The 13th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, 24-26 October 2011, Dundee, UK.

People with disabilities can use Computer and Information Technologies to overcome barriers encountered in day-to-day life, and to participate more fully in society.

The ASSETS series of conferences explores the potential of Computer and Information Technologies to support and include individuals with disabilities, and those around them. ASSETS is the premier forum for presenting innovative research on the design and use of both mainstream and specialized assistive technologies by people with disabilities. Sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and its SIGACCESS Special Interest Group on Accessible Computing, ASSETS includes formal paper sessions, demonstrations, posters, a doctoral consortium, and a student research competition. The single track and friendly atmosphere make ASSETS the ideal venue to meet researchers, practitioners, developers and policymakers to exchange ideas, share information, and make new contacts.

Topics

High quality, original submissions on topics relevant to computers and accessibility are invited. Appropriate topics include (but are not limited to) the use of technology by and in support of:

• Individuals with hearing, sight and other sensory impairments
• Individuals with motor impairments
• Individuals with memory, learning and cognitive impairments
• Individuals with multiple impairments
• Older adults

Successful submissions typically present (though submissions from other related areas are encouraged) novel ideas, designs, techniques, systems, evaluations, scientific investigations, methodologies, social issues or policy issues relating to:

• Assistive technologies that improve day-to-day life
• Assistive technologies that improve access to mainstream Computer and Information Technologies
• Innovative use of mainstream technologies to overcome access barriers
• Accessibility and usability of mainstream technologies
• Identification of barriers to technology access that are not addressed by existing research

Where relevant, work that includes empirical data from the target user groups is strongly preferred. ASSETS strives to publish research that carefully addresses the issues involved when individuals with disabilities interact with information technologies. In general, this means that empirical studies should include participants that are representative of the intended users of the system being studied. This does not mean that all participants must be representative of the intended users, but it does mean that some individuals fitting this description should be included in an appropriate way in the data collection process. In some cases, articles may be accepted for publication if representative users are not included in studies, but only if a sufficiently compelling argument is presented as to why it is appropriate or necessary to use non-representative users and any implications of this decision are adequately addressed. Authors should refer to the General Writing Guidelines for Technology and People with Disabilities when preparing submissions.

Submission Procedures

ASSETS accepts submissions in the following categories:

• Technical papers
• Posters and demonstrations
• Doctoral consortium
• Student research competition

All submissions will be peer-reviewed by an international panel. Submissions MUST contain substantial original, unpublished material. Please refer to the ACM policy on plagiarism for guidance.

Important Dates

Requesting mentors:

4 March 2011, Friday

Paper submission:

6 May 2011, Friday

Notification of acceptance:

17 June 2011, Friday

Posters and demos submission:

1 July 2011, Friday

Doctoral consortium submission:

1 July 2011, Friday

Student research competition submission:

1 July 2011, Friday

Notification of posters and demos acceptance:

27 July 2011, Wednesday

Notification of doctoral consortium acceptance:

27 July 2011, Wednesday

Notification of student research competition acceptance:

27 July 2011, Wednesday

Camera-ready materials:

15 August 2011, Monday

All deadlines are at midnight HAST (GMT-10:00) on the specified day.

Labels: ASSETS, Call For Papers, Conferences

We are very pleased to announce the launch of an ASSETS Conference page on Facebook.

This page will be another venue for past and future ASSETS Conference attendees to share information, get announcements about upcoming conferences, finding and stay connected to colleagues they meet at the ASSETS year to year. In addition, videos and photos of conferences can be posted, to allow us to share links, videos, pictures, and other media from conferences! This Facebook page will be updated with information about each upcoming ASSETS Conference.

The new ASSETS Conference Facebook page is open to anyone who has a Facebook account. Any member will be able to post to the online discussion list, share media and links.

Labels: ASSETS, Conferences, Social Networking

The 12th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, 25-27 October 2010, Orlando, Florida, USA.

People with disabilities can use Computer and Information Technologies to overcome barriers encountered in day-to-day life, and to participate more fully in society.

The ASSETS series of conferences explores the potential of Computer and Information Technologies to support and include individuals with disabilities, and those around them. ASSETS is the premier forum for presenting innovative research on the design and use of both mainstream and specialized assistive technologies by people with disabilities. Sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and its SIGACCESS Special Interest Group on Accessible Computing, ASSETS includes formal paper sessions, demonstrations, posters, a doctoral consortium, and a student research competition. The single track and friendly atmosphere make ASSETS the ideal venue to meet researchers, practitioners, developers and policymakers to exchange ideas, share information, and make new contacts.

Topics

High quality, original submissions on topics relevant to computers and accessibility are invited. Appropriate topics include (but are not limited to) the use of technology by and in support of:

• Individuals with hearing, sight and other sensory impairments
• Individuals with motor impairments
• Individuals with memory, learning and cognitive impairments
• Individuals with multiple impairments
• Older adults

Successful submissions typically present (though submissions from other related areas are encouraged) novel ideas, designs, techniques, systems, evaluations, scientific investigations, methodologies, social issues or policy issues relating to:

• Assistive technologies that improve day-to-day life
• Assistive technologies that improve access to mainstream Computer and Information Technologies
• Innovative use of mainstream technologies to overcome access barriers
• Accessibility and usability of mainstream technologies
• Identification of barriers to technology access that are not addressed by existing research
• Where relevant, work that includes empirical data from the target user groups is strongly preferred.

