In April 2004, the ICEB General Assembly declared Unified English Braille to be substantially complete and that it could be recognized as an international standard and considered for adoption by individual countries. The original UEBC Research Project and its subcommittees were disbanded and replaced by a new project charged with oversight over UEB, including its further development.
Some of the documents pertinent to the research phase of the project, as listed in UEBC Research Project Information are still largely relevant -- especially the final committee reports presented at the 2004 General Assembly. However, the new UEB Committee and its subcommittees are in the process of producing definitive manuals and related materials that will replace those documents in time, and as those are available they will be incorporated into this section.
The UEB Symbols List shows all the currently assigned UEB symbols.
A draft of the UEB Rulebook for transcribers is ready for feedback.
A ZIP file containing the relevant files may be downloaded from the
Australian Braille Authority website at
http://www.e-bility.com/roundtable/aba/.
The files include a print version (PDF format), two braille versions (BRF format, for wide and narrow
paper), and a feedback form (Microsoft Word [DOC] format).
This guidelines document has been produced by the Maths Focus Group,
a subgroup of the UEB Rules Committee within the ICEB. The purpose of this document
is to give transcribers enough information and examples to produce Mathematics,
Science and Computer notation in Unified English Braille:
Guidelines for Technical Material (PDF format)
Guidelines for Technical Material (DOC [Microsoft Word] format, read-only)
Guidelines for Technical Material (BRF [formatted braille] format)
See UEB Decisions Since the General Assembly, 2004 (through July 2007) for decisions taken since the original (research) committee reports through July 2007.
See UEB Decisions Since July 2007 for more recent decisions.
The ongoing maintenance and further development of UEB is carried out by five working committees, which prepare reports for the approval of an overall UEB Committee and eventually the ICEB itself. These working committees welcome the interested public for observation and constructive comment. Most of the work of these committees is conducted through email listservs, and an archive of each listserv is maintained on the Web. With each of the committees listed below, a link is provided to a "listserv" URL which you can visit to review the archives and, if you wish, sign up to join the listserv and participate directly. Please keep in mind that proposals and even decisions within these working committees do not necessarily imply final adoption within UEB. (Also, if you wish to discuss more general aspects of UEB, or any other aspect of English Braille, see "Discussion List" on ICEB's main page.)
This group is finalizing the transcriber rules for all aspects of UEB. (See the 2004 General Assembly Resolutions 7.0 and 8.0.)
Listserv: http://www.nbp.org/mailman/listinfo/uebrules
This committee was charged with deciding on the rules for the use of contractions in an attempt to have rules as simple as possible. (See the 2004 General Assembly Resolutions 7.0.) Work on this charge has been completed; see the UEB Contractions Committee Report February 2006. The recommendations therein have been taken up by the main UEB Committee; see the "Decisions Taken" section above.
Listserv: http://www.nbp.org/mailman/listinfo/uebcontractions
(Note: This listserv is no longer active, but the archives remain
available.)
This committee is charged with developing best practices for format issues. (See the 2004 General Assembly Resolutions 8.0.)
Listserv: http://www.nbp.org/mailman/listinfo/uebformats
This committee is charged with making decisions about the brailling of foreign words in an English context, and how to handle diacritics, phonetics and phonemics. (See the 1999 General Assembly Resolutions 4.0.)
Listserv: http://www.nbp.org/mailman/listinfo/ueblinguistics
One of the Linguistics Committee members has also set up a
site providing details of a proposal that he has prepared in
conjunction with other Committee members. This is a working
proposal and has not yet been approved by the Committee. It may
be found at http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~reng/BrlIPA.html.
This group is completing the assignments of symbols for technical materials and any rules necessary for their use.
Listserv: http://www.nbp.org/mailman/listinfo/uebmaths