[Athen] Equatio price increase

[Susan Kelmer]

Hi Michele.

When I went to take a look, it basically wanted my credit card info.  It is only free up to 1000 uses, from what I can tell.  So we’d use it up on two chapters of a calc book, which makes this unsustainable for most people, I think.

[cid:image001.png at 01D51AA9.31D3B190]

Susan Kelmer
Alternate Format Production Program Manager
Disability Services
University of Colorado Boulder
303-735-4836



From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> On Behalf Of Michele Bromley
Sent: Monday, June 3, 2019 4:19 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Equatio price increase

I haven't done a lot of testing with Mathpix OCR<https://secure-web.cisco.com/1IDa-BLFk02ED3DfkZCs2KR_IL3jFaKj5azGhaiJ_MnNlkPF7ZhgFQln-ozXtes8s5axNW-8uT4OoFIAg5UIYce0xPmpMnCGNlPdXnGRquxiKOBE-lUvGlbNaFvJrtDmFR9WkwiS47ZkxTggnzAzdwBJru1pwxftNWRTSRZnKi4yhfbxNMYgnVs5FbIwazVnyqXnqXZmTD4-5Frt2J1OaMoZ4PkC0BoyQirEVvMQWz1kTvhw7ULjjJquZFOw2cmAXbUmasH4zBVKb0PiHxnRzDzJAhpbpdj5fk7Hbq-Zx-BuDJlfLZiImpyUOC1ESTpqsVfLQ9lHTmYKvR6tg4WHek6BxNiWKj4gKfZH_3CI7DuGA_wmcQ9GUIrnPJoGdp7l34NW-Ee_FLKdsPLM_YoApaEAATis7GTUmKe1XyNwEoERnM9yHkJ-jotiybOvxVqA5E-MiSW9IcybbZWedNDfPEUNwoT8p6A-zH4ACDcDWdZM/https%3A%2F%2Fmathpix.com%2Focr> yet, but coupled with MathType, their Windows snipping tool<https://secure-web.cisco.com/1-sdlQS_B4PNw45G710XIZdX-G4Zj8dqaIr13XZK4w5wNaKz9NgXYVAsz3TLBDmdCsoolwEpKnQ2IcFIq6690r-H1NsEeGDc0Sw5Xyjs-_7oJ0rQrNiMt3eoAqSV-IkrUHEDKjrEVNZPZ86Z57zwEtCQ3EfFmKJlpZ5T27eGbCkUFJliI3ceKWSDNyBA71xo6vOGMtccul1X7B5eqk_ed6ToKSZ9BIiKdk_fPA1nmxtSG5Su6Q_85v2w3rYevxjjnjFFXTAJofeyvAlxBI_jPEglx0I7ZF7nrpq_ew0XPl6XBKnmNRfOcOmWGi1fVbytUZqpEyklAQEwSKGqmLIITTvZ5CiegDRe6EIsLLHkTJo9tPF3fAoum9bfXkzdSqtw---FoG9tnL3Us4JyigOBhYGS30O3GphSw3tcGCw_MQYTRp3NqWCrXc_8hBI2OkRDfkMYqFdSwM3bCTSTLsXunNxcHoU9WwbwHeiN2N1BQ0LU/https%3A%2F%2Fmathpix.com%2Fwin_app%2Fmathpix_snipping_tool_setup.exe> appears to be solid alternative to EquatIO for the alt. formats production side of things.


Michele Joy Bromley

IT Accessibility Coordinator

Office of Information Technology (OIT)<https://www.pdx.edu/oit/>

Portland State University (PSU)<http://www.pdx.edu/>

[The Portland State University logo includes intertwined letters P,  S, and U that represent the interconnectedness of the university to the city, region, and world.]<http://www.pdx.edu/>


Office: SMSU 18

Phone: 503-725-8395

Email: michele.bromley at pdx.edu<mailto:michele.bromley at pdx.edu>

Website: www.pdx.edu/accessibility<http://www.pdx.edu/accessibility>



“The power of the Web is in its universality. Access by everyone regardless of disability is an essential aspect.” ~ Tim Berners-Lee


On Thu, May 30, 2019 at 10:09 AM Cassandra L Tex <cassandra.tex at humboldt.edu<mailto:cassandra.tex at humboldt.edu>> wrote:
Greetings All,
Shortly after the EquatIO webinar that Susan and Texthelp
presented, we jumped on the EquatIO ship (we are also a Read&Write campus).  Our subscription will renew in July, and I have not heard of a pricing change.  Perhaps this pricing change is for new customers?   I’m sorry to hear that they changed their pricing and they are pricing new customers out of the market.  Will be on the lookout for communications from them regarding renewal pricing.

