“The Annual Report Awards epitomise the work of IPAA by providing agencies with an opportunity to be assessed on their annual report accountability, encouraging excellence and good governance in public administration,” said Mr Metcalfe, President of the IPAA ACT and Secretary of the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry. The Annual Report Awards are open to all Australian government and ACT government agencies and bodies.

The AIHW is the national agency set up to provide information and statistics on Australia’s health and welfare.The AIHW was established as a statutory authority in 1987 by the Australian Institute of Health Act 1987 to report to the nation on the state of its health. In 1992, the role and functions of the then Australian Institute of Health were expanded to include welfare related information and statistics, making it the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.

You can listen to the annual report which won the award and which uses our most popular product ReadSpeaker Enterprise Highlighting.

The post ReadSpeaker customer Australian Institute of Health and Welfare wins Online Report Gold Award appeared first on ReadSpeaker.

What is website loading time?

First, we have to agree on what “loading time” means. The loading time can be described in two ways:

• The time it takes until everything on the webpage is loaded.
• The time it takes before a user can see and interact with the content of the webpage.

I believe the most important one is the time it takes before users can see and interact with the content of the website because this is the loading time that users experience even if everything is not loaded at that point. That’s also the loading time that we’ll be focusing on in this blog post.

There are several aspects that could affect the loading time on a website:

• The size of the files that are loaded (CSS files, JavaScripts, images, etc.) and the amount of HTML code.
• The code that has to be executed (only relevant for JavaScripts).
• If the file is loaded asynchronously or if the browser has to finish loading the file before continuing with the next item.
• Response time (how long it takes before a server responds on a request).
• Server bandwidth (with what speed a server can send a file to the user).
• User bandwidth (with what speed a user can receive files from the server).

I’m going to cover the first three aspects of loading time, but it’s important to take the other aspects into consideration as well.

How is loading time affected by adding ReadSpeaker Enterprise Highlighting?

Traditionally, many website owners look at the size of the files (CSS files, JavaScripts, images, etc.) to be loaded and the time it takes to load them. However, it’s very important to also consider that a browser has to stop and execute a JavaScript before it moves on to the next file.

When implementing Enterprise Highlighting, a JavaScript is added to the HTML code of the website. The script is called ReadSpeaker.js and it loads together with the rest of the page content. The size of this script is only 10 kB. We can compare that size to the logo of a website that is considered minimalistic and fast, namely google.com, where the size of the logo is around 19 kB (almost twice the size as our script).

Once the main JavaScript (ReadSpeaker.js) is loaded, the other necessary JavaScript components will be loaded at the same time as the rest of the page content. This method is called asynchronous loading and it’s the same method that newer implementations of Google Analytics use to speed up the time it takes before a user can see and interact with the page content. Find out more about the difference between asynchronous and synchronous loading in the section below.

Once all JavaScript components are loaded, the service is ready to be used. This can happen before the rest of the page has finished loading or after the rest of the page has finished loading since it’s not dependent on when other content on the page is loaded. If a click on the Listen button occurs before all components are ready, the service will hold the click until all components are ready and then start the player. The components are usually ready before the page content since it only takes a few seconds for them to load and execute.

Synchronous vs. Asynchronous loading

Asynchronous loading is much faster than synchronous loading because browsers don’t have to stop and execute each individual JavaScript when loading the page content. When using asynchronous loading the browser will load and execute scripts in the background and continue loading the rest of the page content at the same time. Synchronous loading, on the other hand, means that JavaScripts load together with other content in a queue like fashion, thus adding to the loading time. The JavaScripts have to be executed along the way, which is why we don’t use synchronous loading for our JavaScript components.

Conclusion

Thanks to the method that we use for loading the script components (asynchronous loading), the loading time of a website is barely affected. The difference in loading time with our service on the page compared to not having our service on the page is minimal since the only script that really affects the loading time is the 10 kB main script. Yes, we still use bandwidth when loading our scripts and it could also affect the loading time of a page. However the effect of asynchronous loading would be so small that it’s hard to measure unless a user has a really low bandwidth.

The post Does adding ReadSpeaker slow down a website? appeared first on ReadSpeaker.

ReadSpeaker (RS): How long have you been aware of text to speech technology?
Renee Citlau: I became aware of ReadSpeaker last year at a workshop that I attended.

