DAISY The results of early seeding The Open University Digital Audio Project Andrew Thomas - Project Manager Douglas G Blane - Technical Co-ordinator NADP Presentation 3 rd July 2009 © The Open University 2009

Disabled Students at the OU Approximately 10,000 disabled students registered for study Declared disabilities or additional requirements (Dec ’08) – 19,695 Sight 993Fatigue/Pain 4062 Dyslexia1862Mental Health 2772 Hearing 755Mobility/Physical 3045 Speech 373Manual 1972 Other1869 Personal care 758 Unseen disability 1136Autistic spectrum 98 Many students declare more than one disability Some have highly complex needs eg, paraplegic Created by Andrew Thomas © The Open University 2009

Disabled Students at the OU Approximately 10,000 disabled students registered for study Declared disabilities or additional requirements (Dec ’08) – 19,695 Sight 993Fatigue/Pain 4062 Dyslexia1862Mental Health 2772 Hearing 755Mobility/Physical 3045 Speech 373Manual 1972 Other1869 Personal care 758 Unseen disability 1136Autistic spectrum 98 Many students declare more than one disability Some have highly complex needs eg, paraplegic Created by Andrew Thomas © The Open University 2009

Tapes, CDs and PDFs Now: Audio recordings (1,454 students) –62% - Analogue (cassette tapes) –38% - DREAM digital recording (Readout) Electronic documents (PDF) (783 students) The future: International standard DAISY (Digital Accessible Information SYstem) Created by Andrew Thomas © The Open University 2009

Digital Audio Project 3 year project – 2007 to 2010 Funded by OU Alumni (donations) Updating, improving, and expanding audio services For print-disabled students AND… Mainstreaming beyond disability (integration) planned Created by Andrew Thomas © The Open University 2009

Project Plan Year 1 = research, specification and set-up Year 2 = pilots and trials, begin roll-out, experiment Year 3 = complete roll-out, convert back-catalogue NB Students involved throughout – specification and testing Created by Andrew Thomas © The Open University 2009

Current Production Process - DREAM/ReadOut Course Material OU Handcrafted Processes OU ReadOut DTB Human Voice OU DREAM Process Created by Andrew Thomas © The Open University 2009

Created by Douglas G Blane © The Open University 2009 DAISY Digital Talking Book Production Workflows Douglas G Blane Technical Co-ordinator

Workflows Created by Douglas G Blane © The Open University eXtensible Markup Language (XML) 2.Portable Document Format (PDF) 3.Legacy (various)

eXtensible Markup Language Created by Douglas G Blane © The Open University 2009 InDesign Word OU XMLPDF Word Other XML Other DAISY DTB Structured Content DAISY DTD Transform DAISY XML Save as DAISY

OU Structured Content Created by Douglas G Blane © The Open University 2009

Adobe InDesign CS4 Created by Douglas G Blane © The Open University 2009

Save As DAISY Created by Douglas G Blane © The Open University 2009 Microsoft Word 2007 Word 2007 is XML based, Word 2003 is not. I would recommend using Word 2007.

OU XML Production Processes Course material DAISY DTBs Structured MP3 Other outputs Synthesised voice Mixed synthesised & human voices Human voice DAISY Pipeline Easy Publisher Easy Converter XML Created by Douglas G Blane © The Open University 2009

Structure is the key The Open University Structured Content system Provides structured outputs in XML, Word, HTML, PDF etc Allows automated transformation into DAISY Digital Talking Books, Large Print, Braille & other Alternative Formats Created by Douglas G Blane © The Open University 2009

PDF Workflow Created by Douglas G Blane © The Open University 2009 Unstructured PDF files Structured XML Files Structured PDF files Outsourced Restructuring Internal Restructuring DAISY DTBs Process

Workflow issues Created by Douglas G Blane © The Open University Lexicon – Text To Speech (TTS) pronunciation 2.Pagination – Electronic page numbers not matching printed page numbers 3.Revising existing DAISY DTBs – XML Editor / DAISY Pipeline project / Dolphin Publisher project

Major benefits For students Greater quantity of audio recordings More timely delivery More user-friendly and flexible products For us Large number of print-disabled students Complex teaching and learning materials International DAISY standard Created by Andrew Thomas © The Open University 2009

Looking into the future Further Integration of academic learning structures into the DAISY DTB standard Integration of multimedia content (inc. OU & BBC co-produced TV programmes) Mobile content for mobile devices Mainstreaming beyond disability Created by Douglas G Blane © The Open University 2009

Andrew Thomas - Project Manager Douglas G Blane - Technical Co-ordinator Digital Audio Project Disabled Student Services The Open University Walton Hall Milton Keynes MK7 6AA Telephone: Web: Contact details