[bksvol-discuss] Re: checking in re. discussion topics
- From: Cindy <popularplace@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: "bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 14 Feb 2012 16:10:10 -0800 (PST)
Plus, as Roger pointed out, some students, as he did, like to read the books
outside of the classroom.
The only thing that frustrates me about the Poet program is that sometimes it
doesn't go right to the image in the text; I have to quit safari and reopen it
and reopen the one on the left-hand side and then finally I get to the text
image; at least I can work offline on something in the meantime; also, some
images are repeated. oh, well, since I've smartened up and saved in a word file
my descriptions I just look for them and copy and paste in the new description
space.
Did you say there is funding for this project? Does that mean that we can get
credits for doing a cerainnumber of descriptions or for doing a whole book ?
(The Glencoe Health book has 838 images, of which so far 219 have been com
pleated and saved
CIndy
>________________________________
> From: Alisa Moore <alisam@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
>To: "bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
>Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 2:48 PM
>Subject: [bksvol-discuss] checking in re. discussion topics
>
>
>Hi everyone. I’ve been following the very active discussions over the
>weekend, and wanted to connect with you all about a few of the topics.
>
>Regarding Diagram/Poet, it’s true that the funding is provided for image
>descriptions for textbooks. That said, we have several volunteers writing
>descriptions for other books, and we can continue to do this as time and
>resources allow. Unfortunately, most images in Bookshare books are stripped
>out, so our selection is limited for now. However, I believe that our work
>with Poet/Diagram will further the technology to provide image descriptions in
>all books in the future. Meanwhile, we were assured by our engineers today
>that they are making it a priority to find a way to preserve images in our
>Bookshare scanned books which is a step in the right direction.
>
>Regarding the wish list, we currently have many books in process and are
>placing a special emphasis on getting wish list books into the collection.
>We’ll continue to focus on the list, however, it is true that we have limited
>resources (beyond our small volunteer proofreading team) to proof books (we
>need more proofreading volunteers!). Although Carrie can technically scan any
>book, funding to pay vendors for proofreading is prioritized for textbooks.
>I’d love suggestions for growing our proofreading volunteer pool, as that will
>be a big focus for me this year.
>
>Regarding the question of, “Why provide image descriptions if most of our
>members are sighted?”…We have thousands of members who are blind and visually
>impaired, and we want books to be accessible to all of our members whenever
>possible. This is also true for our student members who are blind/VI.
>Textbooks often contain over 1,500 images, and teachers simply don’t have the
>time to describe individual images to their students. Having images described
>in textbooks allows students to study independently, and reduces the need for
>each teacher to read each image to each student, one at a time.
>
>Thanks for all your great questions and dialogue.
>
>Alisa K. Moore
>Volunteer Program Manager
>Benetech
>www.bookshare.org
>650-352-0087
>
>
>Alisa K. Moore
>Volunteer Program Manager
>Benetech
>www.bookshare.org
>650-352-0087
>
>
>
Other related posts:
