Producing large amounts of accessible documentation for Fortune 500 companies can take a lot of resources. However, once you have created processes to perform to that scale, you can then move towards providing materials to the Education market. Joe spoke to Lucy Morrissey, Marketing Manager for T-Base Communications, about their new Fast Track program and how it can create accessible textbooks. The company uses some machine learning, along with humans as well, to produce these books for many levels of Education. To learn more about the company, and to see how your organization can benefit from their services, visit the T-Base Communications website
CSUN 2019 coverage is Brought to you by AFB AccessWorld.
For the latest news and accessibility information on mainstream and access technology, Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon offerings, access technology book reviews, and mobile apps, and how they can enhance entertainment, education and employment, log on to AccessWorld, the American Foundation for the Blind's free, monthly, online technology magazine. Visit www.afb.org/aw.
Transcript
We strive to provide an accurate transcription, though errors may occur.
Hide transcriptTranscribed By Grecia Ramirez
Direct from Anaheim, it’s blindbargains.com coverage of CSUN 2019, brought to you by AFB AccessWorld.
For the latest news and accessibility information on mainstream and access technology; Apple, Google, Microsoft, and Amazon offerings; access technology book reviews and mobile apps and how they can enhance entertainment, education, and employment, log onto AccessWorld, the American Foundation for the Blind’s free monthly online technology magazine, www.afb.org/aw.
Now, here’s Joe Steincamp.
JOE STEINCAMP: Hey, everyone. Joe Steincamp on the floor in Anaheim, and I’m over at the T-Base Communications booth. And we’re going to talk a little bit about some fantastic new technology that you’ve got going on. It’s fast, you tell me?
LUCY MORRISSEY: Yeah –
JS: Hey. Welcome to the program.
LM: Hi.
JS: And – Lucy.
LM: Hi, Joe. Thank you for having me.
JS: Hi. All right.
LM: So T-Base Communications has been around for about 25 years. We produce alternate formats for banks, for telecom companies, for educational institutions, and for government. We produce accessible PDF, E-text, EPUB, audio, Braille, and large print.
So we set out to speed up transcription for our customers, which ultimately benefits end users, those who are blind or have low-vision. We created a software called FASTtrack. So it speeds up transcription about two times, so it’s two times faster.
What it does is the software does the initial pass at the textbook, for example.
JS: Right.
LM: And then we have FASTtrack operators who perfect the document’s structure. So it’s fast, and there’s that added level of Q/A. So any transcribed material goes through Q/A afterwards, and that’s Q/A by subject matter experts and certified transcription specialists, so –
JS: So for businesses that are trying to stay inclusive and provide things, like we were talking about banks and stuff like that –
LM: Yeah.
JS: -- this is a great way for that information to be made more accessible to blind individuals and those who may have some hearing loss much faster and better than them actually doing it themselves. This is a software solution.
LM: Yes. So FASTtrack is being employed for a lot of our higher education customers right now, who have complex textbooks –
JS: Right.
LM: -- such as math and chemistry textbooks. And just as of spring 2018, FASTtrack can now handle all math and chemistry, so –
JS: Oh, wow. Okay.
LM: Yeah.
JS: I would like to meet the team that had to work on all those symbols. That would be –
LM: Yeah. Yes. So – and as of spring 2018, too, we can now output many more alternate formats, not just Braille. We can do accessible PDF –
JS: Right.
LM: -- MathML, audio, many others, so –
JS: Okay. So a lot of that markup language that happens with PDF and converting things – and so who’s your ideal customer, do you think?
LM: Our ideal customer?
JS: Yeah.
LM: We have many ideal customers. So – yeah. We service financial services, we do –
JS: Cool.
LM: -- statements --
JS: Cool.
LM: -- and Documents NFI, telecom providers, U.S. health care insurance providers, some government, and, of course, we do department of education in the U.S., and we do universities and colleges. And also publishers.
JS: Oh, okay.
LM: Yeah.
JS: Excellent. So you were talking about how this is increasing turn-around time. What has been the turn-around times that you’re seeing now in some of these?
LM: So turn-around time does vary depending on the –
JS: -- the amount?
LM: -- textbook and the document –
JS: Right.
LM: -- so it’s hard to put –
JS: Yeah.
LM: -- a specific turn-around –
JS: So let’s generally say a textbook kind of thing. So professors are known for changing their preferences really quickly on textbooks. Let’s just say hypothetically – I’m not holding you to anything –
LM: Yeah.
JS: -- but if someone had to make a request, like a college for a textbook, that could happen pretty fairly quickly, or –
LM: Yeah. So typical turn-around for a textbook when it’s transcribed manually, I believe, is four to nine months.
JS: Wow.
LM: And – so we can generally speed it up so that it’s two times faster using FASTtrack.
JS: Yeah. That’s crazy.
LM: Yeah.
JS: Awesome. Okay. Well, if people are looking for their organizations to be able to do that, or if they’re the end users out there who might be trying to interact with an organization that probably should be doing something like this, how should they go about getting in contact or –
LM: Yeah.
JS: -- is there someone that they should go to first?
LM: The first step would be requesting alternate formats from your service provider.
JS: Right.
LM: If you’re a student, requesting the formats that you need. So that would be the first step.
JS: Uh-huh.
LM: And then the service provider would come to T-Base, and we would make sure that we’re able to deliver high-quality textbook in an alternate format faster for the end user.
JS: Awesome.
LM: Yeah.
JS: Now, you guys are pretty active on social media?
LM: Yeah.
JS: I’ve seen some things on – from T-Base on Twitter and the like.
LM: Yeah.
JS: So you guys put out a lot of interesting, you know, materials. Is that, kind of, the best place – is to hit the website and twitter to follow up with what’s going on at the company?
LM: Absolutely. So we are at www.tbase.com. We are on Twitter at – our handle is at, T-b-a-s-e-c-o-m-m, and – yes. We’re also on Linkedin and on Facebook. But we can be reached at info@tbase.com, I-n-f-o at tbase.com.
JS: Is there anything else we didn’t cover yet that you wanted to cover?
LM: I think we got it all, Joe.
JS: Awesome. Okay. Well, thank you for your time. Thank you for the information as well.
LM: Thanks so much for having me, Joe.
JS: No problem.
LM: Take care.
JS: From the floor of Anaheim, the Marriott, this is Joe Steincamp with Blind Bargains. More CSUN coverage in the feed.
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Joe Steinkamp is no stranger to the world of technology, having been a user of video magnification and blindness related electronic devices since 1979. Joe has worked in radio, retail management and Vocational Rehabilitation for blind and low vision individuals in Texas. He has been writing about the A.T. Industry for 15 years and podcasting about it for almost a decade.
