Registration for this workshop is already closed.
The growing ubiquity of ICTs has offered the potential to help reduce discrimination and promote more opportunities to engage people with disabilities more fully in economic, social and cultural life. Successive research and technology development programmes funded by the EU have channelled significant resources into realizing this potential, for example, through promoting the development and use of ‘assistive technologies’. Underpinning these efforts has been a commitment to implementing a ‘design for all’ philosophy, reflecting successive EC communications like the "Towards a Barrier Free Europe for People with Disabilities†and the “Communication on eAccessibility†that highlighted the need for a ‘Design-for-All’ curriculum on ICT.
However, in common with other aspects of the policy landscape on eInclusion, reality has not fully met intentions and expectations. According to a report released by the UK EU presidency in 2005, the vast majority of public service websites in Europe were failing to meet international e-accessibility standards, and only 3% of public service websites were fully meeting the terms of the minimum accessibility requirements as stated by World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) guidelines.
For an in-depth presentation about the workshop and its background, you may download here the introduction prepared by Dr. Joe Cullen.
THE WORKSHOP
This new ePractice.eu eInclusion workshop provides a platform to explore these and other issues of relevance to ICTs and disability. In keeping with the current debates, the workshop will explore three themes:
>> e-Accessibility. Bridging the gap between policy and practice. This will focus on state of the art in current policy, legislation and standardization aimed at delivering ‘design for all’. It will consider to what extent key stakeholders such as public authorities and commercial enterprises have delivered on key policy agendas, and how they might do so more effectively in the future.
>> Designing for employability. This theme will cover issues around utilizing ICTs not only to support the more effective engagement of workers with disabilities in the workplace, but how new technologies can open up more labour market opportunities for people with disabilities.
>> Design for living. This theme will explore broader issues around ‘disability, participation and community’. It will evaluate examples of good practices that aim to improve quality of life for people with disabilities; support their social, cultural and leisure activities and provide opportunities for developing community capacity. It will consider in particular the opportunities provided by ‘Web 2.0’ and social networking applications to support participation.
FEES & REGISTRATION
Assistance to this workshop is free of charge.
Participants are strongly encouraged to read the workshop recommendations document beforehand.
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