About

Douglas G Blane is from an Engineering background having specialised in Computer Aided Design. He has many years of third party IT support knowledge & experience having researched, developed & implemented a corporate portal with integrated taxonomy base search engine for The Open University Business School.

Doug is currently working part time as Technical Coordinator for The Open University’s Digital Audio Project looking at mainstreaming text based workflow systems into automatically producing DAISY Digital Talking Books. He produced the first DAISY Digital Talking Book within The Open University that was distributed to it’s students.

Doug is also specialist disability / accessibility ICT software & hardware trainer. His clients include The Open University Access Centre, Dunstable College.

Doug has been CRB checked and cleared by The Open University Access Centre. He holds a clean full UK driving licence and is mobile as he has his own transportation.

Doug is also available for work on a freelance Consultancy bases. Please feel free to contact him with regards to any Alt Format / DAISY DTB / XML workflow consultancy proposals.

*** Doug is pleased to recommend the following software:
Resource Scheduler software by PeopleCube (formerly Meeting Maker)

Open References

“Doug has worked for me since June 2005 and is an important and trusted member of my team. He has both a broad and expert knowledge-base and the skill to make disparate and distant processes connect. Exceptional areas of his work have been:

* Improved team use of the OU’s network through setting up a well-structured shared area for Disabled Student Services and securing archives
* Improved information systems for students by liaising with colleagues responsible for course materials dispatch and the OU’s disability website
* Produced our first Daisy talking book and carried out extensive exploratory work for a 3-year digital audio conversion programme
* Converted our Open Links student newsletter to corporate brand
* Designed posters for public exhibitions to explain the work of Disabled Student Services.

In all cases, Doug received only broad guidelines about how to proceed and the end-product or result required. On a personal note, I find Doug an interesting and personable man, and a real pleasure to work with.”

Jennie Augustyniak , Manager, Office for Students with Disabilities , The Open University

“Doug provides much needed technical expertise and support (not previously available within the department), which extends our activities into: a. research into current and new mainstream and assistive technology applications to meet the needs of disabled students b. development of prototypes and exemplars which demonstrate the potential (and the limits) of technology-based solutions to meet the needs of disabled students c. evaluation of a) and b) above d. dissemination, via face-to-face (meetings, seminars, workshop and conference presentations etc.) and electronic (Knowledge Network) means, to relevant internal and external partners of a), b) and c) above”

Robin Stenham , Manager Curriculum Access , Open University