Important Dates

Paper Submission:

7th May 2010

Posters, Demos, Doctoral Consortium and Student Research Competition:

2nd July 2010

URL:

http://www.sigaccess.org/assets10/

Labels: ASSETS, Call For Papers, Conferences

Edinburgh University, UK, 13-16 April 2010

The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and British Computer Society (BCS) are delighted to invite you to the joint ACM-BCS 2010 “Visions of Computer Science” conference, to be held at the Informatics Forum, Edinburgh University, between April 13-16 2010. This flagship event aims to energise the computing community and bring it together around some positive and inspiring visions of our discipline and follows the highly successful "Visions of Computer Science" conference in 2008.

Topics

The proceedings will be published on the BCS electronic proceedings series and the ACM Digital Library. Some of the best papers will appear in The Computer Journal, the archival research publication of the BCS. Submissions are being solicited in all areas of research covering the broad field of Computer Science and Engineering (CSE). They include but are not limited to:

• Computer Architectures and Digital Systems
• Theoretical Computer Science: Algorithms and Complexity
• Logic and Semantics
• Non-standard Models of Computation
• Programming Methods and Languages
• Software Engineering, and System Design Tools
• Quantitative Evaluation of Algorithms, Systems, and Networks
• Artificial Intelligence, Agents, and Machine Learning
• Computer Networks
• Distributed and Pervasive Systems
• Grid Computing and eScience
• Digital Economy
• Databases, Information Retrieval and Data Mining, Web based Computation
• Human Computer Interaction
• Robotics and Computer Vision
• Bioinformatics, Synthetic Biology and Synthetic Chemistry
• Medical Applications

Call for Papers

Submissions are being solicited in all areas of research covering the broad field of Computer Science and Engineering. The relevant dates for authors are:

submission:

18 December 2009

notification:

19 February 2010

camera-ready:

5 March 2010

The strict limit for submissions is 12 A4-pages in 10pt two-column style including figures and references. Authors may include a clearly marked appendix, which referees may or may not take into account. For more information see:
http://www.bcs.org/visions2010/.

Labels: Call For Papers, Conferences, Visions of Computer Science

Co-Located with the Nineteenth International World Wide Web Conference (WWW2010), in Raleigh, North Carolina, USA, 26-27 April 2010.

Developing Regions: Common Goals, Common Problems?

A revolution in the information society is now starting, based on the use of mobile phones in developing countries. The hyper-growth of mobile phone penetration is deeply changing the lives of people in most of the world; their ways of communicating, working, learning, and structuring their societies. The promising next step is obviously to access the Web. The Web has already touched the lives of over a billion people and now is the time for the next billions.

However, this expansion faces unprecedented accessibility challenges. Even the word “accessibility” needs a new definition for people in the developing regions. How can someone who is illiterate or barely literate access the Web? In some cases, a language may not even have a written form. The affordability of the technology is also a challenge, while access is constrained by low computational power, limited bandwidth, compact keyboards, tiny screens, and even by the lack of electric power. All of these constraints compound the problems of access and inclusion.

The desire for access in developing regions and the resourcefulness of the people who want inclusion unite the communities of people in developing regions and the communities of disabled people in the developed world. Will complex and highly graphical interfaces exclude developing regions from access? What problems exist, what are the newly appearing problems, and what solutions are required? How do the adoption patterns for Web accessibility and inclusion vary across cultures? What effect will the Web in the developing regions have on accessibility in the developed regions and vice versa?

Note that while the commonalities between Web Accessibility and Developing Regions are this years theme, please don’t be deterred if this somewhat unique area is not yours. We would like to see all quality work on Web Accessibility regardless of the particular field within accessibility. The overriding reason for a paper being accepted is its high quality in relation to the broad area of Web Accessibility. In this case topics of interests include (but are not limited to):

• Inclusion and Citizen Empowerment in Developing Regions;
• Inclusion and Literacy in Developing Regions;
• Enhancing Education in Developing Regions;
• Accessibility Problems in Developing Regions;
• Web Based Employment in Developing Regions;
• Web Based Health Care in Developing Regions;
• Evaluation and Validation tools and techniques;
• User Experimentation looking at Social Networking and Freedom of Expression;
• User Agents for Developing Regions and User Agent Guidelines;
• Web Authoring Guidelines;
• Design and best practice to support Web accessibility;
• Technological advances to support Web accessibility;
• End user tools;
• Accessibility guidelines, best practice, evaluation techniques, and tools;
• Psychology of end user experiences and scenarios;
• Innovative techniques to support accessibility;
• Universally accessible graphical design approaches;
• Design Perspectives;
• Adapting existing Web content; and
• Accessible graphic formats and tools for their creation.

