DAISY News

The Digital Images and Graphic Resources for Accessible Materials (DIAGRAM) Center http://www.diagramcenter.org/ is a U.S. Department of Education-funded project, conducted by Benetech, in collaboration with the US Fund for DAISY and the WGBH National Center for Accessible Media.

DIAGRAM is conducting a brief survey to track trends in how people with print disabilities obtain and access reading materials electronically.
Your answers will help to focus the research and development efforts on the reading tools and digital reading materials. Please take a few minutes to visit the link below and give us your input. The survey closes on March 8, 2012.

Link to survey:

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/786454/DIAGRAM-Reading-Technology-Survey

The Digital Images and Graphic Resources for Accessible Materials (DIAGRAM) Center http://www.diagramcenter.org/ is a U.S. Department of Education-funded project, conducted by Benetech, in collaboration with the US Fund for DAISY and the WGBH National Center for Accessible Media.

DIAGRAM is conducting a brief survey to track trends in how people with print disabilities obtain and access reading materials electronically.
Your answers will help to focus the research and development efforts on the reading tools and digital reading materials. Please take a few minutes to visit the link below and give your input. The survey closes on March 8, 2012.

Link to survey:

http://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/786454/DIAGRAM-Reading-Technology-Survey

The W4A 2012 Organizing Committee has announced that two awards, each of up to US$1200 (including registration), are available to support students to enable them to attend W4A 2012.  Application deadline is February 28, 2012.

Students with interests related to this year’s topic Web of Data and Accessibility are encouraged but it is certainly not a requirement as all students with an interest in accessibility and assistive technologies are welcome to apply.

This award is open to any student in a postgraduate position (part time or full time Masters students and above – however, we would mainly expect Doctoral candidates) at a University or other Higher Education institution, AND who is carrying out research that is directly relevant to the field of web accessibility. Organizers particularly encourage applicants from under-represented parts of the world. More information is provided on the W4A 2012 Conference website.

The W4A 2012 Organizing Committee has announced that two awards, each of up to US$1200 (including registration), are available to support students to enable them to attend W4A 2012 in Lyon, France.  Application deadline is February 28, 2012.

Students with interests related to this year’s topic Web of Data and Accessibility are encouraged but it is certainly not a requirement as all students with an interest in accessibility and assistive technologies are welcome to apply.

This award is open to any student in a postgraduate position (part time or full time Masters students and above – however, we would mainly expect Doctoral candidates) at a University or other Higher Education institution, AND who is carrying out research that is directly relevant to the field of web accessibility. Organizers particularly encourage applicants from under-represented parts of the world. More information is provided on the W4A 2012 Conference website.

The U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions held a hearing on Tuesday, February 7, 2012 at 2:30-4:00 pm EST, The Promise of Accessible Technology: Challenges and Opportunities, Dirksen Senate Building Room G-50. The hearing focused on the importance of accessible technology and how this issue is impacting K-12 and higher education.

Witnesses included:

• Panel I with Eve Hill, Senior Counselor to the Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, Department of Justice
• Panel II with Mark Riccobono, Executive Director, Jernigan Institute, National Federation of the Blind
• Dr. John B. Quick, Superintendent, Bartholomew Consolidated School Corporation in Columbus, Indiana
• Mark Turner, Director, Center for Accessible Media, Accessible Technology Initiative, California State University.

The hearing was broadcasted live online at www.help.senate.gov. Real time captioning and sign language interpreters were provided at the hearing.

HIMS announced the release of Sense Notetaker Version 6.2. This release features support for NLS content, the ability to read / write documents in Spanish, and support for the optional “Sense Dictionary”. Please see the Release Notes for a complete list of features, changes, and fixes in this release.

Special notice to Braille Sense OnHand, Braille Sense PLUS, Braille Sense PLUS QWERTY, and Voice Sense QWERTY users:

After upgrading to Version 6.2, you must reformat your flash disk due to the creation of a partition for housing the NLS key. Please make sure to back up your data before formatting. Voice Sense and Braille Sense Classic users do not need to reformat as NLS content playback cannot be supported on these models due to the limited size of the internal flash disk.

Please visit the HIMS resource center to access Release Notes, download Version 6.2 Firmware and user manual from the corresponding link for each product.

Thursday, March 1 is Adobe Day at the CSUN 2012 Conference. Five sessions have been lined up, all in Elizabeth C (2nd floor):

• Acrobat X, with Greg Pisocky and Pete De Vasto, 9:20am
• Accessible e-books with Adobe Digital Editions with Kiran Kaja, 10:40am
• HTML Accessibility with Adobe Software with Michael Jordan and Matt May, 12pm
• Video and CVAA Compliance with Adobe Tools with Andrew Kirkpatrick, 3:10pm
• Adobe Town Hall with the whole Adobe Accessibility team, 4:20pm

Mark your calendars. We’ll see you in San Diego.

