B. Stoeger Linz, Austria Play (11min) Download: FLV | MOV | Ogg | mp3

Since 1991, the University of Linz has been supporting people with special needs in university education. Support is provided in a triple manner: At school – to find a decision for a university course –, during university studies, and afterwards, to enter the labour market. We describe our far–reaching set of support services, and we report about our experience with it.

E. Mendelova, N. Cuciuc Slovakia Play (11min) Download: FLV | MOV | Ogg | mp3

An early and targeted preparation for the university study is a fundamental prerequisite of future success. Paper offers an overview of activities of the Support Centre for Visually Impaired Students focused on early preparation of students with VI for studying sciences at university and forms of special support for students and academic staff during the study. As a result of a TEMPUS project the “Support Centre without barriers” at Moldova State University was created. The state of the art of study opportunities at MSU, mission of the centre and plans for an internatinal co-operation will be presented.

O. Caprotti Helsinki, Finland Play (20min) Download: FLV | MOV | Ogg | mp3

In this talk we describe the ways in which the JEM, Joining Educational Mathematics, thematic network can help in the efforts of educating about accessibility of science, and of mathematics in particular.

M. Kohlhase Milano, Italy Play (22min) Download: FLV | MOV | Ogg | mp3

We describe an experiment of transforming large collections of LaTeX documents to more machine–understandable representations. Concretely, we are translating the collection of scientific publications of the Cornell e–Print Archive (arXiv)using the LaTeXtoXML converter which is currently under development.

L. Parasiliti, C. Comaschi, C. Bernareggi Milano, Italy Play (16min) Download: FLV | MOV | Ogg | mp3

Notation is a tool of thought in reasoning and communication. However, to become an effective tool of thought, each notation expression must be properly perceived. Blind and partially sighted persons run into difficulty in working with spatially represented mathematical expressions.

S. Cesaretti Urbino, Italy Play (18min) Download: FLV | MOV | Ogg | mp3

Computation programs (e.g., MatLab, Mathematica, Maple, etc.) are widely used in university scientific courses. The major access barriers for blind and partially sighted users concern speech and tactile interaction with the front end.

This presentation at first introduces some of the most effective techniques which can be employed by a blind or partially sighted user to access some widely used computation programs. Moreover, a prototype accessible front-end for Mathematica software is presented.

B. Stoeger Linz, Austria Play (13min) Download: FLV | MOV | Ogg | mp3

Within the EC funded project MICOLE, several ideas for a multi-modal and collaborative software solution to support blind people in accessing, but also in actually doing mathematics were formulated. We shall outline these ideas and demonstrate two prototypes that have been developed within the project.

C. Freda and A. Pepino Napoli, Italy Play (17min) Download: FLV | MOV | Ogg | mp3

In order for a technological aid to be efficient and efficacious in the educational sphere, it must increase the chances and capabilities of the pupil with a disability, and respect the user’s requirements and characteristics while avoiding forcing. Therefore it should be easy for teachers to understand and use. This is the result our research group has reached upon concluding a period of experimentation of software developed by us called BlindMath.

P. Lecky and M. Hornansky Bratislava, Slovakia Play (20min) Download: FLV | MOV | Ogg | mp3

Two years ago the Support centre for visually impaired students at Comenius University in Bratislava started with localization of Lambda editor. After successful adaptation some few blind secondary school students were equipped with the software.

The first part of presentation informs about our experience with this system, about the localization process of Lambda.

In the second part offers the basic information about Lambda courses for secondary schoole students and teachers, about experiences collected during these courses but also during usage in real environment (mathematical lessons, exams, homeworks…).

E. Bortolazzi, G. Rossi Italy Play (22min) Download: FLV | MOV | Ogg | mp3

The LAMBDA system aims at facilitating blind students to write, read and process text and mathematical expressions in an educational context.

Mathematical expressions and text are presented to the user in a linear formon the braille display and through speech output. Visual rendering in a linear form enables the sighted reader to understand what the blind user is writing. Asynchronous two–dimensional visual rendering of mathematical notation is available. Many editing and exploration operations are available.

The LAMBDA system imports and exports MathML files. That makes possible transnational exchange of scientific digital resources. In this talk are presented the basic features of the LAMBDA system, state–of–the–art and future development and in which educational contexts the LAMBDA system is used. Especially, the experience with blind students in Italian schools undertaken by Istituto dei Ciechi di Milano is illustrated.

A. Karshmer California, USA Play (27min) Download: FLV | MOV | Ogg | mp3

The AutOMathic Blocks system has been designed to teach arithmetic and beginning algebra to young blind students using Braille labeled manipulative blocks. The system allows the learner to build, manipulate and solve problems using blocks which contain simple Braille code. This allows the learner to read their math problems with their finger and to understand the two–dimensional mature of math.

