Effective Practices for Description of Science Content – Introduction

A significant amount of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) information is presented visually, from graphs and tables to diagrams and math equations. Students and professionals in the STEM fields who are blind or visually impaired must find methods of accessing the data published in visual format. Here is an example (image courtesy of www.teachersdomain.org ).

If the publisher has provided an alt-tag, a screen reader might read a simple description such as, "A full-color diagram illustrating the carbon cycle." For the student or scientist, however, it's the information within the diagram itself that is vital. If the diagram is published within a digital talking book (DTB), full access to that diagram can be provided through description.

This website provides both general guidelines that should be followed when describing STEM images and many examples of how the guidelines can be implemented. The guidelines are the result of a seminal 4-year effort encompassing multiple surveys with describers and with students and scientists with vision loss to research preferred practices for description of visual information in textbooks and journals. WGBH's Carl and Ruth Shapiro Family National Center for Accessible Media (NCAM) undertook this research and subsequent dissemination efforts thanks to two grants (# 04535663 and # 0833608) from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Read more about our project partners and process in the Project History and Research Methodology section.

NCAM staff will be providing training for implementing the STEM Description Guidelines at conferences and through webinars. If you or your organization would like to participate in a webinar, please contact stemdescription@mail4.wgbh.org.

Bryan Gould, Trisha O'Connell and Geoff Freed
Effective Practices for Description of Science Content within Digital Talking Books
December, 2008
The WGBH National Center for Accessible Media
© 2008 WGBH Educational Foundation

The Media Access Group at WGBH
1 Guest Street
Boston, MA 02135
(617) 300-3400 voice
(617) 300-2489 TTY

Please send comments and corrections to access@wgbh.org 

This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation   under Grant Nos. 04535663 and 0833608. Any opinions, findings, conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.