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Hi Hoover,
I've attached a text version of the ergonomics summary.
Debbie
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This was my question:
> Does anyone have information on standards for lighting and delivery of
> visual information for optimal performance in a classroom setting? I've
> been asked to help in the design of a "communication accessible" classroom
> with special attention paid to the needs of visually disabled students. I
> don't really know where to start, so any advice would be helpful.
>
> Debbie Giaschi
> Assistant Professor
> Departments of Ophthalmology and Psychology
> University of British Columbia
> 2550 Willow Street
> Vancouver, BC
> Canada V5Z 3N9
> voice: (604)875-5529
> fax: (604)875-4663
>
Here are the replies I received:
You might want to get in touch with:
Chartered Institute of Building Service Engineers (CIBSE),
Publications Department,
Delta House,
222 Balham High Road,
London SW12 9BS
UK
Tel: (+44) 181 675 5211
www.cibse.org
They publish a number of lighting guides for use in the UK (there is
probably a Canadian equivalent!). There is the general one: CIBSE Code for
interior lighting (1994) which includes some recommendations for
classrooms, lecture theatres etc And the more detailed one: Lighting
guide LG05: lecture, teaching and conference rooms (1991)
The above is probably a little out of date with regard to recent
technological developments but will at least give you a "start".
Alternatively you could contact the CIBSE and ask them to put you in touch
with a specialist.
---------------------------------------------------------
Dr. David R. Simmons e-mail: D.R.Simmons@gcal.ac.uk
Department of Vision Sciences Tel: [+44] (0)141 331 3389 (direct line)
Glasgow Caledonian University [+44] (0)141 331 3379 (dep sec)
City Campus Fax: [+44] (0)141 331 3387
Cowcaddens Road
Glasgow G4 0BA
SCOTLAND
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The following two volumes are likely to be helpful to you.
IES LIGHTING HANDBOOK, REFERENCE VOLUME, J. E. Kaufman and J. F.
Christensen (Eds), IES, New York, 1984.
IES LIGHTING HANDBOOK, APPLICATION VOLUME, J. E. Kaufman (Ed) and H. Haynes
(Assoc. Ed), IES, New York, 1981.
Ppease
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The Illuminating Engineering Society has a publication entitled
"Educational Facilties Lighting (RP-3-88)" which covers most of what you
need for classroom lighting. They have a web site: www.iesna.org.
You may also find most the information in your library in the IES Lighting
Handbook (8th ed.)
Alan L. Lewis, O.D., Ph.D.
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I would ask John Brabyn about your concerns with lighting. He
mentions the problem in our chapter. John is at Smith-Kettlewell, and is
in Rehabilitation Research.
Best regards, Morty Heller
Heller, M. A., & Brabyn, J. (1997). Ergonomic considerations in
blind and low vision rehabilitation. In S. Kumar (Ed.), Perspectives in
rehabilitation ergonomics.
Taylor & Francis.
******************************
Morton A. Heller, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
Winston-Salem State University
Winston-Salem, NC 27110
email: mheller@ols.net
336-750-2624 office
336-761-0541 home
336-750-2647 fax
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Try this:
IES Lighting Handbook: The Standard Lighting Guide
(no author) published by Illuminating Engineering Society
1860 Broadway New York 23, NY
The copy I have is from 1959 (hence the bizarre zip code), but I believe
it's updated every few years. My old addition contains about 6 pages on
lighting classrooms, a few dozen references on this topic, and many
additional pages on more general issues of how to light public spaces.
Jim Muller
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Probably you will get more specific and helpful advice than this, but
the first place I would look is the handbooks put out by the
Illuminating Engineering Society. They had a series of publications
entitled, "IES Lighting Handbook," (the 5th edition was published in 1972),
but I think it has now expanded into several different handbooks. There
are tables for recommended levels of light for different environments
and tasks.
