BA/4/06
Meeting held at 1.30 pm on 21st March 2006 at RNIB, 105 Judd Street, London WC1H 9NE.
1. Rollcall: Barbara Leighton, David Boden, Hans Cohn, Iain Millard, Peter Wilkins, Jill Allen-King, Jim McCafferty, David McKerral, Richard West, Sheila Armstrong, Ann Marsh, Stephen Phippen, Marion Ripley, Bill Poole, Alison Roberts.
Apologies: Maggy Grubb, Ann Donnelly, Sue Clamp, Lisa Bhogal, Janet Bartholomew, Steve McCall, Steve Pendleton.
2. Minutes of the last meeting (30th November 2005): Richard West suggested that in the Treasurer's report the phrase "pay expenses out of hand" should be changed to "pay expenses in cash". This was agreed.
3. Matters arising from the minutes.
Hans Cohn commented on the contraction issues discussed at the last meeting. However, Bill Poole responded that these decisions had now gone through the UEB (Unified English Braille) committees, and would not be worth repoening.
With regard to the issue of grade 1 braille being promoted for children's use, Marion Ripley reported that at a meeting of the RNIB/VIEW Primary Curriculum Group on 8th November, a resolution legitimising the use of grade 1 in teaching younger people was passed unanimously by 18 teachers. Bill Poole noted that the resolution was different from the one presented at the RNIB AIG (Access and Innovation Group) meeting on 8th March, which proposed that grade 1 be the default position for the under 19's. The 8th November motion is much more reasonable; but he would want it to be made clear that people are entitled to grade 2 braille if they wanted it.
4. Officer's reports.
(a) Chair.
(1) Forthcoming ICEB (International Council on English Braille) meeting. Bill Poole reminded the meeting of the ICEB Executive meeting to be held in Worcester (South Africa) on 5-7 April. Decisions made will have an impact on UEB. During the last few weeks some criticisms of UEB have come from the UEB Linguistics Committee and from the representative from Australia (Australia is already implementing the code).
The UEB Linguistics Committee have devised a code for IPA (International Phonetcs Alphabet), which is being passed to the ICEB Executive for acceptance. BANA (Braille Authority of North America) is likely to accept the code, and we could too, making it a standard for English-speaking countries. In the IPA code letter modifiers come after the letter, whereas they come before the letter in UEB. The UEB method is consistent with current literary braille and music braille in this regard. However, the Linguistics Committee is suggesting that UEB be changed so that modifiers are placed after the letter.
Some members of the Linguistics Committee have also expressed dissatisfaction that the DD and BLE contractions have been abolished, as well as with the system used in UEB to switch in and out of non-UEB codes (they believe that readers can recognise such switches well enough without any special indicators). However, there seems to be inadequate understanding within this committee of UEB principles from which these concepts flow.
The representative from Australia has asked that consideration be given to having a general accent sign in UEB; and he also asked that the rule for shortform extensions be reconsidered, to allow general extensions rather than a restricted list only. Since Australia has already agreed to UEB (and is beginning to use the code), it may have extra leverage in this discussion.
Hans Cohn commented that these criticisms highlight the difference between theory and practice: there should be a period in which such discussions can be held, involving all participating countries; adjustments to the code can then be made.
David McKerral said that if the contraction changes in UEB go ahead, there will be two types of braille in circulation, UEB and current braille. This will be confusing to readers - how could BAUK support this situation? However, Richard West thought that less experienced readers who do not write braille would not be greatly affected, as they would not be very conscious of the subtle contraction differences involved.
Bill Poole said that UEB is really meant to be completely defined now, so we shouldn't keep reopening such issues; he has deliberately not tried to reopen issues which have been decided upon, even if he has not agreed with the decisions. He does, however, agree that there will need to be a mechanism for code maintenance once the code is settled. Richard West and Peter Osborne agreed: we needed to settle the code, otherwise it will never get off the ground.
(2) World Braille Council (WBC). Bill Poole reported that the situation with the WBC was becoming muddled. Time had been spent discussing the constitution, but it had not yet been settled; however, a chair and other appointments have been made. It was noted that the WBC has now had 3 chairs, and Richard West remarked that if it is still not working after 3-4 years, it is unlikely to do so at all. Bill Poole said that he intended to raise the matter at the ICEB Executive meeting.
(b) Secretary.
(1) Stephen Phippen read out part of a notice announcing the merger of the library services of RNIB and NLB (National Library for the Blind). Peter Osborne added that a project group had been set up, and work is underway, with an emphasis on the importance of braille teaching, production and promotion.
(2) Stephen Phippen reported that a teleconference of the UEB Maths Committee had been held, of which he was a member. The purpose was to tidy up a few technical issues with UEB in its representation of maths, as well as to complete a rules document covering this area. The meeting had achieved its goals, and the document will soon be made available to users for transcribing maths in UEB. However, in the light of the way it has been written, the document will now have the status of "Guidelines", rather than a formal codebook; writing the latter will become a separate task.
(3) Some corrections have been made to British Braille; the amended version and the list of errors have been placed on the BAUK web site.
5. Update on UEB samples booklet.
Stephen Phippen reported that the booklet has been updated following a meeting of the Literary Code Committee - the introduction has been shortened, two samples added, and another replaced.
Bill Poole asked the meeting how the questionnaire should be conducted. A statement from Steve McCall was read out, giving an estimate of costs for VICTAR (Visual Impairment Centre for Teaching and Research) at Birmingham University to conduct the analysis. This would include inputting the data onto SPSS (a statistical analysis computer program), and providing a report for BAUK, but not coordinating the collection of the responses. The costs stated were £2000 for the first 55 responses, and £1000 for every subsequent 50.
