title: Access to all components of scanned mathematical documents by vision-impaired students.
abstract: Vision-impaired people access documents using screen readers. Electronic documents may contain non-textual components, non-linear components, and multidimensional components, such as mathematical expressions and graphs. These components create a number of accessibility issues for those who use screen readers as assistive technology. The research presented here describes mathematical information retrieval, and accessible and navigable representation of mathematical function graphs as solutions to these issues. Additionally, this research study is about how to present course materials to vision-impaired students, and is not about how to teach them. The system shows promise, given an initial evaluation by a vision-impaired person, and an encouraging review by three blind professionals. The next step is to perform a full evaluation of the system employing a larger number of vision-impaired students.
authors.affiliation: a Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering , Curtin University, Perth , Western Australia.
authors.forename: Azadeh
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Nazemi
authors.affiliation: a Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering , Curtin University, Perth , Western Australia.
authors.forename: Chandrika
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Fernando
authors.affiliation: a Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering , Curtin University, Perth , Western Australia.
authors.forename: Iain
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Murray
authors.affiliation: b Department of Spatial Science , Curtin University, Perth , Western Australia.
authors.forename: David A
authors.initials: DA
authors.lastname: McMeekin
mesh_terms: D003143:Communication Devices for People with Disabilities; D006801:Humans; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D008433:Mathematics / Q000193:education*; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D057170:Translational Research, Biomedical; D014786:Vision Disorders / Q000534:rehabilitation; D019987:Persons with Visual Disabilities / Q000534:rehabilitation*
keywords: communication; computer access; knowledge translation; vision-impaired