{"id":886,"date":"2021-05-25T11:21:40","date_gmt":"2021-05-25T10:21:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/clt\/?p=886"},"modified":"2021-11-02T11:19:05","modified_gmt":"2021-11-02T11:19:05","slug":"using-bookdown-to-generate-accessible-course-materials","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/clt\/2021\/05\/25\/using-bookdown-to-generate-accessible-course-materials\/","title":{"rendered":"Using bookdown to generate accessible course materials"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr Thomas Cottrell (Department of Mathematical Sciences) shares his experiences of using\u00a0<\/span>bookdown<\/span>, rather than LaTeX, to generate accessible course notes and problem sheets. This approach has many benefits to all students, but also brings some additional challenges.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Background context<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/h4>\n

As part of the legal requirements for accessibility, documents need to be digitally accessible.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>There needs to be adequate provision for all readers to engage with all content, including equations and formulae, images, diagrams, plots\u00a0<\/span>be it unassisted, or via assisted technologies (such as screen readers and electronic braille).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Additionally,<\/span>\u00a0the concept of accessible design ensures that everyone can engage with content easily, which can also bring benefits to\u00a0<\/span>all\u00a0<\/span><\/b>learners<\/span><\/b>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the Department of Mathematical Sciences, Dr Thomas Cottrell teaches the first year Methods and Applications module, and a third-year course on Projective Geometry. Thomas has been using a variant of\u00a0<\/span>bookdown<\/span>\u00a0(<\/span>ClavertonDown<\/span>) as an alternative to creating lecture notes, problem sheets and solutions with LaTeX generated pdfs.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thomas has used LaTeX since 2008 and created and maintained many documents using the format. For the 2020\/21 academic year Thomas converted his pdf lecture materials to html pages, from which students can download pdf versions if they desire.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Why switch from LaTeX?<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

If you have tried to copy and paste an equation from a LaTeX generated pdf document, you may have noticed it can often get jumbled up. When using assisted technologies such as screen readers, this same problem occurs.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

HTML versions of documents created with\u00a0<\/span>MathJax<\/span>\u00a0(a plugin developed by the American Mathematical Society) creates formulae\u00a0<\/span>which can be read clearly with and without assistive technologies,<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>whilst being typed using the same LaTeX syntax (albeit with a limited number of LaTeX packages).<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

It also allows for a smoother viewing experience on a mobile device, and for users who\u00a0<\/span>need to zoom in and want the text to reflow.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Raw LaTeX code (and pdfs generated by them) only tells you what symbols you have and how you\u2019d arrange them on a page. The semantics of equations often ends up being lost, and in the case of pdfs not accessible.<\/span><\/p>\n

Why write in\u00a0<\/span><\/span>bookdown<\/span><\/span>?<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

It has to be said that bookdown<\/span><\/span>\u00a0doesn\u2019t solve all<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/span>these problems, especially when one symbol is used for multiple contexts. It can, however, create multiple formats from one source (e.g. <\/span><\/span>an html webpage with the maths rendered html<\/span><\/span>\u00a0webpage from which students can download the version of their choice.<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Above: Lecture notes in a web browser and viewed in night mode on a mobile phone. There are options at the top of the page for hiding and revealing the navigation pane, searching the document, changing the text and background styles, and downloading in different formats.<\/em><\/span>\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

The html format is much more suited to digital displays than pdf. You can easily change to dark mode, resize the text, display in different orientations, screen sizes, etc., in addition to being useable with screen-readers. This can benefit students with particular sight or cognitive processing issues and all students viewing documents digitally.<\/span> \u00a0<\/span>When printing documents, a pdf document is the natural choice, and so that can be provided in addition to the html version.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Thomas recalls the pre-Covid world where students in tutorials or help sessions at MASH would often attend without physical copies of problem sheets or lecture notes, or a laptop to view the pdf version. They would commonly use their phones to zoom in and out of pdfs which were designed to be printed in A4. Thus, html versions can often be more convenient for all users.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

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Above: The same section of the lecture notes viewed on a mobile device in the html and pdf outputs. Notice the large amount of white space surrounding the text in the latter.<\/em><\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

The\u00a0<\/span><\/span>bookdown<\/span><\/span>\u00a0writing process<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

Thomas created the documents manually, copying and pasting from his LaTeX notes, and then changing accordingly. This meant some upfront time investment, particularly for the first set of lecture notes, but it was much <\/span>smoother<\/span> for the second set, once he had learned how <\/span>bookdown<\/span> worked. Whilst there are automated ways of converting .<\/span>tex<\/span>\u00a0files to\u00a0<\/span>bookdown<\/span> documents,\u00a0 some post-processing and tidying may still be needed, and these may not lead to the same level of familiarity with the language.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Some of the more time-consuming elements included converting numbered or bullet-pointed lists into the markdown lists used in <\/span>b<\/span>ookdown<\/span>, and converting figures. Depending on the level of familiarity with R, one can create diagrams using R code. Whilst\u00a0<\/span>b<\/span>ookdown<\/span>\u00a0doesn\u2019t support many LaTeX packages, Thomas notes that it is possible to use\u00a0<\/span>TikZ<\/span> for diagrams, although he found the results unsatisfactory.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

There were a couple of typos or mistakes in the materials, and with the <\/span>b<\/span>ookdown<\/span>\u00a0workflow it is quick to make these changes and update all versions simply too without resorting to the command line.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Downsides of using\u00a0<\/span><\/span>bookdown<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h4>\n

Thomas pointed out a number of negatives:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n