scholarly journals Accessibility Evaluation of Saudi E-Government Systems for Teachers: A Visually Impaired User’s Perspective

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (21) ◽  
pp. 7528
Author(s):  
Duaa AlSaeed ◽  
Hend Alkhalifa ◽  
Hind Alotaibi ◽  
Raghad Alshalan ◽  
Nourah Al-Mutlaq ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Visually Impaired ◽  
Usability Testing ◽  
The Other ◽  
Educational Systems ◽  
Mixed Methods Approach ◽  
Screen Readers ◽  
Automated Evaluation ◽  
Accessibility Evaluation ◽  
Accessibility Issues ◽  
Automated Tools

The Saudi government pays great attention to the usability and accessibility issues of e-government systems. E-government educational systems, such as Noor, Faris, and iEN systems, are some of the most rapidly developing e-government systems. In this study, we used a mixed-methods approach (usability testing and automated tools evaluation) to investigate the degree of difficulty faced by teachers with visual impairment while accessing such systems. The usability testing was done on four visually impaired teachers. In addition, four automated tools, namely, AChecker, HTML_CodeSniffer, SortSite, and Total Validator, were utilized in this study. The results showed that all three systems failed to support screen readers effectively as it was the main issue reported by the participants. On the other hand, the automated evaluation tools helped with identifying the most prominent accessibility issues of these systems. The perceivable principle was the principle most violated by the three systems, followed by operable, and then robust. The errors corresponding to the perceivable principle alone represented around 73% of the total errors. Moreover, further analysis revealed that most of the detected errors violated even the lowest level of accessibility conformance, which reflected the failure of these systems to pass the accessibility evaluation.

scholarly journals INFERRING THE SCALE AND CONTENT OF A MAP USING DEEP LEARNING

2020 ◽  
Vol XLIII-B4-2020 ◽  
pp. 17-24
Author(s):  
G. Touya ◽  
F. Brisebard ◽  
F. Quinton ◽  
A. Courtial
Keyword(s):  
Neural Networks ◽  
Deep Learning ◽  
Convolutional Neural Networks ◽  
Visually Impaired ◽  
The Other ◽  
Visually Impaired People ◽  
Impaired People ◽  
Tactile Maps

Abstract. Visually impaired people cannot use classical maps but can learn to use tactile relief maps. These tactile maps are crucial at school to learn geography and history as well as the other students. They are produced manually by professional transcriptors in a very long and costly process. A platform able to generate tactile maps from maps scanned from geography textbooks could be extremely useful to these transcriptors, to fasten their production. As a first step towards such a platform, this paper proposes a method to infer the scale and the content of the map from its image. We used convolutional neural networks trained with a few hundred maps from French geography textbooks, and the results show promising results to infer labels about the content of the map (e.g. ”there are roads, cities and administrative boundaries”), and to infer the extent of the map (e.g. a map of France or of Europe).

scholarly journals The Development of Higher Education in Albania, Problems and Challenges

2019 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. p21
Author(s):  
Dr. Mirela Tase ◽  
Dr. Manjola Xhaferri
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Education System ◽  
The Other ◽  
Educational Systems ◽  
Higher Education System ◽  
Communist System ◽  
Sensitive Issue ◽  
The Right

Education is considered as one of the main pillars of society. An educated society leads the development of a nation. Education is also one of the areas which is also strongly influenced by it and social change. The fact that the educational systems are in permanent change does not show instability. But rather on the other side, they serve to better adapt the society which is changing. Starting from the beginning the education system in Albania has experienced changes after the collapse of the communist system and the approach of society to these changes has been a sensitive issue. These changes were not very studied, since they were in a very unfavorable environments, in which our education system came from a widespread politicization, and they did not always have the right fruits which was often perceived by us as experiments. These changes have not passed without debate, not only by academics, but also by students and civil society. Methodology: The work is based on a comparative analysis over these three decades, relying also on INSTAT’s statistical data.Main results: In this paper, I will show the transformation of the higher education system and how today the Law on Higher Education after three years of implementation has encountered a number of problems where the state and universities are moving from one to the other and finally that those who suffer the consequences of this law are the Albanian young who are not finding themselves in the Albanian market.

scholarly journals Creating a serious game for people with visual impairment with an emphasis on adopting the smartphone