Richard West estimated that this would cost BAUK £30,000 if we had 1500 responses - which, although not outrageous, we simply could not afford. Stephen Phippen asked how we would increase the number of people who wanted to take part: after fairly wide advertising last year we had only had 55 responses. Bill Poole replied that some responses may have been organisational (yielding higher individual numbers), and that the questionnaire should be advertised more widely. Marion Ripley asked if it would be reasonable to budget for 750 responses, then if we exceeded that number, 750 of the total could be selected for analysis. However Richard West said he thought that to be fair, all responses should be used; the more responses received and analysed, the easier it will be for us to react to them. Alison Roberts said she thought the range of respondents was more important than the actual number: we needed a good cross section of people including both the yound and old. Richard West added that the responses could be analysed in different ways, e.g. the responses from the over 75's may be different from those from young people. Bill Poole commented that when he did the analysis for the 1986 survey, it took him 6 months; he wouldn't be able to do the same thing again, and didn't think other BAUK individuals should do so either. He also noted that handling telephone responses would be difficult, but some people may find this method attractive. Marion Ripley wondered if some of the questions in the questionnaire could be dropped to make the evaluation easier; Stephen Phippen added that if all questions were multiple choice, it would make recording and analysis of the data much easier and could be automated.
Peter Osborne said that the scale of the response was the main issue. If we had around 200 responses, this could possibly be handled by RNIB. A charge would be made, but it would not be great. Anita Lightstone is responsible for research projects at RNIB; it might be possible to frame the questionnaire in terms of an RNIB research project, which could come under a heading such as "teaching braille". However, he was not confident about getting government funding. Hans Cohn commented that Peter Osborne's paper on UEB suggested that RNIB would adopt UEB anyway, and so would not be interested in the questionnaire. But Peter Osborne replied that this was not the case - RNIB was concerned about the issue, and this interest could indeed be a motivation for RNIB to take it on.
Bill Poole proposed that a small group of four people be set up to progress this matter. Names put forward were: Richard West, Peter Osborne, Iain Millard, as well as Bill Poole himself. Cathy Rundle, an expert evaluator at RNIB, was added as a possible extra person. This subgroup will report back to BAUK. Bill Poole noted that distribution of the sample booklet could not take place until all this had been settled. Stephen Phippen asked whether, if the consultation process is going to be delayed for an unknown length of time, he should send out apologies to the 55 people who had already responded to our requests for participants last year, and who were still waiting to receive the sample booklet. The meeting thought that this might be a good thing to do.
6. Update on Braille Promotion.
Richard West said that the article he had written promoting braille was now deemed to be complete. A copy had been sent to NALSVI News, and it will perhaps be put in the April issue. Richard will also take it to the Norfolk and Norwich literary event. Stephen Phippen will pass it to the editors of RNIB's NB and Insight magazines, to see if they would be interested in publishing it. Stephen Phippen asked if he should also put Richard West's article on the BAUK web site, with a notice saying that people can use it as they wish (but not edit it without permission). This was agreed.
Richard West said he didn't think he himself would be the best person to lead on braille teaching; he suggested Claire Wilson or Lisa Bhogal, and Peter Osborne added John Palmer, who is involved in the Right to Read campaign. Richard asked if people could let him know of any discussions or responses in magazines resulting from the article, and asked that people join in any such discussions to keep the issue going.
Richard West then asked what else people wanted him to do under braille promotion. Peter Wilkins noted that a meeting of the Braille Promotion Committee hadn't been held recently, but Richard explained that the meetings had not seemed very productive recently. Marion Ripley suggested that we should liaise more with people at RNIB and NLB who are engaged in braille promotion. Jill Allen-King also mentioned the Rehab Rethink campaign spearheaded by Guide Dogs for the Blind, and thought that braille should be included in that.
Jim McCafferty asked what the current position was on the register of braille teachers. Bill Poole replied that there was a legal difficulty regarding criminal record clearance for those placed on such registers.
Marion Ripley reported the launch of the new Moon web site: www.moonliteracy.org.uk. Between 25th January and 9th March it had had 834 visitors. Together with phone calls and other responses, this indicated that there was still an interest in Moon. A Moon promotion card was also available.
7. Any Other Business.
Bill Poole noted that he would be away from 30th March to 10th April (in South Africa, including the ICEB Executive meeting), from 11th to 19th May, and from 28th June to 3rd July.
Hans Cohn said that some years ago BAUK passed a resolution that braille should be capitalised; however, the matter had now gone cold, and he wanted to know when producers such as RNIB and NLB would be producing capitalised braille. He was personally in favour. Bill Poole replied that BAUK's current position is that it is open for producers and consumers to use capitalised or non-capitalised braille; BAUK was not making capitalised braille a requirement. Hans Cohn thought that this open position made BAUK look foolish, but Bill Poole disagreed.
Peter Osborne asked where RNIB stood as regards capitalised braille. Stephen Phippen replied that RNIB is technically able to produce capitalised braille, but only does so for a few magazines and some educational books, but will be required to do so for exam papers after June 2006. Transcribers are not yet really used to producing capitalised braille, as it is less common for it to be required. Jim McCafferty said that Scottish Braille Press produce capitalised braille on request; and replying to Hans Cohn's point said that the onus is on people to ask producers for capitalised braille if they wanted it. Marion Ripley agreed, and added that Clearvision books are all in capitalised braille. Ann Marsh said that NLB have a lot of readers who will not borrow books with capitals, but not vice versa.
Richard West asked whether it was RNIB's policy to produce capitalised grade 1 braille for children. Peter Osborne replied that there was still a long way to go with this decision.
8. The next meeting will be held on 4th July 2006.
[BAUK web site: bauk.org.uk]