Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Out Of Reach, Benjamin Tenerella-Brody

Capstones

Months after the city agreed to make half of its taxi fleet accessible to people in wheelchairs, 219 West takes a look at the issue of subway accessibility, which has changed little since 1984. One disability-rights advocate takes us through the system, running into several obstacles. Others tell us why they think it is both immoral — and illegal.

Research Brief: "The Potential For Health-Related Uses Of Mobile Phones And Internet With Homeless Veterans: Results From A Multisite Survey", Institute For Veterans And Military Families At Syracuse University

Institute for Veterans and Military Families

This brief is about the use of mobile phones among homeless veterans for medical appointment reminders, and other health services provided by healthcare practitioners. In policy and practice, social workers and counselors should determine whether mobile communication would benefit homeless veterans with whom they work and should identify certain barriers to mobile communication that could exist; the VA should expand its mobile notification efforts and look for programs that reduce barriers to regular access to mobile communication. Suggestions for future research include expanding the sample of homeless veterans to include those who are living on the streets or in a …

Transmedial Documentation For Non-Visual Image Access, Melody J. Mccotter

Proceedings from the Document Academy

In my doctoral studies on information accessibility for the individual who is blind or visually impaired, I’ve been exploring the ways we can make image documents more accessible. This requires using an alternative sensory modality, and translating the document into a different format. The questions that arise when we consider this process are many, but among them are:

• Is it the same document once we’ve converted it to an audio narrative about the work, or a 3D topographic map of an artwork, or a musical interpretation?
• If it is not the same document, how truthful can the “trans-medial” translation be …

Design With Diversity In Mind: Online Information Literacy Instruction For Nontraditional Students, Holly Mabry, Natalie E. Bishop

Georgia International Conference on Information Literacy

Web-based, online learning options through Blackboard, Moodle, Desire2Learn, and other learning management systems are increasingly popular for students and library patrons who are unable to attend traditional face-to-face courses on a college campus due to geographical, financial, or family obligations. Librarians are also retooling their information literacy courses to adapt to the rapidly evolving online learning environment. Just like in a physical classroom or library that provides assistive technology and interpreters, online information must be accessible for a variety of backgrounds and abilities. Inaccessible online courses that aren't developed with plain language, good color contrast, captions or alternative text formats, …

Work-Life Experiences For People With Mobility Disabilities In New York City, Jessica A. Murray

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Work-family (or work-life) studies aim to measure interactions between the realms of work and home. It is necessary to examine these interactions within a broad context to understand external sources of tension on the work-life dynamic, including environmental, economic, and political factors. Exploratory interviews were conducted with participants of working age with a mobility disability, and when applicable, their significant others. Questions focused on work, home and transportation environments. Using Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory, a model of contextual issues was constructed as the basis for an in-depth analysis of work-life issues for people with a mobility disability. Contextual research and …

From Disability To Usability In Online Instruction, Susan David Demaine

Articles by Maurer Faculty

This article is a primer on the work needed to ensure accessibility in online instruction. It discusses different disabilities, reviews relevant laws and standards, and explores the relationship between accessibility and the principles of universal design. The article introduces a number of best practices for creating accessibility in online instruction.

Interpreting, Stephanie Jo Kent

Doctoral Dissertations

What do community interpreting for the Deaf in western societies, conference interpreting for the European Parliament, and language brokering in international management have in common? Academic research and professional training have historically emphasized the linguistic and cognitive challenges of interpreting, neglecting or ignoring the social aspects that structure communication. All forms of interpreting are inherently social; they involve relationships among at least three people and two languages. The contexts explored here, American Sign Language/English interpreting and spoken language interpreting within the European Parliament, show that simultaneous interpreting involves attitudes, norms and values about intercultural communication that overemphasize information and discount …

Readcube Desktop, Michael J. Hughes

Library Faculty Research

ReadCube Desktop is a free-to-download file and reference manager that competes with Papers, Mendeley, and Zotero, among others. Many of its predecessors’ features are replicated in a sleek and lightweight interface from which researchers can manage PDFs, search Google Scholar and PubMed, and annotate documents. But ReadCube is distinguished by its ability to enhance eligible papers with clickable in-line references, a figure browser, and other ways to engage with formerly static PDFs. In attempting to simplify research management, however, ReadCube overcompensates, removing a feature for each it adds. The lack of collaboration features, in particular, makes ReadCube a program ill-suited …

Measuring Spatial Health Disparity Using A Network-Based Accessibility Index Method In A Gis Environment: A Case Study Of Hillsborough County, Florida, Huairen Ye, Hyun Kim

International Journal of Geospatial and Environmental Research

In recent decades, the health care delivery system in the United States has been greatly transformed and more widely examined. Even with one of the most developed health care systems in the world, the United States still experiences great spatial disparity in health care access. Increasing diversity of class, culture, and ethnicity also has a significant impact on health disparity. The goal of this paper is to address the spatial disparity of health care access using a network-based health accessibility index method (NHAIM) in a Geographic Information System (GIS) environment. Ensuring a desired level of accessibility for patients is the …

Accessibility: Opening Windows To Digital Collections, Wendy Walker, Teressa M. Keenan

Mansfield Library Faculty Publications

Accessibility is a growing concern for universities and academic libraries as they create and provide more digital resources for their communities. The development of best practices for accessible web pages and documents is well underway. To date, no in-depth study of digital content management systems has been done. This poster summarizes the authors' initial research into the accessibility provided to visually-impaired users by two of the most used digital collections platforms in libraries: CONTENTdm and Digital Commons.

