On Wednesday February 8th 4.00-5.30 pm, I’ll be presenting to the Technology Mediated Learning Group at King’s College London (Waterloo campus). The seminar is free, and usually comprises 45 minutes of presentation followed by 45 minutes of discussion. I’ve submitted the following abstract, developing positions from my PhD research with a view to several channels of publication. If you’d like more details or to register to attend, please get in touch with Mary Webb to reserve a place.
Disability and Social Networks in Education
In the UK social networks have become near-ubiquitous. Social networks offer spaces for interaction and display that permeate all aspects of public life. They are now deeply enmeshed in the real world. As these networks ‘fade into the foreground’ questions are raised concerning the impact of network effects and how these colonise the self, giving rise to new subjectivities. Social networks have been considered from diverse theoretical perspectives; however, I will argue that it is thought the lens of critical disability studies that the most significant fallout of the networked-self emerges.
Much has been written about technology’s ability to ameliorate disability by removing the physical and social barriers that exclude students with cognitive and physical impairments. However, attention to accessibility alone ignores the ways in which social networks produce and suppress disabled identities. In this presentation, I will advance a Foucauldian perspective and use evidence from doctoral research to demonstrate how network conditions depend upon and evoke a state of normalcy, propelling users towards disabled or non-disabled subjectivities. In this way, all users are ‘disciplined’ by social networks and compelled to adopt non-disabled interactions, or maintain disability within strict discursive limits. Amongst those who adopt non-disabled interactions, an ontological rupture occurs that confirms disability as a deficit, discredited identity. Amongst those who cannot, or will not perform a non-disabled self, the network is experienced as punitive and disabling. In each case, authentic and diverse experiences of impairment become inhibited. Social networks produce disabled subjectivities whilst systematically erasing them from view.
In this presentation I will discuss the resulting invisibility of disability in social networks. I examine a digital divide that is barely perceptible, to challenge a discourse of technology that promises engagement and inclusion whilst simultaneously quantifying, itemising and excluding the disabled individual.
Over the course of the Christmas break the schedule for the CSUN conference was released. I will be contributing to three sessions (a discussion panel and two papers) all now highlighted on my diary page and available on the conference web pages. It looks like Abstracts will not be available until the event itself. As a result, I will publish mine here for preview and comment. Hopefully they will be of interest to general accessibility/social media readers as well as delegates. First up: Peer-to-Peer Accessibility in Social Networks, a paper exploring how web accessibility can be socially mediated by peers within social networks, using evidence from research with disabled students at UK Universities. The introduction is reproduced below, with a PDF of the full document (approximately 1,500 words) available below, both for download and embedded in Google’s PDF viewer. If you would like to read the paper in a different format, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Peer to Peer accessibility in social networks.
This paper considers the influence of peers on disabled user’s experiences of accessibility in the social network Facebook. It highlights the positive role that friends can play in mitigating inaccessible systems. It also highlights the importance of social dynamics for acquiring access to digital domains. This contrary observation – that disabled users with greater social resources will be better able to access and develop online social networks – suggests a digital divide that is, as yet, under researched. The paper uses findings from doctoral case study research with disabled students at UK universities to identify social aspects of accessibility and how these manifest in disabled students’ experience.
Tips for Thesis-Making: The Second in an Occasional Series
This article marks the second in my very occasional series on the brute mechanics of getting your doctorate. As my last article (page numbering for your thesis) was a big hit, today I present some psychological and practical tips for dealing with post-viva corrections, alongside a small but significant service offered by Word that could save you significant heartache.
Much of the PhD’s final processes are shrouded in mystery. Yes, there are books and official guidance, for example, on selecting examiners and preparing for the viva voce examination, however, it is well known that no two vivas are the same. The distant country between the viva and graduation is even more mysterious. This enigmatic land was something I could barely countenance in the run-up to my own viva. It can be given scant regard in the “How To Get That PhD” books that garner every doctoral student’s shelves, simply because the corrections required will vary wildly between one student and the next. In this respect, corrections can be (wrongly) filed under ‘more of the same’.
If you are awarded your PhD with corrections, minor or major, the completion of these corrections may not be ‘more of the same’. Indeed they may be painful. If you have pushed hard to submit, perhaps testing yourself (and your dependents and supporters) to the limit, the elation of completing the viva can easily invert. Getting up the stamina required to keep going after what was meant to be the final hurdle may be difficult. Your examiners report should be specific and it is to this end that you will be working. However, there are four additional points I would like to share. Take heed!
