This year's ASSETS Conference hosted its fifth Microsoft Student Research Competition (SRC) event. The SRC allows students from diverse ACM areas to present their work and get recognised for achievement. The competition had both Undergraduate and Graduate categories, with the following students winning in their respective categories.

Undergraduate Category

1. AudioWiz: Nearly Real-time Audio Transcriptions
   Samuel White, University of Rochester, USA
2. Utterance-Based Systems: Organization and Design of AAC Interfaces
   Timothy Walsh, The University of Delaware, USA
3. LocalEyes: Accessible GPS and Points of Interest
   Jason Behmer and Stillman Knox, University of Washington, USA

Graduate Category

1. GoBraille: Enhancing Independence and Safety for Blind and Deaf-Blind Public Transit Riders
   Shiri Azenkot and Emily Fortuna, The University of Washington, USA
2. Investigating Meaning in Uses of Assistive Devices: Implications of Social and Professional Contexts
   Kristen Shinohara, University of Washington, USA
3. Accessible Indoor Navigation
   Kyle Montague, University of Dundee, UK

Labels: ASSETS, Awards, Student Research Competition

The 2010 SIGACCESS Best Paper Award has been awarded to Jennifer Mankoff from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA, Gillian R. Hayes from University of California, Irvine, California, USA, and Devva Kasnitz from Devvaco Consulting & Society for Disability Studies, Eureka, California, USA, for their paper:

Disability Studies As a Source of Critical Inquiry for the Field of Assistive Technology

Disability studies and assistive technology are two related fields that have long shared common goals — understanding the experience of disability and identifying and addressing relevant issues. Despite these common goals, there are some important differences in what professionals in these fields consider problems, perhaps related to the lack of connection between the fields. To help bridge this gap, we review some of the key literature in disability studies. We present case studies of two research projects in assistive technology and discuss how the field of disability studies influenced that work, led us to identify new or different problems relevant to the field of assistive technology, and helped us to think in new ways about the research process and its impact on the experiences of individuals who live with disability. We also discuss how the field of disability studies has influenced our teaching and highlight some of the key publications and publication venues from which our community may want to draw more deeply in the future.

Full Paper Available from the ACM Digital Library

Labels: Awards, Best Paper

The 2010 SIGACCESS Best Student Paper Award has been awarded to Anne Marie Piper from the University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA, for her contribution to the paper “Introducing Multimodal Paper-Digital Interfaces for Speech-Language Therapy”. This was written in conjunction with Nadir Weibel and James D. Hollan from the University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, California, USA.

Introducing Multimodal Paper-Digital Interfaces for Speech-Language Therapy

After a stroke or brain injury, it may be more difficult to understand language and communicate with others. Speech-language therapy may help an individual regain language and cope with changes in their communication abilities. Our research examines the process of speech-language therapy with an emphasis on the practices of therapists working with adults with aphasia and apraxia of speech. This paper presents findings from field work undertaken to inform the design of a mixed paper-digital interface prototype using multimodal digital pens. We describe and analyze therapists’ initial reactions to the system and present two case studies of use by older adults undergoing speech-language therapy. We discuss the utility of multimodal paper-digital interfaces to assist therapy and describe our vision of a system to help therapists independently create custom interactive paper materials for their clients.

Full Paper Available from the ACM Digital Library

Labels: Awards, Best Student Paper

We are pleased to announce that Dr. Albert Cook (University of Alberta) has been selected as the 2010 recipient of the SIGACCESS Award for Outstanding Contributions to Computing and Accessibility. This award was established to recognize individuals who have made significant and lasting contributions to the development of computing technologies which improve the accessibility of media and services to people with disabilities.

Dr. Cook was selected in recognition of his life-long dedication to accessibility. Dr. Cook began his academic career at the California State University, Sacramento, where he founded the Biomedical Engineering Graduate Program and co-directed the Assistive Device Center. He moved to Canada to assume the position of Dean of the Faculty of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Alberta, where he helped to establish the Faculty as a world reference in research, development, and service provision in rehabilitation medicine and assistive technology. He authored more than 200 scientific publications. He is the co-author of the classic reference book in the field “Assistive Technologies: Principles and Practice”. As president of the RESNA, he worked to regulate the profession of Assistive Technology Practitioners and Engineers, bringing scientific methods to everyday practice.

Dr. Cook will present a Keynote address titled "The Future of Assistive Technologies: A Time of Promise and Apprehension" at ASSETS 2010 in Orlando, Florida.

