPage.
11:05
Edit your document with Microsoft Word, applying styles exactly as you would for a PDF. Then, insert your math content with MathType, exactly as you did before. Save your document and now use either the Export to MathPage icon on the toolbar of Microsoft Word,
11:26
or the drop-down menu, MathType, always in Microsoft Word. How to create XHTML plus MathML documents for web pages? You can paste, in case you're editing, you're coding your page with another editor that is not Microsoft Word,
11:46
you can always use MathType to edit the MathML markup that you can paste in your code. So, you have to choose, from the Translators window that we've seen before,
12:00
you have to choose MathML 2.0 with the M namespace, if you mean to display your web page with Internet Explorer and MathPlayer plugin, which is highly recommended to make mathematical accessible for visually impaired students. So, what does a blind person read in an XHTML plus MathML page?
12:22
So, if you display your page in Internet Explorer using the MathPlayer free plugin, the sentence spoken from the previous example would be CAPM equals metrics with three rows and three columns. Row 1, column 1, 1. Column 2, 0.
12:40
Column 3, 0. Row 2, column 1, 0. Column 2, 1. Column 3, 0. Row 3, column 1, 0. Column 2, 0. Column 3, 1. And metrics. Scenario 1, lessons. During lessons, teachers usually show slides or write on a blackboard.
13:01
If they're doing a lesson and writing on a blackboard, if they read what they're writing on the blackboard, the visually impaired student can follow the discussion. And other way, if he says, like for example, go to equation number 5, if you use numbered equation, the blind or visually impaired student can follow the lesson.
13:22
Slides can be either handwritten and projected or in a digital format, like Microsoft PowerPoint or OpenOffice, Impress or Google Docs. Digital presentations are often uploaded on the university school website for student fruition, so it is really important that they are accessible.
13:41
How to create digital accessible presentations with math contents? You can use, as spotted before, PowerPoint with Design Science MathType, put in the alternative text on formula and images, or Impress plus OpenOffice Math, optionally exported to PDF to make it easier and more portable, your document.
14:02
Or HTML slide, which is anyway quite intricate to use. The step-by-step procedures you have to follow to create accessible presentations with mathematical contents are the same that you use to create accessible scientific PDF documents, that is, when you use Word, you have to use PowerPoint now,
14:22
and when you use Writer, you have to use Impress. Study material, the second scenario. Study materials are usually exercise sheets, documentation produced by teachers, and web pages or other kind of digital documents. How to create study material with scientific content?
14:42
One option is to use Style Microsoft Word plus Design Science MathType to insert equations and expressions, and export that to an accessible PDF with alternate descriptions on formula and images, or a structured OpenOffice document exported to PDF with alternate descriptions on formula and images.
15:02
Or you can use, in case of accessible web pages, you can use Microsoft Word and Design MathType exported to XHTML and MathML via MathPage, or websites coded by hand in XHTML and MathML, always with alternative descriptions on images.
15:21
The third scenario is Textbook, which Amelia Person introduced as before to Desi, plus MathML books, and as she told us before, the first player supported MathML is the GH player 2.2, and production tools are still under development for MathML in Desi. Now, editing using speech input.
15:42
During our tests, we found that the process of creating documents this way could be a little bit verbose and sometimes time-consuming. Even though MathType, for example, is a WYSIWYG editor, you have all the symbols you need in different palettes,
16:01
and you can use shortcut keys. Anyway, if you are not familiar with the palette, and even not familiar with the shortcut keys, this operation of inserting mathematics could be a little time-consuming. So we thought that a speech interface for editing scientific documents could be useful, especially if math is spoken in a natural language.
16:24
So we made a prototype of a speech input interface for Microsoft Word and Design Science MathType, using Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking for the Italian language. The commands to insert mathematics are like the natural language ones. So multiple ways of speaking a symbol, depending on the context, are mapped into one symbol.
16:44
So the person using this speech interface is not forced to learn a particular dictionary of words, but you just have to read what he has to put in an accessible way, and all the rest is handled by our prototype.