An accessible transcript of the poster content is available below.

An Assessment Of The Health Needs Of Maine Veterans And Their Access To Veterans Administration Health Care Services, Kristin Brawn

Muskie School Capstones and Dissertations

On a state level, only a few assessments have been conducted, which indicate that Maine veterans are also experiencing similar mental and physical health issues; however, it does not appear that the adequacy of Maine’s VHA services to meet the needs of Maine’s veterans has been comprehensively evaluated. It is unknown whether the physical and mental health needs of Maine’s veterans are currently being met. Therefore, this project proposes to determine if there is a similar problem among Maine’s veterans in regard to health issues and lack of access to VHA health services, as has been reported at the national …

Web Accessibility Of The Higher Education Institute Websites Based On The World Wide Web Consortium And Section 508 Of The Rehabilitation Act, Najma Habib Alam

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The problem observed in this study is the low level of compliance of higher education website accessibility with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. The literature supports the non-compliance of websites with the federal policy in general. Studies were performed to analyze the accessibility of fifty-four sample web pages using automated testing via auto-validation tools and using manual testing via assistive technology, followed by a comparative analysis of the findings of the auto validation tools. The auto-validation tools utilized on the sample web pages were comprised of three W3C validation tools. The results showed that two-thirds of the …

A Spatial Assessment Of The Go Bg Transit Services In Bowling Green, Kentucky, Frank Aryee

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The decision to live in a particular place, accept a job at a distant location, where to go shopping or purchase groceries, and many other similar decisions are all largely influenced by the availability of transportation. As such, it is important that everyone who requires transportation can have access. However, certain population segments, such as low income earners, are less likely to own cars due to the cost involved. There are others who may be impaired physically or have other difficulties that may prevent them from driving. Access to transportation is essential for people of all backgrounds and social statuses. …

Interesting Shapes Of Vegetables: Is It A Strategy To Promote Consumption Among Preschool Children?, Salma H. Alhabshi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This study highlighted the low intake of vegetables by preschool children and determined whether changing the shape of vegetables increased their level of consumption. A new strategy of repeated exposure to interesting-shaped vegetables was a step aimed at increasing vegetable consumption by increasing the fun element in having vegetables as snacks. Vegetables are the less desirable food in comparison to more attractive unhealthy choices available to children, and discovering a strategy to promote vegetables is considered an important step in nutrition. The primary aim was to explore the effect of repeated exposure (eight times) of shaped vegetables on consumption by …

Dissemination Of Wea: Survey Of Alert Authorities, Deedee M. Bennett, Braeden Benson, Danielle Sharpe

Public Administration Faculty Publications

In 2013, researchers from the Center for Advanced Communication Policy (CACP) at Georgia Institute of Technology were tasked by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Integrated Public Alert and Warning System (IPAWS) program office to research the inclusiveness of people with disabilities and those with language differences with regards to emergency alerts, namely Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEAs). Several research methods were employed to examine the accessibility of emergency alerts and impacts to all stakeholders.

This brief summarizes the survey results on how FEMA approved alert authorities used IPAWS to send WEAs to the public. The survey was sent to all …

(Dis)Abled Gaming: An Autoethnographic Analysis Of Decreasing Accessibility For Disabled Gamers, Kyle David Romano

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Within the context of culture, disability has long existed as a stigmatizing quality (Goffman, 1963). As a result, people with disabilities are often overlooked or completely omitted from various, cultural artifacts. This exclusion of people with disabilities is largely recognized as unproblematic because their disabilities imply an inevitable failing. Through my own experiences as a disabled gamer, I have recognized that video games have also framed gamers with disabilities as problematic. Video games are largely constructed in a one-size-fits-all mentality (Grammenos, 2014), where very specific people, with very specific kinds of bodies, are granted access to play them. Since disabled …

Priming The Data: Examining Self-Potentiation In A Word Fragment Completion Task, Michael P. Mcdonald

All Master's Theses

The studies presented assessed the presence and severity of self-potentiation effects in a word fragment completion task commonly used to evaluate priming effects. Priming effects have suffered a plethora of replication issues, and the field is currently under intense scrutiny. By analyzing and refining the methodology used, we will be able to more effectively evaluate the significance and strength of these effects in future research, and increase the reliability of results under replication. In these experiments, outcomes on a word fragment completion task were examined under a variety of conditions. In the first study, responses were collected in a free-response …