1. Call to Order: Jennifer Dunnam
Jennifer Dunnam, BANA chair, called the meeting to order at 2:04 EDT. The following board members were in attendance:
Attending:
Jennifer Dunnam, National Federation of the Blind (NFB), Chair
Sandra (Sandy) Ruconich, American Council of the Blind (ACB), Vice Chair
Dawn Gross, Alternate Text Production Center (ATPC), Secretary
Jackie Sheridan, National Braille Press (NBP), Treasurer
Frances Mary (FM) D'Andrea, American Foundation for the Blind (AFB), Immediate Past Chair
Guy Toles, AMAC (Accessibility Solutions and Research Center)
Cathy Senft-Graves, American Printing House for the Blind (APH)
Jessica (Jessi) Rivera, Associated Services for the Blind and Visually Impaired (ASB)
Mary Nelle McLennan, Association for Education and Rehabilitation of the Blind and Visually Impaired (AER)
Tracy Gaines, California Transcribers and Educators for the Blind and Visually Impaired (CTEBVI)
Tina Seger, Clovernook Center for the Blind and Visually Impaired
Darleen Bogart, CNIB (Canadian National Institute for the Blind)
Vivian Seki, Hadley Institute for the Blind and Visually Impaired
Diane Spence, National Braille Association (NBA)
Tamara Rorie, National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, Library of Congress (NLS)
Kim Charlson, Perkins School for the Blind
Whitney Gregory, Region 4 Education Service Center Braille Solutions
Jen Goulden, associate member Crawford Technologies
Susan (Sue) Reilly participated in her role as administrative assistant.
Observers:
Elaine Spinale, National Braille Press (NBP)
Not Attending:
Cindy Skandera, Horizons for the Blind
2. Welcome and Self Introductions
Jennifer Dunnam welcomed the Board members. Jackie Sheridan briefly introduced Elaine Spinale, Elaine will be standing in for Jackie while she is on maternity leave.
3. Agenda Review
Jennifer Dunnam presented the agenda, a Quality Assurance Committee update and discussion of the Tactile Graphics Guidelines were added to the agenda.
MSC FM D'Andrea moved and Mary Nelle McLennan seconded the motion that the agenda be approved as amended. The motion passed unanimously.
4. Arrangements/Planning for Fall Meeting
Sandy Ruconich provided information about the upcoming fall meeting, which will be hosted by the American Council of the Blind in Salt Lake City, Utah, November 1-3, 2018. Thursday and Friday are full days, Saturday will adjourn at noon.
The Radisson does not have an airport shuttle; travelers can use the light rail system, TRAX, or Uber/Lyft estimated at $16-20 per trip. Hotel reservations are available now, Sandy will send the reservation link shortly. Use the link or call the hotel for reservations (801-531-7500) by October 1, 2018. The rates for October 31st-November 2nd are $129/night. The meeting is listed under Braille Authority of North America Board; a dog relief grass area is just east of the hotel. The meeting will be held at the Utah Schools for the Deaf & the Blind Salt Lake Campus. Transportation between the hotel and school will be Uber/Lyft, cost is approximately $10; hold on to receipts for reimbursement. Sandy will send an email recapping this information.
Please send ideas to Jennifer Dunnam for the fall agenda.
5. ICEB Update
FM D'Andrea presented a brief report. FM D'Andrea, Jennifer Dunnam, Jen Goulden, and Judy Dixon attended the ICEB Executive Committee meeting in April in Dublin, Ireland. FM reported that the eight country member reports were discussed, there was a small bylaw amendment regarding associate memberships, committee reports were presented and of most interest to the BANA board members would be the Code Maintenance Committee (CMC) report. There was lengthy discussion of the apostrophe/single quote issue and there is now clearer guidance for the language that will be used for the rule update. The general approach discussed by the CMC is that the outer quotes will be transcribed as dots 236 to open and dots 356 to close; inner quotes would be transcribed as the two cell symbol, dots 6, 236 to open and dots 6, 356 to close; the apostrophe would be dot 3. The CMC was asked to give this work a high priority because it is so closely related to refreshable braille displays and translation software. The new symbol for the check (tick) mark has been approved, this information is now on the ICEB website. There was a new charge to the CMC to clarify rules related to contractions, affixes, and root words. The revision of the Guidelines for Technical Materials continues. There is a listserv dedicated to the revision, please contact Jennifer Dunnam if you would like to be added as an observer. The committee is looking for mathematical examples to be used in the Guidelines. There was discussion and agreement that ICEB will publish Word versions of The Rules of Unified English Braille and Guidelines for Technical Materials as downloadable files in addition to the PDF and BRF versions. They also spoke of promoting UEB in other countries and trying to keep up with social media in terms of disseminating material.