This Webinar will provide an overview of present capabilities on both mobile and PC-based readers, cover e-text formats and future developments. With the emergence of the Kindle, the Nook, and other commercial products, the availability of electronic books and reading devices has exploded.

Date and time: February 9th at 11 AM Pacific, noon Mountain, 1 PM Central and 2 PM Eastern

Presenter: Ken Petri from Ohio State University

As we know, the accessibility of some e-reader devices has been poor, resulting in complaints and law suits. Seeing a large new market being closed to them, vendors and publishers have begun to make their products at least partially accessible. This Webinar will provide an overview of the current status of e-reader accessibility and point to some activities toward improving these technologies.

Follow the link to register for the February 9th Free Webinar.

Baltimore, Maryland (January 24, 2012): The National Federation of the Blind today announced that applications are now being accepted for the 2012 Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award Program. Each year the National Federation of the Blind presents cash awards to individuals and organizations that have made outstanding contributions toward achieving the full integration of the blind into society on a basis of equality.

Dr. Marc Maurer, President of the National Federation of the Blind, said: “Dr. Jacob Bolotin was a pioneer who overcame low expectations and discrimination to become a renowned member of the medical profession without the benefit of the support services and civil rights protections available to blind people today. He was also a fierce advocate for greater opportunity for the blind in his time, and doubtless would have been a leader in the organized blind movement had he lived to see it come into being. The Jacob Bolotin Award Program celebrates his pioneering spirit by recognizing and supporting outstanding programs, technologies, and individual efforts that promote independence and opportunity for blind Americans. Our previous winners have been a distinguished lot and we look forward to honoring more trailblazers this year.”

Recipients of the 2012 Dr. Jacob Bolotin Awards will be determined by the Dr. Jacob Bolotin Award Committee of the National Federation of the Blind. Online applications are due by March 31, 2012. Individuals or organizations are encouraged to apply on behalf of themselves or others. The award recipients will be announced at the 2012 National Federation of the Blind Convention in Dallas. More information is provided on the National Federation of the Blind website.

ICCHP organizers invite you to participate in the International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs (ICCHP) Special Thematic Session (STS) on Creative Design for Inclusion to be held in July 2012 in Linz, Austria: http://www.icchp.org/node/360.

Presentation proposals are due Wednesday, February 1st, 2012.

Papers are encouraged on the following topics but please feel free to make other suggestions and contact the STS Chair david.crombie(at)kmt.hku.nl if you have any questions.

• Approaches to human-centered innovation
• Creative approaches to providing accessible information
• Encouraging Inclusive Design Processes
• Mainstreaming creative and inclusive solutions
• Creative partnerships between key stakeholders
• Shaping inclusion policy and framework conditions
• Establishing communities and centres of interest
• Motivating institutions to demand specific solutions (creative pull)
• Teaching students to start thinking from use cases to technological solutions
• Helping institutions to combine both creative and technological educational cultures (such as science & interactive design or applied art & computing).

For general conference information, see the ICCHP Conference website.

The 'Accessible Resources Pilot Project' ran throughout the 2009/2010 school year working with both dyslexic and visually impaired students and was led by Dolphin Computer Access following a successful Department for Education tender. Funded by the same UK Government Department, the project tested a new model for providing textbooks and other curriculum materials as Microsoft Word files. Teaching professionals at the schools also used the same Word files to create Braille, large print, DAISY and MP3 editions of the 130 textbooks.

40 pupils from 9 different schools across the North West of England were involved in the trials. 20 of the pupils were dyslexic, and 20 had a visual impairment, being either blind or partially sighted.

Alongside Dolphin's experience in the world of assistive technology and alternative format provision, their success in the 'Accessible Resources Pilot Project' enables them to make recommendations that have been tried and tested with proven results. Download the full project report including the project's findings from the Dolphin Computer Access: My Accessible School website.

The open source validator tool EPUBCheck 3.0 Beta for validating EPUB 2 and EPUB 3 content is now available at validator.idpf.org. The EPUBCheck contributors and DAISY Consortium technical team members coordinated the hosted deployment. Users creating commercial EPUB files in volume must install EPUBCheck instead of using this site.

New Designs Unlimited, LLC is a manufacturer of assistive technology for the blind and visually impaired. Their mission is to make technology more accessible by increasing affordability, while reducing complexity. They also developed the Darwin Reader - accessible e-book reader app for Android. The Darwin Reader supports DAISY formatted audio and text books. Users can transfer their DAISY books to their phone or tablet from a computer, or download books directly from within the app by connecting to the Bookshare library. More information is provided in the member entry on the DAISY Consortium website.

