Here we go again!

Just when you think we are making progress in diversity and inclusion, here come the Google screed!  Summary here from The Guardian.

Accessibility of online courses

In this statement by vice-chancellor at U. California at Berkeley Cathy Koshland, an alum of Haverford College, addresses a recent ruling by the government that online courses at Berkeley are not ADA compliant. I was made aware of this when my colleague Mark Guzdial @ Georgia Tech, asked if their Online Masters was ADA compliant (thanks, Mark!).

This questioning is directly related to the point of this blog, that accessibility should be a concern from the conceptual, design and other early stages in the development of pretty much any tool or device used by people. In that way, the result will be a more diverse population served, and therefore a more complete interaction with the tool or device. Universal design may be the ideal, but we should get as close as we can to that ideal.

Sorry to sound like I'm on a soapbox, but this really resonated with me and connected me strongly with the actual purpose of SIGCSE 2008 with years ago. I hope this process of questioning software design and services provided about accessibility continues.

One down, ...

Harvey Mudd College now had more women in CS than men, as reported here.

Racism in the Research Lab

Seems it's not just in computing ... from the NY Times.

Tapia Conference next month

For more information, see http://tapiaconference.org/.

Silent support is not enough

Saw this link from Barbara Boucher Owens.

Twitter working on diversity, as are others ...

... by changing people in the role of "Diversity Chief"as reported in this article in the NY Times.  But is it enough?  I mean, we in education are often accused of "just making a new course" to cover a curricular hole or overlooked but important issues, is this the same in the world of technology?

Well, it's a start I suppose :)

Diversity in Academia

Just a quick link on diversity in the Academy.

A Science Issue, a Human Issue

Latest found in Astronomy, but an problem that is found in many places, as reported here by NPR.

DO-IT video on inclusive teaching ...

The University of Washington's DO-IT program has been a great resource for exploring the intersection of computing and disability/accessibility, here is a recent (2015) 11 minute video on what I would term "Universal Teaching" (i.e., where universal design meets computing education) which is more of an ideal to which we should aim and work to realize as much as possible.