[Athen] RoboBraille

James Bailey jbailey at uoregon.edu
Tue Nov 19 12:17:53 PST 2013


Sean - Yes, I bet they think this is coming from our alt-format production I think they don't realize those are students from uoregon.edu. Seems to me students qualify for free use. I've suggested they block uoregon.edu and let students use their "personal" accounts. They're considering it. - James

From: athen-list-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu [mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman1.u.washington.edu] On Behalf Of Sean Keegan
Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2013 11:58 AM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network
Subject: Re: [Athen] RoboBraille

Hmm - interesting response. Perhaps they (Robobraille) see the usage from certain email addresses and are thinking it may be originating from the institution's use? One option may be to have students use a personal email account that is not affiliated with the institution. I am curious as to what the usage volume may be to result in this response from Robobraille.

Full disclosure - we are using a variation on the Robobraille/Sensus Access system and encountered the opposite issue. Students wanted to use any email address and we require them to use their @stanford account in our system. The upside for me is that I can track system usage (although not specific individuals) to assess the volume. Were they able to provide information about volume or is it just any use?

Take care,
Sean


On Nov 19, 2013, at 9:55 AM, James Bailey <jbailey at uoregon.edu<mailto:jbailey at uoregon.edu>> wrote:




Hello all:
I think the RoboBraille service is great and I tell our Alt-format users about it. I particularly recommend it for those study sessions when a picture-only PDF comes off of BlackBoard etc. and a the student needs it converted quickly to keep working.
I have received an e-mail or two from them suggesting we (U Oregon) need an agreement with them. We do not use it at all in our production process. I simply make students aware of it and the students then use it or not as individuals.

This is from their web site (it's cut and paste so any typos are theirs):
"RoboBraille is available 24/7 as a self-service solution, it is free of charge to all individual, non-commercial users and users need not register in order to use the service. The objective is to support and promote self-sufficiency of people with special needs socially, throughout the educational system and on the labour market. As an additional benefit, RoboBraille helps to protect the privacy of of those who need material in alternate formats."
This seems pretty cut and dried to me.
If you have a take on this, please share it.

Oh it gets better!

From: Tanja Stevns <tanja at sensus.dk<mailto:tanja at sensus.dk>>
Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2013 9:10 AM
To: James Bailey
Subject: SV: Document conversion
James,
The users go through our SensusAccess engine. The requests is coming from University of Oregon. I am not talking about
personal private use of individuals using RoboBraille as you are referring to in this mail.
Now I have tried to approach this in the best way possible but we will take action on further ongoing use from
universities who do not wish to make an agreement with us.
Have a nice day,
Tanja

My take on this is that they are seeing our student e-mail accounts as being the University of Oregon.

As Tanja says, "Have a nice day"

James


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