Anyone who is visually impaired, hearing impaired or has other disabilities always has to overcome hurdles, not just when shopping, taking the train or walking through the city. People with disabilities also often encounter barriers in everyday digital life. The Center for Blind and Severely Disabled Students (BliZ) at the Technische Hochschule Mittelhessen ( THM ) is also concerned with how information can be perceived online by everyone.
In order to gain new impetus for their research work, BliZ employees exchanged ideas with experts at the “International Conference on Universal Accessibility in the Internet of Things and Smart Environments” (IARIA) in Barcelona and shared their knowledge of digital accessibility participants continue.
The director of BliZ, Prof. Dr. Monika Maria Möhring, as in the previous year, had a multi-day programme focus on the topic of “Digital Accessibility” during the conference. BliZ employees also organized an introduction to digital blind aids for visually impaired people with residual vision, a workshop for assessing documents and websites with regard to accessibility, lectures on blind didactics in engineering subjects and a demonstration of the new technological developments available to students at BliZ.
The THM Department of Civil Engineering was also represented by a researcher. Doctoral student Abduaziz Juraboev presented a carpet with guide grooves for the blind cane developed with the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen, which provides additional navigation information to the smartphone via memory chips on the underside.
Rose Zeller-Hofer from the THM Language Center presented computer-based English tests for students with visual and hearing impairments and Maria Bruno , an employee at the university library , reported on a pilot project for an audio guide that makes it easier to find literature in the rooms of the university library at the THM enabled.
In addition to a contribution by Prof. Silke Bock and Dr. Karin Riedhammer on barrier-free learning portfolios of the “Center for Cooperative Teaching and Learning” (ZekoLL) at the Technische Hochschule Mittelhessen This year, the “ Digital Services e” at the Goethe University Frankfurt was represented with two workshops on the topic of inclusive teaching with new media. Since the University of Kassel was also there, Hesse was represented this year by 21 researchers. Other participants came from the University of Heidelberg, but also from Brazil, Japan, the USA and Norway, for example.
“For us, new collaborations arose, not only in Hesse, but worldwide, which we would now like to further expand,” said BliZ director Prof. Möhring.
The German Academic Exchange Service financially supported the BliZ employees' trip to the international conference in Barcelona. The IARIA was founded by researchers and practitioners with a shared interest in knowledge transfer in the digital world. Founding members still actively participating in the conference include NASA, Mayo Clinic, Cisco, and several universities worldwide.
Due to her pioneering work for the conference and her research work, Prof. Möhring was also awarded an honorary life member as a “Fellow” of the IARIA. She will also offer her “Special Track” on digital inclusion at the follow-up conference in Nice next year.