Accessing Scholarly Content
through FOSS based Assistive
Technology
Barnali Roy Choudhury
Convenor, Open Access India
Librarian,
AJC Bose College
Kolkata-20
Open Access
Provision to access of publicly funded scholarly communication
without any economic, legal, technical and social barrier.....
Main motto of OA....
Democratization of knowledge
Access of information for all persons......
Available Scholarly Communications on the web
10,068 Journals
1,778,530 Articles
Open DOAR
OATD
2,295,950 theses and
Dissertations
DOAB
2404 Academic Peerreviewed books from 79
publishers
BASE
More than 60 million
documents from more than
3,000 sources
CORE
20,661,664 open Access articles
Google Scholar
99.3 million
documents
87% total no. of
scholarly
documents on the
web
At a glance
 Around 15% of the world’s population or estimated 1 billion
people, live with disabilities. They are the world’s largest
minority. (WHO)
 80% of persons with disabilities live in developing countries.
(UNDP)
 The global literacy rate for adults with disabilities is as low as
3%, and 1% for women with disabilities. (UNDP)
 In the OECD countries, students with disabilities in higher
education remain under-represented, although their numbers
are on the increase. (OECD)
Is there any way to Access Open access
Scholarly communications???
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can be a
powerful tool in supporting education and inclusion for persons
with disabilities.
Free Open Source Software (FOSS)
Foss based Assistive Technology could help PWDs …
Screen Reader
On-screen Keyboard
Magnifier
Speech Recognition
Text to Speech
Symbols
Screen Reader
Screen reader is basically a software, helping Persons with Disabilities by Audio
reading of Visual contents. It generally speaks aloud contents of a computer
screen, including desktop icon labels and drop-down and tool bar menu items.
Screen readers and refreshable braille displays are one software package.
ORCA: Orca is a Linux based built-in screen reader software in Gnome
package. It uses various combinations of speech, Braille and magnification
to provide access to compliant applications.
ORCA
On-Screen Keyboard
On-screen keyboards can be used in place of a standard keyboard. It
enable a user to select keys using a pointing device, such as a mouse,
trackball, or touch pad.
GTkeyboard (http://opop.nols.com/gtkeyboard.html) is a onscreen, graphical keyboard.
GNOME Onscreen Keyboard (GOK) (http://www.gok.ca) is a onscreen, graphical keyboard that enables users to control their computer
without having to rely on a standard keyboard or mouse..
Magnification
Virtual Magnifying Glass 3.6 : A A free, open source, screen
magnifier, for Windows, Linux, FreeBSD and Mac OS X. Mouse
scroll-wheel controls zoom factor.
GNOME Magnifier (gnome-mag) : The GNOME magnifier
(gnome-mag) provides a command-line interface for standalone use,
although its primary goal is to provide a set of magnification services
for use by other client applications and assistive technologies, like
Gnopernicus, Orca
KMag is a small utility for Linux to magnify a part of the screen.
KMag is very useful for people with visual disabilities and for those
working in the fields of image analysis, web development etc.
Ubuntu
Speech Recognition
 Speech Dasher: Speech Dasher is a novel interface for the input of text
using a combination of speech and gestures. A speech recognizer provides
the initial guess of the user's desired text while a gesture-based interface
allows the user to confirm and correct the recognizer's output. enabling text
input by people unable to use a keyboard and by those using mobile devices.
 Open Mind Speech: GPL based speech recognition tools and application.
It is intended to collect speech data from "e-citizens" using the Internet.
 Dspeech: TTS (Text To Speech) program with functionality of integrated
ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition). It is able to read aloud the written
text and choose the sentences to be pronounced based upon the vocal
answers of the user. Allows you to save the output as a .WAV or .MP3 file
and allows quick select icon of different voices, even combine them, or
juxtapose them in order to create dialogues between different voices.
several different speech recognition utilities.
http://www.trace.wisc.edu/world/computer_access/unix/unixshar.html.
