New Resource Promotes Accessibility to Larger Community of CISE Projects

The National Science Foundation’s Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) program is encouraging existing and new CISE projects to make significant efforts towards broadening participation by addressing the needs of groups underrepresented in computing, which include women, racial/ethnic minorities, and people with disabilities. AccessComputing, which is funded by CISE, is contributing to this effort by providing a new web resource to help current and future CISE project leaders proactively include broadening participation activities that address disability-related issues in their supported and proposed projects.

The new AccessComputing resource includes advice on the inclusion of people with disabilities in academic, employment, internship, and outreach opportunities. It also tells how to universally design onsite and online instruction and digital resources (e.g., websites, documents, videos) so that everyone can effectively access and engage in content. It offers informative videos, publications, and other resources that give grant writers and project administrators a place to start in making sure that individuals with disabilities can fully participate in all they have to offer and in designing specific activities to address the needs of this underrepresented group.

Learn more about how to get started in addressing disability-related issues in a grant proposal or funded project here.