WORKSHOP: Doctoral Consortium at ASSETS 2015

Board Of Regents, Nshe, Obo University Of Nevada, Reno, Reno NV

Investigators

Abstract

This is funding to support a Doctoral Consortium (workshop) of approximately 10 promising graduate students from the United States and abroad along with 5 distinguished research faculty. The event will take place on Sunday, October 25, immediately preceding and in conjunction with the 17th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility (ASSETS 2015), to be held October 26-28, in Lisbon, Portugal. The ASSETS conferences are 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; and professionals who work with these populations. Researchers and developers from around the world, in both academia and industry, will meet at ASSETS 2015 to exchange ideas and present their latest work. More information about the conference may be found online at http://www.sigaccess.org/assets15. A key component of building any community is through its youth. The Doctoral Consortium will help expand the participation of young researchers pursuing graduate studies in this field, by providing them an opportunity to gain wider exposure in the community for their innovative work and to obtain feedback and guidance from senior members of the research community. It will further help foster a sense of community among these young researchers, by allowing them to create a social network both among themselves and with senior researchers at a critical stage in their professional development. Because the students and faculty constitute a diverse group across a variety of dimensions, including nationality/cultural and scientific discipline, the students' horizons are broadened to the future benefit of the field. The organizers will take steps to promote participation from institutions with relatively large numbers of students from under-represented groups; to further increase diversity, they will aim for equal participation of females and males in the consortium. In accordance with CISE policy relating to conferences held abroad, NSF funds will be used only to support the up to 8 students from U.S. educational institutions). The ASSETS 2015 Doctoral Consortium will be a research-focused meeting of an international group of selected Ph.D. candidates and a panel of distinguished research faculty (the latter yet to be named). It will provide an opportunity for graduate students from diverse backgrounds (computing, engineering, psychology, architecture, etc.) to come together and explore their research interests in an interdisciplinary workshop, under the guidance of the PI and the panel of experts, so that they can appreciate the broader spectrum of research and development approaches to assistive technologies and universal usability, and also experience the community in which they can pursue their endeavors. Student participants will make formal presentations of their work during the consortium, and will receive constructive feedback from the faculty panel. The feedback is designed to help students understand and articulate how their work is positioned relative to related research, whether their topics are adequately focused for thesis research projects, whether their methods are correctly chosen and applied, and whether their results are appropriately analyzed and presented. Thus, the consortium will help shape ongoing and future research projects aimed at assistive technologies and universal access, will promote scholarship and networking among new researchers in this emerging interdisciplinary area, and will also expose these promising young researchers to a larger community. In an effort to integrate Doctoral Consortium participants into the conference itself, a poster session has been set aside in the technical program to allow all Doctoral Consortium participants to present their research to the full conference. In addition, for the first time this year the international panel of faculty will give a presentation on job opportunities for researchers in both academia and industry; such a discussion has taken place in doctoral symposia at other conferences, and has been considered extremely valuable by the students when considering career options. An evaluation of the consortium will be conducted and the results made available to the organizers of future such events.