BA/3/01
Meeting held at 1.30 pm on 28th March 2001, at RNIB, Great Portland Street, London W1N 6AA.
1. Rollcall: Iain Millard, David McKerral, Lisa Bhogal, David Boden, Barbara Leighton, Stephen Phippen, Clare Gailans, Allan Young, Hans Cohn, Isobel Yule, Terry Moody, Fred Jakeman, David Taylor, Richard West, Gareth Davies, Bill Poole, Steve McCall.
Apologies: Nigel Berry, Paul Crunden-White, Peter Osborne, Kevin Carey, Mike Townsend, Jim McCafferty, Claire Wilson, Sarah Home, Irene Grayson.
2. The minutes of the last meeting were approved.
3. Matters arising from the minutes: Hans Cohn asked what progress had been made with the transcription of the German code translation. Stephen Phippen replied that Denise Foss at RNIB now has time assigned to the task and it is estimated to be done by the end of July.
4. Officers' reports.
(a) Chair.
Bill Poole reported that he had not yet written to the WBU about their proposal to set up a World Braille Council. He has been waiting to receive the definitive text of the WBU resolution, but will not wait indefinitely.
The Project Committee of ICEB is slowly working through issues from UBC Committee 3. It has decided to adopt a list-based, rather than a rule-based system for shortforms; the UK, Australia and Nigeria voted for a rule-based system, while the US, Canada, New Zealand and South Africa voted for a list-based system. Fred Jakeman asked what the argument was in favour of a list-based system. Bill Poole replied that it was thought to minimise transcriber uncertainty, although he took the opposite view: lists are arbitrary and had to be learnt. Isobel Yule said that she favoured a list-based system as it was found to be more successful for teaching. Bill Poole also said that there had not been much activity on the issue of liberalizing contractions.
On the ICEB Executive there had not been any activity on the replacement of Darleen Bogart as President.
There seemed to be a general loss of momentum in making decisions about UBC. Bill Poole reported that Peter Osborne had said that RNIB could provide £2500 for a face-to-face meeting, and he would himself be in favour of such a meeting. The Treasurer needs to ask RNIB for the money at once. Bill Poole added that it would be necessary to include as much as possible into the meeting, e.g. the issue of liberalizing contractions.
Lisa Bhogal asked if a letter could be written to ICEB deploring the current stalemate. People would be reluctant for information about UBC to be put to the public whilst these loose ends are not tied up.
Allan Young asked whether the meeting would take place in London, possibly this summer. Bill Poole said he expected it would, and that it would include members of the Project Committee, Committees 6 and 3, and observers. Allan Young wondered if this summer might be too early to make arrangements, although it would be up to the relevant committee chairs to decide this.
Hans Cohn said that he was a member of UBC Committee 5 dealing with formatting, and he was concerned that he had not received any correspondence (including e-mails). He should be receiving messages via the Federation office. Bill Poole said that he would raise the matter with Reinette Popplestone (the ICEB Secretary).
(b) Secretary.
Stephen Phippen reported that he had received a letter from the RNIB Research Unit asking for visually-impaired volunteers to participate with various projects, e.g. dealing with accessibility issues in the the design of equipment. Those interested should contact Sylvie Perera at RNIB.
Stephen Phippen had also received a letter from the Vision Foundation inviting BAUK to participate in its Access-UK Exhibition on 17th May in Cardiff. A stand would cost £70. The meeting agreed that it would not be able to organise anything suitable for this in time.
Reporting on the progress of British Braille, Stephen Phippen said that he had sent the draft of the new edition to Bill Poole, who was writing a list of corrections. The updated draft would be sent to the other members of the Literary Code Committee as soon as possible, and the committee aimed to have a meeting in May. BAUK's strategy for publishing the codebook needed to be considered with regard to the availability of translation software. We could either publish as soon as the book is ready, but make a statement saying that the new rules should be used as soon as practicable; or we could delay publishing until we are confident that translation software is in place to deal with the new rules. We would look silly if we simply published the book without any prospect of the rules being used. Gail Chester of Pia is on the LCC, so her company should be fully aware of the changes. Stephen Phippen has also sent an outline of the changes to Duxbury with regard to both the Duxbury and MegaDots programs, and the initial response was that there would not be a problem in adapting the translators.
David Taylor said that a rival to UBC, called UBS (Universal Braille System), is being developed in the US by Chris Gray and others. He has seen a few chapters of the specification document. The system is based on lower numbers, but there seemed to be many instances of two characters meaning the same thing (e.g. with regard to punctuation). There were now 3 braille systems on the table: UEBC, UBS and British Braille; many people seem to prefer the latter. Terry Moody added that there was also the GS code, which uses ideas from the TEX typesetting language. Richard West said that UBS had left it too late for us to bother with - it had no chance of being adopted in the UK.
Hans Cohn asked about the publication of the UBC evaluation results. Bill Poole said he thought they had been circulated, or at least could be.
(c) Treasurer. Iain Millard said he would be standing down as Treasurer at the next AGM due to his other commitments. However, he thought that the system he was using (SAGE) had proved effective, and would recommend it to the next post-holder. Bill Poole asked if anyone knew of another person willing to do this task. Lisa Bhogal said that she may be able to, with support.
(d) Public Relations Officer. The Public Relations Officer was not present at the meeting. However Isobel Yule made the suggestion of raising the fees from £35 to £40 to help support a BAUK web page.