RS. What where the reasons that convinced you that this technology could help you better teach your online business courses?
Renee Citlau: We always look for ways to make our curriculum accessible for all students including English learners, long-term English learners, and students with disabilities.  We know that many students struggle with reading and we want to provide support for struggling readers.

RS: Which groups of students in your online classes benefit the most from text to speech?
Renee Citlau: Any student that is a struggling reader will benefit from text to speech.  English learner and long-term English learners are particularly helped by text to speech.  Many of these students have oral proficiency in English, but they are lacking reading and writing skills.  Text to speech helps to provide the scaffolding these students need in order to access the curriculum.  In addition, English learners hear the correct pronunciation of the words which helps them in their language acquisition.  It takes 5 to 7 years for students to develop academic English.  Text to speech is one of the tools we can use so that our English learners can participate in rigorous classes while, at the same time, develop their literacy skills.

RS: What benefits do you see in having content being presented in visual and audio formats at the same time?
Renee Citlau: Students have a choice in reading without the audio or listening to the audio while each word is highlighted.

RS: How does the highlighting of the text as it is being read benefit your students?
Renee Citlau: Students hear and read along with each word which helps to reinforce language acquisition and their learning.

RS: Do you see ReadSpeaker as a tool that benefits students with reading disabilities?
Renee Citlau: ReadSpeaker  is a tool that helps students with reading disabilities become better readers and the ability to access knowledge and gain skills that were previously closed because of their reading disability.

The post Text to speech for education: Q&A with Renee Citlau (Anaheim Union High School District) appeared first on ReadSpeaker.

The speech-enabling solution chosen by INSEE allows visitors of its website to instantly listen to written content via a listen button positioned near the text to read. When the user clicks on the listen button, ReadSpeaker immediately begins to read the content of the page. The text is also simultaneously highlighted, reinforcing a better understanding of the content. The vocal support enables all visitors, notably  those with reading disabilities, to access the audio version of the website without having to download any software or plugin.

ReadSpeaker has been added on certain pages of the INSEE website with more pages to come in the following weeks.

The post ReadSpeaker speech-enables the INSEE website appeared first on ReadSpeaker.

Tashkil are the various diacritics that are attached to Arabic letters to indicate features including vowels, gemination, and absence of any vowels. Arabic texts are typically written without tashkil, as fluent speakers can comprehend the text by automatically filling in these diacritics. Image at right: Arabic text with tashkil.

The human brain is exemplary at filling in these diacritics, despite the fact that there is an average of 11.6 possible diacritizations for every non-diacritized word (Debili et al., 1998). That’s a lot of possible choices.

Automated systems, such as the one behind ReadSpeaker’s text-to-speech technology, are quite good at determining the diacritics for particular words. However, a computer is no replacement for a fluent speaker and will consequently make more errors than a fluent speaker. This is why, when listening to Arabic TTS, reading a text written without tashkil, a fluent speaker will be able to determine where exactly the errors are. Whilst the ReadSpeaker team can fix the pronunciation of individual words in specific locations, any new texts written without tashkil will contain new pronunciation errors on the basis of the computer algorithm.

How can you help improve the quality of the Arabic voices and decrease the number of errors? By writing texts with tashkil! This may be time-consuming, but at the end of the day, it’s beneficial to everyone. The ReadSpeaker voices improve, and more people can read the Arabic text, as texts written without tashkil are much more difficult for non-fluent (and possibly non-native) speakers of Arabic to read.

Help our Arabic voices: Write with tashkil!

The post The Importance of Tashkil appeared first on ReadSpeaker.

“With our new web service, the users of the National Council of Monaco website can now benefit from an immediate, simple and convenient access to its audio version,” said Roy Lindemann, ReadSpeaker Cofounder.

The post ReadSpeaker speech-enables the National Council of Monaco website appeared first on ReadSpeaker.

The new text-to-speech technology is now available to the growing number of libraries that subscribe to Literati Public, the SIIA CODiE 2013 winner for Best General Reference Service. Text to speech will soon be added to Literati Academic, a CODiE award finalist for Best Education Reference Solution, as well as to Literati School and Literati Student Athlete, which were both launched earlier this year.