Attend Only to What the Examiners Have Requested
You now know your thesis inside out, having written it, and revised it for the viva. Part of the PhD process is learning to critically engage with your own work. As a result, at the end of your PhD you know that you would do things differently with the benefit of hindsight – moreover, you see the flaws in every chapter. Do not rewrite your thesis. Only attend to what the examiners have requested. This sounds straightforward, but requires vigilance.
Clarify Examiner Requests
There is a chance that some of the examiners’ requests are not crystal clear, or could be interpreted in varying ways. Check your examiners report very closely as soon as you receive it (or as soon as you can face looking at it). If you do need to contact your examiners to clarify on any point, check with your supervisor or department on the correct protocol for this clarification and act on this advice quickly. If you are working to a new timetable (for example, for graduation, or time-limited corrections) you need to forefront this task, as you may have to make your request through a departmental intermediary who contacts your examiners on your behalf. From this point, your examiners may not be able to easily liaise to resolve your request quickly, particularly during the holidays or over conference season.
Note: if you are reading this pre-viva, prepare to clarify examiner feedback during the viva itself to pre-empt this scenario.
Do Not Create Blockages
When attending to your examiners report, some corrections will be more substantial than others. Corrections can range from typographic errors – to significant chapter revisions. You may find that you do not deal with some of these rewrites as quickly as you planned – in my case I found I became seriously stuck on two occasions. In truth, I had already answered my examiner’s requirements, but I was obsessing over details that simply weren’t important. In reterospect, I think I was, by this point, close to burn out. I have seen other postgraduates in similar positions. As previously stated, this kind of attention to detail is a symptom of your critical and expert engagement with your field, you are now aware of the limits to your expertise and the weaknesses of your thesis. As stress increases, the ability to make sound decisions about prioritising within your work becomes befuddled and there is a tendency to slip into cyclical thinking that slows you down. You will not be able to resolve every wicked philosophical issue that your PhD touches on. You must recognise that what you are experiencing is common to postgraduates in your situation. Make your arguments, as the examiners have requested, and move on. Do not look back.
Create an Examiners Report: Review your corrections using Word
It is good form to submit a short report with your revised thesis to highlight for examiners where you have made the changes they requested (with page and chapter references) and any other changes (for example editing for length, or rectifying typographic errors). If you have been making multiple changes across various drafts, it can be easy to forget quite what you did, and where. Moreover, it can be easy to underestimate the time that writing this report will take. As a result, I recommend the following step-by-step cheat for Word users as an opening gambit.
With the following ingredients you can create a document that clearly highlights all the changes you have made to your thesis. You will need:
A clearly labelled COPY of the thesis that you originally submitted to your examiners pre-viva.
A clearly labelled COPY of the current, final version of your thesis.
We are going to create a new document from these two files that merges them together and highlights (using Show Changes) where alterations have been made. Note, the following instructions work for Word 2007, but the functionality remains in other versions of Word.
Open Word with a blank document.
On the Review menu, select Combine.
Selecting Combine via the Review Menu in Word 2007
From here you will be presented with the opportunity to open your original document (the submitted thesis) and the revised document (your new version). Click “OK” and a new document will open, combining the two files and highlighting the changes that have been made. Save this under a separate file name.
For earlier versions of Word, the process will differ. From memory, Word 2003 requires that you open your newest version of your thesis. Go to the Tools menu, through which you select Compare and then Merge Documents. You will be given the option to select a file. Select your original Thesis. Then click on “Merge into Current Document”. You will now have a version of your thesis that highlights all the changes you have made over the course of your revisions. Save this under a new file name.
With your corrections highlighted in this way, you can skim your combined document and review your examiners report for anything you’ve missed.
Any comments or corrections are welcome, as always.
Impact and Dissemination: two words to strike fear into the heart of any research student. However, sharing your research is important, particularly in emergent and interdisciplinary fields, where research can become lost between academic genres. Publication is also increasingly necessary for bagging an academic post following study. Fortunately, there are several straightforward ways for you to get your research Out There. For those with a finished thesis this may mean publishing a string of papers stemming from the PhD across several journals. For others, it may be preferable to publish a thesis online in a University or Open Access repository (for example nottingham Universities etheses repository), or with a Creative Commons licence in a personally hosted space. Importantly, the two may be mutually exclusive: some journals will not publish research that is already in the public domain for copyright reasons. As a result – consider which approach you will adopt, and which you can reasonably achieve.
