Blueprints / Engineering Drawings

RM-BhamTech

Hi, and thanks in advance for any guidance / suggestions.

I am at a technical college, working in the Precision Machining program. Our students need to interpret blueprints and engineering drawings for all program courses; students interpret geometric relationships, dimensions, tolerances, as well as other information… this is an inherently graphical format, and we are stumped on how to approach making it more accessible, e.g. for students with visual impairment. We are expected to meet or exceed WCAG.

Traditionally, we've stored/shared blueprints in PDF format, but that's not really a suitable format for non-linear read order and with little semantic hierarchy outside the title-block… tagging PDFs is also a special kind of hell I'd like to avoid. PNG example of one of our blueprints below.

bwsf

Thank for raising this issue! We have been struggling with similar questions in some of our vocational and hands-on classes.

Faculty often say, "I've never had a blind student take my class," or, "This profession requires vision/hearing/fine motor skills." They decide that making the course materials accessible isn't necessary. However, here are some situations that might connect with them:

• A student with a disability who can meet the requirements for the profession might still benefit from content that meets the WCAG standards.
  • Uncaptioned nursing lecture videos are still a barrier to a hard of hearing student, even if they can hear if a hospital patient is crying out for help (sometimes a job requirement).
• There are multiple ways an accessibility practice can help people, not just what we first think of.
  • The faculty member may not have taught a blind student, but what about someone with dyslexia? (They almost certainly have, even if the student didn't disclose it.) People with dyslexia and other processing disorders can benefit when images of text are turned into real text. Then they can copy and paste to reformat it, or they can use software to read it aloud.
• Students can have temporary disabilities.
• Students may have good reasons for taking a course even if they are not going into the field. For instance, someone may be preparing for a related job, and they should be allowed the opportunity to benefit from as much of the course as they can.

Here are some approaches I've been considering:

• In very narrow instances, we may seek an exception.
  • This would be documented and signed off by the college President's authorized representative, based on what the DOJ ruling requires.
  • For instance, we have a course entirely about blueprint reading. If the course objectives are inherently about interacting with 2-D diagrams, then having students rely on long text descriptions would be a fundamental alteration of the course.
  • When a blind student, say, decides to take the course, the Disability Resource Center could work with the department on accommodations, such as creating tactile versions of the diagrams with Braille labels, or whatever makes sense for that student in that class.
  • It might be possible to predict common accommodations, and work toward them.
    • For instance, if certain image resolutions or file types are needed for some of the school's current remediation procedures or work better with common assistive technology, new drawings could take that into account. 
• We could provide key text from the diagram in real text, along with the link to the diagram. This would probably be the text from the diagram's title-block. Maybe it would also have an overview of the diagram, such as: "An oblique view of the base plate, which is a block with a slot going partway through. Schematics shown from the front, back, and side."
  • Let's say we had a student taking the class who had difficulty interacting with these PDFs. Making the metadata accessible could help them make decisions about which files to open and engage with at the moment. The information they need to know (e.g. how much material is needed?) can be in plain text instead of them having to dig through the file.
    • Even if we successfully and fully remediated the PDF, or made an alternative version that worked for them, it probably presents fewer barriers to a student to get certain information from well-formatted text, rather than from text in the PDF.
• More generally, we're encouraging faculty to reach out to others in their disciplines to learn.
  • What approaches are colleagues taking? Has anyone had assistance from a disabilities resource center to remediate their course in the past? Would that point to a method to meet WCAG requirements?
  • Are there good open educational resources that are accessible, or could people using the same curriculum split up the work to remediate it?
  • What do professionals in this field with disabilities do? E.g. what kinds of software and solutions do blind architects use? 

I'd love to know what others are considering!