DIAGRAM Advisory Board Meeting: April 14, 2014

Present:

Betsy Beaumon, Gerardo Capiel, Geoff Freed, Larry Goldberg, Bryan Gould, Glinda Hill, Mark Hakkinen, George Kerscher, Andrew Kirkpatrick, Sue-Ann Ma, Julie Noblitt, Helen Popper, Madeleine Rothberg,Ting Siu, Laurie Vasquez, Ge Vue

Regrets:

James Allen, Jim Downs, Jim Fruchterman, Markus Gylling, Lucia Hasty, Jim Koopman, Brian MacDonald, Ike Presley, James Pritchett, T.V. Raman, Lore Schindler, Mike Sharpe, Jane Thompson

Notes:

1. Standards Working Group Update (George)

   1. Epub 3.0.1 is out for public review, expected to be finalized soon. Two modular extensions for index and dictionaries in public review and ip review phase.

   2. W3C activity with digital publishing continues to move slowly with requirements; moving in harmony with idpf and epub standards

   3. Open annotations between w3c and idpf for making annotations and a first version expected to be out (separate from epub doc but overlay on top of epub); these are all green, no amber or red and final one is edupub development;

   4. Edupub is part of idpf and epub 3; it’s a profile that adds additional semantics to the document needed for education; that is currently being reviewed; a first release expected on may 28 – adds about 95 epub type attributes that would expand semantics of educational publishing materials, associated with edupub work is collaboration with ims

   5. Activity around accessible widgets—that’s being kicked off Wednesday and would be great if we could get accessibility experts involved in that

   6. Mark: on ims apip, we will be diving into image examples in coming weeks; a lot of discussion after csun about apip; will be asking for additional input from diagram community

   7. George: testing in schools for reading; there is a reluctance, block by educators to allow students with disabilities to use at while taking reading tests; accommodation is time rather than tools

   8. Anh: calls to action; please provide feedback to George and Mark

2. Tools Working Group Update (Gerardo)

   1. a lot of focus on math; neil has addressed mathplayer support in ie10 and 11

   2. a11y metadata tools and widgets work (library of open source widgets); metrodigi is working on a11y of the widgets they contributed; also looking at jswaves;

   3. George: is there something to show a layperson how to use schema.org? Terrific post to digital publishing group in w3c around metadata in general.

   4. Gerardo: links in that post were prototypes of what is going to be possible; need to push more content to be available; needs some thought

3. Content Working Group Update (Julie on behalf of Elaine & Lucia)

   1. Accessible Image Sample Book: Version 1.0 is now posted to the DIAGRAM web site. Planning to update book as new technologies emerge.

   2. Webinar about the book held on February 6th went very well; 440 registrants, 250+ logins. At the end of the hour still had 200 logged in; Great questions from the audience; Written summary of Q & A, along with ppts, available on webinars page with closed-captioned recording. Great to see active engagement from EDUPUB group.

   3. Next project: Accessible Image Registry/Repository. Framing design principles – more questions than answers right now. Important to do research before design – get input from as wide a group as possible. Looking to have a design and hopefully a prototype before end of DIAGRAM award on April 30, 2015, putting us in a good position to apply for funding to build it.

   4. DIAGRAM put Jim Allen in touch with Lisa Yayla to revive dormant 3D image library (was based in Norway, no funding to continue hosting, now likely that Texas School for the Blind will host). DIAGRAM also in touch with DSS office in Utah, willing to share images for prototyping.

4. Outreach Working Group Update (Julie)

   1. Refreshed DIAGRAM web site http://diagramcenter.org/ Twitter and blog feed on home page so you can see all the latest DIAGRAM news at a glance; Additional accessibility features; Refreshed text to reduce jargon and clarify the benefits of DIAGRAM initiatives; New “About DIAGRAM” page consolidates key information, with a link to the new “Testimonials” page, “What People Are Saying About the DIAGRAM Center”

   2. Next DIAGRAM webinars: 3D Printing for Accessible Education (April 30, 2014 by Ting Siu); Accessible Interactives (July 30, 2014 by Kyle Keane and Madeleine Rothberg)

   3. Discussion of new page on website re: 3D printing & tactiles

5. 3D Printing Research (Ting)

   1. idea of survey was not to find solution but to define the problems; looking at tvis because if we can’t reach and engage them that will be largest challenge to implementing technology in schools

   2. did survey in the fall and written in January; survey had 163 respondents; 90 tvis

   3. most didn’t know or consider 3d printing at all; discouraged that such a large number hadn’t heard of it; but 45 who had heard of it knew of it in the school setting

   4. there’s been a large movement of putting 3d printers in the general education environment; #1 challenge is access to printer and material; #2 challenge access to training and resources; teachers are really strapped in time

   5. one successful case study; inviting that tvi to participate in webinar to talk about experience at LAUSD; haven’t used printer in a year due to other challenges in implementation; hopefully will find areas where can provide areas better and support

   6. Laurie: our cad dept ordered four 3d printers, curious to see how going to use

   7. Anh: also work by Stanford students – we will post their paper on DIAGRAM site

   8. Laurie: 3D printing is here to stay; was at workshop at csun; they had samples of images that had been turned into 3d; watching the folks in the audience touching and exploring; it just makes sense

   9. Helen: would be great to touch on what’s available for software for the blind during the webinar; took a lot of assistance for rio to create the 3d model itself; doodle pen (3d pen) – not perfect but it is something blind kids can use

   10. George: have this problem with images and description of images not being carried along with jpeg; in early stages with 3d printing, having metadata describing how to explore 3d image, if we could get that in early on that would be good

   11. Larry: Smithsonian has begun scanning a lot of objects and making those files available;  director is leader in the field; http://3d.si.edu

   12. Andrew: a lot of people use photoshop to make 3d objects (George: that has xmp metadata but not been standardized and doesn’t look like its been updated); we have not looked at it for accessibility yet; don’t know if there is xmp metadata associated with build files from photoshop

   13. **Andrew to report

   14. Laurie: sending Ting website (teaching 3d printing link)

6. Airlie Meeting (discussion): What would you like to get out of the meeting? Things to repeat (or not) from Asilomar experience?

   1. Laurie: the outreach piece is critical; having discussion; trying to get the tools into the hands of schools, the people who are publishers of instructional materials and not necessarily out of IT; more and more I see faculty creating a mass of instructional materials and I’m trying to wrap my head around how to present a lot of information to them

   2. Helen: how can kids be involved in that outreach; they are the ones pushing the tvis

   3. Laurie: having demos was very interesting

   4. Ge: growing interest and growth in moocs and lots of data visualization and infographics; that growth doesn’t translate to accessibility; how can diagram relate or connect to that

   5. Laurie: the whole online learning environment is huge in California; we have millions of dollars in online education initiative to common course system. See: The California Community Colleges Online Education Initiative held its first statewide informational town hall at the Campus Technology Forum 2014. The town hall was created to inform community college administration and technology leadership about this important initiative. http://www.3cmediasolutions.org/events/OEITownHall040914

   6. George: we’ve seen amazing transition where mainstream publishers are interested about a11y, not just driven by all of us but is banner is being picked up by a wide range of people, integrating into the fabric of digital publishing; hope we can maintain that moving forward and make it grow; bleeds right into the online learning ; there is almost no difference between online learning and a11y