Labels: Awards, Outstanding Achievement, SIGACCESS

DEADLINE extended to: 30 APRIL 2010

We are pleased to request nominations for the ACM SIGACCESS Award for Outstanding Contributions to Computing and Accessibility. The award recognizes individuals who have made significant and lasting contributions to the development of computing technologies which improve the accessibility of media and services to people with disabilities. Outstanding contributions through research, practice, or advocacy will be recognized. Towards this goal, contributions will be considered from academia, industry, as well as other professions that focus on computer users with disabilities and the application of computing technology to improve access. The award will recognize members of the community for long-term accomplishments or those who have made a notable impact through a significant innovation.

Candidates’ contributions can include innovative ideas, influence in the community, and/or the social impact of their work.

The award includes a $1000 honorarium, an award certificate of recognition, and an invitation for the recipient to present a keynote talk at the ASSETS 2010 Conference in Orlando, Florida, USA (25-27 October 2010). A public citation for the award will be placed on the SIGACCESS website.

Nomination Procedure

A nomination for the award should include:

1. A statement summarizing the candidate's accomplishments, description of the significance of the work, and justification of the nomination (two pages maximum)
2. Curriculum vitae of the nominee;
3. Three endorsement letters supporting the nomination including the significant contributions of the candidate. Each endorsement should be no more than 300 words;
4. A concise statement (one sentence) of the achievement(s) for which the award is being given. This statement will appear on the award certificate and on the website.

Nominations should be sent either:

Electronically:

Gerhard Weber gerhard.weber -AT- tu-dresden.de

Hardcopy:

Gerhard Weber,

ACM SIGACCESS Award Chair
Department of Computer Science
TU Dresden
Noethnizer Str. 46
01602 Dresden,
Germany

1. The nominee can be any member of the scientific community.
2. The nominator must be a SIGACCESS member.
3. No self-nomination is allowed.
4. Current members of the SIGACCESS Executive Committee as well as members of the Awards Committee are not eligible.

Important Dates

Submission of Nominations:

30th April 2010

Notification of Selection:

1st June 2010

Selection Committee

Julio Abascal

University of the Basque Country, Spain

Enrico Pontelli

New Mexico State University, USA

Gerhard Weber (Chair)

TU Dresden, Germany

Labels: Awards, Outstanding Achievement, SIGACCESS

We are pleased to request nominations for the ACM SIGACCESS Award for Outstanding Contributions to Computing and Accessibility. The award recognizes individuals who have made significant and lasting contributions to the development of computing technologies which improve the accessibility of media and services to people with disabilities. Outstanding contributions through research, practice, or advocacy will be recognized. Towards this goal, contributions will be considered from academia, industry, as well as other professions that focus on computer users with disabilities and the application of computing technology to improve access. The award will recognize members of the community for long-term accomplishments or those who have made a notable impact through a significant innovation.

Candidates’ contributions can include innovative ideas, influence in the community, and/or the social impact of their work.

The award includes a $1000 honorarium, an award certificate of recognition, and an invitation for the recipient to present a keynote talk at the ASSETS 2010 Conference in Orlando, Florida, USA (25-27 October 2010). A public citation for the award will be placed on the SIGACCESS website.

Nomination Procedure

A nomination for the award should include:

1. A statement summarizing the candidate's accomplishments, description of the significance of the work, and justification of the nomination (two pages maximum)
2. Curriculum vitae of the nominee;
3. Three endorsement letters supporting the nomination including the significant contributions of the candidate. Each endorsement should be no more than 300 words;
4. A concise statement (one sentence) of the achievement(s) for which the award is being given. This statement will appear on the award certificate and on the website.

Nominations should be sent either:

Electronically:

Gerhard Weber gerhard.weber -AT- tu-dresden.de

Hardcopy:

Gerhard Weber,

ACM SIGACCESS Award Chair
Department of Computer Science
TU Dresden
Noethnizer Str. 46
01602 Dresden,
Germany

1. The nominee can be any member of the scientific community.
2. The nominator must be a SIGACCESS member.
3. No self-nomination is allowed.
4. Current members of the SIGACCESS Executive Committee as well as members of the Awards Committee are not eligible.

Important Dates

Submission of Nominations:

31st March 2010

Notification of Selection:

1st June 2010

Selection Committee

Julio Abascal

University of the Basque Country, Spain

Enrico Pontelli

New Mexico State University, USA

Gerhard Weber (Chair)

TU Dresden, Germany

Labels: Awards, Outstanding Achievement, SIGACCESS

The SIGACCESS Scholarship Award aims to provide support for practitioners, researchers, members of advocacy groups, and individuals with disabilities who are interested in the field of computers and accessibility, to actively participate in the ASSETS conference and gain experience and knowledge from interacting with experts in the field. The scholarship award is in the amount of $2,000. SIGACCESS will award up to two scholarships per year, pending availability of funds.