The next general assembly of ICEB will be held spring of 2020 in London, the Executive Committee will meet next via teleconference on August 27, 2018.
6. Outreach Committee Update (AER Exhibit)
Mary Nelle McLennan reported on the BANA exhibit at the AER conference. FM D'Andrea, Mary Nelle McLennan, and Diane Wormsley covered the booth. Unfortunately, due to a shipping incident there were no braille handouts. In addition to the BANA fact sheet, a new list of all BANA publications, and a UEB chart were available. The banner and exhibit stand was damaged some time prior to the CTEBVI conference, Mary Nelle worked with a local signage company to have a table banner made. The banner can be used on a table or can be hung across standards if necessary. Many people stopped by the booth and expressed appreciation that BANA was there, Mary Nelle and FM felt that it was worthwhile exhibiting at the conference. The next exhibit will be at NBA in Detroit. Johanna Anand lives in the Detroit area and is willing to receive materials shipped to her. Mary Nelle will put together an inventory of what was shipped and to what location, but also of what made an effective exhibit.
7. Committee Appointments
Committee appointments that may be needed this fall were discussed. Board liaisons should check with their committees to determine whether there will be vacancies to be filled at the fall meeting.
- Sandy Ruconich will check with Debbie Willis to see if she is still interested in being on the Awards Committee. Diane Spence recently contacted Debbie about interest in the Standardized Test Committee, she will forward Sandy the contact information.
- Guy Toles spoke with Cindi Laurent of the Formats Committee regarding the expiring terms of Cindi Laurent, Tina Herzberg, and Norma McDonald. He will check with them to determine if they are willing to continue the committee work.
- Jennifer Dunnam and Tamara Rorie will be meeting with Karen Gearreald about a new member for the Music Committee. They have four proposed names and should have a person to submit prior to the fall meeting.
- Jen Goulden questioned whether a Canadian is still needed for the Crafts and Hobbies Committee. Jennifer Dunnam believes not at this time, the future of the committee will be clearer in the fall.
- Tracy Gaines has a list of committees in need of members. She questioned whether ELMP still needs members; Cathy Senft-Graves thinks it would be difficult bringing in someone new at this point. The Appointments Committee will work with Guy Toles to determine what members may be needed on the Formats Committee.
8. Documents-in-Process Updates
A. Tactile Graphic Guidelines
The Tactile Graphics Committee meets every week for two hours. They have been trying to use UberConference to avoid using the BANA conference line but have been running into dropped calls, etc. They now use the TSVBI Zoom account but is difficult to get the meeting started when Susan Osterhaus is not on the call. They continue to work on the guidelines unit by unit. There will be a face-to-face meeting at Region 4 in Houston Nov 5-9 and hope to complete Unit 6 Mathematical and Scientific Diagrams at the meeting. The supplement has been thoroughly reviewed once and the changes have been incorporated, Region 4 will make copies for each member at the meeting. It is very expensive to produce the supplement, once the review process begins, the BAN Board will need to determine how the supplements will be provided to the individuals reviewing the document.
B. Chess Guidelines
Jennifer Dunnam reported that the drafting of the introductory material to the Chess Guidelines is not complete but it is being worked on. The Review Committee is working on a process for completing the review.
C. Foreign Language Guidelines
Nothing to report, Jennifer Dunnam will follow up on the status.
D. Standardized Test Guidelines
Diane Spence reported that there has been no committee activity. She has been in contact with all of the members except Rene Sanders and all have agreed to continue working on the project. Rene Sanders is no longer with ETS, it was decided at this teleconference that the committee will move forward with the current committee members. The committee will work to incorporate material from the initial review as well as update it to align with Braille Formats, 2016 and new information coming from the tactile graphic updates under discussion.
E. ELMP Guidelines
Cathy Senft-Graves reported that the ELMP Committee finished reviewing the most recent version in June but that a question arose and a bit more work was completed. The revised documents will be sent out to the Board review panel of Cathy Senft-Graves, Jennifer Dunnam, FM D'Andrea, and Dawn Gross. It is the goal of the Board review panel to have a recommendation for the Board at the fall meeting.