5. Update on web page and discussion list.
Stephen Phippen read out a message from Peter Osborne which said that he had engaged two students to develop the BAUK web site. They are expected to have a report by mid-April and will start up the web site by September, at minimal cost. Bill Poole said he was concerned that students were being used, since they are likely to be only temporary. Stephen Phippen said that once the site is set up he would hope that we would be able to maintain it ourselves, so this shouldn't be a problem. Richard West suggested that the Chair and Secretary should have responsibility over what is put on the site, and Isobel Yule added that the PRO should also have ownership rights. David Boden said that Christopher Edwards on BCAB has offered and is also keen to set up and maintain the site for us.
Richard West reported on developments with the discussion list. After discussing the matter within the working group it was thought that the list should not be BAUK controlled, and should cover braille issues in general terms. Sheila Armstrong had been appointed as moderator. They had discovered a similar American discussion list, but still decided to go ahead with our own. Then it was found that there was already a UK discussion list in existence, with Sara Morgan as the moderator. After further consideration it was consequently thought best not to set up a new list, as the general requirements seem to be met with the existing UK list.
Isobel Yule asked if you had to subscribe to join the discussion list. Richard West replied that you did, and he would circulate details. It costs nothing, and the general scope is not too prescriptive. He thanked all those who participated in this discussion. Bill Poole agreed that the list could prove useful.
6. Chess Code. Fred Jakeman, as Chair of the Chess Committee, said that the revised code was put before BAUK at the last meeting, and was now brought again for ratification. He had made a further suggestion for amendment to the code, which had now been implemented. Hans Cohn said that the new version of the code had been in use in the Chess Magazine since October, and there hadn't been any complaints. His one concern was whether there might be ambiguity in the use of lower cells for move numbers, which could be misread as lower contractions. However, Bill Poole thought that the context should make the meaning clear – lower numbers were used previously without great problems. The revised code was ratified.
Hans Cohn reported that a major print chess publisher is moving towards a wholly symbolic chess notation so that their publications can be sold internationally. The code consists of 56 symbols. There were moves in Croatia to create an international braille chess code to correspond to this development. Richard West commented that it shouldn't be difficult to write a code for 56 symbols, but wondered if the print code had been agreed. Hans Cohn replied that it had not yet been agreed.
Fred Jakeman finished this topic by saying that the Chess Committee membership was too small; an additional three people were needed.
7.Any Other Business.
Richard West raised the issue of braille use for those who had recently lost their sight. Braille is not being taught as extensively as before. Steve McCall said that there are about 700-800 people in England and Wales who read braille. There are 21,000 VI children; of the potential braille readers 33% have multiple disabilities, 67% have one other disability. The issue is a difficult one; he believes that teachers do try to meet the need for braille, though there is no hard research to back up this view. Moon is being used almost exclusively with children with additional learning difficulties.
Isobel Yule said that she is concerned that in main stream schools children are encouraged to use synthetic speech rather than braille. Lisa Bhogal recalled that using the Perkins brailler was very noisy in a mixed class, whereas now using a laptop computer keyboard would be much quieter. David Taylor said that he was also concerned about children being encouraged to use excessively large print, e.g. 48 point, rather than braille, in the main stream environment. Fred Jakeman said that there were few suitable teachers of braille, and Terry Moody added that there was currently a fuss about pupils not getting their curriculum and exam materials in suitable media. Perhaps if David Blunkett got involved there would be more progress.
Isobel Yule noted that one positive aspect of this was that teachers of VI children are still required to have a qualification in grade 2 braille. However, David Taylor said that with the number of braille-using children being so low, teachers are becoming less skilled in dealing with them. Steve McCall added that the closure of specialist schools meant that there was a reduced number of centres of excellence, and that passing on of knowledge is therefore made more difficult.
Bill Poole said that children with a hearing loss would benefit from braille even more. Gareth Davies added that there were other good practical reasons for learning braille, e.g. for labelling, and for taking and referring to notes.
David McKerral said that changing the braille code frequently did not help with this problem. However, Richard West said that braille is more stable than print – British Braille is a way of providing stability in a changing world.
Bill Poole said that these issues should be taken up by the Braille Promotion Committee. Fred Jakeman said he was concerned that the committee had not met since March of the previous year. Bill Poole suggested that it was a mistake for that committee's meetings to be held on the same day as the BAUK meetings, since it was too restrictive; however the issue of meeting arrangements should be explored within the committee. Another idea suggested was for greater use of telephone conferences, etc., to avoid expensive travelling.
Moon. Fred Jakeman reported that there was a problem with Moon production at Peterborough because of difficulties in the production process. The question was being asked whether Moon was worth keeping. An alternative production method being looked at is "dotty Moon", in which the Moon characters are embossed with dots. Allan Young said that the NLB is buying some machines to be sent to prisons to produce some titles. The characters are satisfactory, but the spacing is strange, and the machines are slow and noisy. Steve McCall added that one advantage of dotty Moon is that it can be produced on a standard embosser. Another method is to use a Moon font, and print onto swell paper, as is done for raised diagrams.
Fred Jakeman wondered if RNIB knew how many people are using Moon. David Taylor replied that it knew how many people were taking its current Moon publications, which was in the 100's, but it did not know how many would use Moon if it were more available. He personally did not think Moon would be wound up.
Steve McCall said that the Moon Committee is still active and meets twice a year. Bill Poole said that the committee should send reports to BAUK while it is still affiliated to BAUK.
The meeting closed. The next meeting is on 16th July 2001.