Digital Accessible Information System, or DAISY, is an XML format which allows the visually challenged to read and navigate textual material.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DAISY_Digital_Talking_Book
http://www.daisy.org/tools/index.shtml
At face value it seems like just another enabler for helping the visually challenged people read literature using a text to audio converter. The concept itself it neither new nor novel. Since The Individuals with Disabilities Educational Act (IDEA) became a federal mandate in the
So, what is so special about DAISY?
- It removes barriers by reducing the cost to educate a visually challenged person. Once electronic documents are converted to this format it eliminates the need to use special (and comparatively more expensive) mediums like Braille.
- It opens up the doors to while new worlds of information for the visually challenged
- It is an established standard. To quote from http://www.dclab.com/xml_file_format_blind.asp “The new national file format is based on an ANSI NISO standard and the text portions of it are referred to as Digital Talking Book (DTBook), an XML standard coordinated by the DAISY Consortium and the Library of Congress' National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped (NLS). IDEA refers to the XML vocabulary as the National Instructional Materials Accessibility Standard (NIMAS)”
- It actually allows for navigation for content which has complex formatting. This is a clincher compared to the formats and means available earlier.
Microsoft officially announced that they would include a feature to ‘Save As DAISY’ in all the versions of MS Word way back in Nov ‘07
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2007/nov07/11-13DaisyPR.mspx
After today’s much feted announcement, that this was finally a reality, I was musing about how this would actually impact learning for the visually impaired.
http://www.efytimes.com/efytimes/fullnews.asp?edid=26439&magid=11
After a quick informal survey of a few people my hypothesis was confirmed --- the ubiquitous Word document is primarily a format used NOT for training content dissemination. The PowerPoint deck is a more favoured format for instructor led training, virtual class-room tools as well as for quick and dirty courseware. Even the popular rapid learning development tools like Articulate, Captivate and the likes used PowerPoint decks as the starting point in many cases.
More than anything else I was concerned that the courseware being produced by rapid learning development systems and using custom content development all use Flash to make things rich and engaging. This is not really good for those with visual impairment if they are to be integrated with main stream learning efforts. Especially if they are prospective consumers of corporate learning, since much of this is going the eLearning route or already is available that way.
An interesting insight is that this was developed as an opensource product (ref: http://www.techshout.com/software/2008/09/microsoft-launches-daisy-xml-add-in-making-reading-easier-for-print-disabled-people/). This is a good tactical way to plug it into the Open document format J.
While it will be easy for Microsoft to integrate this with their own technologies like SilverLight, it will become truly useful if the other side of the fence (Flash, PDF, ODF etc.) integrate into this rather than forming another standard.
It seems that is a small but positive step towards integrating the visually impaired into the learning mainstream. This development opens up huge pools of information for them, but much needs to be done to open up the elearning world for them.
Related links:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/openxml-daisy
http://www.dclab.com/xml_file_format_blind.asp
http://www.daisynow.net/core/onlinePlayback/Default.aspx
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