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Accessibility in a Digital Age 1.3

September 8, 2011, 11:00 am

By George Williams

This is the third installment in what I used to call “Accessibility in a Digital Environment,” a roundup of links to information about making digital resources accessible to all people. (Here is the first roundup, and here is the second.) For today’s post, I’ve decided to focus on links to information about upcoming meetings devoted to the topic. There are many events scheduled over the next few months:

  • The “Boston Accessibility Unconference” takes place next week: September 17, 2011 at the Microsoft NERD Center: “the exact sessions that will take place will only be determined the morning of the event, so long as it relates to technology accessibility (e.g., web, mobile, social media, e-learning, touch screen technology) and users with a variety of disabilities, everything is open to discussion.”
  • The “Web Accessibility London Unconference” is scheduled for September 21, 2011 at City University London: “The unconference will have a cognitive impairment and mental health theme, as it is believed they are a widely under-represented population within web accessibility. However, the unconference will also consider the wider-disability population.”
  • “Accessibility Camp Toronto” is September 24 at Ontario College of Art and Design and will “cover all aspects of IT accessibility and end-users with disabilities, from the web, to software, mobile phones and apps, online gaming, open source innovations, and everything in between.”
  • “Accessibility Activities at EDUCAUSE 2011” provides “a list of accessibility-related activities at the EDUCAUSE 2011 annual conference. Please feel free to add to this list if there are any activities I’ve overlooked.” (EDUCAUSE 2011 takes October 18-21, 2011 in Philadelphia, PA.)
  • “Accessibility Camp DC” will take place October 22, 2011 at the Martin Luther King Library in Washington D.C.: “The main idea of this event is to get a whole lot of smart people together to learn and teach each other how to improve the web and make it accessible to all.”
  • “Accessibility Camp Ottowa” (they’re actually using the name a11yyow) is scheduled for December 2, 2011 and aims to “[bring] together developers, usability professionals, web designers, other IT professionals and end-users with disabilities together in an informal, non-threatening environment to learn from each other and to promote universal design of and accessibility to IT.”

Know of any other events to add to the list? Let’s hear about them in the comments!

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  • uwstaff

    I wonder how the graduation rates of football players would compare with other male students who work full-time jobs while enrolled in college.

  • blue_state_academic

    A more relevant question would be how the graduation rates of football players compare with other male students who get full scholarships and as much one-on-one academic support as they need to be successful.

  • uwstaff

    Unlike academic scholarships, though, athletic scholarships are given in exchange for what amounts to full-time work by the student. In fact, calling them “scholarships” is absurd. They should simply be tuition waivers, or athletic department assistantships.

    Better yet, eliminate them altogether and do away with many of the problems.

  • evansolomon

    College football (and basketball) players, unlike baseball players, have no choice but to go through the pretense of being a college student in order to have a chance of making it to the pros. Certainly many of them would not have otherwise chosen to go to college. Until a system is devised which allows them to bypass the college route, such differences in graduation rates are inevitable.

  • blue_state_academic

    football players are not the only students who have the equivalent of “full-time” jobs outside the classroom. 

  • cwm4c

    It can be done, but it’s hard.  Jim Foster, the current women’s Basketball coach at Ohio State for the last 10 years, has coached for 34 years, including at St Joe’s and Vanderbilt.  He has graduated every one of his players–and been very competitive in the process.  Unfortunately, he, and a small group like him are the exception

  • uwstaff

    @ blue_state:  Of course they aren’t.  That’s why it would be interesting to see a comparison with other students who work 30+ hours a week.

  • 12080243

    I’m shocked, shocked at the outrageous findings of this study!

    Sorry, I couldn’t help myself–again (Again? See, http://chronicle.com/blogs/players/faculty-oversight-of-sports-falls-short-survey-finds/29043?sid=at&utm_source=at&utm_medium=en)

    And will an equivalent graduation rate improve the endemic corruption in college athletics? Improvement of graduation rates of football and basketball players is easy. In all areas of their influence, administrators and their ally faculty are adept at doing what’s necessary to advance their schools to the “next level.” In other words, what makes you think corruption is not part of their modus operandi? Their “skin in the game” is all it takes.

    See, “A General Theory to Test Social Reality,” “Is Accreditation A Reliable Authority On Academic Quality?” and “University and AACSB Diversity (diversity of ideas, academic freedom, etc)” free online at the Social Science Research Network. See, http://ssrn.com/author=397169

    Chauncey M. DePree, Jr., DBA, (BA in Philosophy and a doctorate in business administration which includes a minor in Ethics and Logic–the details are a plea to my liberal arts colleagues to forgive me for by business degree. Professor, School of Accountancy, College of Business, University of Southern Mississippi, m.depree@usm.edu.

  • director19

    Is anyone shocked by this news?

  • goxewu

    There you have it: “Male students who work full-time jobs.”

    If a football player’s playing football is a full-time job, then he’s a pro. And if he’s a pro, can we now dispense with the hypocrisy of “amateurism” in D-1 college football. Can we now pay the players a wage conmensurate with the business enterprise that D-1 college football is? And can we now dispense with the pretense that the athletic department (at least as it concerns “revenue sports”) is an academic part of the university, but that it’s more like like the bookstore or buildings & grounds?

    Football players are for the most part victims, not villains. Many of them are shoehorned into a university that they’re otherwise unqualified* to attend, saddled with more than a full-time job’s worth of football (about 44 hours a week, all told), and shunted into such athletic-department-friendly majors as “recreation administration” and “sports management.”

    *And not just because they don’t have the smarts. In a lot of cases, their high-school academic careers have been similarly compromised by an emphasis on interscholastic athletics. (Note the high school games now on ESPN.)

  • socafish

    I agree.We should stop forcing, shoehorning, shunting, and saddling the poor guys. 

    Free the Football players! 

  • socafish

    @chronicle-8c2c4ddc10b63cf73e9219af28a5a5c7:disqus have no choice but to go through the pretense of being a college student in order to have a chance of making it to the pros.
    Please remember Otis Sistrunk (well he did attend the ”University of Mars”)

  • http://twitter.com/dboudreau Denis Boudreau

    There was also a11yMTL back in august (26th). Too late for this year, but it’ll be back again next year!

  • http://ProfHacker.com George H. Williams

    Thanks! Do you have a link with more information?

  • davi2665

    But at least this time Duke would have an actual finding from the Office of Research Integrity, which is hardly known for being overly tough.  When they put out a finding, it is conspicuously obvious that real misconduct has occurred.  If a faculty member cannot be dismissed for research misconduct, then nothing short of a conviction for first degree murder would be appropriate grounds.  Most universities are simply too cowardly to take on a real integrity issue, even research misconduct.  Which is why so many universities have become a total joke for policies of honesty and integrity.

  • glenthomas

    Blurb says Sanyal is a former postdoctoral researcher at Duke.  Maybe Duke does not have any current control over future research by this person.  Soccer scandal or lacrosse?

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