The deadline for application is May 31st, 2010; applicants will be notified of the decision by July 15th, 2010. Applications should be sent in electronic form to: chair_sigaccess@acm.org. For further details on Eligibility Criteria and Application Requirements please see:
The SIGACCESS Scholarship in Computers and Accessibility Award Pages.

Special Note: the 2010 SIGACCESS scholarship will be dedicated to the memory of Dr. Noëlle Carbonell, a leader in the field of accessibility and a strong advocate and supporter of SIGACCESS.

Labels: Awards, SIGACCESS Scholarship

This year's ASSETS Conference hosted its fourth Microsoft Student Research Competition (SRC) event. The SRC allows students from diverse ACM areas to present their work and get recognised for achievement. The competition had both Undergraduate and Graduate categories, with the following students winning in their respective categories.

Undergraduate Category

1. Sensation Augmentation to Relieve Pressure Sore Formation in Wheelchair Users
   Raphael Rush, Queen's University, Canada
2. Designing AAC Interfaces for Commercial Brain-Computer Interaction Gaming Hardware
   Stephen Steward, The University of Delaware, USA

Graduate Category

1. iSET: Enabling in Situ and Post Hoc Video Labeling
   Mish Madsen, MIT, USA; Abdelrahman Mahmoud, American University in Cairo, Egypt; Youssef Kashef, American University in Cairo, Egypt
2. Defining Virtualization Based System Abstractions for an Indoor Assistive Living for Elderly Care
   Nova Ahmed, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA
3. MGuider: Mobile Guiding and Tracking System in Public Transit System for Individuals with Cognitive Impairments
   Wei-Hsun Chen, Chung Yuan Christian University, Taiwan

Labels: ASSETS, Awards, Student Research Competition

The 2009 SIGACCESS Best Paper Award has been awarded Hironobu Takagi, Shinya Kawanaka, Masatomo Kobayashi, Daisuke Sato and Chieko Asakawa from IBM Research, Yamato, Japan for their paper:

Collaborative Web Accessibility Improvement: Challenges and Possibilities

Collaborative accessibility improvement has great potential to make the Web more adaptive in a timely manner by inviting users into the improvement process. The Social Accessibility Project is an experimental service for a new needs-driven improvement model based on collaborative metadata authoring technologies. In 10 months, about 18,000 pieces of metadata were created for 2,930 webpages through collaboration. We encountered many challenges as we sought to create a new mainstream approach. The productivity of the volunteer activities exceeded our expectation, but we found large and important problems in the screen reader users' lack of awareness of their own accessibility problems. In this paper, we first introduce examples, analyze some statistics from the pilot service and then discuss our findings and challenges. Three future directions including site-wide authoring are considered.

Full Paper Available from the ACM Digital Library

Labels: Awards, Best Paper

The 2009 SIGACCESS Best Student Paper Award has been awarded to Anna C. Cavender from the University of Washington, USA, for her contribution to the paper “ClassInFocus: Enabling Improved Visual Attention Strategies for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students”. This was written in conjunction with Jeffrey P. Bigham from the University of Rochester, New York, USA and Richard E. Ladner from the University of Washington, USA.

ClassInFocus: Enabling Improved Visual Attention Strategies for Deaf and Hard of Hearing Students

Deaf and hard of hearing students must juggle their visual attention in current classroom settings. Managing many visual sources of information (instructor, interpreter or captions, slides or whiteboard, classmates, and personal notes) can be a challenge. ClassInFocus automatically notifies students of classroom changes, such as slide changes or new speakers, helping them employ more beneficial observing strategies. A user study of notification techniques shows that students who liked the notifications were more likely to visually utilize them to improve performance.

Full Paper Available from the ACM Digital Library

Labels: Awards, Best Student Paper

Xu Liu, from the University of Maryland, is a winner of this year’s ACM / Microsoft Student Research Competition (SRC) for his paper on “Mobile Currency Reader for People with Visual Impairments”.

This student competition takes place at many ACM conferences, including ASSETS. As one of the three winners at ASSETS, he was able to enter his work into the Grand Finals. The Grand Finals have entries from all participating ACM conferences in both graduate and undergraduate categories. In each category, there are three winners. We are extremely pleased that Xu’s work was honoured with a win in the graduate category. As a Grand Finalist, he is invited to attend the ACM Awards Banquet in San Diego next month — a ceremony that will honour many people in computing, including this year’s Turing Award recipient.

For more information about the SRC, see http://www.acm.org/src/.

ASSETS ’09 will again feature an SRC event. This is a great way to get visibility for student work! For information about how students can enter the SRC at the upcoming ASSETS conference, see http://www.sigaccess.org/assets09/information/student-research-competition.php.

Labels: ASSETS, Awards, Student Research Competition, Winner, Xu Liu