From athen-list at u.washington.edu Mon Jul 7 05:00:00 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Karthikeyan, Ramya via athen-list) Date: Thu Jul 10 11:20:04 2025 Subject: [Athen] Book on Social Research Methods Message-ID: Hello! Would greatly appreciate if you could share the following book file if they have it in their collection: Title: Social Research Methods, 6th edition Author: Tom Clark, Liam Foster, Luke Sloan, and Alan Bryman ISBN: 9780198796053 Thanks in advance! Best, Ramya Ramya Karthikeyan Alternative Format Specialist UCLA Center for Accessible Education 310-825-1501 (CAE line) http://www.cae.ucla.edu/ Pronouns: she/her Find the CAE on Social Media: [signature_260997815] [signature_4134850876] Note: The CAE is a Voter Registration Agency. To register to vote online, visit https://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/voter-registration/. Please complete this Voter Preference Form to provide information about your registration status. For more information, visit BruinsVote. ***Email Confidentiality Notice*** This e-mail and any files transmitted with it may contain privileged and confidential information subject to privacy regulations. This information is intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to which it is addressed. If you have received this message in error, please notify us and remove it from your system. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Outlook-signature_.png Type: image/png Size: 1132 bytes Desc: Outlook-signature_.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: Outlook-signature_.png Type: image/png Size: 1251 bytes Desc: Outlook-signature_.png URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Mon Jul 7 23:20:31 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (via athen-list) Date: Thu Jul 10 11:20:04 2025 Subject: [Athen] News article about Google maps accessibility Message-ID: <028901dbefd0$6820fcf0$3862f6d0$@pubcom.com> Meet the Google engineer making Maps more accessible >From NPR WBUR, https://www.wbur.org/hereandnow/2025/06/30/google-engineer-accessibility Bevi Chagnon | PubCom.com Designer, Trainer, Author, Accessibility Expert Member of the ISO committees for PDF and PDF/UA Adobe Community Expert in the Adobe online forums PubCom.com: Accessible Design + Technology Office documents . Adobe InDesign . Acrobat . PDFs . EPUBs View our blog and tutorials at www.pubcom.com/blog -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Wed Jul 9 11:50:09 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho) via athen-list) Date: Thu Jul 10 11:20:04 2025 Subject: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Message-ID: Hello! Would anyone happen to have an accessible copy of the following book: * Title: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th Edition * Publisher: American Psychological Association * ISBN: 978-1433832178 Thank you! Joyce Joyce Ho Accessible Content and Media Coordinator Disability Resource Center | The University of Arizona -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Wed Jul 9 12:38:08 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (via athen-list) Date: Thu Jul 10 11:20:04 2025 Subject: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <01a001dbf108$fffdd820$fff98860$@montana.com> Hello, It is in Bookshare, ISBN 9781433832185 Best George From: athen-list On Behalf Of Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho) via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 12:50 PM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu Subject: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Hello! Would anyone happen to have an accessible copy of the following book: * Title: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th Edition * Publisher: American Psychological Association * ISBN: 978-1433832178 Thank you! Joyce Joyce Ho Accessible Content and Media Coordinator Disability Resource Center | The University of Arizona -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Wed Jul 9 13:13:31 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (John Sellmeyer via athen-list) Date: Thu Jul 10 11:20:04 2025 Subject: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: It appears that this is on Bookshare. Best, John John Sellmeyer Accommodations Coordinator, Office of Accommodations and Accessibility Adjunt Instructor, Music Department Marist University 3399 North Road, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601 (845) 575-3274 john.sellmeyer@marist.edu Schedule an appointment with me! [Image of Marist University logo.] Disclaimer: This message is intended for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is highly sensitive, privileged and/or confidential. If you are not the intended addressee, any disclosure, copying, distribution or any other dissemination of this message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system. From: athen-list On Behalf Of Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho) via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 2:50 PM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu Subject: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual [EXTERNAL EMAIL] Hello! Would anyone happen to have an accessible copy of the following book: * Title: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th Edition * Publisher: American Psychological Association * ISBN: 978-1433832178 Thank you! Joyce Joyce Ho Accessible Content and Media Coordinator Disability Resource Center | The University of Arizona -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 5516 bytes Desc: image001.png URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Wed Jul 9 14:04:27 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Mark Weiler via athen-list) Date: Thu Jul 10 11:20:04 2025 Subject: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual In-Reply-To: <01a001dbf108$fffdd820$fff98860$@montana.com> References: <01a001dbf108$fffdd820$fff98860$@montana.com> Message-ID: When I compare the version available through CELA, which I understand comes through Bookshare, and the EPUB from APA directly, I observe significant differences in quality. CELA has missing figures, no links, and lists that seem to use asterisks. I base my observation on a spot check with JAWS. I wonder if the one through CELA is actually different than the one through Bookshare? George, can you confirm that in the version from Bookshare, before section 5.2, there is a properly bulleted list that starts with ?When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges??. In the one through CELA, this is a clip of the speech history with JAWS. Notice how it incorrectly starts with an asterisk: * When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges (e.g., 15-18 years old, 65-80 years old) are more specific than broad categories (e.g., under 18 years old, over 65 years old; see Section 5.3). This image shows the corresponding section in the EPUB from CELA. [Described above.] This second image is from the same section in a EPUB directly from APA. Notice it uses a bullet and also has a hyperlink. [Described above] From: athen-list On Behalf Of via athen-list Sent: July 9, 2025 3:38 PM To: 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' ; 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' Subject: [EXTERNAL *] Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Hello, It is in Bookshare, ISBN 9781433832185 Best George From: athen-list > On Behalf Of Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho) via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 12:50 PM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu Subject: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Hello! Would anyone happen to have an accessible copy of the following book: * Title: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th Edition * Publisher: American Psychological Association * ISBN: 978-1433832178 Thank you! Joyce Joyce Ho Accessible Content and Media Coordinator Disability Resource Center | The University of Arizona * ? Notice: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.png Type: image/png Size: 9410 bytes Desc: image002.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image004.png Type: image/png Size: 16501 bytes Desc: image004.png URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Wed Jul 9 15:03:44 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Susan Kelmer via athen-list) Date: Thu Jul 10 11:20:04 2025 Subject: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual In-Reply-To: References: <01a001dbf108$fffdd820$fff98860$@montana.com> Message-ID: I may sound like a broken record, but Bookshare files are of questionable quality in most circumstances, with a vast array of missing information and a lack of formatting that is normally expected as a standard in an accessible file. I have been saying this for literally years. I?ve had discussions with Bookshare personnel in different areas of the organization and it is always the same, ?we don?t really have anything to do with that, you will have to talk to someone else,? or some various versions of ?this is what the publisher sent us.? Any of us who work in this field know that there are much better quality materials from publishers directly than we are seeing in Bookshare versions, aka, it would be preferable if the publisher would just give us their PDF files. At least everything starts out in the right place there. And from there, I can create a fully accessible Word or HTML document with all elements included, formatted properly for all types of readers in just a few hours. Bookshare files are woefully inadequate for most academic uses. It?s fine if you just want to hear a popular novel or something, but for something like this, it needs a massive amount of remediation to become the document it should have been when it was first produced as ?born accessible? by Bookshare. Susan Kelmer Alternate Format Production Program Manager Disability Services Health and Wellness Services T 303 735 4836 www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices [cid:image001.png@01DBF0EB.0AB27550] Due to the nature of electronic communication, the security of this message cannot be guaranteed. If you?ve received this email in error please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. From: athen-list On Behalf Of Mark Weiler via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 3:04 PM To: kerscher@montana.com; Access Technology Higher Education Network ; 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' Subject: Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual [External email - use caution] When I compare the version available through CELA, which I understand comes through Bookshare, and the EPUB from APA directly, I observe significant differences in quality. CELA has missing figures, no links, and lists that seem to use asterisks. I base my observation on a spot check with JAWS. I wonder if the one through CELA is actually different than the one through Bookshare? George, can you confirm that in the version from Bookshare, before section 5.2, there is a properly bulleted list that starts with ?When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges??. In the one through CELA, this is a clip of the speech history with JAWS. Notice how it incorrectly starts with an asterisk: * When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges (e.g., 15-18 years old, 65-80 years old) are more specific than broad categories (e.g., under 18 years old, over 65 years old; see Section 5.3). This image shows the corresponding section in the EPUB from CELA. [Described above.] This second image is from the same section in a EPUB directly from APA. Notice it uses a bullet and also has a hyperlink. [Described above] From: athen-list > On Behalf Of via athen-list Sent: July 9, 2025 3:38 PM To: 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' >; 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' > Subject: [EXTERNAL *] Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Hello, It is in Bookshare, ISBN 9781433832185 Best George From: athen-list > On Behalf Of Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho) via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 12:50 PM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu Subject: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Hello! Would anyone happen to have an accessible copy of the following book: * Title: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th Edition * Publisher: American Psychological Association * ISBN: 978-1433832178 Thank you! Joyce Joyce Ho Accessible Content and Media Coordinator Disability Resource Center | The University of Arizona * ? Notice: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 8916 bytes Desc: image001.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.png Type: image/png Size: 9410 bytes Desc: image002.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.png Type: image/png Size: 16501 bytes Desc: image003.png URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Wed Jul 9 15:04:03 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Deborah Armstrong via athen-list) Date: Thu Jul 10 11:20:04 2025 Subject: [Athen] Seeking Braille sources for developmentally delayed adults Message-ID: Our community college runs a program called Hope for adults with developmental delays. Most of them read at around a third grade level. The program uses Macs and iPads with lots of online sources to help them improve reading, math, spelling and job readiness. The students also learn crafts, photography and dance. For example, they take many videos and make simple presentations. They do Word Search puzzles and discuss current events. The program has now gotten several blind students and I've been asked to provide materials for them in Braille. As a Braille reader myself I do know about some resources. There is for example Seedlings Braille Books for Children, but they only serve children and not adults. There is Braille On Demand from NLS and I've been using my personal account to get free Braille from them, but would like to find another resource. There are also plenty of resources I know vaguely about for K-12 pupils, but again, they get federal funding to serve kids and not grown-ups. The content the sighted students work with is highly visual, because it is not academic, so it's impractical to convert and emboss it, and anyway, it is mostly online. I've ended up inventing word search puzzles, but that's about it. I really know nothing about creating curriculum for developmentally delayed blind adults, and my supervisor reminds me that in alternate media, my job is to convert what students request. However in this situation, I only know they have determined these adults have an average of a third grade reading level and they are demanding Braille. I finally managed to get a list of subjects they were interested in, and of course I sent the folks at Hope a whole list of resources they can purchase, such as books from National Braille press. But since the college has me, an alternate media specialist, they are reluctant to purchase anything. I suppose I can get things from bookshare and convert them, but I have no idea what is going to work best for these students. I'd like to avoid wasting tons of paper and time on books they cannot read. The people administering the program know nothing about Braille and I'm still trying to determine if their students can read contracted Braille or it needs to be uncontracted. Everything I've produced so far is uncontracted and was apparently used and welcomed. I am far more comfortable serving print impaired students in need of academic materials and I really don't know what to do about Hope and the three blind students requesting Braille. Advice and resources would be appreciated. --Debee -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Wed Jul 9 19:28:32 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (ELIZABETH KILLINGER via athen-list) Date: Thu Jul 10 11:20:04 2025 Subject: [Athen] [EXT] Re: [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual In-Reply-To: References: <01a001dbf108$fffdd820$fff98860$@montana.com> Message-ID: I disagree... some books, some publishers are better than others for books on Bookshare... but some publishers directly upload to bookshare and that's where they send you if you direct request. No source (even publishers directly) will provide you perfect accessible copies. Part of our job is update them for the needs of our students. For a majority of students, though, bookshare is perfectly fine. *Elizabeth Killinger* *Associate Coordinator* *FIT-ABLE | Office of Disability ServicesFashion Institute of Technology* David Dubinsky Student Center, A570 Phone: 212.217.4090 Website: fitnyc.edu/fitable On Wed, Jul 9, 2025, 6:04?PM Susan Kelmer via athen-list < athen-list@u.washington.edu> wrote: > I may sound like a broken record, but Bookshare files are of questionable > quality in most circumstances, with a vast array of missing information and > a lack of formatting that is normally expected as a standard in an > accessible file. > > > > I have been saying this for literally years. I?ve had discussions with > Bookshare personnel in different areas of the organization and it is always > the same, ?we don?t really have anything to do with that, you will have to > talk to someone else,? or some various versions of ?this is what the > publisher sent us.? Any of us who work in this field know that there are > much better quality materials from publishers directly than we are seeing > in Bookshare versions, aka, it would be preferable if the publisher would > just give us their PDF files. At least everything starts out in the right > place there. And from there, I can create a fully accessible Word or HTML > document with all elements included, formatted properly for all types of > readers in just a few hours. > > > > Bookshare files are woefully inadequate for most academic uses. It?s fine > if you just want to hear a popular novel or something, but for something > like this, it needs a massive amount of remediation to become the document > it should have been when it was first produced as ?born accessible? by > Bookshare. > > > > *Susan Kelmer * > > Alternate Format Production Program Manager > > Disability Services > > Health and Wellness Services > > *T* 303 735 4836 > > *www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices > * > > > > > > > > *Due to the nature of electronic communication, the security of this > message cannot be guaranteed. If you?ve received this email in error please > notify the sender immediately and delete this message.* > > > > *From:* athen-list *On > Behalf Of *Mark Weiler via athen-list > *Sent:* Wednesday, July 9, 2025 3:04 PM > *To:* kerscher@montana.com; Access Technology Higher Education Network < > athen-list@u.washington.edu>; 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' < > joyceho@arizona.edu> > *Subject:* Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual > > > > [External email - use caution] > > > > When I compare the version available through CELA, which I understand > comes through Bookshare, and the EPUB from APA directly, I observe > significant differences in quality. CELA has missing figures, no links, > and lists that seem to use asterisks. I base my observation on a spot > check with JAWS. > > > > I wonder if the one through CELA is actually different than the one > through Bookshare? George, can you confirm that in the version from > Bookshare, before section 5.2, there is a properly bulleted list that > starts with ?When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges??. In the > one through CELA, this is a clip of the speech history with JAWS. Notice > how it incorrectly starts with an asterisk: > > > > * When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges (e.g., 15-18 years old, > 65-80 years old) are more specific than broad categories (e.g., under 18 > years > > old, over 65 years old; see Section 5.3). > > > > This image shows the corresponding section in the EPUB from CELA. > > [image: Described above.] > > > > This second image is from the same section in a EPUB directly from APA. > Notice it uses a bullet and also has a hyperlink. > > > > [image: Described above] > > > > *From:* athen-list *On > Behalf Of *via athen-list > *Sent:* July 9, 2025 3:38 PM > *To:* 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' ; 'Access Technology > Higher Education Network' > *Subject:* [EXTERNAL *] Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual > > > > Hello, It is in Bookshare, ISBN 9781433832185 > > Best > > George > > > > > > *From:* athen-list *On > Behalf Of *Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho) via athen-list > *Sent:* Wednesday, July 9, 2025 12:50 PM > *To:* athen-list@u.washington.edu > *Subject:* [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual > > > > Hello! > > > > Would anyone happen to have an accessible copy of the following book: > > > > - Title: *Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association*, > 7th Edition > - Publisher: American Psychological Association > - ISBN: 978-1433832178 > > > > Thank you! > > Joyce > > > > *Joyce Ho* > > Accessible Content and Media Coordinator > > Disability Resource Center | The University of Arizona > > > > > > * ? Notice: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do > not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and > know the content is safe. > _______________________________________________ > athen-list mailing list > athen-list@mailman22.u.washington.edu > http://mailman22.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 8916 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.png Type: image/png Size: 9410 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.png Type: image/png Size: 16501 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.png Type: image/png Size: 9410 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.png Type: image/png Size: 16501 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 8916 bytes Desc: not available URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Thu Jul 10 06:28:41 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Susan Kelmer via athen-list) Date: Thu Jul 10 11:20:04 2025 Subject: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual In-Reply-To: References: <01a001dbf108$fffdd820$fff98860$@montana.com> Message-ID: I have to remediate everything I get from Bookshare. That is not ?born accessible? in my mind. While it IS our job to provide the format we need for our students, we should have access to at least reasonable quality files from an organization that receives millions of dollars in grants and other government funding. An organization that has convinced publishers that their files are universally usable by a wide swath of disability types. I hold their feet to the fire on this because someone has to. The lack of quality of Bookshare files is embarrassing. There are missing elements, as Mark pointed out, and it makes it much more difficult to get the correct information to the student. Missing elements in nearly every Bookshare book I?ve ever downloaded include: * NO understandable heading structure. Anything that is marked as a heading is an H2, and rarely are they correct. * Missing chapter titles (especially true if the title is in a graphic/visual format). * Missing page numbers. How does an academic cite material without page numbers? * Asterisks or other characters used instead of bulleted lists; numbered lists as text rather than formatted as numbered lists. * Missing graphics/images/visual elements. * Graphics/images/visual elements without alt text or any type of description. * Unformatted tables, if they are included at all. * Useless indexes, tables of contents, and other reference materials as they are links but do not include page number information. * Copyright information either buried at the end of the document, or missing completely. If I had $5 for every time I had to locate a hard copy of a book to be able to fully remediate a Bookshare file, I?d be a millionaire. I would rather have a scanned image PDF from ANY source, than a Bookshare file. I can remediate an image-based PDF into a fully accessible format a lot faster than I can ?fix? a poorly formatted Bookshare file (hours instead of days). Note the elements Mark pointed out as missing. This is a reference manual, it needs to be perfect, it needs to have ALL of its elements in place. How are we supposed to ?fix? that when they are missing from a ?born accessible? file that we are provided from Bookshare? We have to get a hard copy, go through page by page, and fix everything. We don?t have time for that. I will stop complaining about Bookshare when they start doing their job, or at the very least, start providing us with the raw image scans (not text scans) when we ask for it. That would save me thousands of hours each academic year. Susan Kelmer Alternate Format Production Program Manager Disability Services Health and Wellness Services T 303 735 4836 www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices [cid:image001.png@01DBF166.D6AA8820] Due to the nature of electronic communication, the security of this message cannot be guaranteed. If you?ve received this email in error please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. From: ELIZABETH KILLINGER > Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 8:29 PM To: Susan Kelmer >; Access Technology Higher Education Network > Subject: Re: [EXT] Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual [External email - use caution] I disagree... some books, some publishers are better than others for books on Bookshare... but some publishers directly upload to bookshare and that's where they send you if you direct request. No source (even publishers directly) will provide you perfect accessible copies. Part of our job is update them for the needs of our students. For a majority of students, though, bookshare is perfectly fine. Elizabeth Killinger Associate Coordinator FIT-ABLE | Office of Disability Services Fashion Institute of Technology David Dubinsky Student Center, A570 Phone: 212.217.4090 Website: fitnyc.edu/fitable On Wed, Jul 9, 2025, 6:04?PM Susan Kelmer via athen-list > wrote: I may sound like a broken record, but Bookshare files are of questionable quality in most circumstances, with a vast array of missing information and a lack of formatting that is normally expected as a standard in an accessible file. I have been saying this for literally years. I?ve had discussions with Bookshare personnel in different areas of the organization and it is always the same, ?we don?t really have anything to do with that, you will have to talk to someone else,? or some various versions of ?this is what the publisher sent us.? Any of us who work in this field know that there are much better quality materials from publishers directly than we are seeing in Bookshare versions, aka, it would be preferable if the publisher would just give us their PDF files. At least everything starts out in the right place there. And from there, I can create a fully accessible Word or HTML document with all elements included, formatted properly for all types of readers in just a few hours. Bookshare files are woefully inadequate for most academic uses. It?s fine if you just want to hear a popular novel or something, but for something like this, it needs a massive amount of remediation to become the document it should have been when it was first produced as ?born accessible? by Bookshare. Susan Kelmer Alternate Format Production Program Manager Disability Services Health and Wellness Services T 303 735 4836 www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices [cid:image001.png@01DBF166.D6AA8820] Due to the nature of electronic communication, the security of this message cannot be guaranteed. If you?ve received this email in error please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. From: athen-list > On Behalf Of Mark Weiler via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 3:04 PM To: kerscher@montana.com; Access Technology Higher Education Network >; 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' > Subject: Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual [External email - use caution] When I compare the version available through CELA, which I understand comes through Bookshare, and the EPUB from APA directly, I observe significant differences in quality. CELA has missing figures, no links, and lists that seem to use asterisks. I base my observation on a spot check with JAWS. I wonder if the one through CELA is actually different than the one through Bookshare? George, can you confirm that in the version from Bookshare, before section 5.2, there is a properly bulleted list that starts with ?When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges??. In the one through CELA, this is a clip of the speech history with JAWS. Notice how it incorrectly starts with an asterisk: * When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges (e.g., 15-18 years old, 65-80 years old) are more specific than broad categories (e.g., under 18 years old, over 65 years old; see Section 5.3). This image shows the corresponding section in the EPUB from CELA. [Described above.] This second image is from the same section in a EPUB directly from APA. Notice it uses a bullet and also has a hyperlink. [Described above] From: athen-list > On Behalf Of via athen-list Sent: July 9, 2025 3:38 PM To: 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' >; 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' > Subject: [EXTERNAL *] Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Hello, It is in Bookshare, ISBN 9781433832185 Best George From: athen-list > On Behalf Of Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho) via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 12:50 PM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu Subject: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Hello! Would anyone happen to have an accessible copy of the following book: * Title: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th Edition * Publisher: American Psychological Association * ISBN: 978-1433832178 Thank you! Joyce Joyce Ho Accessible Content and Media Coordinator Disability Resource Center | The University of Arizona * ? Notice: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. _______________________________________________ athen-list mailing list athen-list@mailman22.u.washington.edu http://mailman22.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 8916 bytes Desc: image001.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.png Type: image/png Size: 9410 bytes Desc: image002.