Making eMaking Accessible for People with Intellectual Disabilities. This interdisciplinary research will create an evidence based eMaking program that empowers people with Intellectual Disabilities. eMaking benefits include collaborative problem solving and employment pathways; however, people with disabilities are often excluded. Through a unique, inclusive, outreach van, strategies to build accessible eMaking will be generated. Project outcomes include replicable, scalable eMaking activities ....Making eMaking Accessible for People with Intellectual Disabilities. This interdisciplinary research will create an evidence based eMaking program that empowers people with Intellectual Disabilities. eMaking benefits include collaborative problem solving and employment pathways; however, people with disabilities are often excluded. Through a unique, inclusive, outreach van, strategies to build accessible eMaking will be generated. Project outcomes include replicable, scalable eMaking activities and toolkits to facilitate Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics for all. Project benefits include opportunities for people with Intellectual Disability to participate in meaningful recreational or work-focused eMaking, and changing community attitudes through shared eMaking participation.Read moreRead less
Swarms in Urban Villages: New Media Design to Augment Social Networks of Residents in Inner-City Developments. This study will develop advanced knowledge of how urban neighbourhood communities can be assisted to grow in healthy ways by the use of new media and ICTs. By careful attention to cultural and social assets in the community, innovations will be engendered which enhance economic and social development. This will lead to greater social inclusion, fair access to and smart use of informatio ....Swarms in Urban Villages: New Media Design to Augment Social Networks of Residents in Inner-City Developments. This study will develop advanced knowledge of how urban neighbourhood communities can be assisted to grow in healthy ways by the use of new media and ICTs. By careful attention to cultural and social assets in the community, innovations will be engendered which enhance economic and social development. This will lead to greater social inclusion, fair access to and smart use of information and services, urban sustainability and healthier local economies. Understanding the opportunities afforded by digital augmentation of social networks will help Australians negotiate the complex web of daily choices, access a greater social safety net and participate in the socio-cultural and socio-economic life of their neighbourhood and city.Read moreRead less
Using 3D printing to improve access to graphics by vision-impaired people. This project aims to investigate the possible benefits of 3D printing for production of accessible materials for vision-impaired people. Currently tactile graphics are used to provide severely vision-impaired adults and children with access to graphical content used in education and in orientation and mobility training. This project is expected to clarify the kinds of graphics for which 3D prints are better suited than ta ....Using 3D printing to improve access to graphics by vision-impaired people. This project aims to investigate the possible benefits of 3D printing for production of accessible materials for vision-impaired people. Currently tactile graphics are used to provide severely vision-impaired adults and children with access to graphical content used in education and in orientation and mobility training. This project is expected to clarify the kinds of graphics for which 3D prints are better suited than tactile graphics, and to build capacity within the national accessible format provision sector for the production and use of 3D prints. Benefits will include increased educational opportunities and quality of life for Australians with severe vision impairment, through improved access to graphic materials used in education and orientation and mobility training.
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Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE220100500
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$424,652.00
Summary
Measuring social media speed and the acceleration of informational crisis. The project aims to investigate the role that time plays in the production of misinformation on social media. The speed of digital communication is frequently implicated in destabilising the reasoned discussion upon which democracy depends. However, the temporal study of the internet is hampered by a contradiction in time theory between mathematical-scientific time and intuitive-social time. This project advances a theore ....Measuring social media speed and the acceleration of informational crisis. The project aims to investigate the role that time plays in the production of misinformation on social media. The speed of digital communication is frequently implicated in destabilising the reasoned discussion upon which democracy depends. However, the temporal study of the internet is hampered by a contradiction in time theory between mathematical-scientific time and intuitive-social time. This project advances a theoretical solution to this problem and aims to measure the production of time online, developing digital methods to fulfil this purpose. A better understanding of the relationship between time and communication could support strategies to counter misinformation and promote better informed and more consensual discourse.