Web Accessibility Challenge

Sponsored by Microsoft since 2008, the “Web Accessibility Challenge” is organised to give an opportunity to researchers and developers of advanced Web accessibility technologies for showcasing their technologies to technical leaders in this area not only from academia and industry but also from end-users. More details:
http://www.w4a.info/2010/submissions/challenge.shtml.

Submission

We will accept position and technical papers, and short communications. Position papers should only be submitted as a communication of (up to 4-pages) whereas technical papers should be in full paper format (up to 10-pages). Accepted papers and communications will appear in the Conference proceedings contained on the Conference CD, and will also be accessible to the general public via the ACM Digital Library website. The official language of the Conference is English. Submission details are available at:
http://www.w4a.info/2010/submissions/index.shtml.

Important Dates

Technical and Communication Papers:

Submission: 01 February 2010 (Midnight Hawaii Standard Time)

Web Accessibility Challenge:

Submission: 19 February 2010 (Midnight Hawaii Standard Time)

More details:

http://www.w4a.info/2010/submissions/dates.shtml

Labels: Call For Papers, Conferences, W4A

Eleventh International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, October 26-28, 2009, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Call for Posters and Demonstrations

The ASSETS conference explores the potential of Computer and Information Technologies to support and include individuals with disabilities, and those around them. ASSETS is the premier forum for presenting innovative research on the design and use of both mainstream and specialized assistive technologies. This includes the use of technology by and in support of:

• Individuals with hearing, sight and other sensory impairments,
• Individuals with motor impairments,
• Individuals with memory, learning and cognitive impairments,
• Individuals with multiple impairments,
• Older adults

Poster and Demonstration Submission Procedures

The Poster and Demonstrations submission system is now open: https://www.softconf.com/s08/assets09-pd.

Submitting a poster or a demo is an ideal platform for researchers and practitioners to present their work and receive valuable feedback. Participants are invited to submit high-quality posters and demonstrations presenting novel ideas, designs, techniques, systems, tools, evaluations, scientific investigations, methodologies, social issues or policy issues relating to any topics that may be of interest to the accessibility community.

A poster is a great way to test new ideas, generate interest in a research area, or describe useful or interesting work that is not substantial enough for a full paper presentation. A demonstration is a great way to communicate inventive accessible computing and IT technologies in action.

Posters and demonstration proposals should be submitted using the ACM conference format (http://www.acm.org/sigs/pubs/proceed/template.html), and they are limited in length to 2 pages. Proposals will be reviewed, and accepted proposals will be included in the conference proceedings. Submissions (in PDF format) should be submitted electronically via the conference web site no later than July 6, 2009.

Note: These are NOT double blind submissions; the authors’ names should be on the paper.

Labels: ASSETS, Conferences, Posters and Demonstrations

Eleventh International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility, October 26-28, 2009, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Call For Papers

People with disabilities can use Computer and Information Technologies to overcome barriers encountered in day-to-day life, and to participate more fully in society. The ASSETS series of conferences explores the potential of Computer and Information Technologies to support and include individuals with disabilities, and those around them. ASSETS is the premier forum for presenting innovative research on the design and use of both mainstream and specialized assistive technologies by people with disabilities. Sponsored by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) and its SIGACCESS Special Interest Group on Accessible Computing, ASSETS includes formal paper sessions, demonstrations, posters, a doctoral consortium, and a student research competition. The single track and friendly atmosphere make ASSETS the ideal venue to meet researchers, practitioners, developers and policymakers to exchange ideas, share information, and make new contacts.

Topics

High quality, original submissions on topics relevant to computers and accessibility are invited. Appropriate topics include (but are not limited to) the use of technology by and in support of:

• Individuals with hearing, sight and other sensory impairments,
• Individuals with motor impairments,
• Individuals with memory, learning and cognitive impairments,
• Individuals with multiple impairments,
• Older adults

Successful submissions typically present (though submissions from other related areas are encouraged) novel ideas, designs, techniques, systems, evaluations, scientific investigations, methodologies, social issues or policy issues relating to:

• Assistive technologies that improve day-to-day life.
• Assistive technologies that improve access to mainstream Computer and Information Technologies.
• Innovative use of mainstream technologies to overcome access barriers.
• Accessibility and usability of mainstream technologies.
• Identification of barriers to technology access that are not addressed by existing research.

Where relevant, work that includes empirical data from the target user groups is strongly preferred.

Submission Procedures

ASSETS accepts submissions in the following categories:

• Technical papers.
• Posters.
• Demonstrations.
• Student research competition.
• Doctoral consortium.

All submissions will be peer-reviewed by an international panel. Submissions MUST contain substantial original, unpublished material. Overlapping material should not be submitted to multiple categories.

Important Dates

• Paper submission: May 10, 2009.
• Notification of acceptance (papers): June 29, 2009.
• Poster and demo submission: July 6, 2009.
• Student research competition submission: July 6, 2009.
• Doctoral consortium submission: July 17, 2009.
• Notification of acceptance (posters and demos): July 27, 2009.
• Notification of acceptance (student research competition): July 27, 2009.
• Camera-ready materials due: August 11, 2009.
• Notification of acceptance (doctoral consortium): August 21, 2009.

Labels: ASSETS, Call For Papers, Conferences