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.png Type: image/png Size: 16501 bytes Desc: image003.png URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Thu Jul 10 06:37:15 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Kamran Rasul via athen-list) Date: Thu Jul 10 11:20:04 2025 Subject: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual In-Reply-To: References: <01a001dbf108$fffdd820$fff98860$@montana.com> Message-ID: On a different note, what is going with AccessText Network? They are not the same anymore; I cannot seem to rely on them as much anymore. I miss the old AccessText Network services ? Anyone having better luck using their services? [Johns Hopkins University logo] Kamran Rasul, MEd. Assistive Technology/Alternate Format Specialist (SDS) Phone: 410-516-1167 E-mail: krasul1@jhu.edu Garland Hall, 1st Floor, Office 135-G 3400 N. Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21218 Schedule a meeting with Kamran From: athen-list On Behalf Of Susan Kelmer via athen-list Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2025 9:29 AM To: ATHEN-list Mailing List Subject: Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual External Email - Use Caution I have to remediate everything I get from Bookshare. That is not ?born accessible? in my mind. While it IS our job to provide the format we need for our students, we should have access to at least reasonable quality files from an organization that receives millions of dollars in grants and other government funding. An organization that has convinced publishers that their files are universally usable by a wide swath of disability types. I hold their feet to the fire on this because someone has to. The lack of quality of Bookshare files is embarrassing. There are missing elements, as Mark pointed out, and it makes it much more difficult to get the correct information to the student. Missing elements in nearly every Bookshare book I?ve ever downloaded include: * NO understandable heading structure. Anything that is marked as a heading is an H2, and rarely are they correct. * Missing chapter titles (especially true if the title is in a graphic/visual format). * Missing page numbers. How does an academic cite material without page numbers? * Asterisks or other characters used instead of bulleted lists; numbered lists as text rather than formatted as numbered lists. * Missing graphics/images/visual elements. * Graphics/images/visual elements without alt text or any type of description. * Unformatted tables, if they are included at all. * Useless indexes, tables of contents, and other reference materials as they are links but do not include page number information. * Copyright information either buried at the end of the document, or missing completely. If I had $5 for every time I had to locate a hard copy of a book to be able to fully remediate a Bookshare file, I?d be a millionaire. I would rather have a scanned image PDF from ANY source, than a Bookshare file. I can remediate an image-based PDF into a fully accessible format a lot faster than I can ?fix? a poorly formatted Bookshare file (hours instead of days). Note the elements Mark pointed out as missing. This is a reference manual, it needs to be perfect, it needs to have ALL of its elements in place. How are we supposed to ?fix? that when they are missing from a ?born accessible? file that we are provided from Bookshare? We have to get a hard copy, go through page by page, and fix everything. We don?t have time for that. I will stop complaining about Bookshare when they start doing their job, or at the very least, start providing us with the raw image scans (not text scans) when we ask for it. That would save me thousands of hours each academic year. Susan Kelmer Alternate Format Production Program Manager Disability Services Health and Wellness Services T 303 735 4836 www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices [cid:image005.png@01DBF17E.359CE690] Due to the nature of electronic communication, the security of this message cannot be guaranteed. If you?ve received this email in error please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. From: ELIZABETH KILLINGER > Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 8:29 PM To: Susan Kelmer >; Access Technology Higher Education Network > Subject: Re: [EXT] Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual [External email - use caution] I disagree... some books, some publishers are better than others for books on Bookshare... but some publishers directly upload to bookshare and that's where they send you if you direct request. No source (even publishers directly) will provide you perfect accessible copies. Part of our job is update them for the needs of our students. For a majority of students, though, bookshare is perfectly fine. Elizabeth Killinger Associate Coordinator FIT-ABLE | Office of Disability Services Fashion Institute of Technology David Dubinsky Student Center, A570 Phone: 212.217.4090 Website: fitnyc.edu/fitable On Wed, Jul 9, 2025, 6:04?PM Susan Kelmer via athen-list > wrote: I may sound like a broken record, but Bookshare files are of questionable quality in most circumstances, with a vast array of missing information and a lack of formatting that is normally expected as a standard in an accessible file. I have been saying this for literally years. I?ve had discussions with Bookshare personnel in different areas of the organization and it is always the same, ?we don?t really have anything to do with that, you will have to talk to someone else,? or some various versions of ?this is what the publisher sent us.? Any of us who work in this field know that there are much better quality materials from publishers directly than we are seeing in Bookshare versions, aka, it would be preferable if the publisher would just give us their PDF files. At least everything starts out in the right place there. And from there, I can create a fully accessible Word or HTML document with all elements included, formatted properly for all types of readers in just a few hours. Bookshare files are woefully inadequate for most academic uses. It?s fine if you just want to hear a popular novel or something, but for something like this, it needs a massive amount of remediation to become the document it should have been when it was first produced as ?born accessible? by Bookshare. Susan Kelmer Alternate Format Production Program Manager Disability Services Health and Wellness Services T 303 735 4836 www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices [cid:image005.png@01DBF17E.359CE690] Due to the nature of electronic communication, the security of this message cannot be guaranteed. If you?ve received this email in error please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. From: athen-list > On Behalf Of Mark Weiler via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 3:04 PM To: kerscher@montana.com; Access Technology Higher Education Network >; 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' > Subject: Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual [External email - use caution] When I compare the version available through CELA, which I understand comes through Bookshare, and the EPUB from APA directly, I observe significant differences in quality. CELA has missing figures, no links, and lists that seem to use asterisks. I base my observation on a spot check with JAWS. I wonder if the one through CELA is actually different than the one through Bookshare? George, can you confirm that in the version from Bookshare, before section 5.2, there is a properly bulleted list that starts with ?When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges??. In the one through CELA, this is a clip of the speech history with JAWS. Notice how it incorrectly starts with an asterisk: * When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges (e.g., 15-18 years old, 65-80 years old) are more specific than broad categories (e.g., under 18 years old, over 65 years old; see Section 5.3). This image shows the corresponding section in the EPUB from CELA. [Described above.] This second image is from the same section in a EPUB directly from APA. Notice it uses a bullet and also has a hyperlink. [Described above] From: athen-list > On Behalf Of via athen-list Sent: July 9, 2025 3:38 PM To: 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' >; 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' > Subject: [EXTERNAL *] Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Hello, It is in Bookshare, ISBN 9781433832185 Best George From: athen-list > On Behalf Of Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho) via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 12:50 PM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu Subject: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Hello! Would anyone happen to have an accessible copy of the following book: * Title: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th Edition * Publisher: American Psychological Association * ISBN: 978-1433832178 Thank you! Joyce Joyce Ho Accessible Content and Media Coordinator Disability Resource Center | The University of Arizona * ? Notice: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. _______________________________________________ athen-list mailing list athen-list@mailman22.u.washington.edu http://mailman22.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image004.png Type: image/png Size: 8704 bytes Desc: image004.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image005.png Type: image/png Size: 8916 bytes Desc: image005.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image006.png Type: image/png Size: 9410 bytes Desc: image006.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image007.png Type: image/png Size: 16501 bytes Desc: image007.png URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Thu Jul 10 06:43:44 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (ELIZABETH KILLINGER via athen-list) Date: Thu Jul 10 11:20:04 2025 Subject: [Athen] [EXT] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual In-Reply-To: References: <01a001dbf108$fffdd820$fff98860$@montana.com> Message-ID: They went offline and from my understanding their archive was not brought back when they went back online. They are also publisher run now... *Elizabeth Killinger* *Associate Coordinator* *FIT-ABLE | Office of Disability ServicesFashion Institute of Technology* David Dubinsky Student Center, A570 Phone: 212.217.4090 Website: fitnyc.edu/fitable On Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 9:38?AM Kamran Rasul via athen-list < athen-list@u.washington.edu> wrote: > On a different note, what is going with AccessText Network? They are not > the same anymore; I cannot seem to rely on them as much anymore. I miss the > old AccessText Network services ? > > > > Anyone having better luck using their services? > > > > [image: Johns Hopkins University logo] > > > > Kamran Rasul, MEd. > > Assistive Technology/Alternate Format Specialist (SDS) > > Phone: 410-516-1167 > > E-mail: krasul1@jhu.edu > > Garland Hall, 1st Floor, Office 135-G > > 3400 N. Charles Street > > > Baltimore, MD 21218 > > > Schedule a meeting with Kamran > > > > > *From:* athen-list *On > Behalf Of *Susan Kelmer via athen-list > *Sent:* Thursday, July 10, 2025 9:29 AM > *To:* ATHEN-list Mailing List > *Subject:* Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual > > > > > * External Email - Use Caution * > > > > > > I have to remediate everything I get from Bookshare. That is not ?born > accessible? in my mind. While it IS our job to provide the format we need > for our students, we should have access to at least reasonable quality > files from an organization that receives millions of dollars in grants and > other government funding. An organization that has convinced publishers > that their files are universally usable by a wide swath of disability > types. I hold their feet to the fire on this because someone has to. The > lack of quality of Bookshare files is embarrassing. > > > > There are missing elements, as Mark pointed out, and it makes it much more > difficult to get the correct information to the student. Missing elements > in nearly every Bookshare book I?ve ever downloaded include: > > > > - NO understandable heading structure. Anything that is marked as a > heading is an H2, and rarely are they correct. > - Missing chapter titles (especially true if the title is in a > graphic/visual format). > - Missing page numbers. How does an academic cite material without > page numbers? > - Asterisks or other characters used instead of bulleted lists; > numbered lists as text rather than formatted as numbered lists. > - Missing graphics/images/visual elements. > - Graphics/images/visual elements without alt text or any type of > description. > - Unformatted tables, if they are included at all. > - Useless indexes, tables of contents, and other reference materials > as they are links but do not include page number information. > - Copyright information either buried at the end of the document, or > missing completely. > > > > If I had $5 for every time I had to locate a hard copy of a book to be > able to fully remediate a Bookshare file, I?d be a millionaire. I would > rather have a scanned image PDF from ANY source, than a Bookshare file. I > can remediate an image-based PDF into a fully accessible format a lot > faster than I can ?fix? a poorly formatted Bookshare file (hours instead of > days). > > > > Note the elements Mark pointed out as missing. This is a reference > manual, it needs to be perfect, it needs to have ALL of its elements in > place. How are we supposed to ?fix? that when they are missing from a > ?born accessible? file that we are provided from Bookshare? We have to get > a hard copy, go through page by page, and fix everything. We don?t have > time for that. I will stop complaining about Bookshare when they start > doing their job, or at the very least, start providing us with the raw > image scans (not text scans) when we ask for it. That would save me > thousands of hours each academic year. > > > > *Susan Kelmer * > > Alternate Format Production Program Manager > > Disability Services > > Health and Wellness Services > > *T* 303 735 4836 > > *www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices > * > > > > > > > > *Due to the nature of electronic communication, the security of this > message cannot be guaranteed. If you?ve received this email in error please > notify the sender immediately and delete this message.* > > > > *From:* ELIZABETH KILLINGER > *Sent:* Wednesday, July 9, 2025 8:29 PM > *To:* Susan Kelmer ; Access Technology Higher > Education Network > *Subject:* Re: [EXT] Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA > Publication Manual > > > > [External email - use caution] > > > > I disagree... some books, some publishers are better than others for books > on Bookshare... but some publishers directly upload to bookshare and that's > where they send you if you direct request. No source (even publishers > directly) will provide you perfect accessible copies. Part of our job is > update them for the needs of our students. For a majority of students, > though, bookshare is perfectly fine. > > > > *Elizabeth Killinger* > *Associate Coordinator* > > *FIT-ABLE | Office of Disability Services Fashion Institute of Technology* > David Dubinsky Student Center, A570 > > Phone: 212.217.4090 > Website: fitnyc.edu/fitable > > > > On Wed, Jul 9, 2025, 6:04?PM Susan Kelmer via athen-list < > athen-list@u.washington.edu> wrote: > > I may sound like a broken record, but Bookshare files are of questionable > quality in most circumstances, with a vast array of missing information and > a lack of formatting that is normally expected as a standard in an > accessible file. > > > > I have been saying this for literally years. I?ve had discussions with > Bookshare personnel in different areas of the organization and it is always > the same, ?we don?t really have anything to do with that, you will have to > talk to someone else,? or some various versions of ?this is what the > publisher sent us.? Any of us who work in this field know that there are > much better quality materials from publishers directly than we are seeing > in Bookshare versions, aka, it would be preferable if the publisher would > just give us their PDF files. At least everything starts out in the right > place there. And from there, I can create a fully accessible Word or HTML > document with all elements included, formatted properly for all types of > readers in just a few hours. > > > > Bookshare files are woefully inadequate for most academic uses. It?s fine > if you just want to hear a popular novel or something, but for something > like this, it needs a massive amount of remediation to become the document > it should have been when it was first produced as ?born accessible? by > Bookshare. > > > > *Susan Kelmer * > > Alternate Format Production Program Manager > > Disability Services > > Health and Wellness Services > > *T* 303 735 4836 > > *www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices > * > > > > > > > > *Due to the nature of electronic communication, the security of this > message cannot be guaranteed. If you?ve received this email in error please > notify the sender immediately and delete this message.* > > > > *From:* athen-list *On > Behalf Of *Mark Weiler via athen-list > *Sent:* Wednesday, July 9, 2025 3:04 PM > *To:* kerscher@montana.com; Access Technology Higher Education Network < > athen-list@u.washington.edu>; 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' < > joyceho@arizona.edu> > *Subject:* Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual > > > > [External email - use caution] > > > > When I compare the version available through CELA, which I understand > comes through Bookshare, and the EPUB from APA directly, I observe > significant differences in quality. CELA has missing figures, no links, > and lists that seem to use asterisks. I base my observation on a spot > check with JAWS. > > > > I wonder if the one through CELA is actually different than the one > through Bookshare? George, can you confirm that in the version from > Bookshare, before section 5.2, there is a properly bulleted list that > starts with ?When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges??. In the > one through CELA, this is a clip of the speech history with JAWS. Notice > how it incorrectly starts with an asterisk: > > > > * When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges (e.g., 15-18 years old, > 65-80 years old) are more specific than broad categories (e.g., under 18 > years > > old, over 65 years old; see Section 5.3). > > > > This image shows the corresponding section in the EPUB from CELA. > > [image: Described above.] > > > > This second image is from the same section in a EPUB directly from APA. > Notice it uses a bullet and also has a hyperlink. > > > > [image: Described above] > > > > *From:* athen-list *On > Behalf Of *via athen-list > *Sent:* July 9, 2025 3:38 PM > *To:* 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' ; 'Access Technology > Higher Education Network' > *Subject:* [EXTERNAL *] Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual > > > > Hello, It is in Bookshare, ISBN 9781433832185 > > Best > > George > > > > > > *From:* athen-list *On > Behalf Of *Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho) via athen-list > *Sent:* Wednesday, July 9, 2025 12:50 PM > *To:* athen-list@u.washington.edu > *Subject:* [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual > > > > Hello! > > > > Would anyone happen to have an accessible copy of the following book: > > > > - Title: *Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association*, > 7th Edition > - Publisher: American Psychological Association > - ISBN: 978-1433832178 > > > > Thank you! > > Joyce > > > > *Joyce Ho* > > Accessible Content and Media Coordinator > > Disability Resource Center | The University of Arizona > > > > > > * ? Notice: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do > not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and > know the content is safe. > > _______________________________________________ > athen-list mailing list > athen-list@mailman22.u.washington.edu > http://mailman22.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list > > _______________________________________________ > athen-list mailing list > athen-list@mailman22.u.washington.edu > http://mailman22.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image004.png Type: image/png Size: 8704 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: image006.png Type: image/png Size: 9410 bytes Desc: not available URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Thu Jul 10 06:46:36 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Susan Kelmer via athen-list) Date: Thu Jul 10 11:20:04 2025 Subject: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual In-Reply-To: References: <01a001dbf108$fffdd820$fff98860$@montana.com> Message-ID: The ATN that was run by Georgia Tech was shut down April 1 2024. The new iteration is up and live but you need to sign up for a new account. It is not yet the resource it was, but it is there, and I get books through them. https://accesstext.org/home Susan Kelmer Alternate Format Production Program Manager Disability Services Health and Wellness Services T 303 735 4836 www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices [cid:image001.png@01DBF16E.C259C040] Due to the nature of electronic communication, the security of this message cannot be guaranteed. If you?ve received this email in error please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. From: Kamran Rasul Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2025 7:37 AM To: Susan Kelmer ; 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' Subject: RE: Accessible APA Publication Manual [External email - use caution] On a different note, what is going with AccessText Network? They are not the same anymore; I cannot seem to rely on them as much anymore. I miss the old AccessText Network services ? Anyone having better luck using their services? [Johns Hopkins University logo] Kamran Rasul, MEd. Assistive Technology/Alternate Format Specialist (SDS) Phone: 410-516-1167 E-mail: krasul1@jhu.edu Garland Hall, 1st Floor, Office 135-G 3400 N. Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21218 Schedule a meeting with Kamran From: athen-list > On Behalf Of Susan Kelmer via athen-list Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2025 9:29 AM To: ATHEN-list Mailing List > Subject: Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual External Email - Use Caution I have to remediate everything I get from Bookshare. That is not ?born accessible? in my mind. While it IS our job to provide the format we need for our students, we should have access to at least reasonable quality files from an organization that receives millions of dollars in grants and other government funding. An organization that has convinced publishers that their files are universally usable by a wide swath of disability types. I hold their feet to the fire on this because someone has to. The lack of quality of Bookshare files is embarrassing. There are missing elements, as Mark pointed out, and it makes it much more difficult to get the correct information to the student. Missing elements in nearly every Bookshare book I?ve ever downloaded include: * NO understandable heading structure. Anything that is marked as a heading is an H2, and rarely are they correct. * Missing chapter titles (especially true if the title is in a graphic/visual format). * Missing page numbers. How does an academic cite material without page numbers? * Asterisks or other characters used instead of bulleted lists; numbered lists as text rather than formatted as numbered lists. * Missing graphics/images/visual elements. * Graphics/images/visual elements without alt text or any type of description. * Unformatted tables, if they are included at all. * Useless indexes, tables of contents, and other reference materials as they are links but do not include page number information. * Copyright information either buried at the end of the document, or missing completely. If I had $5 for every time I had to locate a hard copy of a book to be able to fully remediate a Bookshare file, I?d be a millionaire. I would rather have a scanned image PDF from ANY source, than a Bookshare file. I can remediate an image-based PDF into a fully accessible format a lot faster than I can ?fix? a poorly formatted Bookshare file (hours instead of days). Note the elements Mark pointed out as missing. This is a reference manual, it needs to be perfect, it needs to have ALL of its elements in place. How are we supposed to ?fix? that when they are missing from a ?born accessible? file that we are provided from Bookshare? We have to get a hard copy, go through page by page, and fix everything. We don?t have time for that. I will stop complaining about Bookshare when they start doing their job, or at the very least, start providing us with the raw image scans (not text scans) when we ask for it. That would save me thousands of hours each academic year. Susan Kelmer Alternate Format Production Program Manager Disability Services Health and Wellness Services T 303 735 4836 www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices [cid:image001.png@01DBF16E.C259C040] Due to the nature of electronic communication, the security of this message cannot be guaranteed. If you?ve received this email in error please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. From: ELIZABETH KILLINGER > Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 8:29 PM To: Susan Kelmer >; Access Technology Higher Education Network > Subject: Re: [EXT] Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual [External email - use caution] I disagree... some books, some publishers are better than others for books on Bookshare... but some publishers directly upload to bookshare and that's where they send you if you direct request. No source (even publishers directly) will provide you perfect accessible copies. Part of our job is update them for the needs of our students. For a majority of students, though, bookshare is perfectly fine. Elizabeth Killinger Associate Coordinator FIT-ABLE | Office of Disability Services Fashion Institute of Technology David Dubinsky Student Center, A570 Phone: 212.217.4090 Website: fitnyc.edu/fitable On Wed, Jul 9, 2025, 6:04?PM Susan Kelmer via athen-list > wrote: I may sound like a broken record, but Bookshare files are of questionable quality in most circumstances, with a vast array of missing information and a lack of formatting that is normally expected as a standard in an accessible file. I have been saying this for literally years. I?ve had discussions with Bookshare personnel in different areas of the organization and it is always the same, ?we don?t really have anything to do with that, you will have to talk to someone else,? or some various versions of ?this is what the publisher sent us.? Any of us who work in this field know that there are much better quality materials from publishers directly than we are seeing in Bookshare versions, aka, it would be preferable if the publisher would just give us their PDF files. At least everything starts out in the right place there. And from there, I can create a fully accessible Word or HTML document with all elements included, formatted properly for all types of readers in just a few hours. Bookshare files are woefully inadequate for most academic uses. It?s fine if you just want to hear a popular novel or something, but for something like this, it needs a massive amount of remediation to become the document it should have been when it was first produced as ?born accessible? by Bookshare. Susan Kelmer Alternate Format Production Program Manager Disability Services Health and Wellness Services T 303 735 4836 www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices [cid:image001.png@01DBF16E.C259C040] Due to the nature of electronic communication, the security of this message cannot be guaranteed. If you?ve received this email in error please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. From: athen-list > On Behalf Of Mark Weiler via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 3:04 PM To: kerscher@montana.com; Access Technology Higher Education Network >; 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' > Subject: Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual [External email - use caution] When I compare the version available through CELA, which I understand comes through Bookshare, and the EPUB from APA directly, I observe significant differences in quality. CELA has missing figures, no links, and lists that seem to use asterisks. I base my observation on a spot check with JAWS. I wonder if the one through CELA is actually different than the one through Bookshare? George, can you confirm that in the version from Bookshare, before section 5.2, there is a properly bulleted list that starts with ?When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges??. In the one through CELA, this is a clip of the speech history with JAWS. Notice how it incorrectly starts with an asterisk: * When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges (e.g., 15-18 years old, 65-80 years old) are more specific than broad categories (e.g., under 18 years old, over 65 years old; see Section 5.3). This image shows the corresponding section in the EPUB from CELA. [Described above.] This second image is from the same section in a EPUB directly from APA. Notice it uses a bullet and also has a hyperlink. [Described above] From: athen-list > On Behalf Of via athen-list Sent: July 9, 2025 3:38 PM To: 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' >; 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' > Subject: [EXTERNAL *] Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Hello, It is in Bookshare, ISBN 9781433832185 Best George From: athen-list > On Behalf Of Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho) via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 12:50 PM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu Subject: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Hello! Would anyone happen to have an accessible copy of the following book: * Title: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th Edition * Publisher: American Psychological Association * ISBN: 978-1433832178 Thank you! Joyce Joyce Ho Accessible Content and Media Coordinator Disability Resource Center | The University of Arizona * ? Notice: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. _______________________________________________ athen-list mailing list athen-list@mailman22.u.washington.edu http://mailman22.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 8916 bytes Desc: image001.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.png Type: image/png Size: 8704 bytes Desc: image002.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.png Type: image/png Size: 9410 bytes Desc: image003.