Powerpoint available at LaTeX and MathML - What Content Creators Need to Know Powerpoint available at AHG website accessiblek.com Krista Greear Assistant Director Disability Resources for Students greeark@uw.edu

Introduction Disclaimers UW’s experience Disclaimer: I’m an explorer not necessarily an expert. Focused on STEM and learning disabilities since that was the need on my campus.

Game Plan Teach You – STEM Accessibility 5 Terms You Need to Know Demos of Accessible and Inaccessible STEM Content Collaboration Opportunity

Teaching You – STEM Accessibility

What is STEM (and STEAM)? Science Technology Engineering Arts Math For this presentation, I’m focusing on STEM, not STEAM

Who Needs Accessible STEM? Those with Learning disabilities Traumatic brain injuries Blind Who else?

Where is STEM Content? Physical handouts Electronic docs (Word docs, PDFs, pptx) Online learning tools (MyMathLab) Websites Videos Whiteboards Mobile Apps

Data about UW and STEM # quarters # different classes # files # pages # files with STEM content % of files 9 228 7,968 124,114 800 10.04% # pages with STEM content % of pages UW time to convert accessible STEM content Hours to convert 11,132 pages Weeks of full-time work 11,132 8.97% 10 pages / hour 1,113 27.83 Looked at Canvas classes where there was a request for accessible documents.

Making STEM Accessible Obtain publisher PDF Remove “eye candy” in Adobe Pro Convert files to TIFF OCR with Infty Export to XML Use MathType and Word to edit math Edit for other accessibility elements This is what UW does.

Immediate Take Aways Stop doing it alone! Stop pretending you don’t need (fill-in-blank here)! Start thinking at 30,000 feet Start very small

5 Terms You Need to Know

Accessible “Accessible means that individuals with disabilities are able to independently acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same services within the same timeframe as individuals without disabilities, with substantially equivalent ease of use.” University of Montana Office of Civil Rights settlement agreement, 2012 We’ve seen this before! I recommend becoming very familiar with it. But what are other definitions you like to use?

Text-to-Speech Text to speech, abbreviated as TTS, is a form of speech synthesis that converts text into spoken voice output. Text to speech systems were first developed to aid the visually impaired by offering a computer-generated spoken voice that would "read" text to the user. Webopedia definition Who uses text-to-speech? (don’t have to answer) What are some names of TTS software?

Screen Reader A screen reader is a software application that enables people with severe visual impairments to use a computer. Screen readers work closely with the computer's Operating System (OS) to provide information about icons, menus, dialogue boxes, files and folders. Humanising Technology Blog What are some names of popular screen readers?

LaTeX LaTeX, which is pronounced «Lah-tech» or «Lay-tech» is a document preparation system for high-quality typesetting. It includes features designed for the production of technical and scientific documentation. LaTeX is the de facto standard for the communication and publication of scientific documents. LaTex Project.org Who has heard of LaTeX? Who on your campus would know the most about LaTeX?

LaTeX Example Designed for print A different language

MathML MathML is a low-level specification for mathematical and scientific content on the Web and beyond. MathML can be used to encode both the presentation of mathematical notation for high-quality visual display, and mathematical content, for applications where the semantics plays more of a key role such as voice synthesis. W3C Math Homepage Who has heard of MathML? Presentation MathML vs Content MathML? Who on your campus would know the most about MathML?

MathML Example Designed to be on the web Many adaptive technologies will recognize it Becoming the standard for making math accessible Very flexible in different environments – word doc, Braille, web

MathType Stand alone MS Word and PowerPoint plug in Exports LaTeX or MathML Available on Windows or Mac This is the software recommendation. Less than $100 per license

Demos of Accessible and Inaccessible STEM Content

Video: Difference between Image PDF Text Selectable PDF and MathML Word Doc YouTube Video

Video: Using Text-to-Speech Image PDF Text Selectable PDF and MathML Word Doc YouTube Video

Resources that Simplify STEM (well, an attempt anyways)

How Math Content Created It’s Challenging. And Fun! File Type How Math Content Created End User’s Tool PDF Word doc HTML LaTeX Text Graphic MathML Screen reader (JAWS, NVDA, VoiceOver, ChromeVox) Text to speech engine (CAR, VoiceDream, Mac TTS) Speech Recognition (Dragon, Dictation) It was at the preconference where folks said it would be helpful to have a table where they can see if the combo of certain factors will produce a desirable result

Comparing LaTeX & MathML Accessiblek.com Accessible STEM Content

STEM Accessibility Cheat Sheet Accessiblek.com Accessible STEM Content I need collaborators :]

Which Browsers Support MathML? This website is really cool. You type in something and it will tell you which browsers/which versions support that. Can I Use…?

Thank you! accessiblek.com Krista Greear Assistant Director Disability Resources for Students greeark@uw.edu