My name is Debra. I am a college student who is deaf. Over the summer, I participated in a Research Experience for Undergraduates summer program where I helped develop an open-source 3D-printed wrist orthosis for individuals who have had a spinal cord injury. I attended and presented the results of this research at a national conference focused on prosthetics and orthotics.
National Science Foundation grant proposals must include a description of the broader impacts of the proposed work. One consideration is how project activities will promote the full participation of people with disabilities in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). There are many ways to include people with disabilities in your work and to otherwise address access issues for people with disabilities. This might include:
My name is Brandon. I am a first-year undergraduate engineering student enrolled in a required calculus course. Because of my learning disability, I have accommodations including extra-time and using a four-function calculator on exams. I also use text-to-speech software that allows my computer to read aloud text presented on the screen.
Hosting a panel of students with disabilities is a great way to help faculty, staff, or other stakeholders learn more about the issues that students with disabilities face in education. These panels can be held as part of a larger workshop on disability, as a standalone meeting, or as a part of a regularly-held departmental meeting.
Inaccessible IT sends the message that a campus is not welcoming to individuals with disabilities and may discourage or prevent people with disabilities from learning, conducting research, or working at an institution. Although there are legal requirements requiring IT to be accessible, not all postsecondary institutions comply.
Capacity-building institutes (CBIs) bring together individuals from a variety of stakeholder groups to explore problems around a specific topic area and come up with potential solutions that increase the capacity of stakeholders to solve identified problems. The DO-IT (Disabilities, Opportunities, Internetworking, and Technology) Center at the University of Washington in Seattle has hosted dozens of CBIs focused on increasing the success of individuals with disabilities in college and careers and improving the accessibility of information technology (IT).
It is important for programs that serve to increase the participation of women, racial/ethnic minorities or other underrepresented groups in fields such as science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) to be welcoming and accessible to students with disabilities. After all, there are people with disabilities within any of these underrepresented groups.
Programs can do a number of simple things to make their activities inviting and accessible to individuals with disabilities, such as those described below.
Many key issues regarding IT accessibility have surfaced in legal resolutions and settlements involving higher education institutions and technology accessibility including:
Kavita is a graduate student in computer science. Because of her disability she cannot travel to professional conferences in her field.
Kavita has been able to attend some sessions at conferences via video calls, but this mode of access limits the ways she is able to engage in conference activities. For example, when she calls into a conference session, she is unable to network with other attendees in sessions and in exhibit areas through informal conversation.
To accommodate students with low vision, use large print for text and handouts. While size will depend upon the needs of the individual, large print is usually defined as 16 to 18 point bold type depending on the typeface used. A standard Roman typeface, using upper and lower cases, is more readable than italicized, oblique, or condensed fonts. To enlarge print from standard 12 point original text to 16-18 point, use a 150-165% enlargement setting on a copier or printer.
Additional ways to accommodate students with low vision include: