Version 3, final – distributed on July 17, 2007
DATE: Tuesday, 10 July, 2007
Time: 7:00 a.m. Pacific Coast USA, 10:00 East Coast USA, 15:00 UK, 16:00 Western Europe (Stockholm),Please figure your local time zone based on these well known times.
Dial in instructions: DAISY Conference Calling Service
Phone number +1 712 432-7300
PIN: 25693#
Decisions made on this call include:
You can dial in to the Conference number and press *3 to play back the recording being prompted for the filename. You may also enter the number of minutes into the recording that you want to start at. Again *3 ends the playback.
Recordings are retained for about 30 days.
filename: 20070710
(we will need a volunteer to step forward)
Jennifer agreed to serve as scribe.
Sean, Peter, and Bob agreed to review a first draft.
Group members introduced themselves.
Attendees included:
There were no additions to the proposed agenda.
Markus opened the meeting with an outline of the work that SBS in Switzerland and TPB in Sweden have been doing. Production of large print from DAISY is well along, but Markus indicated that the group's work is somewhat delayed.
Goals of the project are:
The group expects to be able to present something, probably with a focus on large print, in August or September.
In advance of the meeting, George proposed: "I would like to talk about three distinct phases of work. Our initial focus should be on the first phase." The group agreed to this approach
Peter suggested that, even as the first phase of work begins, it could prove valuable to collect information on the processes and technology for braille output that those in the Consortium are using. A sense of different work flows and a clearer understanding of where issues currently arise could guide this group's work and confirm that the goals as proposed, are achievable. In addition, there may be work underway on which the group may be able to capitalize. RNIB may have some resources available to support this state-of-the-art investigation.
The goal, again, is to initiate a seachange in the production of hardcopy and refreshable braille.
It was agreed that this state-of-the art investigation would be conducted between now and October. There are several meetings slated for October at which information may be presented, or from which additional information may be gathered. Again, this work can be conducted in parallel with Phase 1 below.
the primary goal is to Avoid split production processes and identify enhancements to DTBook for braille
It was generally agreed that this group should collaborate with braille-related organizations worldwide including the Braille Authority of North America (BANA), the Braille authority of the UK (BAUK), and the World Braille Council (WBC). Peter may be able to facilitate some of this, and Judy indicated her hope that a BANA representative would step forward and participate in this group.
A few use cases that were mentioned include:
More use cases may be gathered from the state-of-the-art investigation and, perhaps, from the list's archives.
Requirements will be extracted from the use cases and the identified user groups, but it will be important to keep the scope narrow enough to be achievable.
Users to be considered are:
CNIB may have some information to contribute to the initial collection of use cases and subsequent requirements.
It was agreed that the difficult parts of content production should be identified, and then, the group can determine whether the needed semantic elements are present, or whether additions should be proposed to the Z39.86 Maintenance Committee.
Examples of items for review are:
Identification should not be limited to printed books, and decisions should be broad enough to assure future expansion.
It was agreed that it is in scope for this group to propose semantic extensions to DTBook.
Items discussed included:
It is important to continue the separation between presentation and content.
One issue that will have to be decided is whether CSS is what should be used, or whether XSL transforms would be a more ideal approach.
A key goal here is not to have the group create language-specific styles, or focus on specific language encodings. Rather, this group will focus on general needs, and each country will be responsible for its own language, differences in formatting required, etc. this group is responsible for establishing a framework and leaving hooks that each country can use to streamline its braille production.
It was agreed that it is in scope for this group to develop two style sheets to support braille transformation. Or, as Lloyd mentioned, it may be that XSLFO will be a better choice since it may integrate more seamlessly into the DAISY Pipeline and other software tools. It was further agreed that the development of these transforms would be in Phase 2, the software development phase. In phase 1, what is needed will be identified.
Relying on class attributes can be difficult, since validating them is not necessarily easy, but ZedVal could be extended to include a specific attribute vocabulary.
After considerable discussion, it was agreed that the group would proceed under the assumption that everything needed for braille can be achieved via semantic markup. If this proves not to be the case, then issues that arise will be captured in a spreadsheet, or database, and used to provide feedback to braille-related organizations, those involved in developing XSLTs or CSS, etc.
those who have more technical backgrounds will have to help identify which issues must be resolved by humans vs. which ones computers can solve, if the computers are given data that is more specific.
This feedback will include specific rules which are difficult or impossible to automate; this information will provide input to future changes to the braille codes
This second phase was not discussed at length.
This proposed third phase was not discussed at length, though there does seem to be consensus that the group should, whenever possible, capitalize on the work that TPB and SBS have done and will be continuing to do.
The last update, as posted to the DAISY Web site, may be found here: http://www.daisy.org/projects/braille/braille_workarea/pef.asp
The goals have been summarized throughout this document.
These items have been discussed elsewhere in this document.
Those on the call who agreed to be core members of the working group are:
A leader was not identified on the call.
We agreed that George would ask for nominations for leader following the call.
It was agreed that conference calls will be held every two weeks, or approximately twice a month. Accordingly, the next conference call is slated to be held on Tuesday, July 24. Please monitor the Braille in DAISY Working Group's list for confirmation and details.
Archives for the Braille in DAISY list are accessible to members. Mining the archives to capture use cases from previous discussions may prove useful.
Current members can access the braille-in-daisy list through the Lyris forum interface:
To locate prior work of the Braille in DAISY Group, please start at: http://www.daisy.org/projects/braille/.