Walt
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You need to contact the "Illuminating Engineering Society of North America",
IESNA, which publishes all these lighting standards and measurement
techniques and so on. You might find a "lighting engineer" or "illumination
engineer" by contacting a local lighting store or architect's firm. To
contact the IESNA itself, first try for a web page (www.iesna.org ??), if
that fails ask your librarian, if that fails let me know and I'll see if I
can dig anything up. I used to keep tabs on them twenty years ago.
-- Steve Shafer, Vision Technology Group, Microsoft Research
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There are a couple resources you can track down.
one, is the internet newsgroup "sci.engr.lighting" - they can probably
point you to a number of resources.
The second is the Lighting Institute at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
(the US RPI). The director is Mark Rea. You can track down the
Lighting Institute (which is actually a spurr off of the Architecture
Department (I believe).), through the RPI website "www.rpi.edu" and see
what they can do for you. If you are inclined to try and reach them by
phone, the area code is (518) in Troy, NY.
I am guessing that there are probably a variety of standards (e.g. CIE,
IESNA, etc.)
Speaking of which, you might try contacting IESNA, The Illuminating
Engineering Society of North America. They are in New York. Try
calling the Technical Director, Rita Harold, at (212) 248-5000.
You can tell her that I gave you her number (I am the Member Body
Liaison for The ISCC and I interact with IESNA on that level...).
You can also try the CIE, but I don't recall if they have a classroom
lighting standard. "www.cie.org" should get you to a listing of their
current publications.
* Joann Taylor *
* Principal Consultant - Color Technology Solutions *
* Specializing in Color Science, Technology and Applications *
* joannt@teleport.com *
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You may well get other responses but for me down under I contacted
the Occupational Health and Saftey Committee who usually have info
and the building and grounds director as there are standards for
lighting in public buildings etc. I have just been involved in
building an anatomy lab. Here it is recommended that the light level
be 400 lux. Normal lighting is about half this. We put in two
switches so that depending on the need we turn on only half the
lights or all of them. I imagine that if you have visually impaired
people that you should be looking at this option and if possible
additional table lights.
Herbert
Charles Sturt University
Australia
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A place to start is to get ahold of the latest edition of the IES
Lighting Handbook (published by the Illuminating Engineering Society).
Your library should have one. Even though the one I have is very old,
it has a lot of good info in it, including a chapter on Lighting for
Offices and Schools.
Scott S. Grigsby, Ph.D.
sgrigsby@al.wpafb.af.mil
Logicon Technical Services Inc (937) 255-8771
Office
P.O. Box 317258 (937)
255-8773 Lab
Dayton, OH 45437 (937)
255-8778 FAX
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There's a book called "Work and the Eye" by Rachel V. North, an oxford
Medical Publication, that has a section on lighting design, including
recommended illuminance for different tasks, a flow chart for designing
illumination, and numerous references.
I hope this helps.
Andrew M. Geller
National health and Environmental
Effects Laboratory, Neurotoxicology Division
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
MD - 74B
Research Triangle Park, NC 27711
geller.andrew@epamail.epa.gov
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I have address some of the problems with light from windows as they affect
students in general and visually impaired in particular in the paper:
Peli E. Control of vertically polarized glare. J Am Optometric Assoc
1983;54: 447-450.
Working in low vision rehabilitation now. I think that much can be done
for such students in the modren classroon for relatively small cost of
video equipment with access to either computer or blackboard information.
Eli Peli
Senior Scientist,
Schepens Eye Research Institute
Associate Professor of Ophthalmology,
Harvard Medical School
20 Staniford Street
Boston, MA 02114
Phone: 617-912-2597
Fax: 617-912-0111
E-mail: eli@vision.eri.harvard.edu
http://www.eri.harvard.edu/Training/glaucoma.html#tag13
Clinical Service
http://www.neec.com/what/cservices/vision.html
Recent book
http://www.wspc.com.sg/books/lifesci/2641.html
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You may wish to contact the Lighting Research Group of the National
Research Council of Canada.
Their website is: http://www.nrc.ca/irc/light/index.html
Marcel J. Sankeralli
McGill Vision Research
Department of Ophthalmology
McGill University, Canada
Postal address:
McGill Vision Research
687 Pine Avenue West (H4-14)
Montreal, Qc, Canada H3A 1A1
Tel: 514-843-1690
Fax: 514-843-1691
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A good forum for your question would be RT-L, a mailing list of teachers
and rehab therapists for the visually impaired. If you want I'll forward
your question to them (probably next week after my return to Hopkins from a
3 week stint in Sweden).
Gislin Dagnelie, Ph.D.
Usually at the Johns Hopkins University, but temporarily at the Univ. of
Gothenburg, Sweden
E-mail address, as usual, gislin@lions.med.jhu.edu
**********************************************************************
I noticed your request for help in the design of a "communication
accessible" classroom. I used to work in the area of rehabilitation
research and did some work in low vision. Although I can't help you
directly, I'm passing along a name and address of someone who might be
of some assistance. Dr. Veitch recently posted a note on CVNet linking
herself to issues on the quality of lighting for the workplace. Thought
it might be worth a try for you to contact her.
Jennifer A. Veitch, Ph.D.
National Research Council of Canada
Institute for Research in Construction
Bldg M-24 1500 Montreal Road
Ottawa, ON K1A 0R6 Canada
tel. 613-993-9671 / fax 613-954-3733
E-mail: jennifer.veitch@nrc.ca
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Dr. Thomas L. Amerson ~~~~~~~
__| Naval Submarine Medical Research Lab
_____________|__|______ O:(860)694-2529 Fax:(860)694-2523
++(_____________________-_) AMERSON@NSMRL.NAVY.MIL
**********************************************************************
Designing an environment for a group of visually impaired people is a
difficult job. Lighting needs differ very much between subjects and a
primary requierment is that the lighting controls offer the
opportunity to create high and low illuminated areas in a (class)
room. Another essential point is to use lamps in which the light bulb
or fluorescent tube in not directly in sight or in which in another
way high luminant areas are created in the field of view. As a rule
of thumb you can try to design a room to be used by computer workers.
Lighting in a room that causes a lot of annoying reflections in the
screens have such a high local luminance that it is noticed in the
reflected image.
Apart form the lighting you have to be aware the the choice of
colours and contrasts of ceiling, wall, floor, door frames etc. are
informative and have a good contrast.
Maybe these references can give you some additional information.
Cornelissen F.W., Bootsman, A., Kooijman A.C. (1995) Object
perception by visually impaired people at different light levels.
Vision Research 35: 161-168.
Kooijman A.C., Cornelissen F.W., Schoot E.A.J. van, Wildt G.J. van
der, Schipper J., Meester H., and Dijkstra M (1994) Designing the
occupational environment for visually impaired persons. Low Vision.
-Research and new developments in rehabilitation-. Ed ed by Kooijman
A.C., Looijestijn P.L., Welling J.A., and Wildt, G.J. van der. IOS
Press, Amsterdam, 208-216.
Aart Kooijman
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There is no such thing as standardized good lighting for visually impaired
persons because there are so many different types of visual impairments.
In each case the classroom situation needs to be assessed individually.
There are some "rules" like to place the child with the back toward to
window to decrease dazzle, to evaluate the need of extra illumination on
the desk, to consider the colour and luminance level at the black board.
Some children will need absorptive lenses in the class room because of
photophobia, other children a lot of light.
In communication you need to think on both visual disability, mainly how
much information is available at low contrast levels to the child - what
the contrast sensitivity is measured with both optotype and grating tests
- and how good is the child's hearing. Deaf children using sign language
require good luminance on the person communicatins, as do actually all
visually impaired children - good meaning different luminance levels in
different cases.
Lea Hyv{rinen, MD
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Deborah Giaschi, PhD
Assistant Professor
University of British Columbia
Departments of Ophthalmology
& Psychology
2550 Willow Str eet
Vancouver, BC
V5Z 3N9
voice: (604)875-5529
fax: (604)875-4663
aka
Deborah Giaschi, PhD
Staff Scientist
BC's Children's Hospital
Department of Ophthalmology
4480 Oak Street
Vancouver, BC
V6H 3V4
(604)875-2345 x7807
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