The American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) has announced the 2012 winners of the Migel Medals, the highest honor in the blindness field. The 2012 recipients are George Kerscher, Ph.D. and Kathleen Mary Huebner, Ph.D.

"It is an honor to present these medals to George and Kathleen for their outstanding achievements in the blindness and low vision field," said Carl R. Augusto, AFB president and CEO. "In dedicating their professional lives to ensuring that people with vision loss can live healthy and independent lives, the 2012 Migel Medal awardees are truly worthy of this special recognition."

The AFB Migel Medal was established in 1937 by the late M.C. Migel, AFB's first chairman, to honor professionals and volunteers whose dedication and achievements improve the lives of people who are blind or visually impaired.

The Migel Medals will be presented to the recipients at the 2012 AFB National Leadership Conference at St. Petersburg Beach, Florida, in early May.

More information about the Awardees is provided in the AFB press release.

CSUN 2012 Conference Attendee Registration is open and the early bird rate of $455.00 will remain in effect through January 12, 2012. The conference’s Session Schedule is posted online.

Don’t forget to mark your calendars for the Keynote and Welcome Reception on February 28th at this year’s conference. You can “RSVP” for this event when you register. More information can be found on the CSUN 2012 Conference website.

Accessibility conference and exhibition "Techshare India 2012 - Bridging the Barriers" will be held on February 6th and 7th, 2012 at the India Habitat Centre in New Delhi, India. Techshare India 2012 will build awareness, identify needs, and provide solutions and implementation strategies to create an inclusive environment for people with disabilities. To register, please fill in the Techshare India 2012 Conference Registration form.

Today is Louis Braille's 203rd birthday. His determination to create a system for blind individuals to read and write has made literacy a reality for millions of blind people across the world. Braille is not a thing of the past - literacy is just as important for blind individuals as it is for the sighted. Help keep Braille alive by supporting the efforts to make Braille available to those who need it. To learn how you can help, please visit www.braille.org.

Stephen King is the new President of the DAISY Consortium. He started his four year term on January 1st, 2012.

Stephen leads one of RNIB's three strategic priorities: preventing people from losing their sight unnecessarily. Stephen also heads RNIB's work with global business, government and non-governmental organisations (NGO's). Since joining RNIB in 1990, Stephen has been instrumental in helping RNIB to establish their reputation as a world leader in supporting blind and partially sighted people. He has played an important role in developing RNIB's customer service, products, publications and library, and their work of improving access to TV, ICT and books, magazines and newspapers.

Stephen King was one of the six founding members of the DAISY Consortium in 1996. He has demonstrated an exceptional, ongoing commitment to the DAISY Consortium. Stephen holds an MBA from the Scottish Business School at Glasgow University and is also a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute. Stephen's story will be published in the January 2012 issue of the DAISY Planet newsletter.

The ATIA 2012 Orlando Conference will take place January 25-28, 2012 in Orlando, Florida. The conference exhibit space is expanding - introducing a new Apps Pavilion and Apps Showcase for the many assistive technology apps. A new addition to the conference program is the AT Research Symposium, co-hosted by ATIA and RESNA, covering critical research issues facing the Assistive Technology research and manufacturing/vendor communities. Another addition of interest to higher education accessibility professionals is Accessing Higher Ground Seminar, “Accessible Media, Web & Curriculum on Campus & in the Cloud”.

The following DAISY Consortium Members and Friends will have exhibits at the ATIA 2012 Conference:

• American Printing House for the Blind
• Benetech / Bookshare
• Dolphin Computer Access
• Duxbury Systems
• gh
• HIMS
• HumanWare
• Learning Ally
• NFB
• Plextor / PlexTalk
• ViewPlus.

Conference schedule is available on the ATIA website.

Adobe® Digital Editions 1.8 preview 2 (Version 1.8.1) is an update to the Digital Editions electronic book reader that adds support for accessibility. It is designed to work with Windows and Mac operating system accessibility features, including high contrast, and voice reading software – JAWS or NVDA on Windows and VoiceOver on Mac.

This preview enables assistive technology users to read protected eBooks, including books offered via Overdrive and books purchased through online book sellers such as Barnes and Noble. Digital Editions 1.8 is not a full replacement for Digital Editions 1.7. Currently, the Digital Editions 1.8 preview does not support 1.7 features for printing and device support (the ability to load eBooks to USB-connected eReader hardware). The focus of this release is to add accessibility support. Future releases will incorporate more of the Digital Editions 1.7 features as well as maintain accessibility improvements introduced in Digital Editions 1.8. More information is provided on the Adobe Labs website.