Digital Talking Book
Reading with audio support
DAISY (Digital Accessible Information System Format)
•
ANSI/NISO Z39.86-2005 (R2012) Specifications for the Digital Talking Book
•
ANSI/NISO Z39.98-2012, Authoring and Interchange Framework for
Adaptive XML Publishing Specification (NISO standard.
Daisy Pipeline The Daisy Multi Format Converter allows conversion of DAISY
books between different formats.
AMIS is a multilingual software for reading books complatible with DAISY
standards.
Emac speak: Emacspeak facilitate eyes-free access to daily computing tasks. It
provides fluent spoken access to local and remote electronic information so
that visually impaired users could access the wealth of information available
on the Internet.
E-Pub open standard compatible e-book player.
Text to speech
Dspeech: Dspeech is a TTS (Text To Speech) program with functionality of integrated
ASR (Automatic Speech Recognition) It is able to read aloud the written text and
choose the sentences to be pronounced based upon the vocal answers of the user. It
also allows to save the output as a .WAV or .MP3 file.
Gnopernicus: Automated f ocus tracking and full screen magnification, Gnopernicus
aids low-vision Gnome users, and its screen reader features allow low-vision and
blind users access to standard GTK+2 and Java-based GUI applications via speech
and braille output.
WebbIE: WebbIE is a web browser for blind and visually-impaired people, especially
those using screen readers. It comes with the Accessible programs, letting you access
news and audio on the Internet in a simple and accessible way, allowing you to use
podcasts, listen to the radio and read RSS and news with your screen reader or other
access solution.
Symbols
•
Concept Coding Framework (CCF) People with impaired
communication, including difficulties to read or write, could use symbols as
an alternative or complement to character based texts. The Concept Coding
Framework (CCF) is being developed to overcome some difficulties of
exchanging these alternatively coded messages over the Internet which is
occurred due to the lack of standardized encoding schemes and common
practices.
•
EdWord and EdWeb: EdWord is a talking word processor that allows
you to combine text with symbols. EdWeb is a talking web browser that can.
display web pages as a combination of text and symbols
•
FoxySymbols A firefox extension to provide symbol annotation to text
content.
Miscellaneous….
Accessible Web Directory : We can explore the DMOZ web directory, a
catalogue of good websites through this program . It's an alternative way to
find web pages of interest.
GazeTalk is a keyboard layout , enables the use of an eye tracker with a
low spatial resolution (e.g., a web-camera based eye tracker). It basically
works on type-to-talk, writing, email, web – browser, Multimedia –
player, PDF – reader, letter and word prediction, and word completion,
speech output, can be operated by gaze, headtracking, mouse, joystick, or
any other pointing device
Word Aid is a lexical word listing program with text-to-speech support
that can aid the development of literacy.
Compatibility with OS
Screen Reader
Magnification &
Enhanced Display
options
Sticky Keys
Mouse Keys
Slow keys
Word Processing AT tools
Parameters
Create talking books in Word DaisY
format
√
√
Add closed captions to videos in
PowerPoint presentations
√
√
Use the keyboard to create a SmartArt
graphic
√
Work in progress
Describe shapes, pictures, tables, and
graphics for people who cannot see
them
√
√
Create PDFs accessible by people with
vision impairments
√
√
Zoom
√
√
Hear written text aloud
√
Not yet
Get the big picture with Full Screen
Reading view
√
√
Spell and Grammar Checker
√
√
Web Browser
Assistive Technologies
Keyboard Shortcuts and Navigation Yes
Yes
Yes
Font size changer
Yes
Yes
Yes
Magnifier
Yes
Yes
Yes
Speech Recognition
Yes
Yes
Yes
Screen Reader
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Yes
Speech to Text
Yes
Recommendations
• Ramification and implication of sustainable policy for PwD’s;
• Availability of documents in various forms like text, audio,
video and also in Braille including Daisy and EPUB supported
formats .
• Identification of right assistive technologies for the right
persons.
Thanks for your kind attention!