With debate raging over the future of academic publishing, copyright and closed versus open access models of publishing your publication decisions may be swayed by ethics, politics, practical issues of audience share, accessibility and/or consciously aligning yourself with institutional values. In any event, between and amongst these controversies there are other opportunities available for sign-posting your work at both the middle and end of your studies. In each of the following instances I sketch options available to PhDs, postgrads and even…undergraduates.
Using a Journal to Circulate your Abstract
Last year, the journal of Disability and Society launched a ‘completed thesis’ list section to their journal to encourage new PhDs to share their research with a wider research community and help build Disability Studies as a discipline.
The journal cites this as as an important resource for readers, as well as a mode for sharing the names of new entrants to the discipline. Embracing new entrants in which way, is an important step for any learning community, be it focussed on a journal or a wider discipline. Junior researchers contribute new ideas to any discipline. Moreover, boosting the status of undergraduate and postgraduate researchers in the production of knowledge, promotes what Tang, Xi and Ma (2006) identify as the ‘scale free’ or egalitarian networks that prove more effective for knowledge transfer than traditional hierarchical networks.
I submitted my 100 word synopsis several months ago, and I recently received notice that my abstract will be included in the December issue of Disability and Society (Volume 26, Number 7). The information I submitted ran as follows:
Name of author: Sarah Lewthwaite
Thesis title: Disability 2.0: Student dis/Connections. A study of student experiences of disability and social networks on Campus in Higher Education.
University awarding degree: University of Nottingham, UK, PhD 2011.
At university many undergraduates depend upon social networks such as Facebook to enter student life. Using accessible internet-enabled interviews with 18 disabled students from three UK universities, this qualitative study examines disability as a socio-technical, networked experience. Networked publics are found to be highly normative. For some disabled students the network supports ‘normal’ status. For others, the network must be resisted as a form of social domination that is punitive and disabling. Foucauldian analysis demonstrates how, in each instance, social andtechnical network conditions propel students towards disciplinary techniques that mask diversity, rendering disability invisible. As a result, disability is both produced and suppressed by the network.
When drafting this text I was aware of a tension between the language of internet research / digital sociology (“networked publics”) and a wider Disability Studies audience. I would not claim that this abstract is by any means “plain language” or summarises a 100,000 word thesis adequately. However, I do feel that my most important conclusions are outlined and key words gesturing to specific methods and discourses are highlighted (“Foucauldian”, “accessible”).
If you are a scholar in disability research, I highly recommend that you add a submission to the “completed thesis” to your post-phd ‘to do’ list. If you are working in another discipline, you may want to check journals in your field for similar opportunities, or request that this kind of space is developed.
Position Pieces and Student Perspectives
A second opportunity for postgrads is available in the form of a position piece. These are often short communication papers (not necessarily requiring data and hard research) that assert a new perspective on a research domain. Postgraduates are often uniquely positioned to supply these viewpoint pieces, bringing fresh ideas into a field. I was invited to submit such a paper to the journal of Learning Media and Technology who have a Viewpoint section combining postgraduate perspectives with more established arguments. This kind paper allows you to position your arguments within a field without exposing unfinished data. Check the journals in your field for similar opportunities.
In addition, Student Perspective sections are also valuable. Disability and Society have launched a ‘Student Perspectives’ section for such papers. Again, this offers an excellent space for position pieces exploring any topic relating to disability research. The journal’s invitation for submissions runs as follows:
We have established a section within the Journal, entitled Student Perspectives, in which student papers will be published. Papers will be refereed and can explore any topic related to disability issues and questions. The papers must be authored by students undertaking under-graduate, postgraduate or research degrees. The papers need to be between 3000 and 7000 words (maximum).
The papers should:
Provide an adequate review of disability studies literature.
Have clearly acknowledged sources.
Be specifically written for the Journal taking into account its ethos and audience.
Conform to the academic requirements of the Journal
Where necessary adequately discuss the methods used.
Have particular attention paid to the presentation and analysis of empirical data.
Pay attention to the Journal’s policy on language.
The paper should not be a straight reproduction of work produced for academic assessment.
Submission details are the same as for main articles. See link to Instructions for Authors.
This is great for sharing an angle on a final year project, MA/MSc/MRes work or early PhD findings and literature that brings something new to the field, but might not constitute a full research paper. It may also also offers a useful sandpit for those researching outside traditional social disciplines where a project may be undertaken but rarely disseminated outside a department, despite valuable findings (Computer Scientists, I’m looking at you). Importantly, Disability and Society invite both undergraduate and postgraduate submissions, so if you are undertaking research or developing a position at any level of university study – you have the opportunity to enter the refereeing process and potentially share your research in a international academic journal. Guidance is published on the Disability and Society webpages.
