Scientist in Residence Activities
Clayton Lewis, PhD, Professor of Computer Science, University of Colorado at Boulder, serves as the Institute's Scientist in Residence. Jim Sullivan, PhD, Coleman Institute Faculty Fellow and Senior Investigator, Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado at Boulder is also participating in some of the initiatives.
The role of the scientist in residence is to identify and support the most promising efforts in shaping mainstream technology to serve the interests of people with cognitive disabilities. Current efforts are centered on the following areas:
- Personal mobile platforms
- Cognitive accessibility
- Technology Forum
Personal Mobile Platforms
The communication facilities of the mobile phone and the computer are being blended into a new class of powerful handheld devices. The Institute has supported a number of exciting initiatives that are related to these emerging technological breakthroughs.
One is an exploratory project that helps users who have difficulty speaking by connecting a handheld system from an industry partner, Saltillo Corporations ChatPC, with a Nokia smart phone. The linked devices allow a user to make phone calls using only the familiar user interface on their ChatPC.
Another initiative is the Institute's special focus on Android, the emerging open smart phone platform whose development is being led by Google. Activities include a project course at the University of Colorado at Boulder in which students develop Android applications. Student projects in the initial course included a mobility aid, a reminder system with remote caregiver input, a location-aware prompting system, and a naming practice tool for people with aphasia. The Inclusive Android online community was created to encourage information exchange among groups interested in the use of Android by people with disabilities.
The naming practice project has produced a prototype called Banga, now operating on a G1 phone, and communicating with a therapists' Web site that allows therapists to manage clients' practice remotely. Developed in cooperation with Prof. Gail Ramsberger of CU's Department of Speech, Language, and Hearing Science, and with students from CU and from Jackson State University, with support from the National Science Foundation, Banga is described in a presentation at the 2008 ASSETS Conference in Halifax, Nova Scotia. A technical talk at Google on the work on mobile technology is available online.
Cognitive Accessibility on the World Wide Web
The Web has become a critical channel for information, participation, and services of all kinds. The Institute advocates support for people with cognitive disabilities in their efforts to utilize technology. One effort has been to provide specific input about regulations and standards to such groups as the Telecommunications and Electronic and Information Technology Advisory Committee (TEITAC) of the US Access Board, the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) of the World Wide Web Consortium, and the Accessibility Directorate of Ontario. Lewis contributed to the drafting of a policy statement by the Association for Computing Machinery calling for enhanced Web accessibility that was adopted in 2008.
The Institute is participating in the Fluid Project (led by Jutta Treviranus of the University of Toronto Adaptive Technology Resource Centre) developing pluggable user interface components for web-based software in higher education. Fluid's efforts will spread into other web-based software as well. Funded by the Mellon Foundation, an extension of Fluid, Fluid Engage, will promote accessibility for museums and other cultural institutions, including support for making online outreach programs of such institutions more accessible, on the mobile Web as well as on conventional browsers. Professors Dirk Grunwald, Shivakant Mishra, Doug Sicker, and Katie Siek of the CU's Computer Science Department are participating in Fluid Engage.
Technology Forum
The Technology Forum is a project of the Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center for the Advancement of Cognitive Technologies (RERC-ACT), directed by Dr. Cathy Bodine, which is co-funded by the Coleman Institute. The Institute's Scientist in Residence is the principal investigator for this project.
The goal of the Technology Forum is to create and maintain a knowledge base, available on the Web, by promoting the direct communication of mainstream technology leaders, developers of assistive technology, people concerned with policy development and others who care about cognitive disability and technology. The Forum is a vehicle that can provide insight for the national and international dialogue about inclusion, accessibility, standards, regulations and other issues vital to the advancement of cognitive technologies.
The Forum has organized a series of workshops and panel presentations at the annual Coleman Conferences. A summary of the 2008 workshops on mobile technology and the Web is available online. Results were presented in a panel at the CSUN 2009 conference by Lewis, David Dzumba (Nokia), Michael Paciello (The Paciello Group) and Gregg Vanderheiden (TRACE Center.) A presentation focussing on mobile technology is forthcoming at the HCII Conference in July, 2009.
The Institute is participating in the Raising the Floor Initiative, an international effort to build needed accessibility into the fabric of our information infrastructure, including the Web and mobile technology, led by Gregg Vanderheiden and Jim Fruchterman. Lewis is serving as lead for the Working Group on Cognition, Language, and Learning. Please email clayton.lewis at colorado.edu if you would like to participate.
Lewis has contributed chapters to Web Accessibility: A Foundation for Research, edited by Simon Harper and Yeliz Yesilada (Springer, 2008) and to the forthcoming Universal Access Handbook (Human Factors and Ergonomics), edited by Constantine Stephanidis. He also served as a Guest Editor for a theme section on Inclusive ICT Business in the journal Electronic Markets-- The International Journal, Volume 18, Number 4, 2009.