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image004.png Type: image/png Size: 16501 bytes Desc: image004.png URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Thu Jul 10 14:01:28 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (via athen-list) Date: Thu Jul 10 14:01:32 2025 Subject: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual In-Reply-To: References: <01a001dbf108$fffdd820$fff98860$@montana.com> Message-ID: <011401dbf1dd$cea248d0$6be6da70$@montana.com> Dear Mark and all, I think we at Bookshare have gotten to the bottom of this. The correct link to the publisher quality on Bookshare is: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/6278083 This title is provided by the publisher. I have pasted Below the portion of the title around 5.2 as Mark asked for. This shows bullets and list items. Several years ago, Bookshare received a request for this title and at that time it was not available from the publisher. We acted quickly and chopped and scanned the title and put it in the collection. Normally when a publisher version comes in, we remove the scanned version. The chop and scan version is of course inferior to the one directly from the publisher. We appreciate DSO staff that fix up these titles before providing to the students. There were some ISBN and metadata differences between the two titles, and the scanned version was not taken down. It is coming down today! Sometimes it is hard to detect duplicates and remove older versions, and we are trying to improve that process. It seems that CELA has the scanned version, and they may have the publisher quality version. Below my name is the portion of the text before and after section 5.2. Best George ? When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges (e.g., 15?18 years old, 65?80 years old) are more specific than broad categories (e.g., under 18 years old, over 65 years old; see Section 5.3 ). Also include the age mean and median in addition to the range of ages to increase the specificity of the reporting. ? When writing about disability, names of conditions (e.g., Alzheimer?s disease) are more specific than categories of conditions (e.g., types of dementia) or general references such as ?people with disabilities? (see Section 5.4 ). ? When writing about gender identity, descriptors with modifiers (e.g., cisgender women, transgender women) are more specific than descriptors without modifiers (e.g., women) or general nongendered terms (e.g., people, individuals; see Section 5.5 for how to differentiate between gender and sex). ? When writing about people who took part in research, terms that indicate the context of the research (e.g., patients, participants, clients) are more specific than general terms (e.g., people, children, women; see Section 5.6 ). ? When writing about racial or ethnic groups, the nation or region of origin (e.g., Chinese Americans, Mexican Americans) is more specific than a generalized origin (e.g., Asian Americans, Latin Americans; see Section 5.7 ). ? When writing about sexual orientation, the names of people?s orientations (e.g., lesbians, gay men, bisexual people, straight people) are more specific than broad group labels (e.g., gay; see Section 5.8 ). ? When writing about socioeconomic status, income ranges or specific designations (e.g., below the federal poverty threshold for a family of four) are more specific than general labels (e.g., low income; see Section 5.9 ). 5.2 Be Sensitive to Labels Respect the language people use to describe themselves; that is, call people what they call themselves. Accept that language changes with time and that individuals within groups sometimes disagree about the designations they use. Make an effort to determine what is appropriate for your study or paper, particularly when these designations are debated within groups. You may need to ask From: Mark Weiler Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 3:04 PM To: kerscher@montana.com; Access Technology Higher Education Network ; 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' Subject: RE: [EXTERNAL *] Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual When I compare the version available through CELA, which I understand comes through Bookshare, and the EPUB from APA directly, I observe significant differences in quality. CELA has missing figures, no links, and lists that seem to use asterisks. I base my observation on a spot check with JAWS. I wonder if the one through CELA is actually different than the one through Bookshare? George, can you confirm that in the version from Bookshare, before section 5.2, there is a properly bulleted list that starts with ?When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges??. In the one through CELA, this is a clip of the speech history with JAWS. Notice how it incorrectly starts with an asterisk: * When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges (e.g., 15-18 years old, 65-80 years old) are more specific than broad categories (e.g., under 18 years old, over 65 years old; see Section 5.3). This image shows the corresponding section in the EPUB from CELA. This second image is from the same section in a EPUB directly from APA. Notice it uses a bullet and also has a hyperlink. From: athen-list > On Behalf Of via athen-list Sent: July 9, 2025 3:38 PM To: 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' >; 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' > Subject: [EXTERNAL *] Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Hello, It is in Bookshare, ISBN 9781433832185 Best George From: athen-list > On Behalf Of Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho) via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 12:50 PM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu Subject: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Hello! Would anyone happen to have an accessible copy of the following book: * Title: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th Edition * Publisher: American Psychological Association * ISBN: 978-1433832178 Thank you! Joyce Joyce Ho Accessible Content and Media Coordinator Disability Resource Center | The University of Arizona * ? Notice: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 9410 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.png Type: image/png Size: 16501 bytes Desc: not available URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Thu Jul 10 19:09:38 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Adina Mulliken via athen-list) Date: Thu Jul 10 19:10:14 2025 Subject: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: This is off the topic of the request for an accessible version, but it made me think of another question. For the first time, APA is putting out an electronic version of their manual that libraries can subscribe to and provide access to a whole campus. During APA's uncaptioned APA Style Manual Demo Webinar about the new product, at minute 25:10, the first question from their viewers is about accessibility of the product. APA's response is that they?ve created the product with accessibility in mind but they are still working on a VPAT. Does anyone know anything more about accessibility of this product? My university is starting to consider it, but we don?t have a trial yet. Thanks! Adina Mulliken (she/her) Associate Professor, Librarian Silberman Social Work and Urban Public Health Library Hunter College, City University of New York 2180 3rd Ave. New York, NY Phone 212-396-7665 From: athen-list on behalf of via athen-list Date: Thursday, July 10, 2025 at 3:01?PM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu Subject: athen-list Digest, Vol 234, Issue 4 * This email originates from a sender outside of CUNY. Verify the sender before replying or clicking on links and attachments. * [CAUTION ? This Email is from an EXTERNAL SENDER: athen-list-bounces@mailman22.u.washington.edu] This email originated from outside of the Hunter campus. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. Send athen-list mailing list submissions to athen-list@u.washington.edu To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://mailman22.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list__;!!LAh5qUgpm5Y!GQXLE09nLtavm_kJM_4aDZeFCnA-hoVCTy6-tlqTfcGUWo0Z6aI5bU41eqoolOVoFN4KRCy_SDP8aruXkSKwESRPXNbn9X6pX44$ or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to athen-list-request@mailman22.u.washington.edu You can reach the person managing the list at athen-list-owner@mailman22.u.washington.edu When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of athen-list digest..." Today's Topics: 1. Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual (via athen-list) 2. Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual (John Sellmeyer via athen-list) 3. Re: [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual (Mark Weiler via athen-list) 4. Re: [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual (Susan Kelmer via athen-list) 5. Seeking Braille sources for developmentally delayed adults (Deborah Armstrong via athen-list) 6. Re: [EXT] Re: [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual (ELIZABETH KILLINGER via athen-list) 7. Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual (Susan Kelmer via athen-list) 8. Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual (Kamran Rasul via athen-list) 9. Re: [EXT] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual (ELIZABETH KILLINGER via athen-list) 10. Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual (Susan Kelmer via athen-list) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2025 13:38:08 -0600 From: via athen-list To: "'Ho, Joyce Y - \(joyceho\)'" , "'Access Technology Higher Education Network'" Subject: Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Message-ID: <01a001dbf108$fffdd820$fff98860$@montana.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Hello, It is in Bookshare, ISBN 9781433832185 Best George From: athen-list On Behalf Of Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho) via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 12:50 PM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu Subject: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Hello! Would anyone happen to have an accessible copy of the following book: * Title: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th Edition * Publisher: American Psychological Association * ISBN: 978-1433832178 Thank you! Joyce Joyce Ho Accessible Content and Media Coordinator Disability Resource Center | The University of Arizona -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 2 Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2025 20:13:31 +0000 From: John Sellmeyer via athen-list To: "Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)" , Access Technology Higher Education Network Subject: Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" It appears that this is on Bookshare. Best, John John Sellmeyer Accommodations Coordinator, Office of Accommodations and Accessibility Adjunt Instructor, Music Department Marist University 3399 North Road, Poughkeepsie, NY 12601 (845) 575-3274 john.sellmeyer@marist.edu Schedule an appointment with me! [Image of Marist University logo.] Disclaimer: This message is intended for the use of the addressee and may contain information that is highly sensitive, privileged and/or confidential. If you are not the intended addressee, any disclosure, copying, distribution or any other dissemination of this message or any attachment is strictly prohibited. Please notify the sender immediately by e-mail if you have received this e-mail by mistake and delete this e-mail from your system. From: athen-list On Behalf Of Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho) via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 2:50 PM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu Subject: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual [EXTERNAL EMAIL] Hello! Would anyone happen to have an accessible copy of the following book: * Title: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th Edition * Publisher: American Psychological Association * ISBN: 978-1433832178 Thank you! Joyce Joyce Ho Accessible Content and Media Coordinator Disability Resource Center | The University of Arizona -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 5516 bytes Desc: image001.png URL: ------------------------------ Message: 3 Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2025 21:04:27 +0000 From: Mark Weiler via athen-list To: "kerscher@montana.com" , Access Technology Higher Education Network , "'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)'" Subject: Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" When I compare the version available through CELA, which I understand comes through Bookshare, and the EPUB from APA directly, I observe significant differences in quality. CELA has missing figures, no links, and lists that seem to use asterisks. I base my observation on a spot check with JAWS. I wonder if the one through CELA is actually different than the one through Bookshare? George, can you confirm that in the version from Bookshare, before section 5.2, there is a properly bulleted list that starts with ?When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges??. In the one through CELA, this is a clip of the speech history with JAWS. Notice how it incorrectly starts with an asterisk: * When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges (e.g., 15-18 years old, 65-80 years old) are more specific than broad categories (e.g., under 18 years old, over 65 years old; see Section 5.3). This image shows the corresponding section in the EPUB from CELA. [Described above.] This second image is from the same section in a EPUB directly from APA. Notice it uses a bullet and also has a hyperlink. [Described above] From: athen-list On Behalf Of via athen-list Sent: July 9, 2025 3:38 PM To: 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' ; 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' Subject: [EXTERNAL *] Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Hello, It is in Bookshare, ISBN 9781433832185 Best George From: athen-list > On Behalf Of Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho) via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 12:50 PM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu Subject: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Hello! Would anyone happen to have an accessible copy of the following book: * Title: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th Edition * Publisher: American Psychological Association * ISBN: 978-1433832178 Thank you! Joyce Joyce Ho Accessible Content and Media Coordinator Disability Resource Center | The University of Arizona * ? Notice: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.png Type: image/png Size: 9410 bytes Desc: image002.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image004.png Type: image/png Size: 16501 bytes Desc: image004.png URL: ------------------------------ Message: 4 Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2025 22:03:44 +0000 From: Susan Kelmer via athen-list To: Mark Weiler , Access Technology Higher Education Network Subject: Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" I may sound like a broken record, but Bookshare files are of questionable quality in most circumstances, with a vast array of missing information and a lack of formatting that is normally expected as a standard in an accessible file. I have been saying this for literally years. I?ve had discussions with Bookshare personnel in different areas of the organization and it is always the same, ?we don?t really have anything to do with that, you will have to talk to someone else,? or some various versions of ?this is what the publisher sent us.? Any of us who work in this field know that there are much better quality materials from publishers directly than we are seeing in Bookshare versions, aka, it would be preferable if the publisher would just give us their PDF files. At least everything starts out in the right place there. And from there, I can create a fully accessible Word or HTML document with all elements included, formatted properly for all types of readers in just a few hours. Bookshare files are woefully inadequate for most academic uses. It?s fine if you just want to hear a popular novel or something, but for something like this, it needs a massive amount of remediation to become the document it should have been when it was first produced as ?born accessible? by Bookshare. Susan Kelmer Alternate Format Production Program Manager Disability Services Health and Wellness Services T 303 735 4836 https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices__;!!LAh5qUgpm5Y!GQXLE09nLtavm_kJM_4aDZeFCnA-hoVCTy6-tlqTfcGUWo0Z6aI5bU41eqoolOVoFN4KRCy_SDP8aruXkSKwESRPXNbnBZWGVlw$ [cid:image001.png@01DBF0EB.0AB27550] Due to the nature of electronic communication, the security of this message cannot be guaranteed. If you?ve received this email in error please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. From: athen-list On Behalf Of Mark Weiler via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 3:04 PM To: kerscher@montana.com; Access Technology Higher Education Network ; 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' Subject: Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual [External email - use caution] When I compare the version available through CELA, which I understand comes through Bookshare, and the EPUB from APA directly, I observe significant differences in quality. CELA has missing figures, no links, and lists that seem to use asterisks. I base my observation on a spot check with JAWS. I wonder if the one through CELA is actually different than the one through Bookshare? George, can you confirm that in the version from Bookshare, before section 5.2, there is a properly bulleted list that starts with ?When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges??. In the one through CELA, this is a clip of the speech history with JAWS. Notice how it incorrectly starts with an asterisk: * When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges (e.g., 15-18 years old, 65-80 years old) are more specific than broad categories (e.g., under 18 years old, over 65 years old; see Section 5.3). This image shows the corresponding section in the EPUB from CELA. [Described above.] This second image is from the same section in a EPUB directly from APA. Notice it uses a bullet and also has a hyperlink. [Described above] From: athen-list > On Behalf Of via athen-list Sent: July 9, 2025 3:38 PM To: 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' >; 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' > Subject: [EXTERNAL *] Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Hello, It is in Bookshare, ISBN 9781433832185 Best George From: athen-list > On Behalf Of Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho) via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 12:50 PM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu Subject: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Hello! Would anyone happen to have an accessible copy of the following book: * Title: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th Edition * Publisher: American Psychological Association * ISBN: 978-1433832178 Thank you! Joyce Joyce Ho Accessible Content and Media Coordinator Disability Resource Center | The University of Arizona * ? Notice: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 8916 bytes Desc: image001.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.png Type: image/png Size: 9410 bytes Desc: image002.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.png Type: image/png Size: 16501 bytes Desc: image003.png URL: ------------------------------ Message: 5 Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2025 22:04:03 +0000 From: Deborah Armstrong via athen-list To: Access Technology Higher Education Network Subject: [Athen] Seeking Braille sources for developmentally delayed adults Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Our community college runs a program called Hope for adults with developmental delays. Most of them read at around a third grade level. The program uses Macs and iPads with lots of online sources to help them improve reading, math, spelling and job readiness. The students also learn crafts, photography and dance. For example, they take many videos and make simple presentations. They do Word Search puzzles and discuss current events. The program has now gotten several blind students and I've been asked to provide materials for them in Braille. As a Braille reader myself I do know about some resources. There is for example Seedlings Braille Books for Children, but they only serve children and not adults. There is Braille On Demand from NLS and I've been using my personal account to get free Braille from them, but would like to find another resource. There are also plenty of resources I know vaguely about for K-12 pupils, but again, they get federal funding to serve kids and not grown-ups. The content the sighted students work with is highly visual, because it is not academic, so it's impractical to convert and emboss it, and anyway, it is mostly online. I've ended up inventing word search puzzles, but that's about it. I really know nothing about creating curriculum for developmentally delayed blind adults, and my supervisor reminds me that in alternate media, my job is to convert what students request. However in this situation, I only know they have determined these adults have an average of a third grade reading level and they are demanding Braille. I finally managed to get a list of subjects they were interested in, and of course I sent the folks at Hope a whole list of resources they can purchase, such as books from National Braille press. But since the college has me, an alternate media specialist, they are reluctant to purchase anything. I suppose I can get things from bookshare and convert them, but I have no idea what is going to work best for these students. I'd like to avoid wasting tons of paper and time on books they cannot read. The people administering the program know nothing about Braille and I'm still trying to determine if their students can read contracted Braille or it needs to be uncontracted. Everything I've produced so far is uncontracted and was apparently used and welcomed. I am far more comfortable serving print impaired students in need of academic materials and I really don't know what to do about Hope and the three blind students requesting Braille. Advice and resources would be appreciated. --Debee -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: ------------------------------ Message: 6 Date: Wed, 9 Jul 2025 22:28:32 -0400 From: ELIZABETH KILLINGER via athen-list To: Susan Kelmer , Access Technology Higher Education Network Subject: Re: [Athen] [EXT] Re: [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" I disagree... some books, some publishers are better than others for books on Bookshare... but some publishers directly upload to bookshare and that's where they send you if you direct request. No source (even publishers directly) will provide you perfect accessible copies. Part of our job is update them for the needs of our students. For a majority of students, though, bookshare is perfectly fine. *Elizabeth Killinger* *Associate Coordinator* *FIT-ABLE | Office of Disability ServicesFashion Institute of Technology* David Dubinsky Student Center, A570 Phone: 212.217.4090 Website: fitnyc.edu/fitable On Wed, Jul 9, 2025, 6:04?PM Susan Kelmer via athen-list < athen-list@u.washington.edu> wrote: > I may sound like a broken record, but Bookshare files are of questionable > quality in most circumstances, with a vast array of missing information and > a lack of formatting that is normally expected as a standard in an > accessible file. > > > > I have been saying this for literally years. I?ve had discussions with > Bookshare personnel in different areas of the organization and it is always > the same, ?we don?t really have anything to do with that, you will have to > talk to someone else,? or some various versions of ?this is what the > publisher sent us.? Any of us who work in this field know that there are > much better quality materials from publishers directly than we are seeing > in Bookshare versions, aka, it would be preferable if the publisher would > just give us their PDF files. At least everything starts out in the right > place there. And from there, I can create a fully accessible Word or HTML > document with all elements included, formatted properly for all types of > readers in just a few hours. > > > > Bookshare files are woefully inadequate for most academic uses. It?s fine > if you just want to hear a popular novel or something, but for something > like this, it needs a massive amount of remediation to become the document > it should have been when it was first produced as ?born accessible? by > Bookshare. > > > > *Susan Kelmer * > > Alternate Format Production Program Manager > > Disability Services > > Health and Wellness Services > > *T* 303 735 4836 > > *https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices__;!!LAh5qUgpm5Y!GQXLE09nLtavm_kJM_4aDZeFCnA-hoVCTy6-tlqTfcGUWo0Z6aI5bU41eqoolOVoFN4KRCy_SDP8aruXkSKwESRPXNbnBZWGVlw$ > * > > > > > > > > *Due to the nature of electronic communication, the security of this > message cannot be guaranteed. If you?ve received this email in error please > notify the sender immediately and delete this message.* > > > > *From:* athen-list *On > Behalf Of *Mark Weiler via athen-list > *Sent:* Wednesday, July 9, 2025 3:04 PM > *To:* kerscher@montana.com; Access Technology Higher Education Network < > athen-list@u.washington.edu>; 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' < > joyceho@arizona.edu> > *Subject:* Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual > > > > [External email - use caution] > > > > When I compare the version available through CELA, which I understand > comes through Bookshare, and the EPUB from APA directly, I observe > significant differences in quality. CELA has missing figures, no links, > and lists that seem to use asterisks. I base my observation on a spot > check with JAWS. > > > > I wonder if the one through CELA is actually different than the one > through Bookshare? George, can you confirm that in the version from > Bookshare, before section 5.2, there is a properly bulleted list that > starts with ?When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges??. In the > one through CELA, this is a clip of the speech history with JAWS. Notice > how it incorrectly starts with an asterisk: > > > > * When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges (e.g., 15-18 years old, > 65-80 years old) are more specific than broad categories (e.g., under 18 > years > > old, over 65 years old; see Section 5.3). > > > > This image shows the corresponding section in the EPUB from CELA. > > [image: Described above.] > > > > This second image is from the same section in a EPUB directly from APA. > Notice it uses a bullet and also has a hyperlink. > > > > [image: Described above] > > > > *From:* athen-list *On > Behalf Of *via athen-list > *Sent:* July 9, 2025 3:38 PM > *To:* 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' ; 'Access Technology > Higher Education Network' > *Subject:* [EXTERNAL *] Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual > > > > Hello, It is in Bookshare, ISBN 9781433832185 > > Best > > George > > > > > > *From:* athen-list *On > Behalf Of *Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho) via athen-list > *Sent:* Wednesday, July 9, 2025 12:50 PM > *To:* athen-list@u.washington.edu > *Subject:* [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual > > > > Hello! > > > > Would anyone happen to have an accessible copy of the following book: > > > > - Title: *Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association*, > 7th Edition > - Publisher: American Psychological Association > - ISBN: 978-1433832178 > > > > Thank you! > > Joyce > > > > *Joyce Ho* > > Accessible Content and Media Coordinator > > Disability Resource Center | The University of Arizona > > > > > > * ? Notice: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do > not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and > know the content is safe. > _______________________________________________ > athen-list mailing list > athen-list@mailman22.u.washington.edu > https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://mailman22.