F. CBC Position Paper
FM D'Andrea has a draft document with comments, she will call a meeting to discuss the document and have a final version by the fall meeting.
G. Draft UEB Technical Guidance
FM D'Andrea reported that she had drafted a document prior to the spring meeting but the committee did not have enough time to reply to it. The original document was based on a UKAAF document and needed to have the formatting stripped from it by Jennifer Dunnam. Jennifer will check to see if that has been done and send the document to FM.
H. Other Updates
FM D'Andrea reported that when the Chemistry Committee last met they had a Word document of the guidelines and were going to start from the beginning rewriting the rules. She has shared the Authoring Guidelines with the committee and will send a message asking for updates.
I. Quality Assurance
Jen Goulden recapped the spring meeting conversation of going through the proposed quality control process as it was then and reiterated now that the process is about content review and making sure that the rules are explained properly and that examples are accurate. Changes have been made to the proposed process based on feedback from the Publications Committee. The document has been sent to the Quality Control Task Force for final input and will hopefully be approved at the fall meeting. Mary Nelle McLennan and Jen Goulden will work together to determine how to incorporate the document into the publication process. The order of reviews is recommended to be: 1. technical review, to make sure a document does not conflict with other codes; 2. content review, to make sure that examples and rules are accurate and clear; 3. board review.
Diane Spence raised several concerns in regards to the review of the Tactile Graphics Guidelines:
- Will the Tactile Graphics Guidelines need to be transcribed prior to the review process? What format is needed for document review, braille or print with sim braille? The answer provided was possibly both, it depends on who is performing the review and what medium is required.
- Is the Tactile Graphics committee supposed to find a transcriber to braille the guidelines and supplement? Right now the focus of the committee is to get the print ready for review. Mary Nelle McLennan agrees that this is the correct step because an accurate master is needed for the BRF.
- Are there funds available to transcribe the document or does the committee need to find a volunteer? The concern is that the document is very large and could be quite costly to transcribe.
Mary Nelle indicated that there are some funds in the Publications budget that could be used but that it is premature to figure it out on this call. Jen stressed that the QC review does not add a new requirement to the authoring committee and that the format required for the QC review would be decided on a case-by-case basis. Mary Nelle thinks that the panel review should concentrate on the print version to get it complete as a master. The BRF would then be created from the final print version and professionally proofread. Further discussion of the Tactile Graphics review process will take place in November.
9. (Agenda item #10) Zoom Subscription Update
Jackie Sheridan reviewed the different plans available. The Pro plan ($150/year) includes video conferencing up to 100 people and the ability to record. Jackie's past experience with Zoom was that audio could only be accessed through the computer being worked on, not an external the phone line. She is apprehensive to approve the purchase at this time because BANA would need to pay an add-on for a toll-free line. Jennifer Dunnam will check with NFB to see what type of account they have that allows participants to use a phone line. Jackie and Jennifer will do further research and make a decision quickly, keeping Jessi Rivera informed of the decision.
10. (Agenda item #9) Publications Committee Updates
Mary Nelle McLennan reported that there are two new documents in the works: Guidance for Transcription Using the Nemeth Code with UEB Contexts and the Graphing Calculator Guidelines. Ruth Rozen is the lead and working with Dawn Gross. After the files were sent to Publications, Dawn reported that there were proofreading issues with the BRF. It was determined by the Publications Committee that the document requires a "mechanical" copyedit to align inconsistencies, this copyedit should be completed by the end of the week. Once complete, Susan Christiansen will make the enhanced, accessible PDF and the document should be ready to post to the BANA website by mid-August.
The Graphing Calculator Guidelines are more problematic: pictures of images were used and in most cases are grainy and not searchable. Real images of those copied into the document may need to be found. Jennifer Dunnam mentioned that there have been past conversations about the fact that PDF and BRF documents are available and that there were questions as to how much time needs to be spent creating an accessible PDF of a document when there is a BRF of the PDF. FM D'Andrea reported that ICEB has had the same discussions about document availability.
11. Other business
Mary Nelle McLennan reported that the Board needs to pick up strategic planning again. She also needs guidance on how the two documents that came out of the "Two Tech Codes" planning sessions are to be posted to the BANA website.
Sandy Ruconich reported on the BANA podcast progress. Monday August 6, 2018, Tanja from Perkins will help Sandy and Sue record the trial script. The next recording will be the real one.
12. Adjourn
Jennifer Dunnam adjourned the meeting at 3:30 EDT.
Respectfully submitted,
Dawn Gross, Secretary