Report on the Unified English Braille
Transition Plan
By Derrick Smith
On October 16, the Braille Authority of North
America (BANA) hosted a meeting of 48 delegates representing 31 organizations from the
braille community in a "UEB Transition Forum" in
Louisville, KY. The forum was a full day event to
discuss and provide guidance to BANA on the
UEB transition plan. DVI was invited to participate
and I attended on behalf of the organization.
However, there were multiple members of DVI
representing other organizations in attendance
also.
It was a very busy day as we discussed the issues related to the using, learning, teaching, and
production of the new braille code. There were
many "take-away" messages from the meeting
that I would like to share with the Division.
The transition to the UEB will not happen overnight! The consensus of the delegates was
that January 2016 would be a reasonable
date for an official "beginning" of the implementation plan. This will be discussed and
an official date will be selected by BANA at
their meeting on November 6-8.
Books written in English Braille-American Edition (EBAE) will not disappear off the book
shelves overnight. Students and adults will
still have access to these materials as we
transition. However, publishers will most
likely start creating all new books in UEB
and only print EBAE materials upon special
request.
Training will be critical to the success of this
transition. Each set of professionals (inservice TVIs, pre-service TVIs, transcribers,
technology vendors, etc.) will have its own
timeline for training and professional devel-
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