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list__;!!LAh5qUgpm5Y!GQXLE09nLtavm_kJM_4aDZeFCnA-hoVCTy6-tlqTfcGUWo0Z6aI5bU41eqoolOVoFN4KRCy_SDP8aruXkSKwESRPXNbn9X6pX44$ > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 8916 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.png Type: image/png Size: 9410 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.png Type: image/png Size: 16501 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.png Type: image/png Size: 9410 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.png Type: image/png Size: 16501 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 8916 bytes Desc: not available URL: ------------------------------ Message: 7 Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2025 13:28:41 +0000 From: Susan Kelmer via athen-list To: ATHEN-list Mailing List Subject: Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" I have to remediate everything I get from Bookshare. That is not ?born accessible? in my mind. While it IS our job to provide the format we need for our students, we should have access to at least reasonable quality files from an organization that receives millions of dollars in grants and other government funding. An organization that has convinced publishers that their files are universally usable by a wide swath of disability types. I hold their feet to the fire on this because someone has to. The lack of quality of Bookshare files is embarrassing. There are missing elements, as Mark pointed out, and it makes it much more difficult to get the correct information to the student. Missing elements in nearly every Bookshare book I?ve ever downloaded include: * NO understandable heading structure. Anything that is marked as a heading is an H2, and rarely are they correct. * Missing chapter titles (especially true if the title is in a graphic/visual format). * Missing page numbers. How does an academic cite material without page numbers? * Asterisks or other characters used instead of bulleted lists; numbered lists as text rather than formatted as numbered lists. * Missing graphics/images/visual elements. * Graphics/images/visual elements without alt text or any type of description. * Unformatted tables, if they are included at all. * Useless indexes, tables of contents, and other reference materials as they are links but do not include page number information. * Copyright information either buried at the end of the document, or missing completely. If I had $5 for every time I had to locate a hard copy of a book to be able to fully remediate a Bookshare file, I?d be a millionaire. I would rather have a scanned image PDF from ANY source, than a Bookshare file. I can remediate an image-based PDF into a fully accessible format a lot faster than I can ?fix? a poorly formatted Bookshare file (hours instead of days). Note the elements Mark pointed out as missing. This is a reference manual, it needs to be perfect, it needs to have ALL of its elements in place. How are we supposed to ?fix? that when they are missing from a ?born accessible? file that we are provided from Bookshare? We have to get a hard copy, go through page by page, and fix everything. We don?t have time for that. I will stop complaining about Bookshare when they start doing their job, or at the very least, start providing us with the raw image scans (not text scans) when we ask for it. That would save me thousands of hours each academic year. Susan Kelmer Alternate Format Production Program Manager Disability Services Health and Wellness Services T 303 735 4836 https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices__;!!LAh5qUgpm5Y!GQXLE09nLtavm_kJM_4aDZeFCnA-hoVCTy6-tlqTfcGUWo0Z6aI5bU41eqoolOVoFN4KRCy_SDP8aruXkSKwESRPXNbnBZWGVlw$ [cid:image001.png@01DBF166.D6AA8820] Due to the nature of electronic communication, the security of this message cannot be guaranteed. If you?ve received this email in error please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. From: ELIZABETH KILLINGER > Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 8:29 PM To: Susan Kelmer >; Access Technology Higher Education Network > Subject: Re: [EXT] Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual [External email - use caution] I disagree... some books, some publishers are better than others for books on Bookshare... but some publishers directly upload to bookshare and that's where they send you if you direct request. No source (even publishers directly) will provide you perfect accessible copies. Part of our job is update them for the needs of our students. For a majority of students, though, bookshare is perfectly fine. Elizabeth Killinger Associate Coordinator FIT-ABLE | Office of Disability Services Fashion Institute of Technology David Dubinsky Student Center, A570 Phone: 212.217.4090 Website: fitnyc.edu/fitable On Wed, Jul 9, 2025, 6:04?PM Susan Kelmer via athen-list > wrote: I may sound like a broken record, but Bookshare files are of questionable quality in most circumstances, with a vast array of missing information and a lack of formatting that is normally expected as a standard in an accessible file. I have been saying this for literally years. I?ve had discussions with Bookshare personnel in different areas of the organization and it is always the same, ?we don?t really have anything to do with that, you will have to talk to someone else,? or some various versions of ?this is what the publisher sent us.? Any of us who work in this field know that there are much better quality materials from publishers directly than we are seeing in Bookshare versions, aka, it would be preferable if the publisher would just give us their PDF files. At least everything starts out in the right place there. And from there, I can create a fully accessible Word or HTML document with all elements included, formatted properly for all types of readers in just a few hours. Bookshare files are woefully inadequate for most academic uses. It?s fine if you just want to hear a popular novel or something, but for something like this, it needs a massive amount of remediation to become the document it should have been when it was first produced as ?born accessible? by Bookshare. Susan Kelmer Alternate Format Production Program Manager Disability Services Health and Wellness Services T 303 735 4836 https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices__;!!LAh5qUgpm5Y!GQXLE09nLtavm_kJM_4aDZeFCnA-hoVCTy6-tlqTfcGUWo0Z6aI5bU41eqoolOVoFN4KRCy_SDP8aruXkSKwESRPXNbnBZWGVlw$ [cid:image001.png@01DBF166.D6AA8820] Due to the nature of electronic communication, the security of this message cannot be guaranteed. If you?ve received this email in error please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. From: athen-list > On Behalf Of Mark Weiler via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 3:04 PM To: kerscher@montana.com; Access Technology Higher Education Network >; 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' > Subject: Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual [External email - use caution] When I compare the version available through CELA, which I understand comes through Bookshare, and the EPUB from APA directly, I observe significant differences in quality. CELA has missing figures, no links, and lists that seem to use asterisks. I base my observation on a spot check with JAWS. I wonder if the one through CELA is actually different than the one through Bookshare? George, can you confirm that in the version from Bookshare, before section 5.2, there is a properly bulleted list that starts with ?When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges??. In the one through CELA, this is a clip of the speech history with JAWS. Notice how it incorrectly starts with an asterisk: * When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges (e.g., 15-18 years old, 65-80 years old) are more specific than broad categories (e.g., under 18 years old, over 65 years old; see Section 5.3). This image shows the corresponding section in the EPUB from CELA. [Described above.] This second image is from the same section in a EPUB directly from APA. Notice it uses a bullet and also has a hyperlink. [Described above] From: athen-list > On Behalf Of via athen-list Sent: July 9, 2025 3:38 PM To: 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' >; 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' > Subject: [EXTERNAL *] Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Hello, It is in Bookshare, ISBN 9781433832185 Best George From: athen-list > On Behalf Of Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho) via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 12:50 PM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu Subject: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Hello! Would anyone happen to have an accessible copy of the following book: * Title: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th Edition * Publisher: American Psychological Association * ISBN: 978-1433832178 Thank you! Joyce Joyce Ho Accessible Content and Media Coordinator Disability Resource Center | The University of Arizona * ? Notice: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. _______________________________________________ athen-list mailing list athen-list@mailman22.u.washington.edu https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://mailman22.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list__;!!LAh5qUgpm5Y!GQXLE09nLtavm_kJM_4aDZeFCnA-hoVCTy6-tlqTfcGUWo0Z6aI5bU41eqoolOVoFN4KRCy_SDP8aruXkSKwESRPXNbn9X6pX44$ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 8916 bytes Desc: image001.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.png Type: image/png Size: 9410 bytes Desc: image002.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image003.png Type: image/png Size: 16501 bytes Desc: image003.png URL: ------------------------------ Message: 8 Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2025 13:37:15 +0000 From: Kamran Rasul via athen-list To: 'Susan Kelmer' , 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' Subject: Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" On a different note, what is going with AccessText Network? They are not the same anymore; I cannot seem to rely on them as much anymore. I miss the old AccessText Network services ? Anyone having better luck using their services? [Johns Hopkins University logo] Kamran Rasul, MEd. Assistive Technology/Alternate Format Specialist (SDS) Phone: 410-516-1167 E-mail: krasul1@jhu.edu Garland Hall, 1st Floor, Office 135-G 3400 N. Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21218 Schedule a meeting with Kamran From: athen-list On Behalf Of Susan Kelmer via athen-list Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2025 9:29 AM To: ATHEN-list Mailing List Subject: Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual External Email - Use Caution I have to remediate everything I get from Bookshare. That is not ?born accessible? in my mind. While it IS our job to provide the format we need for our students, we should have access to at least reasonable quality files from an organization that receives millions of dollars in grants and other government funding. An organization that has convinced publishers that their files are universally usable by a wide swath of disability types. I hold their feet to the fire on this because someone has to. The lack of quality of Bookshare files is embarrassing. There are missing elements, as Mark pointed out, and it makes it much more difficult to get the correct information to the student. Missing elements in nearly every Bookshare book I?ve ever downloaded include: * NO understandable heading structure. Anything that is marked as a heading is an H2, and rarely are they correct. * Missing chapter titles (especially true if the title is in a graphic/visual format). * Missing page numbers. How does an academic cite material without page numbers? * Asterisks or other characters used instead of bulleted lists; numbered lists as text rather than formatted as numbered lists. * Missing graphics/images/visual elements. * Graphics/images/visual elements without alt text or any type of description. * Unformatted tables, if they are included at all. * Useless indexes, tables of contents, and other reference materials as they are links but do not include page number information. * Copyright information either buried at the end of the document, or missing completely. If I had $5 for every time I had to locate a hard copy of a book to be able to fully remediate a Bookshare file, I?d be a millionaire. I would rather have a scanned image PDF from ANY source, than a Bookshare file. I can remediate an image-based PDF into a fully accessible format a lot faster than I can ?fix? a poorly formatted Bookshare file (hours instead of days). Note the elements Mark pointed out as missing. This is a reference manual, it needs to be perfect, it needs to have ALL of its elements in place. How are we supposed to ?fix? that when they are missing from a ?born accessible? file that we are provided from Bookshare? We have to get a hard copy, go through page by page, and fix everything. We don?t have time for that. I will stop complaining about Bookshare when they start doing their job, or at the very least, start providing us with the raw image scans (not text scans) when we ask for it. That would save me thousands of hours each academic year. Susan Kelmer Alternate Format Production Program Manager Disability Services Health and Wellness Services T 303 735 4836 https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices__;!!LAh5qUgpm5Y!GQXLE09nLtavm_kJM_4aDZeFCnA-hoVCTy6-tlqTfcGUWo0Z6aI5bU41eqoolOVoFN4KRCy_SDP8aruXkSKwESRPXNbnBZWGVlw$ [cid:image005.png@01DBF17E.359CE690] Due to the nature of electronic communication, the security of this message cannot be guaranteed. If you?ve received this email in error please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. From: ELIZABETH KILLINGER > Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 8:29 PM To: Susan Kelmer >; Access Technology Higher Education Network > Subject: Re: [EXT] Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual [External email - use caution] I disagree... some books, some publishers are better than others for books on Bookshare... but some publishers directly upload to bookshare and that's where they send you if you direct request. No source (even publishers directly) will provide you perfect accessible copies. Part of our job is update them for the needs of our students. For a majority of students, though, bookshare is perfectly fine. Elizabeth Killinger Associate Coordinator FIT-ABLE | Office of Disability Services Fashion Institute of Technology David Dubinsky Student Center, A570 Phone: 212.217.4090 Website: fitnyc.edu/fitable On Wed, Jul 9, 2025, 6:04?PM Susan Kelmer via athen-list > wrote: I may sound like a broken record, but Bookshare files are of questionable quality in most circumstances, with a vast array of missing information and a lack of formatting that is normally expected as a standard in an accessible file. I have been saying this for literally years. I?ve had discussions with Bookshare personnel in different areas of the organization and it is always the same, ?we don?t really have anything to do with that, you will have to talk to someone else,? or some various versions of ?this is what the publisher sent us.? Any of us who work in this field know that there are much better quality materials from publishers directly than we are seeing in Bookshare versions, aka, it would be preferable if the publisher would just give us their PDF files. At least everything starts out in the right place there. And from there, I can create a fully accessible Word or HTML document with all elements included, formatted properly for all types of readers in just a few hours. Bookshare files are woefully inadequate for most academic uses. It?s fine if you just want to hear a popular novel or something, but for something like this, it needs a massive amount of remediation to become the document it should have been when it was first produced as ?born accessible? by Bookshare. Susan Kelmer Alternate Format Production Program Manager Disability Services Health and Wellness Services T 303 735 4836 https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices__;!!LAh5qUgpm5Y!GQXLE09nLtavm_kJM_4aDZeFCnA-hoVCTy6-tlqTfcGUWo0Z6aI5bU41eqoolOVoFN4KRCy_SDP8aruXkSKwESRPXNbnBZWGVlw$ [cid:image005.png@01DBF17E.359CE690] Due to the nature of electronic communication, the security of this message cannot be guaranteed. If you?ve received this email in error please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. From: athen-list > On Behalf Of Mark Weiler via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 3:04 PM To: kerscher@montana.com; Access Technology Higher Education Network >; 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' > Subject: Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual [External email - use caution] When I compare the version available through CELA, which I understand comes through Bookshare, and the EPUB from APA directly, I observe significant differences in quality. CELA has missing figures, no links, and lists that seem to use asterisks. I base my observation on a spot check with JAWS. I wonder if the one through CELA is actually different than the one through Bookshare? George, can you confirm that in the version from Bookshare, before section 5.2, there is a properly bulleted list that starts with ?When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges??. In the one through CELA, this is a clip of the speech history with JAWS. Notice how it incorrectly starts with an asterisk: * When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges (e.g., 15-18 years old, 65-80 years old) are more specific than broad categories (e.g., under 18 years old, over 65 years old; see Section 5.3). This image shows the corresponding section in the EPUB from CELA. [Described above.] This second image is from the same section in a EPUB directly from APA. Notice it uses a bullet and also has a hyperlink. [Described above] From: athen-list > On Behalf Of via athen-list Sent: July 9, 2025 3:38 PM To: 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' >; 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' > Subject: [EXTERNAL *] Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Hello, It is in Bookshare, ISBN 9781433832185 Best George From: athen-list > On Behalf Of Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho) via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 12:50 PM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu Subject: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Hello! Would anyone happen to have an accessible copy of the following book: * Title: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th Edition * Publisher: American Psychological Association * ISBN: 978-1433832178 Thank you! Joyce Joyce Ho Accessible Content and Media Coordinator Disability Resource Center | The University of Arizona * ? Notice: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. _______________________________________________ athen-list mailing list athen-list@mailman22.u.washington.edu https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://mailman22.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list__;!!LAh5qUgpm5Y!GQXLE09nLtavm_kJM_4aDZeFCnA-hoVCTy6-tlqTfcGUWo0Z6aI5bU41eqoolOVoFN4KRCy_SDP8aruXkSKwESRPXNbn9X6pX44$ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image004.png Type: image/png Size: 8704 bytes Desc: image004.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image005.png Type: image/png Size: 8916 bytes Desc: image005.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image006.png Type: image/png Size: 9410 bytes Desc: image006.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image007.png Type: image/png Size: 16501 bytes Desc: image007.png URL: ------------------------------ Message: 9 Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2025 09:43:44 -0400 From: ELIZABETH KILLINGER via athen-list To: Kamran Rasul , Access Technology Higher Education Network Subject: Re: [Athen] [EXT] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" They went offline and from my understanding their archive was not brought back when they went back online. They are also publisher run now... *Elizabeth Killinger* *Associate Coordinator* *FIT-ABLE | Office of Disability ServicesFashion Institute of Technology* David Dubinsky Student Center, A570 Phone: 212.217.4090 Website: fitnyc.edu/fitable On Thu, Jul 10, 2025, 9:38?AM Kamran Rasul via athen-list < athen-list@u.washington.edu> wrote: > On a different note, what is going with AccessText Network? They are not > the same anymore; I cannot seem to rely on them as much anymore. I miss the > old AccessText Network services ? > > > > Anyone having better luck using their services? > > > > [image: Johns Hopkins University logo] > > > > Kamran Rasul, MEd. > > Assistive Technology/Alternate Format Specialist (SDS) > > Phone: 410-516-1167 > > E-mail: krasul1@jhu.edu > > Garland Hall, 1st Floor, Office 135-G > > 3400 N. Charles Street > > > Baltimore, MD 21218 > > > Schedule a meeting with Kamran > > > > > *From:* athen-list *On > Behalf Of *Susan Kelmer via athen-list > *Sent:* Thursday, July 10, 2025 9:29 AM > *To:* ATHEN-list Mailing List > *Subject:* Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual > > > > > * External Email - Use Caution * > > > > > > I have to remediate everything I get from Bookshare. That is not ?born > accessible? in my mind. While it IS our job to provide the format we need > for our students, we should have access to at least reasonable quality > files from an organization that receives millions of dollars in grants and > other government funding. An organization that has convinced publishers > that their files are universally usable by a wide swath of disability > types. I hold their feet to the fire on this because someone has to. The > lack of quality of Bookshare files is embarrassing. > > > > There are missing elements, as Mark pointed out, and it makes it much more > difficult to get the correct information to the student. Missing elements > in nearly every Bookshare book I?ve ever downloaded include: > > > > - NO understandable heading structure. Anything that is marked as a > heading is an H2, and rarely are they correct. > - Missing chapter titles (especially true if the title is in a > graphic/visual format). > - Missing page numbers. How does an academic cite material without > page numbers? > - Asterisks or other characters used instead of bulleted lists; > numbered lists as text rather than formatted as numbered lists. > - Missing graphics/images/visual elements. > - Graphics/images/visual elements without alt text or any type of > description. > - Unformatted tables, if they are included at all. > - Useless indexes, tables of contents, and other reference materials > as they are links but do not include page number information. > - Copyright information either buried at the end of the document, or > missing completely. > > > > If I had $5 for every time I had to locate a hard copy of a book to be > able to fully remediate a Bookshare file, I?d be a millionaire. I would > rather have a scanned image PDF from ANY source, than a Bookshare file. I > can remediate an image-based PDF into a fully accessible format a lot > faster than I can ?fix? a poorly formatted Bookshare file (hours instead of > days). > > > > Note the elements Mark pointed out as missing. This is a reference > manual, it needs to be perfect, it needs to have ALL of its elements in > place. How are we supposed to ?fix? that when they are missing from a > ?born accessible? file that we are provided from Bookshare? We have to get > a hard copy, go through page by page, and fix everything. We don?t have > time for that. I will stop complaining about Bookshare when they start > doing their job, or at the very least, start providing us with the raw > image scans (not text scans) when we ask for it. That would save me > thousands of hours each academic year. > > > > *Susan Kelmer * > > Alternate Format Production Program Manager > > Disability Services > > Health and Wellness Services > > *T* 303 735 4836 > > *https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices__;!!LAh5qUgpm5Y!GQXLE09nLtavm_kJM_4aDZeFCnA-hoVCTy6-tlqTfcGUWo0Z6aI5bU41eqoolOVoFN4KRCy_SDP8aruXkSKwESRPXNbnBZWGVlw$ > * > > > > > > > > *Due to the nature of electronic communication, the security of this > message cannot be guaranteed. If you?ve received this email in error please > notify the sender immediately and delete this message.* > > > > *From:* ELIZABETH KILLINGER > *Sent:* Wednesday, July 9, 2025 8:29 PM > *To:* Susan Kelmer ; Access Technology Higher > Education Network > *Subject:* Re: [EXT] Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA > Publication Manual > > > > [External email - use caution] > > > > I disagree... some books, some publishers are better than others for books > on Bookshare... but some publishers directly upload to bookshare and that's > where they send you if you direct request. No source (even publishers > directly) will provide you perfect accessible copies. Part of our job is > update them for the needs of our students. For a majority of students, > though, bookshare is perfectly fine. > > > > *Elizabeth Killinger* > *Associate Coordinator* > > *FIT-ABLE | Office of Disability Services Fashion Institute of Technology* > David Dubinsky Student Center, A570 > > Phone: 212.217.4090 > Website: fitnyc.edu/fitable > > > > On Wed, Jul 9, 2025, 6:04?PM Susan Kelmer via athen-list < > athen-list@u.washington.edu> wrote: > > I may sound like a broken record, but Bookshare files are of questionable > quality in most circumstances, with a vast array of missing information and > a lack of formatting that is normally expected as a standard in an > accessible file. > > > > I have been saying this for literally years. I?ve had discussions with > Bookshare personnel in different areas of the organization and it is always > the same, ?we don?t really have anything to do with that, you will have to > talk to someone else,? or some various versions of ?this is what the > publisher sent us.? Any of us who work in this field know that there are > much better quality materials from publishers directly than we are seeing > in Bookshare versions, aka, it would be preferable if the publisher would > just give us their PDF files. At least everything starts out in the right > place there. And from there, I can create a fully accessible Word or HTML > document with all elements included, formatted properly for all types of > readers in just a few hours. > > > > Bookshare files are woefully inadequate for most academic uses. It?s fine > if you just want to hear a popular novel or something, but for something > like this, it needs a massive amount of remediation to become the document > it should have been when it was first produced as ?born accessible? by > Bookshare. > > > > *Susan Kelmer * > > Alternate Format Production Program Manager > > Disability Services > > Health and Wellness Services > > *T* 303 735 4836 > > *https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices__;!!LAh5qUgpm5Y!GQXLE09nLtavm_kJM_4aDZeFCnA-hoVCTy6-tlqTfcGUWo0Z6aI5bU41eqoolOVoFN4KRCy_SDP8aruXkSKwESRPXNbnBZWGVlw$ > * > > > > > > > > *Due to the nature of electronic communication, the security of this > message cannot be guaranteed. If you?ve received this email in error please > notify the sender immediately and delete this message.* > > > > *From:* athen-list *On > Behalf Of *Mark Weiler via athen-list > *Sent:* Wednesday, July 9, 2025 3:04 PM > *To:* kerscher@montana.com; Access Technology Higher Education Network < > athen-list@u.washington.edu>; 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' < > joyceho@arizona.edu> > *Subject:* Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual > > > > [External email - use caution] > > > > When I compare the version available through CELA, which I understand > comes through Bookshare, and the EPUB from APA directly, I observe > significant differences in quality. CELA has missing figures, no links, > and lists that seem to use asterisks. I base my observation on a spot > check with JAWS. > > > > I wonder if the one through CELA is actually different than the one > through Bookshare? George, can you confirm that in the version from > Bookshare, before section 5.2, there is a properly bulleted list that > starts with ?When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges??. In the > one through CELA, this is a clip of the speech history with JAWS. Notice > how it incorrectly starts with an asterisk: > > > > * When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges (e.g., 15-18 years old, > 65-80 years old) are more specific than broad categories (e.g., under 18 > years > > old, over 65 years old; see Section 5.3). > > > > This image shows the corresponding section in the EPUB from CELA. > > [image: Described above.] > > > > This second image is from the same section in a EPUB directly from APA. > Notice it uses a bullet and also has a hyperlink. > > > > [image: Described above] > > > > *From:* athen-list *On > Behalf Of *via athen-list > *Sent:* July 9, 2025 3:38 PM > *To:* 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' ; 'Access Technology > Higher Education Network' > *Subject:* [EXTERNAL *] Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual > > > > Hello, It is in Bookshare, ISBN 9781433832185 > > Best > > George > > > > > > *From:* athen-list *On > Behalf Of *Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho) via athen-list > *Sent:* Wednesday, July 9, 2025 12:50 PM > *To:* athen-list@u.washington.edu > *Subject:* [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual > > > > Hello! > > > > Would anyone happen to have an accessible copy of the following book: > > > > - Title: *Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association*, > 7th Edition > - Publisher: American Psychological Association > - ISBN: 978-1433832178 > > > > Thank you! > > Joyce > > > > *Joyce Ho* > > Accessible Content and Media Coordinator > > Disability Resource Center | The University of Arizona > > > > > > * ? Notice: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do > not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and > know the content is safe. > > _______________________________________________ > athen-list mailing list > athen-list@mailman22.u.washington.edu > https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://mailman22.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list__;!!LAh5qUgpm5Y!GQXLE09nLtavm_kJM_4aDZeFCnA-hoVCTy6-tlqTfcGUWo0Z6aI5bU41eqoolOVoFN4KRCy_SDP8aruXkSKwESRPXNbn9X6pX44$ > > _______________________________________________ > athen-list mailing list > athen-list@mailman22.u.washington.edu > https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://mailman22.