All of the above are possible, in addition to more traditional forms such as Letters and Book Reviews. If I have missed anything, or if you have additional thoughts, please comment.
This post is a trailer for a new book ‘Rhetorical AccessAbility: At the Intersection of Technical Communication and Disability Studies’, edited by Lisa Meloncon at the University of Cincinnati. I penned a chapter for this book in collaboration with Henny Swan. Together we consider ‘Web Standards and the Majority World’, taking a socio-cultural look at the values that web standards convey to a global audience. In particular we were interested in examining the ways in which Web Standards can export Minority (that is developed/Northern/post-industrial) notions of disability to the Majority world, with potentially counter-productive results. We make our arguments by attending closely to Web Standards as a form of technical writing through the lens of critical disability studies and research. Disability scholars might be interested to know that aspects of this chapter were informed by MMU’s Disability and the Majority World conference, a recently inaugurated event that seeks to globalize disability studies.
Publishers Baywood have now listed Rhetorical Accessibility as available for pre-order as part of their Technical Communications Series (Edited by series editor Charles H. Sides). The publishers’ book summary follows. Further details (including a table of contents and Author information) will become available from Baywood over the next few weeks via the Rhetorical Accessibility pages.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Rhetorical Accessability is the first text to bring the fields of technical communication and disability studies into conversation. The two fields also share a pragmatic foundation in their concern with accommodation and accessibility—that is, the material practice of making social and technical environments and texts as readily available, easy to use, and/or understandable as possible to as many people as possible, including those with disabilities. Through its concern with the pragmatic, theoretically grounded work of helping users interface effectively and seamlessly with technologies, the field of technical communication is perfectly poised to put the theoretical work of disability studies into practice. In other words, technical communication could ideally be seen as a bridge between disability theories and web accessibility practices.
While technical communicators are ideally positioned to solve communication problems and to determine the best delivery method, those same issues are compounded when they are viewed through the dual lens of accessibility and disability. With the increasing use of wireless, expanding global marketplaces, increasing prevalence of technology in our daily lives, and ongoing changes of writing through and with technology, technical communicators need to be acutely aware of issues involved with accessibility and disability.
This collection will advance the field of technical communication by expanding the conceptual apparatus for understanding the intersections among disability studies, technical communication, and accessibility and by offering new perspectives, theories, and features that can only emerge when different fields are brought into conversation with one another.
Intended Audience: Scholars and practitioners of technical communication, disability studies, rhetoric, and usability/user experience. Suitable for advanced undergraduate and graduate classes in: web design; document design/information design; topics courses in technical communication and disability studies; cultural studies courses in internet or digital culture; introduction to the field of technical communication; research methods; and rhetorical theory.
On Thursday evening last week I made a short presentation at the a11yLDN (Accessibility London) MeetUp on Aversive Disablism and Hierarchies of Impairment, two concepts from Disability Studies that I believe have powerful applications for web accessibility practitioners and activists amongst others. This was a great collaborative event, with diverse presentations from some excellent speakers. Despite working on a shoestring, organisers have now made videos of each presentation available on Vimeo. My talk is embedded below.
Mine is a pocket size talk at 10 minutes, unfortunately the sound quality is quite low in places so if you want to know more about Avserive Disablism and Hierarchies of Impairment in an alternative format please consider at the following links:
Other presentations from the a11yLDN event are available on the A11yLDN video account. I highly recommend having a look at the presentation schedule from the day on the Accessibility London Website and browsing the videos according to your interests. In addition, you may want to subscribe to the website feeds, twitter or follow the organisers (Makayla Lewis and Graham Armfield) twitter accounts – as there are plans to repeat the event on a monthly basis, with the next meeting due in January.
In an attempt to make Vic’s huge contribution to disability studies and the disabled people’s movement available to a wider audience I’ve begun a wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vic_Finkelstein. Vic was a pioneer and stalwart of the disabled people’s movement, his life story is testament to this. As Colin Barnes has stated – his contribution to disability studies was unprecedented. This is a very basic page by no means a sufficient reflection of Vic’s life and work. In this respect, the page would benefit greatly from other people’s contributions. Wikipedia is collaborative, so I hope that you will consider contributing to the Vic Finkelstein wikipedia entry.
