Accessibility in the iSchools: Not Just for People with Disabilities?

This event descriptions discusses our motivation for holding this event, the goals and expected outcomes, as well as a high-level outline of the activities for the fishbowl.

Motivation

Traditionally, the term accessibility has emphasized interactions between people with disabilities and technology. Many in the iSchools community conduct research in various aspects of accessibility, including human-computer interaction, web accessibility, and accessibility policy. However, we would argue that many of the themes and values expressed in accessibility research (e.g., access, equality, personalized information access, cultural issues) that are applicable to a wide range of research areas within the iSchools, particularly in research considering the digital divide.

This purpose of this fishbowl session is to encourage discussion and collaboration within the iSchools accessibility community, and to identify and build connections between “traditional” accessibility research for people with disabilities and researchers in other topic areas who address related concerns.

Goals

• To bring together members of the iSchool community who study, or who are interested in studying, the various facets of accessibility (HCI, web accessibility, policy);
• To provide an open and welcoming discussion for those outside the area who are interested in accessibility research, or have questions about accessibility research;
• To welcome discussion, questions, and other contributions from iSchool researchers in related areas (e.g., developing regions, health care, digital divide);
• To identify common interests and collaboration opportunities between accessibility researchers and researchers in other fields.

Outcome

The primary outcome of this event will be to foster new connections between accessibility researchers in the iSchools, and between accessibility researchers and researchers in related fields.

Proposed activities

The fishbowl format provides opportunities for many more participants to engage in the discussion than a panel, and accommodates more people than a roundtable discussion. Although the fishbowl format is inherently unstructured, the organizers will provide a rough structure to guide the session:

1. Introductions (10 minutes)
2. Open discussion (50-60 minutes)
3. Summary and reflections (10 minutes)
4. Next steps (10 minutes)
5. Post-meeting follow-through