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list__;!!LAh5qUgpm5Y!GQXLE09nLtavm_kJM_4aDZeFCnA-hoVCTy6-tlqTfcGUWo0Z6aI5bU41eqoolOVoFN4KRCy_SDP8aruXkSKwESRPXNbn9X6pX44$ > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: image005.png Type: image/png Size: 8916 bytes Desc: not available URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image006.png Type: image/png Size: 9410 bytes Desc: not available URL: ------------------------------ Message: 10 Date: Thu, 10 Jul 2025 13:46:36 +0000 From: Susan Kelmer via athen-list To: Kamran Rasul , ATHEN-list Mailing List Subject: Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Message-ID: Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8" The ATN that was run by Georgia Tech was shut down April 1 2024. The new iteration is up and live but you need to sign up for a new account. It is not yet the resource it was, but it is there, and I get books through them. https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://accesstext.org/home__;!!LAh5qUgpm5Y!GQXLE09nLtavm_kJM_4aDZeFCnA-hoVCTy6-tlqTfcGUWo0Z6aI5bU41eqoolOVoFN4KRCy_SDP8aruXkSKwESRPXNbnZXe9ORU$ Susan Kelmer Alternate Format Production Program Manager Disability Services Health and Wellness Services T 303 735 4836 https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices__;!!LAh5qUgpm5Y!GQXLE09nLtavm_kJM_4aDZeFCnA-hoVCTy6-tlqTfcGUWo0Z6aI5bU41eqoolOVoFN4KRCy_SDP8aruXkSKwESRPXNbnBZWGVlw$ [cid:image001.png@01DBF16E.C259C040] Due to the nature of electronic communication, the security of this message cannot be guaranteed. If you?ve received this email in error please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. From: Kamran Rasul Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2025 7:37 AM To: Susan Kelmer ; 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' Subject: RE: Accessible APA Publication Manual [External email - use caution] On a different note, what is going with AccessText Network? They are not the same anymore; I cannot seem to rely on them as much anymore. I miss the old AccessText Network services ? Anyone having better luck using their services? [Johns Hopkins University logo] Kamran Rasul, MEd. Assistive Technology/Alternate Format Specialist (SDS) Phone: 410-516-1167 E-mail: krasul1@jhu.edu Garland Hall, 1st Floor, Office 135-G 3400 N. Charles Street Baltimore, MD 21218 Schedule a meeting with Kamran From: athen-list > On Behalf Of Susan Kelmer via athen-list Sent: Thursday, July 10, 2025 9:29 AM To: ATHEN-list Mailing List > Subject: Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual External Email - Use Caution I have to remediate everything I get from Bookshare. That is not ?born accessible? in my mind. While it IS our job to provide the format we need for our students, we should have access to at least reasonable quality files from an organization that receives millions of dollars in grants and other government funding. An organization that has convinced publishers that their files are universally usable by a wide swath of disability types. I hold their feet to the fire on this because someone has to. The lack of quality of Bookshare files is embarrassing. There are missing elements, as Mark pointed out, and it makes it much more difficult to get the correct information to the student. Missing elements in nearly every Bookshare book I?ve ever downloaded include: * NO understandable heading structure. Anything that is marked as a heading is an H2, and rarely are they correct. * Missing chapter titles (especially true if the title is in a graphic/visual format). * Missing page numbers. How does an academic cite material without page numbers? * Asterisks or other characters used instead of bulleted lists; numbered lists as text rather than formatted as numbered lists. * Missing graphics/images/visual elements. * Graphics/images/visual elements without alt text or any type of description. * Unformatted tables, if they are included at all. * Useless indexes, tables of contents, and other reference materials as they are links but do not include page number information. * Copyright information either buried at the end of the document, or missing completely. If I had $5 for every time I had to locate a hard copy of a book to be able to fully remediate a Bookshare file, I?d be a millionaire. I would rather have a scanned image PDF from ANY source, than a Bookshare file. I can remediate an image-based PDF into a fully accessible format a lot faster than I can ?fix? a poorly formatted Bookshare file (hours instead of days). Note the elements Mark pointed out as missing. This is a reference manual, it needs to be perfect, it needs to have ALL of its elements in place. How are we supposed to ?fix? that when they are missing from a ?born accessible? file that we are provided from Bookshare? We have to get a hard copy, go through page by page, and fix everything. We don?t have time for that. I will stop complaining about Bookshare when they start doing their job, or at the very least, start providing us with the raw image scans (not text scans) when we ask for it. That would save me thousands of hours each academic year. Susan Kelmer Alternate Format Production Program Manager Disability Services Health and Wellness Services T 303 735 4836 https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices__;!!LAh5qUgpm5Y!GQXLE09nLtavm_kJM_4aDZeFCnA-hoVCTy6-tlqTfcGUWo0Z6aI5bU41eqoolOVoFN4KRCy_SDP8aruXkSKwESRPXNbnBZWGVlw$ [cid:image001.png@01DBF16E.C259C040] Due to the nature of electronic communication, the security of this message cannot be guaranteed. If you?ve received this email in error please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. From: ELIZABETH KILLINGER > Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 8:29 PM To: Susan Kelmer >; Access Technology Higher Education Network > Subject: Re: [EXT] Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual [External email - use caution] I disagree... some books, some publishers are better than others for books on Bookshare... but some publishers directly upload to bookshare and that's where they send you if you direct request. No source (even publishers directly) will provide you perfect accessible copies. Part of our job is update them for the needs of our students. For a majority of students, though, bookshare is perfectly fine. Elizabeth Killinger Associate Coordinator FIT-ABLE | Office of Disability Services Fashion Institute of Technology David Dubinsky Student Center, A570 Phone: 212.217.4090 Website: fitnyc.edu/fitable On Wed, Jul 9, 2025, 6:04?PM Susan Kelmer via athen-list > wrote: I may sound like a broken record, but Bookshare files are of questionable quality in most circumstances, with a vast array of missing information and a lack of formatting that is normally expected as a standard in an accessible file. I have been saying this for literally years. I?ve had discussions with Bookshare personnel in different areas of the organization and it is always the same, ?we don?t really have anything to do with that, you will have to talk to someone else,? or some various versions of ?this is what the publisher sent us.? Any of us who work in this field know that there are much better quality materials from publishers directly than we are seeing in Bookshare versions, aka, it would be preferable if the publisher would just give us their PDF files. At least everything starts out in the right place there. And from there, I can create a fully accessible Word or HTML document with all elements included, formatted properly for all types of readers in just a few hours. Bookshare files are woefully inadequate for most academic uses. It?s fine if you just want to hear a popular novel or something, but for something like this, it needs a massive amount of remediation to become the document it should have been when it was first produced as ?born accessible? by Bookshare. Susan Kelmer Alternate Format Production Program Manager Disability Services Health and Wellness Services T 303 735 4836 https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices__;!!LAh5qUgpm5Y!GQXLE09nLtavm_kJM_4aDZeFCnA-hoVCTy6-tlqTfcGUWo0Z6aI5bU41eqoolOVoFN4KRCy_SDP8aruXkSKwESRPXNbnBZWGVlw$ [cid:image001.png@01DBF16E.C259C040] Due to the nature of electronic communication, the security of this message cannot be guaranteed. If you?ve received this email in error please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. From: athen-list > On Behalf Of Mark Weiler via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 3:04 PM To: kerscher@montana.com; Access Technology Higher Education Network >; 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' > Subject: Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual [External email - use caution] When I compare the version available through CELA, which I understand comes through Bookshare, and the EPUB from APA directly, I observe significant differences in quality. CELA has missing figures, no links, and lists that seem to use asterisks. I base my observation on a spot check with JAWS. I wonder if the one through CELA is actually different than the one through Bookshare? George, can you confirm that in the version from Bookshare, before section 5.2, there is a properly bulleted list that starts with ?When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges??. In the one through CELA, this is a clip of the speech history with JAWS. Notice how it incorrectly starts with an asterisk: * When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges (e.g., 15-18 years old, 65-80 years old) are more specific than broad categories (e.g., under 18 years old, over 65 years old; see Section 5.3). This image shows the corresponding section in the EPUB from CELA. [Described above.] This second image is from the same section in a EPUB directly from APA. Notice it uses a bullet and also has a hyperlink. [Described above] From: athen-list > On Behalf Of via athen-list Sent: July 9, 2025 3:38 PM To: 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' >; 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' > Subject: [EXTERNAL *] Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Hello, It is in Bookshare, ISBN 9781433832185 Best George From: athen-list > On Behalf Of Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho) via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 12:50 PM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu Subject: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Hello! Would anyone happen to have an accessible copy of the following book: * Title: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th Edition * Publisher: American Psychological Association * ISBN: 978-1433832178 Thank you! Joyce Joyce Ho Accessible Content and Media Coordinator Disability Resource Center | The University of Arizona * ? Notice: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. _______________________________________________ athen-list mailing list athen-list@mailman22.u.washington.edu https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://mailman22.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list__;!!LAh5qUgpm5Y!GQXLE09nLtavm_kJM_4aDZeFCnA-hoVCTy6-tlqTfcGUWo0Z6aI5bU41eqoolOVoFN4KRCy_SDP8aruXkSKwESRPXNbn9X6pX44$ -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... 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Name: image004.png Type: image/png Size: 16501 bytes Desc: image004.png URL: ------------------------------ Subject: Digest Footer _______________________________________________ athen-list mailing list athen-list@mailman22.u.washington.edu https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://mailman22.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list__;!!LAh5qUgpm5Y!GQXLE09nLtavm_kJM_4aDZeFCnA-hoVCTy6-tlqTfcGUWo0Z6aI5bU41eqoolOVoFN4KRCy_SDP8aruXkSKwESRPXNbn9X6pX44$ ------------------------------ End of athen-list Digest, Vol 234, Issue 4 ****************************************** -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Fri Jul 11 05:12:01 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Mark Weiler via athen-list) Date: Fri Jul 11 05:12:42 2025 Subject: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Accessible APA Publication Manual In-Reply-To: <011401dbf1dd$cea248d0$6be6da70$@montana.com> References: <01a001dbf108$fffdd820$fff98860$@montana.com> <011401dbf1dd$cea248d0$6be6da70$@montana.com> Message-ID: Thanks George. I?ll reach out to CELA to let them know there is a better version. From: kerscher@montana.com Sent: July 10, 2025 5:01 PM To: Mark Weiler ; 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' ; 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' Subject: RE: [EXTERNAL *] Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Dear Mark and all, I think we at Bookshare have gotten to the bottom of this. The correct link to the publisher quality on Bookshare is: https://www.bookshare.org/browse/book/6278083 This title is provided by the publisher. I have pasted Below the portion of the title around 5.2 as Mark asked for. This shows bullets and list items. Several years ago, Bookshare received a request for this title and at that time it was not available from the publisher. We acted quickly and chopped and scanned the title and put it in the collection. Normally when a publisher version comes in, we remove the scanned version. The chop and scan version is of course inferior to the one directly from the publisher. We appreciate DSO staff that fix up these titles before providing to the students. There were some ISBN and metadata differences between the two titles, and the scanned version was not taken down. It is coming down today! Sometimes it is hard to detect duplicates and remove older versions, and we are trying to improve that process. It seems that CELA has the scanned version, and they may have the publisher quality version. Below my name is the portion of the text before and after section 5.2. Best George ? When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges (e.g., 15?18 years old, 65?80 years old) are more specific than broad categories (e.g., under 18 years old, over 65 years old; see Section 5.3 ). Also include the age mean and median in addition to the range of ages to increase the specificity of the reporting. ? When writing about disability, names of conditions (e.g., Alzheimer?s disease) are more specific than categories of conditions (e.g., types of dementia) or general references such as ?people with disabilities? (see Section 5.4 ). ? When writing about gender identity, descriptors with modifiers (e.g., cisgender women, transgender women) are more specific than descriptors without modifiers (e.g., women) or general nongendered terms (e.g., people, individuals; see Section 5.5 for how to differentiate between gender and sex). ? When writing about people who took part in research, terms that indicate the context of the research (e.g., patients, participants, clients) are more specific than general terms (e.g., people, children, women; see Section 5.6 ). ? When writing about racial or ethnic groups, the nation or region of origin (e.g., Chinese Americans, Mexican Americans) is more specific than a generalized origin (e.g., Asian Americans, Latin Americans; see Section 5.7 ). ? When writing about sexual orientation, the names of people?s orientations (e.g., lesbians, gay men, bisexual people, straight people) are more specific than broad group labels (e.g., gay; see Section 5.8 ). ? When writing about socioeconomic status, income ranges or specific designations (e.g., below the federal poverty threshold for a family of four) are more specific than general labels (e.g., low income; see Section 5.9 ). 5.2 Be Sensitive to Labels Respect the language people use to describe themselves; that is, call people what they call themselves. Accept that language changes with time and that individuals within groups sometimes disagree about the designations they use. Make an effort to determine what is appropriate for your study or paper, particularly when these designations are debated within groups. You may need to ask From: Mark Weiler > Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 3:04 PM To: kerscher@montana.com; Access Technology Higher Education Network >; 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' > Subject: RE: [EXTERNAL *] Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual When I compare the version available through CELA, which I understand comes through Bookshare, and the EPUB from APA directly, I observe significant differences in quality. CELA has missing figures, no links, and lists that seem to use asterisks. I base my observation on a spot check with JAWS. I wonder if the one through CELA is actually different than the one through Bookshare? George, can you confirm that in the version from Bookshare, before section 5.2, there is a properly bulleted list that starts with ?When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges??. In the one through CELA, this is a clip of the speech history with JAWS. Notice how it incorrectly starts with an asterisk: * When writing about age, exact ages or age ranges (e.g., 15-18 years old, 65-80 years old) are more specific than broad categories (e.g., under 18 years old, over 65 years old; see Section 5.3). This image shows the corresponding section in the EPUB from CELA. [Described above.] This second image is from the same section in a EPUB directly from APA. Notice it uses a bullet and also has a hyperlink. [Described above] From: athen-list > On Behalf Of via athen-list Sent: July 9, 2025 3:38 PM To: 'Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho)' >; 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' > Subject: [EXTERNAL *] Re: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Hello, It is in Bookshare, ISBN 9781433832185 Best George From: athen-list > On Behalf Of Ho, Joyce Y - (joyceho) via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 9, 2025 12:50 PM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu Subject: [Athen] Accessible APA Publication Manual Hello! Would anyone happen to have an accessible copy of the following book: * Title: Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 7th Edition * Publisher: American Psychological Association * ISBN: 978-1433832178 Thank you! Joyce Joyce Ho Accessible Content and Media Coordinator Disability Resource Center | The University of Arizona * ? Notice: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 9410 bytes Desc: image001.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.png Type: image/png Size: 16501 bytes Desc: image002.png URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Wed Jul 16 09:31:10 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Deborah Armstrong via athen-list) Date: Wed Jul 16 09:31:17 2025 Subject: [Athen] Accessibility of Modern Campus CMS Message-ID: Our college uses this content management system for our website. Here is one university's explanation of this software: About Omni CMS | Modern Campus CMS Support Site Just in case you are wondering what I'm talking about. I am blind and know HTML. We have a ton of people working on our website, but currently parts of the site that our print-impaired students are expected to reference are not that accessible. I've been trying to explain this to the various folks who have made changes, but they just click on things and don't know anything about HTML or web accessibility at all. For example, they keep using headings when they want to make text larger, and they are using clickable elements rather than links. And if you click on one of them, more text appears on the page, sort of like menus that expand and collapse. But, there's no indication to the screen reader user that more text has appeared. Plus they embed videos that play automatically which is extremely annoying. Meanwhile, I kind of want to just go in there and fix things, but if the CMS itself is not accessible, I probably cannot do that. If anyone knows of a screen reader user working with this CMS, I'd love to be in contact with them. I currently have not requested access to the CMS, but I'm sure they'd be happy to give me access. --Debee -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Wed Jul 23 11:37:57 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Wallace, Sagan via athen-list) Date: Wed Jul 23 11:38:02 2025 Subject: [Athen] Review a document? Message-ID: Hello all, This is a big ask, so I'm sending this out to a few lists. Would anyone who is an experienced screen reader be willing to review one of the documents linked below, and give feedback on how effectively they were remediated? If you were a visually-impaired researcher using our archives and downloaded this material, would you be satisfied? Frustrated? Background: I am working on remediating our library archives for screen reader accessibility. These are theses and dissertations, most of which are STEM-heavy. All of our documents are PDF scans and we are converting them to HTML or EPUB. I am finding it's hard to make some remediation decisions because we are remediating to have these available for any researcher who encounters them, rather than being able to tailor them to an individual reader's needs. I'm confident in our ability to do a basic correction, but I want these documents to be actually pleasant for our future reader to use. Hopefully I'll be able to conduct an actual UX test with our patrons, but until then I'd love some general feedback. Each folder has the original PDF, and our output file: * Example of a math-heavy PDF converted to HTML * Math was made using the Word equation editor. I'm particularly curious how equation 104 on page 77 is, since that was made using MathPix. * Document with lots of footnotes, converted to EPUB * In particular, how is the navigation back and forth between the end notes and the main text? * PDF of a poetry book, converted to EPUB * I haven't been able to figure out how to maintain the formatting and page breaks, but I don't think keeping it as PDF is the answer. * Scan of a typewritten document from 1874, converted to EPUB * In this one I'm trying to balance maintaining the original formatting, while making the difficult-to-read text audible. We have a lot of documents written in cursive that will need to be corrected. Thank you for any support, and I hope you have a wonderful week! Best, Sagan Wallace they/them Library Accessibility Manager Oregon State University Libraries & Press -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Wed Jul 23 12:29:10 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Hayman, Douglass via athen-list) Date: Wed Jul 23 12:29:16 2025 Subject: [Athen] [EXTERNAL] - Review a document? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: The last one, scan of a typewritten document is untagged and not able to be accessed with NVDA using Acrobat Reader. Obviously not remediated in the accessibility sense of the word. Did that get jobbed out to someone and that is what you got back? Doug Hayman IT Accessibility Coordinator Information Technology Olympic College dhayman@olympic.edu (360) 475-7632 From: athen-list On Behalf Of Wallace, Sagan via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 11:38 AM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu Subject: [EXTERNAL] - [Athen] Review a document? CAUTION: This email came from a non-OC system or external source. Beware of phishing and social engineering! Hello all, This is a big ask, so I'm sending this out to a few lists. Would anyone who is an experienced screen reader be willing to review one of the documents linked below, and give feedback on how effectively they were remediated? If you were a visually-impaired researcher using our archives and downloaded this material, would you be satisfied? Frustrated? Background: I am working on remediating our library archives for screen reader accessibility. These are theses and dissertations, most of which are STEM-heavy. All of our documents are PDF scans and we are converting them to HTML or EPUB. I am finding it's hard to make some remediation decisions because we are remediating to have these available for any researcher who encounters them, rather than being able to tailor them to an individual reader's needs. I'm confident in our ability to do a basic correction, but I want these documents to be actually pleasant for our future reader to use. Hopefully I'll be able to conduct an actual UX test with our patrons, but until then I'd love some general feedback. Each folder has the original PDF, and our output file: * Example of a math-heavy PDF converted to HTML * Math was made using the Word equation editor. I'm particularly curious how equation 104 on page 77 is, since that was made using MathPix. * Document with lots of footnotes, converted to EPUB * In particular, how is the navigation back and forth between the end notes and the main text? * PDF of a poetry book, converted to EPUB * I haven't been able to figure out how to maintain the formatting and page breaks, but I don't think keeping it as PDF is the answer. * Scan of a typewritten document from 1874, converted to EPUB * In this one I'm trying to balance maintaining the original formatting, while making the difficult-to-read text audible. We have a lot of documents written in cursive that will need to be corrected. Thank you for any support, and I hope you have a wonderful week! Best, Sagan Wallace they/them Library Accessibility Manager Oregon State University Libraries & Press -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Wed Jul 23 12:45:56 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Mark Weiler via athen-list) Date: Wed Jul 23 12:46:34 2025 Subject: [Athen] Quality assurance in alternate format book repositories Message-ID: In an earlier July thread to the group, Susan Kelmer raised an important topic about quality of books in alternate format repositories. Susan wrote: "I may sound like a broken record, but Bookshare files are of questionable quality in most circumstances, with a vast array of missing information and a lack of formatting that is normally expected as a standard in an accessible file." As a Web & UX librarian, book reading experiences are very important to overall library experiences. Recently I was a co-chair of an assessment working group looking at the Accessible Content eRepository (ACE) in the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL). (disclosure: I work at a library within the OCUL consortium). The report stated: "Although eBooks and journal articles are now expected to meet accessibility standards3, ACE books do not" and "ACE does not offer quality assurance for remediation." Since then, I've heard OCUL has adopted recommendations from the report. I note they are working on a project to support remediation with ACE. Any comments or thoughts about quality assurance programs at alternate book format repositories out there? Mark Weiler, PhD (he & him) JAWS certified and Web Accessibility Specialist Web & User Experience Librarian Wilfrid Laurier University Waterloo, Ontario 548-889-5056 Notices Upcoming Laurier Library workshops & events -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Wed Jul 23 12:59:28 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Rosenberger, Luke (jdu2zu) via athen-list) Date: Wed Jul 23 12:59:34 2025 Subject: [Athen] [EXTERNAL] - Review a document? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Doug, if I understood Sagan correctly, the remediated document in that folder is the EPUB. The PDF is the unremediated document. I'm not highly experienced with screenreaders, but I was able to open that EPUB in an EPUB reader and the contents were readable for me with NVDA. What I can't speak to is the usability of the EPUB formatting, chapters, etc, for an experienced screenreader user. Thanks, Luke Rosenberger he/him/his Assistant Director for Digital Accessibility Initiatives Center for Teaching Excellence University of Virginia Book time to meet with me ________________________________ From: athen-list on behalf of Hayman, Douglass via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 3:29 PM To: Wallace, Sagan ; Access Technology Higher Education Network Subject: Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL] - Review a document? The last one, scan of a typewritten document is untagged and not able to be accessed with NVDA using Acrobat Reader. Obviously not remediated in the accessibility sense of the word. Did that get jobbed out to someone and that is what you got back? Doug Hayman IT Accessibility Coordinator Information Technology Olympic College dhayman@olympic.edu (360) 475-7632 From: athen-list On Behalf Of Wallace, Sagan via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 11:38 AM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu Subject: [EXTERNAL] - [Athen] Review a document? CAUTION: This email came from a non-OC system or external source. Beware of phishing and social engineering! Hello all, This is a big ask, so I'm sending this out to a few lists. Would anyone who is an experienced screen reader be willing to review one of the documents linked below, and give feedback on how effectively they were remediated? If you were a visually-impaired researcher using our archives and downloaded this material, would you be satisfied? Frustrated? Background: I am working on remediating our library archives for screen reader accessibility. These are theses and dissertations, most of which are STEM-heavy. All of our documents are PDF scans and we are converting them to HTML or EPUB. I am finding it's hard to make some remediation decisions because we are remediating to have these available for any researcher who encounters them, rather than being able to tailor them to an individual reader's needs. I'm confident in our ability to do a basic correction, but I want these documents to be actually pleasant for our future reader to use. Hopefully I'll be able to conduct an actual UX test with our patrons, but until then I'd love some general feedback. Each folder has the original PDF, and our output file: * Example of a math-heavy PDF converted to HTML * Math was made using the Word equation editor. I'm particularly curious how equation 104 on page 77 is, since that was made using MathPix. * Document with lots of footnotes, converted to EPUB * In particular, how is the navigation back and forth between the end notes and the main text? * PDF of a poetry book, converted to EPUB * I haven't been able to figure out how to maintain the formatting and page breaks, but I don't think keeping it as PDF is the answer. * Scan of a typewritten document from 1874, converted to EPUB * In this one I'm trying to balance maintaining the original formatting, while making the difficult-to-read text audible. We have a lot of documents written in cursive that will need to be corrected. Thank you for any support, and I hope you have a wonderful week! Best, Sagan Wallace they/them Library Accessibility Manager Oregon State University Libraries & Press -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Wed Jul 23 14:24:46 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Joshua Hori via athen-list) Date: Wed Jul 23 14:24:52 2025 Subject: [Athen] Review a document? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hello Sagan, I would suggest using Mathjax and LaTeX instead of the MicroSoft Equation Editor. I?ve found an equation that isn?t reading properly. On page 3, second paragraph, there is an XN which isn?t reading aloud properly, but the next equation Xi does read correctly. When using mathjax for the first time, you will need to edit the equation configuration to make the math viewable. Right click (Shift+F10) on the equation, choose math renderer, and switch from SVG (inaccessible) to HTML+CSS (accessible). You will need to add a Mathjax redirect in the HTML headers, but then you could type out all equations in LaTeX (using Mathpix), and wrap the LaTeX with ?$$$$? for display math and ?