[Athen] math note-taking support

[Natalie Davison]

Good afternoon,

I am working to consider options for an accommodation request that I am
bringing to this group for any ideas or advice. I would appreciate hearing
any experiences anyone has had with similar requests or innovative
approaches to providing live notes for advanced STEM content, such as math
equations, on the whiteboard in lecture courses.

A blind student in a math graduate program has historically received
note-taking services through "note-processors" who type the notes provided
in lecture (mainly whiteboard content), then convert them to a LaTex
document and send this to the student post-lecture. The student has
requested a revised note-taking accommodation that would allow her to
receive the whiteboard content at the same rate as her peers in the
course, instead of 24-48 hours after class, specifically on her refreshable
braille display. My initial brainstorm figured this would involve a live
typist in the course working in a LaTex document on the student's computer
to type the whiteboard content (mainly math equations) so it would display
as close to live as possible on the student's refreshable braille display.
The barriers with this approach involve the difficulty finding a student
who 1. wants this position, 2. can type fast enough, specifically in math
notation, and 3. understands the upper-level math content. While LaTex is a
“common math notation language”, individuals who use and are fluent in it
and understand the graduate level math are difficult to recruit. We have
found one student who can meet these criteria, but only by using "snippets"
that don't appear live in the LaTex document, but do appear at a slight
delay. I would estimate the rate of notes provided by the note-taker is
equivalent to the rest of the students in the course hand-writing their
notes based on the whiteboard content.

The student asked if there was a professional service similar to CART or
ASL interpreters that would provide live audio descriptions on the
whiteboard content in her preferred format, but I am not aware of a service
such as this or a vendor that provides it. If there is, I am interested in
learning more about it, or similar services.

I thought that one close accommodation solution would be to retain the
hired live note-taker to provide the service at a slight delay, but also
remind the instructors to narrate visual or written content in the course
and consistently check in on this.

*TLDR- Has anyone worked on ways to instantly convert and transmit math
data to a refreshable braille display?*

Thank you,
Natalie Davison
-- 

Natalie Davison, MS, CRC ( she / her / hers )
*Access Coordinator, Assistive Technology Senior*

Educational Access Center Boise State University


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Email: *nataliedavison at boisestate.edu <nataliedavison at boisestate.edu> *
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