You can edit the page yourself directly if you create an account with wikipedia. However, if you are not familiar with wikis, do not wish to register, or find wikipedia inaccessible (notably I had to complete a visual CAPTCHA to publish the initial page), please send text, specific edits and additional references to me directly and I will try to enter them on your behalf. You can contribute via email to selewthwaite at gmail dot com, or by commenting below.
Following graduation and a spell on the MyUI.eu project with the Human Factors Research Group at the University of Nottingham, I’m delighted to report I have recently accepted a position as post doctoral research associate in Student Experience at the King’s Learning Institute, King’s College London. I’ll be taking up the post in December. I’m looking forward to contributing to a cutting-edge programme of research within a distinguished research centre, headed by Prof Paul Blackmore. I’m sure the new role will also inform this blog, as well as providing plenty of opportunities for writing on my new commute.
Via a separate stream of activity, I’ve also confirmed a presentation in the KCL Technology Mediated Learning seminar series on the 8th February in the new year. Title and abstract to be confirmed and signposted on the Diary pages soon, for more formal information about the seminar listings visit the TML pages to be added to the TML mailing lists.
A quick update for you this morning: firstly, welcome to my new blog – I’ve been migrating 32 Days Remaining to Slewth Press at a new and bespoke URL: slewth.co.uk. This process will soon have its own dedicated post reflecting on the particular steps and plugins I’ve used to make the WordPress work for me. In the meantime, any formative feedback is very welcome, so please consider a comment below, tweet or email via the Contact page.
Secondly: I’m delighted to announce that I will be delivering a lightning presentation at the Accessibility London (#a11yLDN) Meetup. I’ll be delivering at 10 minute talk on “Disability Studies and Accessibility: Two Critical Concepts”. During the presentation I’ll introduce Aversive Disablism and Hierarchies of Impairment and the relevance of these concepts for Web Developers.
The event is free and runs from 7pm-9pm on Thursday December 1st at City Univeristy, London. It features a very distinguished group of presenters and looks to be a very interesting and stimulating event. To find out more visit or register visit event bright who will release the final batch of tickets today. In case it’s useful, please note, in addition to the Accessibility London website, there is also a twitter account @a11yLDNMeetUp for live updates and further links. I hope to see you there.
I recently ordered a new set of business cards to match my new prefix (Dr) and new email address. Previously I’ve relied on institutional business cards – however, as I’m now freelance, significant decisions have had to be made regarding content, design, usability and accessibility. Cost and convenience have also been important. As with all such things, time was short as I noticed several impending events careering towards me; (see my Twitter account @slewth for forthcoming tweets from the a11yLDN unConference on Weds 21st Sept 2011).
The need for speed led me to moo.com. Moo supply a huge range of designed templates, with options for those wanting to make their own. They print to both Premium and high quality Green standards. They can rush a print job and supply a sprint delivery also.
I chose the Less is More design by Jonathan Howells on several grounds: it uses a large, legible font, the contrast is reasonable and, importantly, there’s plenty of analogue hack space on the reverse. The cards arrived today – so I’m halfway there.
The front of my new business card using large black and white text on a mid tone grey background.Less is More business card reverse view: the words 'My Card' and a large blank space that I intend to hack.
As committed readers will know, I also want braille for my business cards. My previous investigations in this area have led me to Azzabat, who have supplied me with transparent braille stickers that can be applied over a standard business card (or anything else). Azzabat frankly rock the opposition.
My previous university business card with transparent braille sticker overlaid. Braille on this side represents my name, phd status and the LSRI over four lines.My university business card with braille label: reverse view. Four lines of embossed braille give my phone number (top line) and email address (over next three lines).
There are no set up fees, customer service is excellent and I recommend them highly, especially for institutions and other organisations. Importantly, as their labels are clear, they can be stuck to both sides of a business card (as pictured) – this is vital given the large (36 size) font necessary for braille – as it allows more space for contact information to be represented. Azzabat have a minimum order of 100 units with labels retailing at £0.85 ($1.33) per unit. This is well below other equivalent brailling services for business cards, but on this occassion I needed a cheaper option.
As a result, I’m taking a D.I.Y. approach. With a view to creating my own (opaque) labels for the reverse of my new cards. I’ve just ordered the RNIB‘s Braille King Pocket Frame. This is a small device that allows the user to create braille. The demonstration video below shows how it is used.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1gOr2GsI5C4
The Braille King Pocket Frame retails at £14.39 ($22.5). I’m really looking forward to trying this out. I’ll post the results back to this blog when the device arrives. Comments, as always, are welcome.