/$$/? for inline math. Have you tried mathkicker.ai for math conversions? It?s really good. The ePub with the footnotes at the end of the textbook was nice and didn?t interfere with reading. The typed document had lots of acronyms, but was understandable. Only tested with VoiceOver. Best, Joshua Hori Accessible Technology Coordinator Information Educational Technology Academic Technology Services 50 Hutchison Dr. Davis, CA 95616 530-752-2439 Schedule a meeting via Calendly From: athen-list on behalf of Wallace, Sagan via athen-list Date: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 at 11:39?AM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu Subject: [Athen] Review a document? Hello all, This is a big ask, so I'm sending this out to a few lists. Would anyone who is an experienced screen reader be willing to review one of the documents linked below, and give feedback on how effectively they were remediated? If you were a visually-impaired researcher using our archives and downloaded this material, would you be satisfied? Frustrated? Background: I am working on remediating our library archives for screen reader accessibility. These are theses and dissertations, most of which are STEM-heavy. All of our documents are PDF scans and we are converting them to HTML or EPUB. I am finding it's hard to make some remediation decisions because we are remediating to have these available for any researcher who encounters them, rather than being able to tailor them to an individual reader's needs. I'm confident in our ability to do a basic correction, but I want these documents to be actually pleasant for our future reader to use. Hopefully I'll be able to conduct an actual UX test with our patrons, but until then I'd love some general feedback. Each folder has the original PDF, and our output file: * Example of a math-heavy PDF converted to HTML * Math was made using the Word equation editor. I'm particularly curious how equation 104 on page 77 is, since that was made using MathPix. * Document with lots of footnotes, converted to EPUB * In particular, how is the navigation back and forth between the end notes and the main text? * PDF of a poetry book, converted to EPUB * I haven't been able to figure out how to maintain the formatting and page breaks, but I don't think keeping it as PDF is the answer. * Scan of a typewritten document from 1874, converted to EPUB * In this one I'm trying to balance maintaining the original formatting, while making the difficult-to-read text audible. We have a lot of documents written in cursive that will need to be corrected. Thank you for any support, and I hope you have a wonderful week! Best, Sagan Wallace they/them Library Accessibility Manager Oregon State University Libraries & Press -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Wed Jul 23 14:40:54 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (via athen-list) Date: Wed Jul 23 14:41:02 2025 Subject: [Athen] Quality assurance in alternate format book repositories In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <010801dbfc1a$787870f0$696952d0$@montana.com> Hello, Because a repository receives files, I suggest that: * EPUB files should pass epubcheck or be rejected. This is what most distributors do, like Apple, Google, etc. * I suggest using ACE By DAISY upon ingestion. This will provide an accessibility report. It will also extract the accessibility metadata. * The library should display that accessibility metadata on their site. That accessibility metadata is also available through ONIX records. * If it fails ACE and/or does not have accessibility metadata, IMO that information should be provided and the publisher should be encouraged to resolve those issues. Those recommendations have been made to the folks at Bookshare and it is in their plans. I do not have a timeframe for that implementation. Best George From: athen-list On Behalf Of Mark Weiler via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 1:46 PM To: 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' Subject: [Athen] Quality assurance in alternate format book repositories In an earlier July thread to the group, Susan Kelmer raised an important topic about quality of books in alternate format repositories. Susan wrote: "I may sound like a broken record, but Bookshare files are of questionable quality in most circumstances, with a vast array of missing information and a lack of formatting that is normally expected as a standard in an accessible file." As a Web & UX librarian, book reading experiences are very important to overall library experiences. Recently I was a co-chair of an assessment working group looking at the Accessible Content eRepository (ACE) in the Ontario Council of University Libraries (OCUL). (disclosure: I work at a library within the OCUL consortium). The report stated: "Although eBooks and journal articles are now expected to meet accessibility standards3, ACE books do not" and "ACE does not offer quality assurance for remediation." Since then, I've heard OCUL has adopted recommendations from the report. I note they are working on a project to support remediation with ACE. Any comments or thoughts about quality assurance programs at alternate book format repositories out there? Mark Weiler, PhD (he & him) JAWS certified and Web Accessibility Specialist Web & User Experience Librarian Wilfrid Laurier University Waterloo, Ontario 548-889-5056 Notices Upcoming Laurier Library workshops & events -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Wed Jul 23 14:51:09 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (via athen-list) Date: Wed Jul 23 14:51:15 2025 Subject: [Athen] Review a document? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <012401dbfc1b$e6c1aad0$b4450070$@montana.com> Hello, Voiceover has known issues with math. I would suggest testing with NVDA or Jaws with MathCAT. You may find you do not then need MathJax. Best George From: athen-list On Behalf Of Joshua Hori via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 3:25 PM To: Wallace, Sagan ; Access Technology Higher Education Network Subject: Re: [Athen] Review a document? Hello Sagan, I would suggest using Mathjax and LaTeX instead of the MicroSoft Equation Editor. I?ve found an equation that isn?t reading properly. On page 3, second paragraph, there is an XN which isn?t reading aloud properly, but the next equation Xi does read correctly. When using mathjax for the first time, you will need to edit the equation configuration to make the math viewable. Right click (Shift+F10) on the equation, choose math renderer, and switch from SVG (inaccessible) to HTML+CSS (accessible). You will need to add a Mathjax redirect in the HTML headers, but then you could type out all equations in LaTeX (using Mathpix), and wrap the LaTeX with ?$$$$? for display math and ?/$$/? for inline math. Have you tried mathkicker.ai for math conversions? It?s really good. The ePub with the footnotes at the end of the textbook was nice and didn?t interfere with reading. The typed document had lots of acronyms, but was understandable. Only tested with VoiceOver. Best, Joshua Hori Accessible Technology Coordinator Information Educational Technology Academic Technology Services 50 Hutchison Dr. Davis, CA 95616 530-752-2439 Schedule a meeting via Calendly From: athen-list > on behalf of Wallace, Sagan via athen-list > Date: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 at 11:39?AM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu > Subject: [Athen] Review a document? Hello all, This is a big ask, so I'm sending this out to a few lists. Would anyone who is an experienced screen reader be willing to review one of the documents linked below, and give feedback on how effectively they were remediated? If you were a visually-impaired researcher using our archives and downloaded this material, would you be satisfied? Frustrated? Background: I am working on remediating our library archives for screen reader accessibility. These are theses and dissertations, most of which are STEM-heavy. All of our documents are PDF scans and we are converting them to HTML or EPUB. I am finding it's hard to make some remediation decisions because we are remediating to have these available for any researcher who encounters them, rather than being able to tailor them to an individual reader's needs. I'm confident in our ability to do a basic correction, but I want these documents to be actually pleasant for our future reader to use. Hopefully I'll be able to conduct an actual UX test with our patrons, but until then I'd love some general feedback. Each folder has the original PDF, and our output file: * Example of a math-heavy PDF converted to HTML * Math was made using the Word equation editor. I'm particularly curious how equation 104 on page 77 is, since that was made using MathPix. * Document with lots of footnotes, converted to EPUB * In particular, how is the navigation back and forth between the end notes and the main text? * PDF of a poetry book, converted to EPUB * I haven't been able to figure out how to maintain the formatting and page breaks, but I don't think keeping it as PDF is the answer. * Scan of a typewritten document from 1874, converted to EPUB * In this one I'm trying to balance maintaining the original formatting, while making the difficult-to-read text audible. We have a lot of documents written in cursive that will need to be corrected. Thank you for any support, and I hope you have a wonderful week! Best, Sagan Wallace they/them Library Accessibility Manager Oregon State University Libraries & Press -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Wed Jul 23 15:02:58 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Wallace, Sagan via athen-list) Date: Wed Jul 23 15:03:03 2025 Subject: [Athen] [EXTERNAL] - Review a document? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Thanks for the testing folks! To clarify, the PDFs are all the *original* documents, they don't have any features or tagging at all. Sagan Wallace they/them ________________________________ From: Hayman, Douglass Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 12:29 PM To: Wallace, Sagan ; Access Technology Higher Education Network Subject: RE: [EXTERNAL] - [Athen] Review a document? You don't often get email from dhayman@olympic.edu. Learn why this is important [This email originated from outside of OSU. Use caution with links and attachments.] The last one, scan of a typewritten document is untagged and not able to be accessed with NVDA using Acrobat Reader. Obviously not remediated in the accessibility sense of the word. Did that get jobbed out to someone and that is what you got back? Doug Hayman IT Accessibility Coordinator Information Technology Olympic College dhayman@olympic.edu (360) 475-7632 From: athen-list On Behalf Of Wallace, Sagan via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 11:38 AM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu Subject: [EXTERNAL] - [Athen] Review a document? CAUTION: This email came from a non-OC system or external source. Beware of phishing and social engineering! Hello all, This is a big ask, so I'm sending this out to a few lists. Would anyone who is an experienced screen reader be willing to review one of the documents linked below, and give feedback on how effectively they were remediated? If you were a visually-impaired researcher using our archives and downloaded this material, would you be satisfied? Frustrated? Background: I am working on remediating our library archives for screen reader accessibility. These are theses and dissertations, most of which are STEM-heavy. All of our documents are PDF scans and we are converting them to HTML or EPUB. I am finding it's hard to make some remediation decisions because we are remediating to have these available for any researcher who encounters them, rather than being able to tailor them to an individual reader's needs. I'm confident in our ability to do a basic correction, but I want these documents to be actually pleasant for our future reader to use. Hopefully I'll be able to conduct an actual UX test with our patrons, but until then I'd love some general feedback. Each folder has the original PDF, and our output file: * Example of a math-heavy PDF converted to HTML * Math was made using the Word equation editor. I'm particularly curious how equation 104 on page 77 is, since that was made using MathPix. * Document with lots of footnotes, converted to EPUB * In particular, how is the navigation back and forth between the end notes and the main text? * PDF of a poetry book, converted to EPUB * I haven't been able to figure out how to maintain the formatting and page breaks, but I don't think keeping it as PDF is the answer. * Scan of a typewritten document from 1874, converted to EPUB * In this one I'm trying to balance maintaining the original formatting, while making the difficult-to-read text audible. We have a lot of documents written in cursive that will need to be corrected. Thank you for any support, and I hope you have a wonderful week! Best, Sagan Wallace they/them Library Accessibility Manager Oregon State University Libraries & Press -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Wed Jul 23 16:07:20 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Hayman, Douglass via athen-list) Date: Wed Jul 23 16:07:24 2025 Subject: [Athen] [EXTERNAL] - Review a document? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: My bad on looking at the PDFs rather than the epubs earlier. A colleague recommended Thorium reader (free) and I was able to open the last to of those downloads, open each in Thorium and used the controls in NVDA to start and stop the TTS playback for them just fine. Doug Hayman IT Accessibility Coordinator Information Technology Olympic College dhayman@olympic.edu (360) 475-7632 From: athen-list On Behalf Of Hayman, Douglass via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 12:29 PM To: Wallace, Sagan ; Access Technology Higher Education Network Subject: Re: [Athen] [EXTERNAL] - Review a document? CAUTION: This email came from a non-OC system or external source. Beware of phishing and social engineering! The last one, scan of a typewritten document is untagged and not able to be accessed with NVDA using Acrobat Reader. Obviously not remediated in the accessibility sense of the word. Did that get jobbed out to someone and that is what you got back? Doug Hayman IT Accessibility Coordinator Information Technology Olympic College dhayman@olympic.edu (360) 475-7632 From: athen-list > On Behalf Of Wallace, Sagan via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 11:38 AM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu Subject: [EXTERNAL] - [Athen] Review a document? CAUTION: This email came from a non-OC system or external source. Beware of phishing and social engineering! Hello all, This is a big ask, so I'm sending this out to a few lists. Would anyone who is an experienced screen reader be willing to review one of the documents linked below, and give feedback on how effectively they were remediated? If you were a visually-impaired researcher using our archives and downloaded this material, would you be satisfied? Frustrated? Background: I am working on remediating our library archives for screen reader accessibility. These are theses and dissertations, most of which are STEM-heavy. All of our documents are PDF scans and we are converting them to HTML or EPUB. I am finding it's hard to make some remediation decisions because we are remediating to have these available for any researcher who encounters them, rather than being able to tailor them to an individual reader's needs. I'm confident in our ability to do a basic correction, but I want these documents to be actually pleasant for our future reader to use. Hopefully I'll be able to conduct an actual UX test with our patrons, but until then I'd love some general feedback. Each folder has the original PDF, and our output file: * Example of a math-heavy PDF converted to HTML * Math was made using the Word equation editor. I'm particularly curious how equation 104 on page 77 is, since that was made using MathPix. * Document with lots of footnotes, converted to EPUB * In particular, how is the navigation back and forth between the end notes and the main text? * PDF of a poetry book, converted to EPUB * I haven't been able to figure out how to maintain the formatting and page breaks, but I don't think keeping it as PDF is the answer. * Scan of a typewritten document from 1874, converted to EPUB * In this one I'm trying to balance maintaining the original formatting, while making the difficult-to-read text audible. We have a lot of documents written in cursive that will need to be corrected. Thank you for any support, and I hope you have a wonderful week! Best, Sagan Wallace they/them Library Accessibility Manager Oregon State University Libraries & Press -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Wed Jul 23 16:19:19 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Joshua Hori via athen-list) Date: Wed Jul 23 16:19:42 2025 Subject: [Athen] Review a document? In-Reply-To: <012401dbfc1b$e6c1aad0$b4450070$@montana.com> References: <012401dbfc1b$e6c1aad0$b4450070$@montana.com> Message-ID: Hello George, You bring up a great point! I am aware of the issues with VoiceOver and math but I?m having a better time with VoiceOver than NVDA. NVDA is silent on math equations, but math characters not within an equation are reading fine. Best, Joshua Hori Accessible Technology Coordinator Information Educational Technology Academic Technology Services 50 Hutchison Dr. Davis, CA 95616 530-752-2439 Schedule a meeting via Calendly From: kerscher@montana.com Date: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 at 2:51?PM To: Joshua Hori , 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' , 'Wallace, Sagan' Subject: RE: [Athen] Review a document? Hello, Voiceover has known issues with math. I would suggest testing with NVDA or Jaws with MathCAT. You may find you do not then need MathJax. Best George From: athen-list On Behalf Of Joshua Hori via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 3:25 PM To: Wallace, Sagan ; Access Technology Higher Education Network Subject: Re: [Athen] Review a document? Hello Sagan, I would suggest using Mathjax and LaTeX instead of the MicroSoft Equation Editor. I?ve found an equation that isn?t reading properly. On page 3, second paragraph, there is an XN which isn?t reading aloud properly, but the next equation Xi does read correctly. When using mathjax for the first time, you will need to edit the equation configuration to make the math viewable. Right click (Shift+F10) on the equation, choose math renderer, and switch from SVG (inaccessible) to HTML+CSS (accessible). You will need to add a Mathjax redirect in the HTML headers, but then you could type out all equations in LaTeX (using Mathpix), and wrap the LaTeX with ?$$$$? for display math and ?/$$/? for inline math. Have you tried mathkicker.ai for math conversions? It?s really good. The ePub with the footnotes at the end of the textbook was nice and didn?t interfere with reading. The typed document had lots of acronyms, but was understandable. Only tested with VoiceOver. Best, Joshua Hori Accessible Technology Coordinator Information Educational Technology Academic Technology Services 50 Hutchison Dr. Davis, CA 95616 530-752-2439 Schedule a meeting via Calendly From: athen-list > on behalf of Wallace, Sagan via athen-list > Date: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 at 11:39?AM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu > Subject: [Athen] Review a document? Hello all, This is a big ask, so I'm sending this out to a few lists. Would anyone who is an experienced screen reader be willing to review one of the documents linked below, and give feedback on how effectively they were remediated? If you were a visually-impaired researcher using our archives and downloaded this material, would you be satisfied? Frustrated? Background: I am working on remediating our library archives for screen reader accessibility. These are theses and dissertations, most of which are STEM-heavy. All of our documents are PDF scans and we are converting them to HTML or EPUB. I am finding it's hard to make some remediation decisions because we are remediating to have these available for any researcher who encounters them, rather than being able to tailor them to an individual reader's needs. I'm confident in our ability to do a basic correction, but I want these documents to be actually pleasant for our future reader to use. Hopefully I'll be able to conduct an actual UX test with our patrons, but until then I'd love some general feedback. Each folder has the original PDF, and our output file: * Example of a math-heavy PDF converted to HTML * Math was made using the Word equation editor. I'm particularly curious how equation 104 on page 77 is, since that was made using MathPix. * Document with lots of footnotes, converted to EPUB * In particular, how is the navigation back and forth between the end notes and the main text? * PDF of a poetry book, converted to EPUB * I haven't been able to figure out how to maintain the formatting and page breaks, but I don't think keeping it as PDF is the answer. * Scan of a typewritten document from 1874, converted to EPUB * In this one I'm trying to balance maintaining the original formatting, while making the difficult-to-read text audible. We have a lot of documents written in cursive that will need to be corrected. Thank you for any support, and I hope you have a wonderful week! Best, Sagan Wallace they/them Library Accessibility Manager Oregon State University Libraries & Press -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Wed Jul 23 16:37:07 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Karthikeyan, Ramya via athen-list) Date: Wed Jul 23 16:37:12 2025 Subject: [Athen] Review a document? In-Reply-To: References: <012401dbfc1b$e6c1aad0$b4450070$@montana.com> Message-ID: Hey Joshua, I randomly tested some of the Math equations including the matrix on page 77 with NVDA version 2023.3.3 with MathCat addon and it seemed to work for me..I haven't had a chance to update to the latest version yet, not sure if that makes a difference.. I must say it did not work with NVDA 2024.4.2 on a different laptop which did not have the MathCat addon installed..maybe that is the issue.. Best, Ramya Ramya Karthikeyan Alternative Format Specialist UCLA Center for Accessible Education 310-825-1501 (CAE line) http://www.cae.ucla.edu/ ________________________________ From: athen-list on behalf of Joshua Hori via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 4:19 PM To: kerscher@montana.com ; 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' ; 'Wallace, Sagan' Subject: Re: [Athen] Review a document? Hello George, You bring up a great point! I am aware of the issues with VoiceOver and math but I?m having a better time with VoiceOver than NVDA. NVDA is silent on math equations, but math characters not within an equation are reading fine. Best, Joshua Hori Accessible Technology Coordinator Information Educational Technology Academic Technology Services 50 Hutchison Dr. Davis, CA 95616 530-752-2439 Schedule a meeting via Calendly From: kerscher@montana.com Date: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 at 2:51?PM To: Joshua Hori , 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' , 'Wallace, Sagan' Subject: RE: [Athen] Review a document? Hello, Voiceover has known issues with math. I would suggest testing with NVDA or Jaws with MathCAT. You may find you do not then need MathJax. Best George From: athen-list On Behalf Of Joshua Hori via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 3:25 PM To: Wallace, Sagan ; Access Technology Higher Education Network Subject: Re: [Athen] Review a document? Hello Sagan, I would suggest using Mathjax and LaTeX instead of the MicroSoft Equation Editor. I?ve found an equation that isn?t reading properly. On page 3, second paragraph, there is an XN which isn?t reading aloud properly, but the next equation Xi does read correctly. When using mathjax for the first time, you will need to edit the equation configuration to make the math viewable. Right click (Shift+F10) on the equation, choose math renderer, and switch from SVG (inaccessible) to HTML+CSS (accessible). You will need to add a Mathjax redirect in the HTML headers, but then you could type out all equations in LaTeX (using Mathpix), and wrap the LaTeX with ?$$$$? for display math and ?/$$/? for inline math. Have you tried mathkicker.ai for math conversions? It?s really good. The ePub with the footnotes at the end of the textbook was nice and didn?t interfere with reading. The typed document had lots of acronyms, but was understandable. Only tested with VoiceOver. Best, Joshua Hori Accessible Technology Coordinator Information Educational Technology Academic Technology Services 50 Hutchison Dr. Davis, CA 95616 530-752-2439 Schedule a meeting via Calendly From: athen-list > on behalf of Wallace, Sagan via athen-list > Date: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 at 11:39?AM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu > Subject: [Athen] Review a document? Hello all, This is a big ask, so I'm sending this out to a few lists. Would anyone who is an experienced screen reader be willing to review one of the documents linked below, and give feedback on how effectively they were remediated? If you were a visually-impaired researcher using our archives and downloaded this material, would you be satisfied? Frustrated? Background: I am working on remediating our library archives for screen reader accessibility. These are theses and dissertations, most of which are STEM-heavy. All of our documents are PDF scans and we are converting them to HTML or EPUB. I am finding it's hard to make some remediation decisions because we are remediating to have these available for any researcher who encounters them, rather than being able to tailor them to an individual reader's needs. I'm confident in our ability to do a basic correction, but I want these documents to be actually pleasant for our future reader to use. Hopefully I'll be able to conduct an actual UX test with our patrons, but until then I'd love some general feedback. Each folder has the original PDF, and our output file: * Example of a math-heavy PDF converted to HTML * Math was made using the Word equation editor. I'm particularly curious how equation 104 on page 77 is, since that was made using MathPix. * Document with lots of footnotes, converted to EPUB * In particular, how is the navigation back and forth between the end notes and the main text? * PDF of a poetry book, converted to EPUB * I haven't been able to figure out how to maintain the formatting and page breaks, but I don't think keeping it as PDF is the answer. * Scan of a typewritten document from 1874, converted to EPUB * In this one I'm trying to balance maintaining the original formatting, while making the difficult-to-read text audible. We have a lot of documents written in cursive that will need to be corrected. Thank you for any support, and I hope you have a wonderful week! Best, Sagan Wallace they/them Library Accessibility Manager Oregon State University Libraries & Press -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Wed Jul 23 17:58:50 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (via athen-list) Date: Wed Jul 23 17:58:55 2025 Subject: [Athen] Review a document? In-Reply-To: References: <012401dbfc1b$e6c1aad0$b4450070$@montana.com> Message-ID: <01e801dbfc36$1f20fa10$5d62ee30$@montana.com> Hi, Interesting!!! Do you have the MathCAAT Add-on installed? I find that MathML is being read perfectly. I also find math characters encoded as MathML is read correctly. When a character is encoded with the Unicode character, e.g. ? it is also read correctly. This Unicode encoding is independent of MathML. Best George From: Joshua Hori Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 5:19 PM To: kerscher@montana.com; 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' ; 'Wallace, Sagan' Subject: Re: [Athen] Review a document? Hello George, You bring up a great point! I am aware of the issues with VoiceOver and math but I?m having a better time with VoiceOver than NVDA. NVDA is silent on math equations, but math characters not within an equation are reading fine. Best, Joshua Hori Accessible Technology Coordinator Information Educational Technology Academic Technology Services 50 Hutchison Dr. Davis, CA 95616 530-752-2439 Schedule a meeting via Calendly From: kerscher@montana.com > Date: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 at 2:51?PM To: Joshua Hori >, 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' >, 'Wallace, Sagan' > Subject: RE: [Athen] Review a document? Hello, Voiceover has known issues with math. I would suggest testing with NVDA or Jaws with MathCAT. You may find you do not then need MathJax. Best George From: athen-list > On Behalf Of Joshua Hori via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 3:25 PM To: Wallace, Sagan >; Access Technology Higher Education Network > Subject: Re: [Athen] Review a document? Hello Sagan, I would suggest using Mathjax and LaTeX instead of the MicroSoft Equation Editor. I?ve found an equation that isn?t reading properly. On page 3, second paragraph, there is an XN which isn?t reading aloud properly, but the next equation Xi does read correctly. When using mathjax for the first time, you will need to edit the equation configuration to make the math viewable. Right click (Shift+F10) on the equation, choose math renderer, and switch from SVG (inaccessible) to HTML+CSS (accessible). You will need to add a Mathjax redirect in the HTML headers, but then you could type out all equations in LaTeX (using Mathpix), and wrap the LaTeX with ?$$$$? for display math and ?/$$/? for inline math. Have you tried mathkicker.ai for math conversions? It?s really good. The ePub with the footnotes at the end of the textbook was nice and didn?t interfere with reading. The typed document had lots of acronyms, but was understandable. Only tested with VoiceOver. Best, Joshua Hori Accessible Technology Coordinator Information Educational Technology Academic Technology Services 50 Hutchison Dr. Davis, CA 95616 530-752-2439 Schedule a meeting via Calendly From: athen-list < athen-list-bounces@mailman22.u.washington.edu> on behalf of Wallace, Sagan via athen-list < athen-list@u.washington.edu> Date: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 at 11:39?AM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu < athen-list@u.washington.edu> Subject: [Athen] Review a document? Hello all, This is a big ask, so I'm sending this out to a few lists. Would anyone who is an experienced screen reader be willing to review one of the documents linked below, and give feedback on how effectively they were remediated? If you were a visually-impaired researcher using our archives and downloaded this material, would you be satisfied? Frustrated? Background: I am working on remediating our library archives for screen reader accessibility. These are theses and dissertations, most of which are STEM-heavy. All of our documents are PDF scans and we are converting them to HTML or EPUB. I am finding it's hard to make some remediation decisions because we are remediating to have these available for any researcher who encounters them, rather than being able to tailor them to an individual reader's needs. I'm confident in our ability to do a basic correction, but I want these documents to be actually pleasant for our future reader to use. Hopefully I'll be able to conduct an actual UX test with our patrons, but until then I'd love some general feedback. Each folder has the original PDF, and our output file: * Example of a math-heavy PDF converted to HTML * Math was made using the Word equation editor. I'm particularly curious how equation 104 on page 77 is, since that was made using MathPix. * Document with lots of footnotes, converted to EPUB * In particular, how is the navigation back and forth between the end notes and the main text? * PDF of a poetry book, converted to EPUB * I haven't been able to figure out how to maintain the formatting and page breaks, but I don't think keeping it as PDF is the answer. * Scan of a typewritten document from 1874, converted to EPUB * In this one I'm trying to balance maintaining the original formatting, while making the difficult-to-read text audible. We have a lot of documents written in cursive that will need to be corrected. Thank you for any support, and I hope you have a wonderful week! Best, Sagan Wallace they/them Library Accessibility Manager Oregon State University Libraries & Press -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Wed Jul 23 19:52:22 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Mark Weiler via athen-list) Date: Wed Jul 23 19:52:42 2025 Subject: [Athen] [EXTERNAL *] Re: Review a document? In-Reply-To: References: <012401dbfc1b$e6c1aad0$b4450070$@montana.com> Message-ID: Sagan, and others, I have a question around the math ML. Do you notice the problem I do? First, I?m not an expert with advanced math or with interacting with math with a screen reader. So, I can only describe what I did and make observations and ask questions. I?m using JAWS 2025.2506.170 with the latest Chrome. Here?s formula 7, as it is expressed visually. Notice the ? symbol (pronounced ?integral?: [Formula 7 from the HTML document shared] I can hear the content when using JAWS with speech. But I?m not sure what a complex math equation is supposed to sound like when spoken. Here?s a linear run through (down key) of the content as JAWS speech history: SimpleSpeak, Terse cap p sub n, of, open x comma, y, close equals rho raised to the n minus 1 power d z 1 d z 2 dot dot dot d z sub n mu, open x comma, z 1 close times mu, open, z 1, comma, z 2 close times dot dot dot mu open, z sub n minus 1 end sub comma, y close MathContent ? SimpleSpeak, Medium cap p sub n, of, open paren x comma, y, close paren is equal to rho raised to the n minus 1 power d z sub 1 d z sub 2 dot dot dot d z sub n mu, open paren, x comma, z sub 1 close paren times mu open paren, z sub 1, comma, z sub 2 close paren times dot dot dot mu open paren, z sub n minus 1 end sub comma, y close paren MathContent ? SimpleSpeak, Verbose cap p sub n, of, open paren x comma, y, close paren is equal to rho raised to the n minus 1 power d z sub 1 d z sub 2 dot dot dot d z sub n mu, open paren, x comma, z sub 1 close paren times mu open paren, z sub 1, comma, z sub 2 close paren times dot dot dot mu open paren z sub n minus 1 end subscript comma, y close paren MathContent ? Summary: I see an integral sign in the browser?s visual equation but don?t see it in the JAWS speech output. I see ?power? instead. Shouldn?t ?integral? be spoken? I then open it in Math Viewer, and step through parts of the equation, as shown in the image below. I definitely don?t see the integral signs in this representation! [Described above] To check if JAWS or Chrome can?t read ?, I then went to the Freedom Scientific MathML sample page and stepped through an example that has an integral (see the heading, Semantics) Here?s what I hear when reading it straight through: Simple Speak, verbose ?the integral from 1 to t of fraction, double-struck italic d x, over x, end fraction MathContent ?? The image below is a screen shot of the Semantics formula from the Freedom Scientific MathML. The math viewer is open and shows the integral sign. [Described above] So, Sagan: Do you notice the discrepancy that I do? Why does the Freedom Scientific page get its Integral sign rendered in both JAWS and the browser but the dissertation only renders it visually in the browser? Mark From: athen-list On Behalf Of Karthikeyan, Ramya via athen-list Sent: July 23, 2025 7:37 PM To: kerscher@montana.com; 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' ; 'Wallace, Sagan' ; Joshua Hori Subject: [EXTERNAL *] Re: [Athen] Review a document? Hey Joshua, I randomly tested some of the Math equations including the matrix on page 77 with NVDA version 2023.3.3 with MathCat addon and it seemed to work for me..I haven't had a chance to update to the latest version yet, not sure if that makes a difference.. I must say it did not work with NVDA 2024.4.2 on a different laptop which did not have the MathCat addon installed..maybe that is the issue.. Best, Ramya Ramya Karthikeyan Alternative Format Specialist UCLA Center for Accessible Education 310-825-1501 (CAE line) http://www.cae.ucla.edu/ ________________________________ From: athen-list > on behalf of Joshua Hori via athen-list > Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 4:19 PM To: kerscher@montana.com >; 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' >; 'Wallace, Sagan' > Subject: Re: [Athen] Review a document? Hello George, You bring up a great point! I am aware of the issues with VoiceOver and math but I?m having a better time with VoiceOver than NVDA. NVDA is silent on math equations, but math characters not within an equation are reading fine. Best, Joshua Hori Accessible Technology Coordinator Information Educational Technology Academic Technology Services 50 Hutchison Dr. Davis, CA 95616 530-752-2439 Schedule a meeting via Calendly From: kerscher@montana.com > Date: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 at 2:51?PM To: Joshua Hori >, 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' >, 'Wallace, Sagan' > Subject: RE: [Athen] Review a document? Hello, Voiceover has known issues with math. I would suggest testing with NVDA or Jaws with MathCAT. You may find you do not then need MathJax. Best George From: athen-list > On Behalf Of Joshua Hori via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 3:25 PM To: Wallace, Sagan >; Access Technology Higher Education Network > Subject: Re: [Athen] Review a document? Hello Sagan, I would suggest using Mathjax and LaTeX instead of the MicroSoft Equation Editor. I?ve found an equation that isn?t reading properly. On page 3, second paragraph, there is an XN which isn?t reading aloud properly, but the next equation Xi does read correctly. When using mathjax for the first time, you will need to edit the equation configuration to make the math viewable. Right click (Shift+F10) on the equation, choose math renderer, and switch from SVG (inaccessible) to HTML+CSS (accessible). You will need to add a Mathjax redirect in the HTML headers, but then you could type out all equations in LaTeX (using Mathpix), and wrap the LaTeX with ?$$$$? for display math and ?/$$/? for inline math. Have you tried mathkicker.ai for math conversions? It?s really good. The ePub with the footnotes at the end of the textbook was nice and didn?t interfere with reading. The typed document had lots of acronyms, but was understandable. Only tested with VoiceOver. Best, Joshua Hori Accessible Technology Coordinator Information Educational Technology Academic Technology Services 50 Hutchison Dr. Davis, CA 95616 530-752-2439 Schedule a meeting via Calendly From: athen-list > on behalf of Wallace, Sagan via athen-list > Date: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 at 11:39?AM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu > Subject: [Athen] Review a document? Hello all, This is a big ask, so I'm sending this out to a few lists. Would anyone who is an experienced screen reader be willing to review one of the documents linked below, and give feedback on how effectively they were remediated? If you were a visually-impaired researcher using our archives and downloaded this material, would you be satisfied? Frustrated? Background: I am working on remediating our library archives for screen reader accessibility. These are theses and dissertations, most of which are STEM-heavy. All of our documents are PDF scans and we are converting them to HTML or EPUB. I am finding it's hard to make some remediation decisions because we are remediating to have these available for any researcher who encounters them, rather than being able to tailor them to an individual reader's needs. I'm confident in our ability to do a basic correction, but I want these documents to be actually pleasant for our future reader to use. Hopefully I'll be able to conduct an actual UX test with our patrons, but until then I'd love some general feedback. Each folder has the original PDF, and our output file: * Example of a math-heavy PDF converted to HTML * Math was made using the Word equation editor. I'm particularly curious how equation 104 on page 77 is, since that was made using MathPix. * Document with lots of footnotes, converted to EPUB * In particular, how is the navigation back and forth between the end notes and the main text? * PDF of a poetry book, converted to EPUB * I haven't been able to figure out how to maintain the formatting and page breaks, but I don't think keeping it as PDF is the answer. * Scan of a typewritten document from 1874, converted to EPUB * In this one I'm trying to balance maintaining the original formatting, while making the difficult-to-read text audible. We have a lot of documents written in cursive that will need to be corrected. Thank you for any support, and I hope you have a wonderful week! Best, Sagan Wallace they/them Library Accessibility Manager Oregon State University Libraries & Press * ? Notice: This email originated from outside of the organization. Do not click links or open attachments unless you recognize the sender and know the content is safe. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image002.png Type: image/png Size: 115957 bytes Desc: image002.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image005.png Type: image/png Size: 143181 bytes Desc: image005.png URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image007.png Type: image/png Size: 84777 bytes Desc: image007.png URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Thu Jul 24 05:45:19 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Susan Kelmer via athen-list) Date: Thu Jul 24 05:45:25 2025 Subject: [Athen] Review a document? In-Reply-To: <01e801dbfc36$1f20fa10$5d62ee30$@montana.com> References: <012401dbfc1b$e6c1aad0$b4450070$@montana.com> <01e801dbfc36$1f20fa10$5d62ee30$@montana.com> Message-ID: We have created a lot of math over the years at the University of Colorado using MathType and Word. While Microsoft Equation editor has gotten better, it is not the solution I choose to use, for the very reasons being pointed out in this email chain. Both Jaws and NVDA can read MathType in Word files, as well, which is relatively recent (last five years or so). But MS Equation Editor still lacks the appropriate formatting, in my opinion, and should not be used to create accessible math. MathType in Microsoft Word means you can output a file to several other formats, including our current standard output, which is html with MathJax. You can also output to ePub3, Nemeth Braille (using Duxbury) and LaTex. In all these years, with all the various novel tools being introduced, I?ve yet to find a better way to produce accessible math content than just manually working through MathType in Word to get a file that is ready to be output into whatever other format is required with a just a few clicks. Susan Kelmer Alternate Format Production Program Manager Disability Services Health and Wellness Services T 303 735 4836 www.colorado.edu/disabilityservices [cid:image001.png@01DBFC66.4FFEBD40] Due to the nature of electronic communication, the security of this message cannot be guaranteed. If you?ve received this email in error please notify the sender immediately and delete this message. From: athen-list On Behalf Of via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 6:59 PM To: 'Joshua Hori' ; 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' ; 'Wallace, Sagan' Subject: Re: [Athen] Review a document? [External email - use caution] Hi, Interesting!!! Do you have the MathCAAT Add-on installed? I find that MathML is being read perfectly. I also find math characters encoded as MathML is read correctly. When a character is encoded with the Unicode character, e.g. ? it is also read correctly. This Unicode encoding is independent of MathML. Best George From: Joshua Hori > Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 5:19 PM To: kerscher@montana.com; 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' >; 'Wallace, Sagan' > Subject: Re: [Athen] Review a document? Hello George, You bring up a great point! I am aware of the issues with VoiceOver and math but I?m having a better time with VoiceOver than NVDA. NVDA is silent on math equations, but math characters not within an equation are reading fine. Best, Joshua Hori Accessible Technology Coordinator Information Educational Technology Academic Technology Services 50 Hutchison Dr. Davis, CA 95616 530-752-2439 Schedule a meeting via Calendly From: kerscher@montana.com > Date: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 at 2:51?PM To: Joshua Hori >, 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' >, 'Wallace, Sagan' > Subject: RE: [Athen] Review a document? Hello, Voiceover has known issues with math. I would suggest testing with NVDA or Jaws with MathCAT. You may find you do not then need MathJax. Best George From: athen-list > On Behalf Of Joshua Hori via athen-list Sent: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 3:25 PM To: Wallace, Sagan >; Access Technology Higher Education Network > Subject: Re: [Athen] Review a document? Hello Sagan, I would suggest using Mathjax and LaTeX instead of the MicroSoft Equation Editor. I?ve found an equation that isn?t reading properly. On page 3, second paragraph, there is an XN which isn?t reading aloud properly, but the next equation Xi does read correctly. When using mathjax for the first time, you will need to edit the equation configuration to make the math viewable. Right click (Shift+F10) on the equation, choose math renderer, and switch from SVG (inaccessible) to HTML+CSS (accessible). You will need to add a Mathjax redirect in the HTML headers, but then you could type out all equations in LaTeX (using Mathpix), and wrap the LaTeX with ?$$$$? for display math and ?/$$/? for inline math. Have you tried mathkicker.ai for math conversions? It?s really good. The ePub with the footnotes at the end of the textbook was nice and didn?t interfere with reading. The typed document had lots of acronyms, but was understandable. Only tested with VoiceOver. Best, Joshua Hori Accessible Technology Coordinator Information Educational Technology Academic Technology Services 50 Hutchison Dr. Davis, CA 95616 530-752-2439 Schedule a meeting via Calendly From: athen-list > on behalf of Wallace, Sagan via athen-list > Date: Wednesday, July 23, 2025 at 11:39?AM To: athen-list@u.washington.edu > Subject: [Athen] Review a document? Hello all, This is a big ask, so I'm sending this out to a few lists. Would anyone who is an experienced screen reader be willing to review one of the documents linked below, and give feedback on how effectively they were remediated? If you were a visually-impaired researcher using our archives and downloaded this material, would you be satisfied? Frustrated? Background: I am working on remediating our library archives for screen reader accessibility. These are theses and dissertations, most of which are STEM-heavy. All of our documents are PDF scans and we are converting them to HTML or EPUB. I am finding it's hard to make some remediation decisions because we are remediating to have these available for any researcher who encounters them, rather than being able to tailor them to an individual reader's needs. I'm confident in our ability to do a basic correction, but I want these documents to be actually pleasant for our future reader to use. Hopefully I'll be able to conduct an actual UX test with our patrons, but until then I'd love some general feedback. Each folder has the original PDF, and our output file: * Example of a math-heavy PDF converted to HTML * Math was made using the Word equation editor. I'm particularly curious how equation 104 on page 77 is, since that was made using MathPix. * Document with lots of footnotes, converted to EPUB * In particular, how is the navigation back and forth between the end notes and the main text? * PDF of a poetry book, converted to EPUB * I haven't been able to figure out how to maintain the formatting and page breaks, but I don't think keeping it as PDF is the answer. * Scan of a typewritten document from 1874, converted to EPUB * In this one I'm trying to balance maintaining the original formatting, while making the difficult-to-read text audible. We have a lot of documents written in cursive that will need to be corrected. Thank you for any support, and I hope you have a wonderful week! Best, Sagan Wallace they/them Library Accessibility Manager Oregon State University Libraries & Press -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: image001.png Type: image/png Size: 8916 bytes Desc: image001.png URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Thu Jul 24 14:30:35 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Monica Olsson via athen-list) Date: Thu Jul 24 14:33:48 2025 Subject: [Athen] Advise for complex PDF form Message-ID: Hello, I am requesting guidance on accessibility best practice for a specific complex fillable form. Please see the attached form in PDF. There is a lot going on with tables, calculations, columns, etc. The document owner is experimenting with using Excel for the form, rather than PDF. In one sense, this may make editing the source document easier, and Excel may handle calculations better. On the other hand, I worry about the user experience in this format. What is your advice on how best to remediate this form? My gut tells me to stick with PDF... Do folks have insight on the accessibility of web-based form tools like Gravity Forms or Form Assembly? Thank you! Monica Monica M. Olsson (she/her/hers) Policy Associate ? Accessible IT Coordinator Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges ?Email: molsson@sbctc.edu ? Phone: 360-704-3922 The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect. Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide Web -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: FY26-FFY25 BFET WF Funding Survey Summer - COLLEGE NAME.pdf Type: application/pdf Size: 633009 bytes Desc: FY26-FFY25 BFET WF Funding Survey Summer - COLLEGE NAME.pdf URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Thu Jul 24 14:48:03 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Karen McCall via athen-list) Date: Thu Jul 24 15:02:41 2025 Subject: [Athen] Advise for complex PDF form In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi! If the form stays in Excel, in order to make the form accessible, you?re going to have to protect all of the text and force the screen readers to only access either the active X, legacy form controls, or content controls. This means someone using a screen reader will not have access to any of the text in the form, including instructional text. Additionally, within the past five or six years, screen readers, such as JAWS or NVDA, are not reading the tool tips for active X form controls or legacy form controls accurately. I am a word MVP and these types of forms often crash word, and or the adaptive technology. Content controls, if they are available in Excel, are also not accessible. They were never designed to be accessible. They are keyboard traps, and none of the tool tips or instructions that would be in a content control are accessible to the screen readers or text to speech tools. I did take a look at the form and you have designed it. Well, using topic changes/headings and keeping the tables small. For this form, the most accessible route is going to be either PDF or HTML. The advantage of tagged accessible PDF is that the end user will be able to read the instruction text and the tool tips for the form controls. They will also be able to archive a copy of the form on their computer and fill it out at their leisure, as well as maintaining an archive copy. As a way of introducing myself to this list, I am on the ISO committee for establishing the PDF standards and the PDF accessibility standards and have over 25 years experience in PDF, PDF forms, and accessible Microsoft Office content. Hope this helps. If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask me. Cheers, Karen Sent from my mobile device! ________________________________ From: athen-list on behalf of Monica Olsson via athen-list Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2025 5:30:35 PM To: 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' ; educause-itaccess@connectedcommunity.org Subject: [Athen] Advise for complex PDF form Hello, I am requesting guidance on accessibility best practice for a specific complex fillable form. Please see the attached form in PDF. There is a lot going on with tables, calculations, columns, etc. The document owner is experimenting with using Excel for the form, rather than PDF. In one sense, this may make editing the source document easier, and Excel may handle calculations better. On the other hand, I worry about the user experience in this format. What is your advice on how best to remediate this form? My gut tells me to stick with PDF... Do folks have insight on the accessibility of web-based form tools like Gravity Forms or Form Assembly? Thank you! Monica Monica M. Olsson (she/her/hers) Policy Associate ? Accessible IT Coordinator Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges ?Email: molsson@sbctc.edu ? Phone: 360-704-3922 The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect. Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide Web -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Thu Jul 24 16:02:24 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Charlie Watson via athen-list) Date: Thu Jul 24 16:02:30 2025 Subject: [Athen] Advise for complex PDF form In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I agree with Karen, Excel is always a bad choice for screen-reader accessibility. However, the PDF is pretty far from accessible. Some problems I found quickly by testing with Microsoft Edge, Firefox, NVDA, and Adobe Acrobat: Non-accessibility problems: * Money values are not validated. I can enter "2...4" or "2a" and the form treats it as "2". * Negative money values are allowed. It's not clear if that's valid. * The total row in the first table has cells for every column, but only totals the last column. * The checkboxes in "Summary of Funding Requests" on page don't automatically check according to entries on other pages. The user can submit an form with incorrect boxes checked, so anyone reviewing a submitted form will have to check everything anyway. There's no point to the checkboxes. Tagging problems: * The first lines ("BFET &...", "FY26/FFY25...", and "FUNDING SURVEY...") are all in the H1 element. * The SBTC Contacts section, College Information section, and Summary of Funding Requests section are all tagged as a mess of a table. It shouldn't be a table at all, but the table elements are quite mis-grouped and the reading order is wrong. * The section 2 heading is not tagged as a heading. * All other headings are tagged as level 2 headings, regardless of nesting/subsections. * Probably more, but you can look through them with the tagging tool in Adobe Acrobat. General accessibility problems: * Cell background colours in the first table (Returning WF General...) are confusing. Light blue (or whatever colour your PDF viewer uses) means fillable, while white and green mean non-fillable. A non-fillable cell should be extremely distinct from a fillable cell. * All the text fields on the first page use 32 underscores to create an underline, instead a visual line element or field border. A screen reader will usually read those underscores aloud. * Text in all tables on pages 1-9 is left-aligned, but the text in the tables on page 10 are centred. I strongly recommend a web form. However, I have not worked with Gravity Forms or Form Assembly. Charlie Watson, he/they Manager of Accessible Technology and Data Centre for Accessible Learning (uvic.ca/accessible-learning) University of Victoria dcwatson@uvic.ca, 250-472-5483 From: athen-list On Behalf Of Karen McCall via athen-list Sent: July 24, 2025 2:48 PM To: Monica Olsson ; Access Technology Higher Education Network ; educause-itaccess@connectedcommunity.org Subject: Re: [Athen] Advise for complex PDF form Hi! If the form stays in Excel, in order to make the form accessible, you're going to have to protect all of the text and force the screen readers to only access either the active X, legacy form controls, or content controls. This means someone using a screen reader will not have access to any of the text in the form, including instructional text. Additionally, within the past five or six years, screen readers, such as JAWS or NVDA, are not reading the tool tips for active X form controls or legacy form controls accurately. I am a word MVP and these types of forms often crash word, and or the adaptive technology. Content controls, if they are available in Excel, are also not accessible. They were never designed to be accessible. They are keyboard traps, and none of the tool tips or instructions that would be in a content control are accessible to the screen readers or text to speech tools. I did take a look at the form and you have designed it. Well, using topic changes/headings and keeping the tables small. For this form, the most accessible route is going to be either PDF or HTML. The advantage of tagged accessible PDF is that the end user will be able to read the instruction text and the tool tips for the form controls. They will also be able to archive a copy of the form on their computer and fill it out at their leisure, as well as maintaining an archive copy. As a way of introducing myself to this list, I am on the ISO committee for establishing the PDF standards and the PDF accessibility standards and have over 25 years experience in PDF, PDF forms, and accessible Microsoft Office content. Hope this helps. If you have any other questions, please feel free to ask me. Cheers, Karen Sent from my mobile device! ________________________________ From: athen-list > on behalf of Monica Olsson via athen-list > Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2025 5:30:35 PM To: 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' >; educause-itaccess@connectedcommunity.org > Subject: [Athen] Advise for complex PDF form Hello, I am requesting guidance on accessibility best practice for a specific complex fillable form. Please see the attached form in PDF. There is a lot going on with tables, calculations, columns, etc. The document owner is experimenting with using Excel for the form, rather than PDF. In one sense, this may make editing the source document easier, and Excel may handle calculations better. On the other hand, I worry about the user experience in this format. What is your advice on how best to remediate this form? My gut tells me to stick with PDF... Do folks have insight on the accessibility of web-based form tools like Gravity Forms or Form Assembly? Thank you! Monica Monica M. Olsson (she/her/hers) Policy Associate - Accessible IT Coordinator Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges *Email: molsson@sbctc.edu * Phone: 360-704-3922 The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect. Tim Berners-Lee, W3C Director and inventor of the World Wide Web -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Thu Jul 24 16:39:32 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Deborah Armstrong via athen-list) Date: Thu Jul 24 16:39:40 2025 Subject: [Athen] Helping a blind student survive physical anthropology Message-ID: When she started college she was low-vision but now my student is almost completely blind. Though she's a liberal arts major she's required to take at least one science course. We've had this problem forever; absolutely none of our science courses are accessible. They all have labs which sometimes involve working with computer simulations, and often involve measuring, pouring, looking through a microscope etc. My suggestion has always been that the blind student works with a partner and operates as the note-taker and the person who researches the science, while the lab partner performs the physical parts of the experiment. The partner can also say if a solution changes color while the blind student can be the one who knows what the color changing signifies. This seems quite reasonable to me and that's how blind friends in the past have coped with Anthropology, biology, geology, chemistry and even meteorology labs. But this professor requires students work alone believing that lab partners encourage cheating. This is not the first time we've had this problem and I keep being asked for another solution. We don't typically hire assistants to help students; there's nothing in our budget for that. I told the counselor who is panicking that we also have students with sight but physical limitations that also prevent them from performing alone in science labs and she needs to consult with the department chair for a permanent solution. But I'm a paraprofessional; consulting with the department chair would be a violation of my personal role at the college. So I'm asking the list. What have you done when this situation crops up? And why in the heck cannot there be at least one fully accessible science course for those who have no intent to make science a major? I keep reading about all sorts of grants schools get to encourage participation in STEM for blind and visually impaired students but it's always for a particular high school or community college, or worse yet a school for the blind, and it's not applicable to anyone outside the little "test" group. someone really needs to get a grant to create a fully online mooc-style course that any disabled student who needs to fulfill a science requirement can enroll in. --Debee -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Thu Jul 24 16:49:56 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Kevin Andrews via athen-list) Date: Thu Jul 24 16:50:45 2025 Subject: [Athen] Review a document? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Sagan, Thanks for reaching out and for the care you're clearly putting into improving accessibility in your library archives. It?s heartening to see someone thinking not just about compliance, but about actual usability and experience for blind readers. That said, I do want to gently flag that asking blind screen reader users to review multiple documents and provide UX feedback, without compensation, can feel like being asked to donate our expertise and lived experience. This is valuable labor, and when done well, it?s not just ?feedback,? it?s user testing, consulting, and accessibility evaluation work. If your institution is able to allocate funding or formalize this into a paid opportunity (or even a structured pilot with clear parameters), I imagine you'd get more consistent, thorough feedback, and it would set a strong precedent around valuing access labor. Totally understand if you?re early in the process or navigating constraints, and I appreciate you opening the door. Just wanted to be candid about how this sort of request might land. Wishing you all the best with the remediation work?this kind of deep accessibility work is sorely needed. On Wed, Jul 23, 2025 at 2:38?PM Wallace, Sagan via athen-list < athen-list@u.washington.edu> wrote: > Hello all, > > This is a big ask, so I'm sending this out to a few lists. Would anyone > who is an experienced screen reader be willing to review one of the > documents linked below, and give feedback on how effectively they were > remediated? If you were a visually-impaired researcher using our archives > and downloaded this material, would you be satisfied? Frustrated? > > Background: I am working on remediating our library archives for screen > reader accessibility. These are theses and dissertations, most of which are > STEM-heavy. All of our documents are PDF scans and we are converting them > to HTML or EPUB. I am finding it's hard to make some remediation decisions > because we are remediating to have these available for any researcher who > encounters them, rather than being able to tailor them to an individual > reader's needs. I'm confident in our ability to do a basic correction, but > I want these documents to be actually pleasant for our future reader to > use. Hopefully I'll be able to conduct an actual UX test with our patrons, > but until then I'd love some general feedback. > > Each folder has the original PDF, and our output file: > > > - Example of a math-heavy PDF converted to HTML > > - Math was made using the Word equation editor. I'm particularly > curious how equation 104 on page 77 is, since that was made using MathPix. > - Document with lots of footnotes > , > converted to EPUB > - In particular, how is the navigation back and forth between the end > notes and the main text? > - PDF of a poetry book > , > converted to EPUB > - I haven't been able to figure out how to maintain the formatting and > page breaks, but I don't think keeping it as PDF is the answer. > - Scan of a typewritten document from 1874 > , > converted to EPUB > - In this one I'm trying to balance maintaining the original > formatting, while making the difficult-to-read text audible. We have a lot > of documents written in cursive that will need to be corrected. > > > Thank you for any support, and I hope you have a wonderful week! > > Best, > > Sagan Wallace > *they/them* > Library Accessibility Manager > Oregon State University Libraries & Press > > > _______________________________________________ > athen-list mailing list > athen-list@mailman22.u.washington.edu > http://mailman22.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list > -- Best Regards, Kevin Andrews Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Coordinator University Information Services Georgetown University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Thu Jul 24 16:59:31 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Deborah Armstrong via athen-list) Date: Thu Jul 24 16:59:37 2025 Subject: [Athen] Review a document? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I would add that asking blind and visually impaired people to test is valuable work, but I personally think you ask for volunteers first, then pay those who contribute significantly. For every blind student I?ve had who knows how to use their access technology, there are ten who do not. I?m in a community college, so probably at a university you?d see users with greater A.T. skills. And if your budget or circumstances don?t allow cash payments, consider amazon gift cards or some other compensation. I have done a ton of testing for Google, Ebay, Facebook, Amazon and Meta because I live in Silicon Valley and am considered a valued tester. But I always get paid in Amazon, Target or Walmart cards, or free Uber rides, and never with cash. And these are big for-profit companies who you?d think would have resources to pay me real money. But I?m fine with all the other payment methods. Doesn?t require a W9! Silicon valley is pricey so those Uber vouchers are an especially nice payment! From: athen-list On Behalf Of Kevin Andrews via athen-list Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2025 4:50 PM To: Wallace, Sagan ; Access Technology Higher Education Network Subject: Re: [Athen] Review a document? Hi Sagan, Thanks for reaching out and for the care you're clearly putting into improving accessibility in your library archives. It?s heartening to see someone thinking not just about compliance, but about actual usability and experience for blind readers. That said, I do want to gently flag that asking blind screen reader users to review multiple documents and provide UX feedback, without compensation, can feel like being asked to donate our expertise and lived experience. This is valuable labor, and when done well, it?s not just ?feedback,? it?s user testing, consulting, and accessibility evaluation work. If your institution is able to allocate funding or formalize this into a paid opportunity (or even a structured pilot with clear parameters), I imagine you'd get more consistent, thorough feedback, and it would set a strong precedent around valuing access labor. Totally understand if you?re early in the process or navigating constraints, and I appreciate you opening the door. Just wanted to be candid about how this sort of request might land. Wishing you all the best with the remediation work?this kind of deep accessibility work is sorely needed. On Wed, Jul 23, 2025 at 2:38?PM Wallace, Sagan via athen-list > wrote: Hello all, This is a big ask, so I'm sending this out to a few lists. Would anyone who is an experienced screen reader be willing to review one of the documents linked below, and give feedback on how effectively they were remediated? If you were a visually-impaired researcher using our archives and downloaded this material, would you be satisfied? Frustrated? Background: I am working on remediating our library archives for screen reader accessibility. These are theses and dissertations, most of which are STEM-heavy. All of our documents are PDF scans and we are converting them to HTML or EPUB. I am finding it's hard to make some remediation decisions because we are remediating to have these available for any researcher who encounters them, rather than being able to tailor them to an individual reader's needs. I'm confident in our ability to do a basic correction, but I want these documents to be actually pleasant for our future reader to use. Hopefully I'll be able to conduct an actual UX test with our patrons, but until then I'd love some general feedback. Each folder has the original PDF, and our output file: * Example of a math-heavy PDF converted to HTML * Math was made using the Word equation editor. I'm particularly curious how equation 104 on page 77 is, since that was made using MathPix. * Document with lots of footnotes, converted to EPUB * In particular, how is the navigation back and forth between the end notes and the main text? * PDF of a poetry book, converted to EPUB * I haven't been able to figure out how to maintain the formatting and page breaks, but I don't think keeping it as PDF is the answer. * Scan of a typewritten document from 1874, converted to EPUB * In this one I'm trying to balance maintaining the original formatting, while making the difficult-to-read text audible. We have a lot of documents written in cursive that will need to be corrected. Thank you for any support, and I hope you have a wonderful week! Best, Sagan Wallace they/them Library Accessibility Manager Oregon State University Libraries & Press _______________________________________________ athen-list mailing list athen-list@mailman22.u.washington.edu http://mailman22.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list -- Best Regards, Kevin Andrews Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Coordinator University Information Services Georgetown University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Thu Jul 24 17:35:41 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Wallace, Sagan via athen-list) Date: Thu Jul 24 17:35:46 2025 Subject: [Athen] Review a document? In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Hi Kevin, Thank you so much for bringing this up! I am absolutely planning on compensating any UX tester's time in some way. I don't think it's ethical otherwise. I'm still a long ways out from being able to move forward with testing, but I want to do it right. I like the idea of a tiered approach to testing, and I think Uber vouchers would be really valued by our students. I think this has opened up an idea for how I might be able to make testing possible more quickly. And to all the folks who have offered feedback - thank you, this has been extremely helpful! I'm still sorting through the emails for specifics, but overall I'm seeing that math in particular is heavily dependent on what AT someone is using, what browser, plugins, etc. I think this is particularly highlighting the downside of trying to make our archives "generically accessible" - that's simply not a thing and we can only ever get "close enough" and work with people individually for where there are gaps. I'm a little discouraged that integrals aren't being read aloud correctly. I created those by manually entering them into the Word Equation Editor and matched the PDF as exactly as I could - for example, if the integral didn't have a sub/superscript, then I picked the integral that didn't have that added. I'm currently mystified but hopefully as I dig I'll figure out where I went wrong. Thank you all again, Sagan Wallace they/them ________________________________ From: athen-list on behalf of Deborah Armstrong via athen-list Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2025 4:59 PM To: Kevin Andrews ; Access Technology Higher Education Network Subject: Re: [Athen] Review a document? [This email originated from outside of OSU. Use caution with links and attachments.] I would add that asking blind and visually impaired people to test is valuable work, but I personally think you ask for volunteers first, then pay those who contribute significantly. For every blind student I?ve had who knows how to use their access technology, there are ten who do not. I?m in a community college, so probably at a university you?d see users with greater A.T. skills. And if your budget or circumstances don?t allow cash payments, consider amazon gift cards or some other compensation. I have done a ton of testing for Google, Ebay, Facebook, Amazon and Meta because I live in Silicon Valley and am considered a valued tester. But I always get paid in Amazon, Target or Walmart cards, or free Uber rides, and never with cash. And these are big for-profit companies who you?d think would have resources to pay me real money. But I?m fine with all the other payment methods. Doesn?t require a W9! Silicon valley is pricey so those Uber vouchers are an especially nice payment! From: athen-list On Behalf Of Kevin Andrews via athen-list Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2025 4:50 PM To: Wallace, Sagan ; Access Technology Higher Education Network Subject: Re: [Athen] Review a document? Hi Sagan, Thanks for reaching out and for the care you're clearly putting into improving accessibility in your library archives. It?s heartening to see someone thinking not just about compliance, but about actual usability and experience for blind readers. That said, I do want to gently flag that asking blind screen reader users to review multiple documents and provide UX feedback, without compensation, can feel like being asked to donate our expertise and lived experience. This is valuable labor, and when done well, it?s not just ?feedback,? it?s user testing, consulting, and accessibility evaluation work. If your institution is able to allocate funding or formalize this into a paid opportunity (or even a structured pilot with clear parameters), I imagine you'd get more consistent, thorough feedback, and it would set a strong precedent around valuing access labor. Totally understand if you?re early in the process or navigating constraints, and I appreciate you opening the door. Just wanted to be candid about how this sort of request might land. Wishing you all the best with the remediation work?this kind of deep accessibility work is sorely needed. On Wed, Jul 23, 2025 at 2:38?PM Wallace, Sagan via athen-list > wrote: Hello all, This is a big ask, so I'm sending this out to a few lists. Would anyone who is an experienced screen reader be willing to review one of the documents linked below, and give feedback on how effectively they were remediated? If you were a visually-impaired researcher using our archives and downloaded this material, would you be satisfied? Frustrated? Background: I am working on remediating our library archives for screen reader accessibility. These are theses and dissertations, most of which are STEM-heavy. All of our documents are PDF scans and we are converting them to HTML or EPUB. I am finding it's hard to make some remediation decisions because we are remediating to have these available for any researcher who encounters them, rather than being able to tailor them to an individual reader's needs. I'm confident in our ability to do a basic correction, but I want these documents to be actually pleasant for our future reader to use. Hopefully I'll be able to conduct an actual UX test with our patrons, but until then I'd love some general feedback. Each folder has the original PDF, and our output file: * Example of a math-heavy PDF converted to HTML * Math was made using the Word equation editor. I'm particularly curious how equation 104 on page 77 is, since that was made using MathPix. * Document with lots of footnotes, converted to EPUB * In particular, how is the navigation back and forth between the end notes and the main text? * PDF of a poetry book, converted to EPUB * I haven't been able to figure out how to maintain the formatting and page breaks, but I don't think keeping it as PDF is the answer. * Scan of a typewritten document from 1874, converted to EPUB * In this one I'm trying to balance maintaining the original formatting, while making the difficult-to-read text audible. We have a lot of documents written in cursive that will need to be corrected. Thank you for any support, and I hope you have a wonderful week! Best, Sagan Wallace they/them Library Accessibility Manager Oregon State University Libraries & Press _______________________________________________ athen-list mailing list athen-list@mailman22.u.washington.edu http://mailman22.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list -- Best Regards, Kevin Andrews Electronic and Information Technology Accessibility Coordinator University Information Services Georgetown University -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Fri Jul 25 06:11:14 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (ELIZABETH KILLINGER via athen-list) Date: Fri Jul 25 06:11:32 2025 Subject: [Athen] [EXT] Helping a blind student survive physical anthropology In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: I've worked with professors in understanding student's needs and organizing separate labs with Graduate students in those programs acting as aides or partners. The graduate students are already on stipend or GAs from the programs. This was at my last university that was a big R1 stem school. *Elizabeth Killinger* *Associate Coordinator* *FIT-ABLE | Office of Disability ServicesFashion Institute of Technology* David Dubinsky Student Center, A570 Phone: 212.217.4090 Website: fitnyc.edu/fitable On Thu, Jul 24, 2025, 7:40?PM Deborah Armstrong via athen-list < athen-list@u.washington.edu> wrote: > When she started college she was low-vision but now my student is almost > completely blind. > > Though she?s a liberal arts major she?s required to take at least one > science course. > > We?ve had this problem forever; absolutely none of our science courses are > accessible. They all have labs which sometimes involve working with > computer simulations, and often involve measuring, pouring, looking through > a microscope etc. > > My suggestion has always been that the blind student works with a partner > and operates as the note-taker and the person who researches the science, > while the lab partner performs the physical parts of the experiment. The > partner can also say if a solution changes color while the blind student > can be the one who knows what the color changing signifies. This seems > quite reasonable to me and that?s how blind friends in the past have coped > with Anthropology, biology, geology, chemistry and even meteorology labs. > > But this professor requires students work alone believing that lab > partners encourage cheating. This is not the first time we?ve had this > problem and I keep being asked for another solution. We don?t typically > hire assistants to help students; there?s nothing in our budget for that. > > I told the counselor who is panicking that we also have students with > sight but physical limitations that also prevent them from performing alone > in science labs and she needs to consult with the department chair for a > permanent solution. But I?m a paraprofessional; consulting with the > department chair would be a violation of my personal role at the college. > > So I?m asking the list. What have you done when this situation crops up? > > And why in the heck cannot there be at least one fully accessible science > course for those who have no intent to make science a major? I keep reading > about all sorts of grants schools get to encourage participation in STEM > for blind and visually impaired students but it?s always for a particular > high school or community college, or worse yet a school for the blind, and > it?s not applicable to anyone outside the little ?test? group. someone > really needs to get a grant to create a fully online mooc-style course that > any disabled student who needs to fulfill a science requirement can enroll > in. > > --Debee > > > _______________________________________________ > athen-list mailing list > athen-list@mailman22.u.washington.edu > http://mailman22.u.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/athen-list > -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Fri Jul 25 06:33:45 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Robert Beach via athen-list) Date: Fri Jul 25 06:33:53 2025 Subject: [Athen] Helping a blind student survive physical anthropology In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: Accommodations are modifications to policies and procedures that allow a student with a disability to have equal access to our programs, services, and courses. Unless a modification would fundamentally alter the nature of the course or program, the instructor cannot deny the accommodation. So, when you say, "But this professor requires students work alone believing that lab partners encourage cheating." Your recommend of a partner is one option that would not fundamentally alter the nature of the course or program. I doubt seriously that one of the learning outcomes of the course is to perform labs independently. So, the institution is on shaky ground to let the instructor deny this accommodation. Your other idea to allow a lab assistant is probably a better option is the student would not be leaning on another student's work. This would keep the instructor's idea of students working alone but still the give student with a disability access to the labs. You wrote, "We don't typically hire assistants to help students; there's nothing in our budget for that." There is budget for it, it just needs to be found. It may not be in disability services' budget, but there is the entire institutional budget that has to be considered. Believe me, the cost of a lab assistant will not stand up as an undue financial burden if this goes to DOJ. A larger institutional discussion needs to happen here. I'm sure that is above your pay grade, but it is not above somebody's. Bump this up the line. You also wrote, "I told the counselor who is panicking that we also have students with sight but physical limitations that also prevent them from performing alone in science labs and she needs to consult with the department chair for a permanent solution." You are absolutely right. There needs to be a policy put in place for this situation with guidelines as to what the assistant is and is not expected to do. Good luck! It is a tough spot you are in. Just remember, it is not your problem to fix as you do not have the authority to do so. It may take the student making a fuss to get anything done. In some ways, the student has more authority that you do in this situation. Robert Lee Beach, Assistive Technology Specialist Kansas City Kansas Community College rbeach@kckcc.edu 913-288-7671 From: athen-list On Behalf Of Deborah Armstrong via athen-list Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2025 6:40 PM To: 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' Subject: [Athen] Helping a blind student survive physical anthropology When she started college she was low-vision but now my student is almost completely blind. Though she's a liberal arts major she's required to take at least one science course. We've had this problem forever; absolutely none of our science courses are accessible. They all have labs which sometimes involve working with computer simulations, and often involve measuring, pouring, looking through a microscope etc. My suggestion has always been that the blind student works with a partner and operates as the note-taker and the person who researches the science, while the lab partner performs the physical parts of the experiment. The partner can also say if a solution changes color while the blind student can be the one who knows what the color changing signifies. This seems quite reasonable to me and that's how blind friends in the past have coped with Anthropology, biology, geology, chemistry and even meteorology labs. But this professor requires students work alone believing that lab partners encourage cheating. This is not the first time we've had this problem and I keep being asked for another solution. We don't typically hire assistants to help students; there's nothing in our budget for that. I told the counselor who is panicking that we also have students with sight but physical limitations that also prevent them from performing alone in science labs and she needs to consult with the department chair for a permanent solution. But I'm a paraprofessional; consulting with the department chair would be a violation of my personal role at the college. So I'm asking the list. What have you done when this situation crops up? And why in the heck cannot there be at least one fully accessible science course for those who have no intent to make science a major? I keep reading about all sorts of grants schools get to encourage participation in STEM for blind and visually impaired students but it's always for a particular high school or community college, or worse yet a school for the blind, and it's not applicable to anyone outside the little "test" group. someone really needs to get a grant to create a fully online mooc-style course that any disabled student who needs to fulfill a science requirement can enroll in. --Debee -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: From athen-list at u.washington.edu Fri Jul 25 08:39:15 2025 From: athen-list at u.washington.edu (Matson, Eric (ecmatson@uidaho.edu) via athen-list) Date: Fri Jul 25 08:39:24 2025 Subject: [Athen] Helping a blind student survive physical anthropology In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: For labs, you would most likely need to review the fundamental alteration question for each lab, as each week likely has different learning objectives. University of Oregon has a good Fundamental Alteration page with links to OCR resolutions - Fundamental Alteration Assessment Process | UO Accessible Education Center. I also like how UCLA has roles and responsibilities outlined on their fundamental alteration page - Determining Essential Requirements and Fundamental Alterations | Center for Accessible Education. We have one or two students a semester that have an accommodation for a lab assistant. I usually navigate safety concerns about extra people or equipment in the lab, and my director navigates any fundamental alteration concerns. So like Robert said, this needs to get bumped up the chain. Is the instructor creating the labs or are they using something from one of the major publishers? If the labs are from a publisher, reaching out to their accessibility department might also be useful. Natalie Davison at Boise State University shared with me that a lot of those course packets have accessibility features that just need to be turned on. She's also done a lot of amazing work on STEM content for blind students. Also, just want to echo Robert's sentiment that the student usually has more authority in these situations than staff. I've had a few times where nothing was happening until the student started raising a stink. It sucks, but sometimes an OCR complaint is the only way to get anything changed. I've never taken an anthropology lab, so if you're able to share the specific challenges in this lab, might be able to come up with more concrete solutions. Happy Friday everyone! Eric Matson | Assistant Director - Assistive Technology & Accommodation Operations Center for Disability Access and Resources Division of Student Affairs The University of Idaho Phone: 208.885.6307 | ecmatson@uidaho.edu| Message me on Teams Bruce M. Pitman Center 127 Fax: 208.885.9404 Campus Zip: 4257 Treasurer - Idaho Partnership on Higher Education and Disability Pronouns: He / Him / His From: athen-list On Behalf Of Robert Beach via athen-list Sent: Friday, July 25, 2025 6:34 AM To: Deborah Armstrong ; Access Technology Higher Education Network Subject: Re: [Athen] Helping a blind student survive physical anthropology Accommodations are modifications to policies and procedures that allow a student with a disability to have equal access to our programs, services, and courses. Unless a modification would fundamentally alter the nature of the course or program, Accommodations are modifications to policies and procedures that allow a student with a disability to have equal access to our programs, services, and courses. Unless a modification would fundamentally alter the nature of the course or program, the instructor cannot deny the accommodation. So, when you say, "But this professor requires students work alone believing that lab partners encourage cheating." Your recommend of a partner is one option that would not fundamentally alter the nature of the course or program. I doubt seriously that one of the learning outcomes of the course is to perform labs independently. So, the institution is on shaky ground to let the instructor deny this accommodation. Your other idea to allow a lab assistant is probably a better option is the student would not be leaning on another student's work. This would keep the instructor's idea of students working alone but still the give student with a disability access to the labs. You wrote, "We don't typically hire assistants to help students; there's nothing in our budget for that." There is budget for it, it just needs to be found. It may not be in disability services' budget, but there is the entire institutional budget that has to be considered. Believe me, the cost of a lab assistant will not stand up as an undue financial burden if this goes to DOJ. A larger institutional discussion needs to happen here. I'm sure that is above your pay grade, but it is not above somebody's. Bump this up the line. You also wrote, "I told the counselor who is panicking that we also have students with sight but physical limitations that also prevent them from performing alone in science labs and she needs to consult with the department chair for a permanent solution." You are absolutely right. There needs to be a policy put in place for this situation with guidelines as to what the assistant is and is not expected to do. Good luck! It is a tough spot you are in. Just remember, it is not your problem to fix as you do not have the authority to do so. It may take the student making a fuss to get anything done. In some ways, the student has more authority that you do in this situation. Robert Lee Beach, Assistive Technology Specialist Kansas City Kansas Community College rbeach@kckcc.edu 913-288-7671 From: athen-list > On Behalf Of Deborah Armstrong via athen-list Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2025 6:40 PM To: 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' > Subject: [Athen] Helping a blind student survive physical anthropology When she started college she was low-vision but now my student is almost completely blind. Though she's a liberal arts major she's required to take at least one science course. We've had this problem forever; absolutely none of our science courses are accessible. They all have labs which sometimes involve working with computer simulations, and often involve measuring, pouring, looking through a microscope etc. My suggestion has always been that the blind student works with a partner and operates as the note-taker and the person who researches the science, while the lab partner performs the physical parts of the experiment. The partner can also say if a solution changes color while the blind student can be the one who knows what the color changing signifies. This seems quite reasonable to me and that's how blind friends in the past have coped with Anthropology, biology, geology, chemistry and even meteorology labs. But this professor requires students work alone believing that lab partners encourage cheating. This is not the first time we've had this problem and I keep being asked for another solution. We don't typically hire assistants to help students; there's nothing in our budget for that. I told the counselor who is panicking that we also have students with sight but physical limitations that also prevent them from performing alone in science labs and she needs to consult with the department chair for a permanent solution. But I'm a paraprofessional; consulting with the department chair would be a violation of my personal role at the college. So I'm asking the list. What have you done when this situation crops up? And why in the heck cannot there be at least one fully accessible science course for those who have no intent to make science a major? I keep reading about all sorts of grants schools get to encourage participation in STEM for blind and visually impaired students but it's always for a particular high school or community college, or worse yet a school for the blind, and it's not applicable to anyone outside the little "test" group. someone really needs to get a grant to create a fully online mooc-style course that any disabled student who needs to fulfill a science requirement can enroll in. --Debee -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: