[Athen] Sensus Access - what are the use-cases?

[Susan Kelmer]

No, it does not tag. It simply runs OCR on a PDF to make the text readable.

-Susan

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu> On Behalf Of Swanson,Allison
Sent: Wednesday, April 6, 2022 1:54 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Sensus Access - what are the use-cases?

Hello All,

I'm curious if Sensus Access is able to tag PDFs and if so, how well compared to other software that claims to do so? I know automated tagging is not ideal, but just wondering if it's a feature.

It sounds like a plus of the product is that non-faculty can also use it.

Allison Swanson
[Assistive Technology Resource Center Colorado State University]

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu>> On Behalf Of Stephen Marositz
Sent: Wednesday, April 6, 2022 12:27 PM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Sensus Access - what are the use-cases?


** Caution: EXTERNAL Sender **
Hello Matt

All really well said here by Susan.

We had Sensus Access, Ally, and other similar tools for a long time. One advantage of Sensus Access was that users did not have to be logged in to the LMS or student portal to use it. Other than that, Ally is a good training tool for basic remediation by faculty if they want it.

HTH


Alex Marositz
Accessible Technology Initiative Coordinator
Information Security and Compliance
California State University, Dominguez Hills

From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu>> On Behalf Of Susan Kelmer
Sent: Wednesday, April 6, 2022 6:05 AM
To: Access Technology Higher Education Network <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Subject: Re: [Athen] Sensus Access - what are the use-cases?

SensusAccess is one of many tools that can be used to create accessible content.  On our campus, it is available to anyone with a campus logon - students, faculty, staff, even retirees.  You upload an inaccessible document, and get back an accessible document.  It is not perfect, but it is a workable tool, and gives everyone at least some option to make a document accessible. As with any software that purports to create an accessible output from an inaccessible document, it really does depend on the quality of the original. Garbage in, garbage out.

Blackboard, like Canvas and other LMS's, is simply a repository at its base.  Instructors can upload content, students can submit content. Blackboard (or Canvas) does not alter content, make it accessible, etc.  It's simply a giant electronic/digital notebook that you can put things into to keep them organized, and to give access to that materials to others. Blackboard Ally has some great tools that can make more of the content uploaded be accessible, but it's not a cure-all. And it is not a standalone, like SensusAccess. It is again, just a tool.

TRUE alternate media (aka, accessible documents/video) comes from a dedicated process for creating alternate format.  PDFs from publishers, for example, are produced using a dedicated process on the publisher's end, and those PDFs tend to be accessible and ready to be used by most students (not all, more on that later).  These can often be used as-is.  It is extremely important to remember that publishers are under NO legal requirement to produce accessible documents.  The legal requirement rests on the institution.  Are we grateful for the accessible documents we DO get from publishers?  I know I am - makes my job easier.

The real problem with content in any LMS is instructor-uploaded materials that are not accessible.  Faculty do not have the knowledge base to produce accessible materials like alternate media specialists do. They may not understand that just because it is digital doesn't mean it's accessible. We understand the difference between "yikes, yes, I can highlight that text with my mouse but where is the last half inch of each page?" and "this is a great PDF but our blind student really needs a Word file instead."  This is why we get paid the big bucks (hah!).

No ONE tool is going to do it all.  Maybe someday there will be no need for remediation.  But today is not someday. And while we can teach faculty and others to do better about what they upload into an LMS, the burden still falls on the alt media provider to create completely accessible materials, using a variety of tools to get it done. We have an entire toolbox of tools that we use.  I'm never more reminded of how far we have to go in the world of accessible documents until I'm creating accessible STEM content for a student with a visual impairment.  A current project is listening to video lectures and adding MathType and image descriptions to the Word transcript for a linear algebra class.  Or then there is a perfectly good PDF of a physics textbook but it must be turned it into textbook-formatted Braille for a student with blindness.

Accessible documents are a spectrum...we can cover "most" students with well-formatted PDFs, but the 80/20 rule applies: we are going to spend 80% of our time remediating 20% of the materials for students with higher needs.  SensusAccess is a great tool that can take some of the burden away from us as alternate media producers.  It gives students and faculty a "quick and dirty" way to make a document readable in a pinch or on the fly.  It won't replace the work that we are doing behind the scenes, though.

Hope that helps?


Susan Kelmer
Alternate Format Production Program Manager
Disability Services
Division of Student Affairs
T 303 735 4836
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From: athen-list <athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list-bounces at mailman12.u.washington.edu>> On Behalf Of Matthew Deeprose
Sent: Wednesday, April 6, 2022 1:05 AM
To: 'Access Technology Higher Education Network' <athen-list at u.washington.edu<mailto:athen-list at u.washington.edu>>
Subject: [Athen] Sensus Access - what are the use-cases?

Hi

Numerous educational institutions have both Sensus Access and Blackboard Ally. The main difference is that with Sensus Access anyone can request an alternative format of content they upload, whereas Blackboard Ally is about producing alternative formats of content uploaded by someone (usually an instructor) to an LMS course.

For those who have/use Sensus Access please could you share the use-cases and reasons for having it? I'm a little nervous it may be used as way to absolve institutional responsibility for ensuring suppliers such as publishers provide natively accessible content. So, I would love to hear how and why other institutions are using it.

Thanks in anticipation.

Matt


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