17:02
From our preliminary studies, we noticed an improvement in the editing time, which became quicker not only for non-experienced users, as we guessed, but also for experienced users of MathType. Further studies and development will be carried out in these directions, because we are really in a starting phase,
17:20
but it seems formizing, so we are going to investigate this again. These are some references where you can find information about these topics. There is the Science Network, the Design Science website, the PDF that I mentioned before, OpenOffice.org, and our paper at CSUN where we presented the speech input interface.
17:44
Questions?
18:15
Valeria, your analysis considered only the Windows platform. Your analysis considered only the Windows platform, am I right?
18:24
Yes, because this is what we have. In addition, we know that there is an Office suite for Mac, and also MathType comes for Mac. I guess you can use those, I didn't have a chance to actually try and test that,
18:40
but I will do that in the future. Can you give an impression on what tools are available on the Linux platform, because that would be a free system.
19:00
For some tools, we didn't try step-by-step tools on the Linux platform. In the CD, in this conference, there are some presentations from the last workshop,
19:23
where some tools also for Linux platforms are analyzed. You can find further information there. Actually, our analysis was aimed at giving support services and teachers a way to produce accessible documents,
19:42
and the Windows platform seems to be the most spread at this moment. One question from me. When I want to make an accessible OpenOffice math document,
20:02
and when I insert the formulae in OpenOffice.org math syntax, is then the translation to LaTeX done automatically by the OpenOffice math, or do I have to supply the LaTeX version also, if I want to see it in the accessible PDF?
20:22
Yes, there is no automatic way to translate OpenOffice math syntax into LaTeX. But then it's terribly much work. So this would be absolutely a nice, and a good idea, I would say, if somebody, perhaps somebody from the OpenOffice community, would write such a routine that...
20:42
Or Dominican rule, maybe. Which kind of syntax is it with the OpenOffice math? Is it in a sense, MathML related, or LaTeX related? I think it's closer to LaTeX than MathML.
21:00
For example, the fraction you have to type the word over. So it's really closer to LaTeX. I see. But in any case, I think you gave a very comprehensive and usable study. It's a kind of handbook for people or organizations who want to supply, who are committed to supply, accessible mathematics.
21:21
Very usable, I think. Thank you. Other questions? During our workshop in Paris in February, I presented on OpenOffice accessibility, and I found that OpenOffice lost the alternative text
21:44
or formulas between saves. Is that still the case? Not in the case that we analyzed, actually. Because we copied, for example, the OpenOffice math syntax, and we right-clicked on the formula and format object properties.
22:02
If you go there, there's a menu with some forms you have to fill in with the alternative text, and to the test that we made, the PDF always had the alternative content. If you export directly to PDF just after creating your document,
22:25
then it's okay. But if you save it, close it, open it later again, then you'll find that the old text was gone. We didn't find these issues. I don't know if it depends on the OpenOffice version that you have, but we did several tests, we made lots of pages,
22:44
and it seems to be working fine. Okay, I'll check with all the versions. Okay, sorry. Other questions?
23:04
OpenOffice 3 was launched last week, and it has an improved accessibility for all platforms, so it's accessible. The accessibility was checked, you can access on the wiki documentation of OpenOffice
23:21
all platforms on all access software where it was checked. So it works as well on Linux, Mac and also Windows. And it is completely free, this is a big difference. And open source. In fact this was one of the reasons why we tested OpenOffice.
23:46
Largely because being open source and with no need to install Acrobat standard, you can produce accessible documents at zero cost. Exactly, you can export as in PDF directly. With no need of paying for either the Acrobat.
24:07
More questions or comments? The concept of your speech input interface for Italian sounds quite similar to our own talk maths one for English. I realise there's not perhaps time to discuss this now here, but perhaps in a break or something
24:24
we could talk about how you've implemented and how we've implemented it. Okay, sure. So, thank you once again.
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