2020 ◽  
pp. 80
Author(s):  
María D. R. Peralta Calvo ◽  
Yusmar A Flores Alvarado ◽  
Carlos M Santibáñez Camarillo
Keyword(s):  
Visual Impairment ◽  
Visually Impaired ◽  
Serious Game ◽  
Study Phase ◽  
User Centered Design ◽  
Visual Disabilities ◽  
Screen Readers ◽  
Use Of Technology ◽  
First Contact ◽  
The Impact

A great number of benefits that technology provides are accessed by a smartphone, in order to use it, it is necessary to know how to use the screen readers. However, the use of technology should not be limited by not seeing, not hearing or not being able to touch any technological device. There is currently a gap between people with visual impairment and technology. Despite the existence of a large number of projects that aim to reduce this gap in Mexico, it has not been consistently reduced. This motivates us to develop contributions in this area, so that people with visual disabilities enjoy the same benefits as sighted people. This paper aims to provide a literature review derived from the study phase and an outline of the design phase in the application of the User-Centered Design methodology. This methodology guides the development of a serious game project that will support visually impaired children in their first contact with a smartphone. The bibliographic review that is presented here has allowed us to contextualize and understand the impact of technological contributions and projects for the visually impaired.

Web 2.0 Tools: awareness and extent of use among visually impaired students

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 121-132
Author(s):  
S. Khowaja ◽  
◽  
N. Fatima ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Web 2.0 ◽  
Visually Impaired ◽  
Structured Interview ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Web 2.0 Tools ◽  
Screen Readers ◽  
Interview Method ◽  
Job Opportunities ◽  
Survey Technique ◽  
Visually Impaired Students

The article discusses a study conducted at Aligarh Muslim University to identify the awareness and use of Web 2.0 Tools by visually impaired students. The survey technique was employed in which structured interview method was followed to collect data from 83 visually impaired students and analysed using SPSS (Version 23). Findings of the study reveal that these students were aware about Web 2.0 Tools. Among these, 32.5% students possessed membership of these tools for more than 3 years and majority were using WhatsApp (89.2%), YouTube (87.9%), and Facebook (85.5%) on daily basis. These tools were used by students for different purposes, for instance 91.6% students utilized these tools for academic purposes, 84.3% for seeking job opportunities, and 81.9% for sharing knowledge. It also came to light that the major problem faced by visually impaired users was in the form of compatibility issues with screen readers (85.5%) and non-availability of JAWS software in all languages (66.3%). Further, the study also put forth certain suggestions for enhancing the use of Web 2.0 Tools among visually impaired students.

Use of Audio-Based Mobile Assistant for Reading Texts as Support for Blind Users

2020 ◽  
pp. 116-136
Author(s):  
Alfonso Sánchez Orea
Keyword(s):  
Visually Impaired ◽  
Labor Mobility ◽  
The Other ◽  
Original Version ◽  
Technological Solution ◽  
Mobile Platforms ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
Physical Mobility ◽  
Visually Impaired People ◽  
Impaired People

In order to give visually impaired people a greater degree of inclusion in society, it is necessary to consider not only aspects related to independence in their physical mobility but also in their intellectual and labor mobility. Currently if a blind person needs information from a book, it must be previously translated in Braille language; in addition, the person must know this language or in the absence there should be the audio version. Most public and private libraries do not currently have books in Braille versions or in their absence audio books, so getting the information to perform some task is complicated. On the other hand, translating books from their original version into Braille language or its audio version is a titanic and expensive task, so in the chapter, the authors propose a technological solution based on the mobile platforms for the blind to perform this task in the place and time necessary without more resources than a Smartphone.

scholarly journals Neo-liberalism and the Nordic welfare model: a study of the Liberal Alliance and ideological adaptation in Denmark

2016 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Troels Fage Hedegaard
Keyword(s):  
Welfare State ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
The Other ◽  
Mixed Methods Approach ◽  
Grass Roots ◽  
Liberal Ideology ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
Core Idea ◽  
Welfare Model ◽  
The Welfare State

