[Athen] Equatio price increase

[Wink Harner]

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
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> 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, EPC 215

>

> Colorado Springs, CO 80918

>

> (719) 255-4202 / lbencomo at uccs.edu

>

> http://www.uccs.edu/~it/

>

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