IBM to Help Colleges Ease Software Access for Disabled, Aged

By Niladri Sekhar Nath

TMCnet Contributing Editor

 

IBM (News - Alert) will work with academia to build a worldwide repository of materials helping student developers make software more accessible to those with disabilities and the aging population. The effort is part of IBM's ongoing efforts to promote universal access of software applications, web sites and documents.

 

The University of Illinois, California State University at Long Beach, Georgia Tech, University of Toronto and the Rochester Institute of Technology are some of the universities working with IBM to build a repository of repeatable learning materials.

 

The purpose of the Accessibility Common Courseware Exchange for Software Studies (ACCESS) repository will be for professors around the world to collect, store and share information around accessibility technologies. Accessibility software, courseware, teaching, training tools and books will be available to the academic community at no-charge. Universities around the world will have an opportunity to contribute turnkey lessons, tools and courseware to this open repository.

 

According to the news release, the University of Illinois recently added an online course about universal Web site design to the repository. The lessons educate web developers and administrators about the disability access issues faced by people with disabilities and instruct how to design Web resources to improve accessibility for people with disabilities.

 

"This repository will be an invaluable aid to professors in any institution of higher education teaching technology accessibility. And success of this worldwide repository is dependent on collaboration and participation of professors around the world," said Jon Gunderson, Director of Information Technology Accessibility at the University of Illinois, in a statement.

 

The initiative by IBM assumes significance considering the fact that 750 million and 1 billion of the world's 6 billion people have a speech, vision, mobility, hearing or cognitive disability, according to the World Health Organization.

 

A recent survey commissioned by IBM of more than 200 two- and four-year U.S. universities found that the majority of faculty respondents do not teach accessibility in the classroom, due to a lack of familiarity with the topic and a shortage of learning materials to incorporate into existing classes.

 

IBM has already posted material for computer science classes and launched a contest where students competed to provide software code that would make documents more accessible.