Cassandra

On Thursday, May 30, 2019, Wink Harner <foreigntype at gmail.com<mailto:foreigntype at gmail.com>> wrote:
Leyna et al ATHEN-ites,

It is discouraging when we are finally presented with Susan Kelmer identified as "a game changer" in alt-text conversion technology for math and the developer prices it out of reach, so much so that it becomes an unjustifiable expense. What a shame TextHelp has deliberately changed their pricing structure on Equatio. You and I and many hundreds of others who are in alt-text production to make materials accessible for students with disabilities are intermediaries in the sales & marketing pitch from TextHelp --their aim is large scale, open site licenses on campuses for their students...Not for us making things accessible for the students. Perhaps TH sees us as incidental in their sales plan? As hard as we in DSS work to forecast tech needs for our departments and our students, how much of a challenge it is for us to plan our department budgets over years' (mine was prepared in 1-3-5 year cycles), to plan our staff time based on cost to produce accessible materials, staff time etc., our break even point is now out of sight! I hope someone at TextHelp pays attention to this thread and they reconsider this pricing structure.

Sorry to hear this news from you. Many of us in the production field were looking forward to using and promoting this app. I introduced it in this year's grad class curriculum at CUNY, but may consider shelving it with the "also ran" apps --with a BIG disclaimer about the pricing. I try to provide students with alternatives such as free, low cost, or open source software available to the big ticket software to explore as part of the class. There are few alternatives to making math accessible for BVI or those with reading disabilities who need bi-modal text & audio output. I won't be able to give anything to compare it to, so it may be take out of my curriculum.

My thoughts.

Wink Harner
Accessibility Consultant/Alternative Text Production
The Foreign Type
Portland OR
foreigntype at gmail.com<mailto:foreigntype at gmail.com>
480-984-0034
This email was dictated using Dragon NaturallySpeaking. Please forgive quirks, misrecognitions, or errata .


On Thu, May 30, 2019 at 8:57 AM Leyna Bencomo <lbencomo at uccs.edu<mailto:lbencomo at uccs.edu>> wrote:
I am very disappointed in the TextHelp people right now.  They have completely revamped their pricing for Equatio.  They initially told me $1500 for 150 licenses per year.  That was the minimum.  I was planning to get our Math college, Office of IT and Disability Services to pay for it.  After hearing how we Alternate Media departments are planning to use the licenses, TextHelp has changed their minds now and decided they have to treat it like Read & Write enterprise licensing.  Since we have 12,000 students at UCCS and since we do subscribe to Read & Write they are now planning to charge us $3690 per year to subscribe.  If we didn’t have R&W, they’d charge $4920 per year.  We can’t afford that just to remediate a couple of math books a year.  I’m going to recommend we don’t purchase it.

We truly would only use 2 licenses in Alt Media and at this point 1 student license for a math student who can’t use his hands to write.  I can’t justify the expense.  Oh well, so much for new technology.  Hopefully, one of their competitors will come up with similar tech soon at a more reasonable price.  For now, back to MathType for us.

Leyna Bencomo
Assistive Technology Specialist
Office of Information Technology
University of Colorado Colorado Springs
1420 Austin Bluffs Parkway<https://www.google.com/maps/search/1420+Austin+Bluffs+Parkway?entry=gmail&source=g>, EPC 215
Colorado Springs, CO 80918
(719) 255-4202 / lbencomo at uccs.edu<mailto:lbencomo at uccs.edu>
http://www.uccs.edu/~it/
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