Submitted by: Vicki L. Hanson, SIGACCESS Chair
SIGACCESS continues to expand its membership and activities to meet member needs. This report highlights a new ACM SIGACCESS Award as well and the SIG’s conference and publication activities. Membership continues to do well, with people from 29 different countries belonging to SIGACCESS.
SIGACCESS is delighted to announce the creation this year of the ACM SIGACCESS AWARD for Outstanding Contributions to Computing and Accessibility. The award, to be given every other year, recognizes individuals who have made significant and lasting contributions to the development of computing technologies that improve the accessibility of media and services to people with disabilities. Outstanding contributions through research, practice, or advocacy are recognized. The award recognizes members of the community for long-term accomplishments or those who have made a notable impact through a significant innovation.
Through a nomination process this past spring, Jim Thatcher was selected as the first recipient for his pioneering work on screen readers and his continuing accessibility efforts. He will be presented with the award at the ASSETS’08 conference in Halifax this coming October.
We thank the nominating committee, Enrico Pontelli (Chair), Peter Gregor, and Helen Petrie, for their work on this inaugural award.
ASSEST’07 was held in Tempe, Arizona. Notably, conference attendees were warmly welcomed by the Arizona State University School of Computing and Informatics which hosted an evening of technology demonstrations at the university.
Two ACM Best Paper Awards were presented at the conference:
For the fourth year, the conference featured an NSF sponsored Doctoral Consortium (see the September 2007 Newsletter). This consortium allowed advanced doctoral students to present their dissertation topics and receive feedback during formative stages of their work.
The conference also hosted its second Microsoft Student Research Competition (SRC) event. The SRC allows students from diverse ACM areas to present their work and get recognized for achievement. First Place at the ASSETS SRC was awarded to Jun Gong (Northeastern University); Second Place was awarded to Darren Lunn (The University of Manchester). Darren Lunn went on to compete in the ACM Student Research Competition (SRC) Grand Finals.
Finally, a SIGACCESS Business Meeting was held at ASSETS. Attendees were updated on SIG activities and discussed ideas for new activities.
The ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS) launched its inaugural issue in May, 2008, see http://portal.acm.org/browse_dl.cfm?linked=1&part=transaction&idx=J1156&coll=ACM&dl=ACM&CFID=75242761&CFTOKEN=83567117
TACCESS is a quarterly journal that publishes refereed articles addressing issues of computing as it impacts the lives of people with disabilities. It provides a technical forum for disseminating innovative research related to computing technologies and their use by people with disabilities. This journal is available online to SIGACCESS members.
The SIGACCESS newsletter continues with its regular online publications with its new Editor-in-Chief, Sri Kurniawan see http://www.sigaccess.org/community/newsletter/. Also available on the SIGACCESS website is the monthly ‘Left Field’ column (see http://www.acm.org/sigaccess/leftfield/ ) by Yeliz Yesilada. The goal of Left Field is to bring to the attention of members publications for the ACM Digital Library that are of interest, but published in venues typically outside the reading of SIGACCESS members.
Finally, a Special Issue of ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction on “Computers and Accessibility” was published in September, 2007.
A key focus for SIGACCESS is developing new researchers. The SIG has taken many steps to address this goal. In addition to the student events at ASSETS, the SIG undertook the following initiatives this past year:
The SIGACCESS website maintains repository of information about Ph.D. and Master’s theses related to assistive technologies, computer access, and the application of computing and information technology in solving relevant disability problems, see http://www.sigaccess.org/community/theses_repository/. This site can be used not only to learn about this work (sometimes in advance of its publication), but also as a resource for locating universities and faculty active in the area. Students wishing to publish their work can find an online submission form on the website. SIGACESS participated in cooperation with the SIGCSE’08 conference. This conference on Computer Science Education had a focus on inclusive education.
SIGACCESS, under the leadership of Clayton Lewis, continued to work on accessibility policy issues this year. SIGACCESS continues to partner with National Alliance for Access to Computing Careers (AccessComputing) for the purpose of increasing the representation of people with disabilities in a wide range of computing careers, including those in computer science, information systems, software development, computer engineering, systems management and maintenance, and teaching. More information about AccessComputing can be found at http://www.sigaccess.org/community/newsletter/june_2006/ and http://www.washington.edu/accesscomputing/
SIGACCESS provided financial support for the International Cross Disciplinary Workshop on Web Accessibility 2008 (W4A) at the WWW Conference in Beijing this past May (see http://www.w4a.info/2008/ ). The workshop had the theme “One World, One Web: Surfers become Designers?”
