As online platforms and other tech interfaces grow increasingly necessary for education, employment, and healthcare, digital accessibility has become an important computing competency.
A new award from the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) Initiative will support efforts to improve accessibility education in undergraduate computing, while building a community of practice to support instructors.
"Collaborative Research: Innovative Materials for Promoting Accessibility Curriculum and Teaching (IMPACT)," led by Devorah Kletenik, an associate professor at Brooklyn College CUNY, and Associate Professor Rachel Adler, has received a three-year, $696,796 grant from the NSF. The project builds on a successful collaboration between Kletenik and Adler to design a series of games for accessibility education. It will be conducted in collaboration with Teach Access, a nonprofit organization working to bridge the accessibility skills gap between education and industry.
"We are excited to expand accessibility education across multiple institutions," said Adler, co-PI on the project. Her research focuses on human-computer interaction, accessibility, and computing education, especially to benefit people with disabilities. "Digital accessibility is an essential skill for students, and we look forward to helping them learn how to design accessible software."
The project will seek to understand the challenges that instructors face both before and after teaching about accessibility, while also investigating the challenges that students face when learning about accessibility. Using those insights, it will expand, improve, and rigorously evaluate a set of accessibility resources, including accessibility games with a stronger focus on universal design, along with lecture notes and interactive assignments. Finally, it will create supportive structures, professional development opportunities, and an online community of practice for instructors who teach accessibility that will provide guidance, networking opportunities, guest speakers, and resource sharing.
"We plan to share resources and build a community of practice helping educators incorporate digital accessibility into their courses," Adler said.
"IMPACT" is just the latest of Adler's work to expand accessibility. Some of her recent projects include co-designing a mobile health application to empower cancer survivors with disabilities, co-designing a mobile health peer navigator intervention for people with disabilities, and creating accessibility games to teach students about accessible design. Her research has been funded through the National Institutes of Health; National Science Foundation; National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research; and the U.S. Department of Education. She holds a PhD in computer science from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.