Unfortunately, the teaching of Braille to children has waned in the recent past based on the belief that Braille will be no longer useful in our electronic future. Many do not subscribe to this premise. To achieve a higher level of Braille skills, the AutOMathic blocs system can be used to teach both literary and math Braille in a self–learning environment.

With an attached refreshable Braille device, the student can not only set up their own exercises using the manipulative Braille blocks, but also get instant Braille output of the text being studied. In this way, the stuent could set up math problems and have the problem also delivered by the appropriate Braille code. The same would be true of learning literary Braille.

E. Pontelli New Mexico, USA Play (21min) Download: FLV | MOV | Ogg | mp3

In this talk I will present the highlights of a new project that was recently launched at New Mexico State University. The project is aimed at developing a new generation of tools and solutions to enhance accessibility of mathematics for students with different degrees of visual acuity.

The backbone of the project is the use of techniques drawn from knowledge-based systems, and integrate them to create novel, and hopefully more effective solutions.

The project has just received funding from the National Science Foundation and it is in collaboration with researchers from Computer Science, Psychology and Mechanical Engineering.

V. Brigatti Milano, Italy Play (25min) Download: FLV | MOV | Ogg | mp3

One of the greatest obstacles that visually impaired students have to overtake during their high school and university careers is having accessible educational resources as their mates have, namely, books, slides, study material, tests, exercises, and so on.

Unfortunately, up to now having these documents promptly ready as their need arise has not been possible.

In our presentation, we will show how to produce the different kind of resources needed during study years in a manner that makes them both accessible by visually impaired and easy to be produced with everyday software tools (i.e., MS Word, Design Science MathType, Open Office).

We will demonstrate through examples the steps needed to create accessible digital documents with scientific contents (formulae, equations, expressions, and diagrams).

Emilia Persoon Dedicon, The Netherlands Play (33min) Download: FLV | MOV | Ogg | mp3

DAISY is a digital format for the representation of multimedia information such as text, audio and images. DAISY is an acronym for Digital Accessible Information SYstem. The open standard has been developed and is maintained by the DAISY Consortium. It has been adopted in many countries worldwide to provide accessible information to people with a print impairment, such as blind people, people with limited vision and people with dyslexia or other learning disabilities.

The standard is used by production centres and libraries for a wide variety of information, ranging from leisure reading, educational and professional literature to newspapers and magazines. Delivery formats include audio-only books, text–only books and hybrid books containing synchronised audio and text.

DAISY books can be played with DAISY hardware and software players. The standard offers rich markup options which enables users to navigate directly to specific sections, chapters, pages and sentences within a book. Other features are searching within text, resuming the last reading position and adding bookmarks.

In 2007 the DAISY standard was extended to include MathML. Previously, mathematical formulas had to be inserted as images accompanied by a textual or audio description. With the new extension formulas are accessible in itself, making it possible to explore them step by step. Recently, manufacturers of production tools and DAISY players have been incorporating the processing of MathML in DAISY books in their software.

Playback features of DAISY books including mathematical formulas will be shown. A demonstration will be given of the creation of a DAISY document including math up to playback by a MathML capable DAISY player. For more information on DAISY and mathematics see the webpages of the DAISY Consortium and those of the MathML Modular Extension Working Group: www.daisy.org and www.daisy.org/projects/mathml/mathml-in-daisy-spec.html

M. Suzuki Japan Play (29min) Download: FLV | MOV | Ogg | mp3

InftyReader is the software developed in Kyushu University to recognize mathematical documents including various formulas of pure and applied mathematics.

It uses commercial OCR engines to recognize ordinary text parts. One of the crucial points to keep high accuracy of the recognition is the segmentation of the text area and math expression area to combine commercial OCR and InftyOCR. Recently, we are trying to use the OCR engine of ABBY FineReader to adapt InftyReader to various European languages.

In the talk, I will briefly sketch the methods to combine different OCR engines and will give some demonstrations of the current state of our New InftyReader.

D. Archambault France Play (18min) Download: FLV | MOV | Ogg | mp3

Over the past decade many applications have been developed to aid visually impaired people doing maths. Unfortunately, most of these applications work with only one Braille code, the one in use in the developer’s country. For example, the support centre of my university recently asked me if I knew of a piece of software allowing transcription of LaTeX mathematical documents to Braille. Indeed I do: Labradoor, developed by the University of Linz, does exactly that but produces Marburg code, which is of no use to French students!

N. Soiffer USA Play (31min) Download: FLV | MOV | Ogg | mp3

MathPlayer is a free plug-in to Internet Explorer that visually and aurally renders MathML in web. MathPlayer was first released many years ago, but starting with Version 2.0 and enhanced in Version 2.1, it incorporates accessibility features.