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New information access technologies for people with intellectual disability. New information access technologies for people with intellectual disability. This project aims to co-design a social, interactive and visual internet search interface for people with intellectual disability. Enabling choice and independence is key to the new National Disability Insurance Scheme, but people with intellectual disability are effectively excluded from much of the Web. This project will investigate ways to a ....New information access technologies for people with intellectual disability. New information access technologies for people with intellectual disability. This project aims to co-design a social, interactive and visual internet search interface for people with intellectual disability. Enabling choice and independence is key to the new National Disability Insurance Scheme, but people with intellectual disability are effectively excluded from much of the Web. This project will investigate ways to access and provide information using technologies such as interactive avatars, virtual worlds and trusted social support. New interfaces will enable people with intellectual disability to inform themselves, make choices and foster their social inclusion. Expected outcomes are new search interface technology, a theoretical framework and new Web accessibility guidelines.Read moreRead less
An investigation of the early adoption and appropriation of high-speed broadband in the domestic environment. The success of the National Broadband Network (NBN) depends upon its adoption by Australian households. This project will examine the NBN in the domestic environment across two first-release sites, and will make a significant evidenced-based contribution to an assessment of this important initiative over its crucial first years.
A pictorial communication framework for inclusion. A picture can tell a thousand words; many people with an intellectual disability can only communicate with pictures and are otherwise isolated. This project will research how computers can understand and facilitate a rich pictorial communication between people and person to machine, thereby supporting inclusion. This will be achieved by inclusively co-designing with people with ID and members of the community: a) an audio-visual accessible searc ....A pictorial communication framework for inclusion. A picture can tell a thousand words; many people with an intellectual disability can only communicate with pictures and are otherwise isolated. This project will research how computers can understand and facilitate a rich pictorial communication between people and person to machine, thereby supporting inclusion. This will be achieved by inclusively co-designing with people with ID and members of the community: a) an audio-visual accessible search tool, b) a pictorial communication device, and c) a visual inclusive social network. These applications will inform future innovations for everyone, and allow citizens with ID to access online information, participate in community activities and be included in the workplace.Read moreRead less
Accessible Data Exploration and Analysis for Blind People. This project aims to develop new assistive technologies that will enable blind people to explore and analyse data more readily. The project expects to generate new knowledge in the fields of assistive technology, multimodal interfaces, dialogue systems and natural language understanding and generation. The expected outcome of the project is an innovative conversational agent that uses a mix of speech and tactile graphics to communicate ....Accessible Data Exploration and Analysis for Blind People. This project aims to develop new assistive technologies that will enable blind people to explore and analyse data more readily. The project expects to generate new knowledge in the fields of assistive technology, multimodal interfaces, dialogue systems and natural language understanding and generation. The expected outcome of the project is an innovative conversational agent that uses a mix of speech and tactile graphics to communicate with a blind user and proactively assists with data analysis tasks. This should provide significant benefits, as it will overcome barriers to data analysis and exploration by blind people that currently restrict access to government, health and personal data, and limit employment opportunities.Read moreRead less
Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment And Facilities - Grant ID: LE100100211
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$650,000.00
Summary
The Big Australian Speech Corpus: An audio-visual speech corpus of Australian English. Contemporary speech science and technology are driven by the availability of large speech corpora. While audio databases exist for languages spoken in America, Europe and Japan, there is currently no large auditory-visual database of spoken language, and certainly not one for Australian English. Here we will establish the Big Australian Speech Corpus, which will support a speech science research and developmen ....The Big Australian Speech Corpus: An audio-visual speech corpus of Australian English. Contemporary speech science and technology are driven by the availability of large speech corpora. While audio databases exist for languages spoken in America, Europe and Japan, there is currently no large auditory-visual database of spoken language, and certainly not one for Australian English. Here we will establish the Big Australian Speech Corpus, which will support a speech science research and development using Australian English and facilitate the development of Australian speech technology applications from automatic speech recognition and text-to-speech synthesis used in taxi and other ordering services, to hearing prostheses and talking head aids for learning-impaired children, and a range of security and forensic applications.Read moreRead less
Acoustic Filter Functions from Morphological Measurements. This project works toward enabling the broadcast of high-fidelity 3D audio. By developing an efficient technique for deriving personalised acoustic filter functions based on image data of the listener's head and ears, we hope to enable high-fidelity 3D audio decoding and rendering. Morphological parameterisation techniques and databases recently developed at the University of York will be combined with the statistical synthesis technique ....Acoustic Filter Functions from Morphological Measurements. This project works toward enabling the broadcast of high-fidelity 3D audio. By developing an efficient technique for deriving personalised acoustic filter functions based on image data of the listener's head and ears, we hope to enable high-fidelity 3D audio decoding and rendering. Morphological parameterisation techniques and databases recently developed at the University of York will be combined with the statistical synthesis techniques and databases developed at the University of Sydney to substantially reduce the development time required for either group alone. Psychoacoustic experiments carried out at the University of Sydney will demonstrate the fidelity of the delivered 3D audio.Read moreRead less