First Call for Papers

Second swiss Conference on Barrier-free Communication

“Accessibility in Educational Settings”

[The submission period is now closed]

1. Conference description

The second edition of the Swiss Conference Series on Barrier-free Communication will take place in Geneva, Switzerland, 9^th-10^th November 2018. The conference seeks to serve as a forum for researchers, students and practitioners to exchange novel ideas on the topic.

This year, the main theme of the event will be “Accessibility in Educational Settings”, which represents one of the main working axes of the project “P-16: Proposal and implementation of a Swiss research centre for barrier-free communication”, approved by swissuniversities and funded by federal contributions. Therefore, we particularly encourage submissions addressing accessibility challenges for individuals with sensory, motor, learning or cognitive impairments, as well as for older adults, in primary, secondary and/or tertiary education. Topics include but are not limited to:

Accessibility of onsite face-to-face courses
Accessibility of MOOCs and other online learning solutions
Solutions for removing communication barriers in STEM education
Solutions for removing communication barriers in language learning
Solutions for removing communication barriers in arts and humanities education
Accessibility of Web portals of education institutions
Sign language learning, teaching and interpreting in higher education settings
Challenges and needs regarding institutional support for students with special needs

Submissions that do not necessarily focus on removing communication barriers in educational settings for the aforementioned population groups but fall within any of the project research areas are also welcome. The project research areas, described more in detail in the project website, are the following:

Audio Description
Combining Audio Description, Audio Introduction and Text-to-Speech (Read-aloud) Technology
Live-Subtitling: Respeaking and Speech-to-Text Interpreting via Keyboard
Easy-to-Read and Plain Language
Sign Language and Sign Language Interpreting
Speech to Sign Language Translation
Accessibility of Digital Documents
Speech-to-Text (Dictation) Systems
Community Interpreting
Community Interpreting into Plain Language

2. Submissions

We invite submissions (in English or French) in the following categories: Research Track, Student Experience Track and Professional Track.

Authors are requested to submit extended abstracts (1 to 3 pages, including references) of their proposed contribution.

Please use this template to write your proposal. Submissions should be made via EasyChair by 27^th July 2018, 11.59 pm, CET.

2.1. Research Track

Contributions submitted to this track should cover unpublished cutting-edge theoretical or empirical research work related to any of the topics listed in the call.

2.2. Student Experience Track

This track will focus on the main theme of the conference: Accessibility in Educational Settings, with a particular emphasis on higher education institutions (universities and universities of applied sciences).

We invite proposals that describe the learning and daily-life experiences of students with disabilities that are or were enrolled in a higher education programme. Student experience reports, which may address any of the topics included in the call, either from a general perspective or focusing on a particular aspect (e.g. interaction with a specific piece of software during a class), must be authored or co-authored by one or more students with disabilities.

2.3. Professional Track

Within this track, we invite:

professionals offering support to students with special needs in higher education institutions to share their first-hand experiences and views concerning the current scenario and the challenges ahead;
education and accessibility-related tool providers to present how their solutions could contribute to reduce communication barriers in higher education settings.

3. Presentations

Papers accepted can be presented in three modalities:20 minutes talk (15 + 5 Q&A), 15 minutes talk (10 + 5 Q&A) or poster. Authors can select their preference in the online submission platform, EasyChair. However, based on the reviewers’ feedback, the organising committee might ask authors to present their paper in a form different from the one selected.