This article explores whether and how the neo-liberal ideology has adapted to the Nordic welfare model by studying the attitudes of voters and grass-roots members of the Danish party Liberal Alliance towards the welfare state. This inquiry into one of the key issues for the neo-liberal ideology is inspired by theory on how an ideology will adapt to its context. The expectation outlined in the article is for the neo-liberals of this party to favour features that make the Nordic welfare model distinctive – extensive governmental responsibility, especially for children and the elderly, and a universalistic approach to providing welfare. I have explored this question using a mixed-methods approach, where I analyse a survey of voters and interviews with grass-roots members of the party. Combined this shows that the neo-liberals in Liberal Alliance do support a role for the welfare state that extends beyond a minimum welfare state, especially for the care of children, but they view old age and retirement mostly as a problem each individual must deal with. Regarding the universalistic approach to providing welfare, the neo-liberals seem torn between two different tendencies, one being a perception of a fair way to provide welfare and the other the idea of a selective welfare state as a neo-liberal core idea, which leads to ambivalent attitudes. I argue that this results in a form of the neo-liberal ideology that has adapted to the Nordic welfare model.

The Effects of Distance and Intervening Obstacles on Visual Inference in Blind and Sighted Children

1991 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 273-283 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ann E. Bigelow
Keyword(s):  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Visually Impaired ◽  
The Other ◽  
Only Children ◽  
Blind And Visually Impaired ◽  
Blind Children ◽  
Impaired Children ◽  
Visually Impaired Children

Totally blind, visually impaired, and normally sighted children participated in a longitudinal study in which they were asked if an observer could see the toy they were holding from varying distances in three different tasks: (1) in front of the child with no intervening obstacles between the observer and the toy; (2) behind the child with the child's body as an intervening obstacle; (3) in front of the child with walls or furniture as intervening obstacles. Visually impaired and normally sighted children were given the tasks in both blindfold and nonblindfold conditions. The totally blind children mastered the tasks later than the other groups of children. The totally blind and visually impaired children in the blindfold condition made more mistakes in Tasks 1 and 2 when the observer was over 1 metre from them than when she was less than 1 metre from them. The totally blind children had more difficulty on Task 3 than the other children, and were the only children to make mistakes when walls were the intervening obstacles between the observer and the toy. The results suggest that blind children have difficulty understanding the effects of distance and intervening obstacles on vision and that their mistaken ideas may be based on analogies to their own perceptual experience.

Evidence and Evidentiality in Quechua Narrative Discourse

2018 ◽  
pp. 221-242
Author(s):  
Rosaleen Howard
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Methods ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Narrative Discourse ◽  
Epistemic Modality ◽  
The Other ◽  
Related Factors ◽  
Mixed Methods Approach ◽  
The Past ◽  
Narrative Performance ◽  
The One

This chapter discusses the working of evidentiality in Quechua narrative performance from the central highlands of Peru. In the Quechua narratives analysed, the grammatical marking of source and status of knowledge, and discursive ways of expressing evidence for knowing what is known, are shown to vary strikingly according to performance related factors. On the one hand, narrators base discursively expressed evidence for knowledge, and the veracity and authenticity of the stories they tell, on lived experience. On the other hand, in Huamalíes Quechua the assertion of knowledge and affirmation of validity are grammatically marked by evidential, epistemic modality, and tense suffixes. Taken together, the performative dimensions of discursively expressed evidence, and grammatical choices around evidentiality, constitute the epistemological underpinning of stories about the past in Huamalíes Quechua; both are taken into account in the mixed methods approach to the analysis of Quechua narrative adopted here.

Coordination and management of resources for learning and their application to satellite systems for education

1975 ◽  
Vol 345 (1643) ◽  
pp. 531-539
Keyword(s):  
Developing Countries ◽  
Short Circuit ◽  
Management Programme ◽  
The Other ◽  
Educational Systems ◽  
Satellite Systems ◽  
Satellite Technology ◽  
Management Of Resources ◽  
The World ◽  
The One

The promise of massive coverage of large geographical areas of the world by satellite transmissions has excited politicians for over a decade. It has not excited the imaginations of managers of educational systems and administrators. It is perhaps a case of, on the one hand, the dreamer, and on the other, the dream which could turn into the nightmare of reality. The developing countries seek ways to short circuit the educational methodologies of the present. The pressing needs of rapidly developing societies demand action and the need for governments to respond and communicate to the under-privileged has been identified as central to development. The state of satellite technology is evident for all to see and hear. The adoption of this technology and the harnessing of its potential has yet to be fully realized. A massive management programme of earth-bound resources will be necessary, and this paper endeavours to provide a framework for discussion.

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