Effective Practices for Description of Science Content within Digital Talking Books
January 2005-December 2007

Project Home | Detailed Overview | Resources | Staff

1. Resources for Describing STEM Images
2. DTB Standards and NIMAS Resources
3. DTB Providers
4. DTB Hardware
5. DTB Software
6. DTB Authoring Software
7. Text to Speech Resources

Resources for Describing STEM Images

• Math
  • Handbook of Spoken Mathematics: Larry's Speakeasy
    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
    Disabilities Services
    P.O. Box 808, L-716
    Livermore, CA 94551
  • MathSpeak Initiative by gh is a standard for the production of Digital Talking Book versions of Math and Science Books.
  • The Nemeth Braille Code For Mathematics and Science
  • Dr. Netmeth's MathSpeak
• Charts and Graphs
  • Chart Explainer automatically generates textual summaries of charts and tables.
  • Mathtrax is a graph describer developed by NASA.
• General
  • American Printing House for the Blind's Accessible Tests Department
  • Design Guidelines for Electronic Publications, Multimedia and the Web
  • The National Center for Blind Youth in Science has a portal for STEM resources.
  • TEST ACCESS: Guidelines for Computer Administered Testing.

DTB Standards and NIMAS Resources

• DTB Standards
  • DAISY Consortium (Digital Information Access SYstem Consortium)
  • DAISY.org/tools maintains extensive lists of DTB readers and publishing software.
• NIMAS Resources
  • National Instructional Materials Access Center
  • NIMAS Development & Technical Assistance Centers
  • Center for Applied Special Technology: CAST

DTB Providers

• Aequus Technologies
• American Printing House for the Blind
• American Foundation for the Blind
• Bookshare.org
• gh
• Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic.
• Talking Book Productions, a division of the American Foundation for the Blind

DTB Hardware Readers

• Book Port
• Plextalk PTN1
• Plextalk PTN1 pro
• PlexTalk PTR2 Player/Recorder
• Telex Professor CD/Cassette Player
• Telex ezDaisy Digital Talking Book Player
• Telex Scholar Digital Talking Book Player
• Victor Reader Classic
• Victor Reader Classic+
• Victor Reader Classic+ with Recording
• Victor Reader Vibe
• Victor Reader Wave

Comparison chart of DTB hardware

DTB Software Readers

• AspireReader
• Book Wizard Reader
• Dolphin EaseReader
• eClipse Reader
• FSReader
• gh PLAYER
• Victor Reader Soft

Comparison chart of DTB software

DTB Authoring Software

• Book Wizard
• Dolphin EasePublisher
• eClipse Writer

Text to Speech Resources

• Screenreaders
  • JAWS by Freedom Scientific
  • Window-Eyes by GW Micro
  • Hal and Supernova by Dolphin
  • Voice Over by Apple.
• Text to Speech Converters
  • Math Player by Design Science reads Math ML.
  • Math Type by Design Science converts math written in Word into Math ML
  • Math Speak by gh reads Math ML.
  • IVEO by View Plus Technologies is a self-voicing tactile-audio system.
  • Lexiflow by text Help generates talking Flash pages from a PDF.
• Also see DTB publishing tools and DTB software readers listed above or at DAISY.org/tools.

Participate in User Testing

We are seeking STEM-focused professionals and post-secondary students who are visually impaired or blind, to participate in paid user-testing for this research project. For details please contact Bryan Gould, project manager.

Funders

Funding for this project is provided by the National Science Foundation.