“At Credo, we’re focused on making authoritative information accessible to all users. Text to speech removes barriers for auditory learners, learners who are visually impaired and those who are learning English as a second language,” said Carol Helton, Credo’s Executive Vice President of Marketing and Customer Solutions. “ReadSpeaker pioneered online text to speech in 1999, so we are very excited to leverage their experience, expertise and technologies to make Literati an even stronger solution for libraries and the diverse user base that they serve.”

“Literati is unique in that it helps individuals hone information skills that transfer beyond the classroom to the workplace and everyday life,” said Joop Heijenrath, ReadSpeaker Cofounder and responsible for ReadSpeaker’s business operations. “We are proud to partner with Credo to enhance Literati and support such an important mission.”

The post Credo Adds Text to Speech through Partnership with ReadSpeaker appeared first on ReadSpeaker.

The post Picasso Museum adds text to speech to its website appeared first on ReadSpeaker.

When it comes to developing new solutions, we focus on our current products and how to make them better but also on new ideas that sometimes become part of our portfolio. Some products become successful and others don’t get the market acceptance we thought they would. It’s a trial and error process that we have encouraged ever since starting ReadSpeaker back in 1999.

Parallel to this, we also want to try experimental stuff that we consider more as lab type projects that sit apart from our commercial products. One of the them that just went live is a new experimental way of listening to Wikipedia. We were always surprised that there has never been a readily available audio access for such a text-rich site that so many users depend on to gather knowledge. So we came up with a solution to solve this problem notably for all those that have reading disabilities. The United Nations estimates that approximately 15% or 1 billion people in the world live with some form of disability. Many of these include reading disabilities such as illiteracy and dyslexia for example. Unicef estimated that 1 billion will enter the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names. Adding an audio version of text content also helps users with low vision, language learners or anyone who just wants to listen in addition to reading. Any simple and easy-to-use tool that can help users get better access to information is a step in the right direction.

So we decided to develop a floating audio player that Wikipedia readers can now use to listen to any English-language article (more languages could be speech-enabled in the future).

The audio player is by default always on the lower right-hand side of the screen but you can move it anywhere you want. The audio player gives users several options such as switching to text mode only or keeping the page in the original layout mode. There is also a settings button which enables users to select the type of highlighting and the reading speed so as to provide an even more customizable listening and reading experience. The listen button in the panel will read the entire page. You can also choose to only listen to part of any article by simply selecting text which will trigger a pop-up Listen button.

We’d love to get your feedback on this type of approach to making Wikipedia content more easily accessible for users so please reach out to us here on our blog or on our different social feeds.

So if you want to listen to Wikipedia, try it out now!

You can easily listen to any Wikipedia article by adding the service as a bookmark.

Drag this button to your bookmarks:  Listen to Wikipedia

The post Listen to Wikipedia! appeared first on ReadSpeaker.

Patient.co.uk

Visitors to Patient.co.uk now have the option to listen to the site’s award-winning clinical health information pages. Accredited by The Information Standard (the Department of Health’s quality mark), these 4000+ pages provide patients, health professionals and the general public with trusted medical information and support.

The technology, powered by ReadSpeaker, helps improve the user experience for people with visual impairments, reading difficulties, or learning disabilities as well as those whose native language is different from that of the website.

This new feature is immediately available to all users with no additional software to download or install. They simply click and listen to the content of their choice.

Ben Foster, Patient.co.uk Operations Director said: “We work hard to make the site accessible to a wide audience and for all users and technologies. Implementing the ‘listen’ function is an innovative way of extending the service, enabling users to have the page read aloud to them.”

Joop Heijenrath, ReadSpeaker Co-founder and responsible for ReadSpeaker’s business operations, said: “Increasing access to vital information is one of the reasons we strive to make our text-to-speech functionality such an affordable and user-friendly service. We are pleased to provide Patient.co.uk’s users with an easy way to listen to the site’s quality health information.”

Patient.co.uk was recently listed as the ‘Number 1 health website you can’t live without’ by The Times and also received a Highly Commended Award from the British Medical Association in the BMA Patient Information Awards 2012.

The post Patient.co.uk provides greater access to its health information by adding ReadSpeaker’s leading text-to-speech technology appeared first on ReadSpeaker.