[bksvol-discuss] Re: frustration among submitters and validators
- From: "Kaitlyn" <kaitlyn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 30 Mar 2006 09:00:18 -0800
Hello E and Scott,
First on the submission form. I have been working with Jaws since around
2000 and initially was a little frustrated with web forms and navigation
until I had more time to learn the many features of JAWS. JAWS is like a
high end word processor or graphics program. It is fairly simple to get a
document opened and read but it does take some time to master the array of
key strokes and useful features of the software. Could these complaints be
from beginning JAWS users who basically don't know JAWS and are pointing
toward bookshare as the cause
I have used many web forms now and except for the tidal issue and too many
characters in the brief synopsis I have never had an issue with the form. I
think with about 40 plus books uploaded I have had one nor two that didn't
upload initially but after signing out and back in the book submitted fine.
This issue I have had on other sites and to me is merely short comings of
computers in general.
As far as having ways to see the status of a book, being validated, in the
admin queue, fair quality and on the wish list this could be done in real
time and would assist the scanners and validators emcely. Many of us have
full lives but do put time into the site to make it what it is. As I have
experienced here at work that sometimes even though something seems to be a
no brainer it often takes money which is sometimes in short supply.
Attitude wise I hope that some of this is not coming from the view that
visually impaired people's time is not real valuable and that we have lots
of it. I see that with the lift program here. Also there is the attitude by
some visually impaired persons that I'm blind and this should just work
right or should be provided for us.
With Kurzweil so far, after learning the program and the quirks of my
scanner, I get very good scans compared to back in the 90's when I got a
scanner and some commercial OCR software. It still may have its short
comings but keep in mind the judgement of a human being is still superior to
a machine.
In a perfect world the scans would always be perfect, the spell checker
would correct everything knowing intuitively which words should be replaced,
there would never be web outages and all files would transfer at 5 MB plus
kb/sec and bookshare would be fully staffed and ampully funded:)
I hope that user imput is seriously considered and some of these day to day
issues we have all been fighting for will be put into place this year.
Katie Hill
No one is given a dream without also being given the power to make it come
true
-----Original Message-----
From: bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:bksvol-discuss-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Scott Blanks
Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 8:06 PM
To: bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] Re: frustration among submitters and validators
E,
What are the "issues" mentioned by these Jaws users. I would contend that
the Bookshare submission screen has issues, but for the most part they don't
relate to Jaws. For example, the area of synopsis and book title and author
name are picky in certain ways, but these are not Jaws problems. They are
simply specific syntax related to the Bookshare submission form. I must say
I see *many* instances where people blurt out that there is a "jaws" problem
or accessibility issue with a website, when in fact the problem, if there is
one, is the lack of knowledge of the end user. I have submitted 40 or 50
books, and on only two occasions did I experience problems. These problems
were my placing more than 200 characters in the synopsis, and an improper
punctuation mark in the author or title field, can't recall which.
So, do you know what issues people are referring to? Perhaps we can help
solve a problem, or increase knowledge.
Scott
----- Original Message -----
From: "E." <thoth93@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <bksvol-discuss@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Wednesday, March 29, 2006 7:40 PM
Subject: [bksvol-discuss] frustration among submitters and validators
> There a lot of submitters who never join a list. Many of them spoke to me
> at CSUN. Really I ought to say former submitters. They say they have
> lots of books on their hard disks. They are frustrated by difficulties
> using the submitting screen particularly with JAWS. I am not a JAWS user.
> I rarely submit.
>
> This issue seems deeply significant and ought to be addressed. Also there
> ought to be a link right above submitt saying "report failure to submit.
> Even if the person clicks that link and does not comment we have a tally.
> If a form is presented for commentt, bookshare has gathered even more
> information. Such info is valuable when seeking grants for, say,
> engineering and hardware.
>
> The second complaint I hear is about quality, particularly that of well
> known books or older books. Appparently parts of the Lord of the Rings
> are rated excellent and may stray from the rating.
>
> This issue was brought up at the thursday evening CSUN meeting. I think
> there is going to be some official way for a user of a book in the general
> collection to put in explicit comments.
>
> Let's imagine a set of check boxes such as
> presence of 1 instead of I
> missing pages
> lines cut off on a regular basis
> missing page numbers
> rn instead of man resulting in rnan instead of man
>
>
> That stuff could be an unofficial way to let the part of the community who
> volunteers what older and loved books need attention.
>
> I do not know if this issue of quality is one of the reasons for one time
> bookshare members not renewing and do hope bookshare is dilligently
> investigating any comments by non-renewing folks.
>
> General comments about the desperate need for systems are lent a tone of
> frustration by the fact that all of us have been making them for often
> three years.
>
> Examples include the wish list mess, the need for a list of "books
> currently being scanned " to avoid duplicate work and the latest horror.
> I speak here of that thing where Kurzweil puts spaces into words. I have
> dealt with it for months and months.
>
> My first thought is that Kurzweil may need more active beta testers if
> they missed this one. My second is it would be nice to know what a person
> uses when scanning. For instance, if I know I ham validating a book by so
> and so I can check a profile saying so and so is using k1000 version ten.
> We may be able to teach each other better how to create books if we have
> these better tools.
>
> E.
>
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