NSF Convergence Accelerator Track H: Bridging the Fragmentation of Information Access - An Integrated, Multimodal System for Inclusive Content Creation, Conversion, and Delivery

无法以随时可用、可更新的格式获取信息是残疾人今天面临的最紧迫挑战之一。想一想在COVID-19大流行期间分享的各种数据表示，以告知公众人口传播情况;美国教室里充斥着科学、技术、工程和数学（STEM）教科书的无数图表、图形和方程;或者在专业、社交或新闻媒体上提供的大量视觉演示。通过今天的技术提供的大部分信息都是视觉信息，这扩大了一个已经持续存在的信息获取差距，这个差距不包括依赖非视觉获取的个人，如失明或视力障碍的人。从这个社区的独立性，教育和就业统计数据来看，信息获取问题的后果是显而易见的：30%的BVI个人不会独立外出旅行，只有大约11%的BVI人口获得了学士学位，工作年龄的BVI个人的失业率在60-70%之间徘徊了几十年。这些令人无法接受的统计数据不仅限于英属维尔京群岛社区，而且广泛存在于包括美国约6100万成年人的残疾人社区。虽然有许多促成因素，其中之一是支离破碎的无障碍模式，在特定情况下，使用特定（而且往往昂贵）的方法，只能零星地提供特定信息。该项目打破了现有的可访问性孤岛，融合了各种想法，方法和技术，以创建AIMS（自动化，集成，多模式软件）系统，该系统在跨各种平台和文件格式的统一集成框架中提供包容性内容创建，转换和交付。该项目通过推进包容性的信息获取方法，确保将残疾人纳入教育和专业环境中内容的快速数字化转型，从而为国家利益服务。这项工作的社会影响支持残疾人在高度代表性的STEM领域成为独立和积极的贡献者。这个项目汇集了一个首个同类团队，将信息访问作为一个从头到尾的综合倡议，包括无障碍信息领域的领先学术研究人员，多感官信息访问的尖端创业公司，行业领先的触觉图形硬件制造商，一家领先的出版和评估公司，以及来自世界上最大的私人非营利教育测试和评估组织的顾问。在第一阶段，该团队将在合作伙伴创新的基础上创建一个统一的框架，用于编写无障碍材料;将无法访问的材料转换为可访问的等效材料;并以一种与底层任务，背景，平台和模式无关的包容性方法提供无障碍材料。使用这个综合框架，该团队将开发一个概念验证AIMS系统，重点是第一阶段的BVI个人。AIMS系统的输出将生成数字多模态渲染图和实体浮雕渲染图，这些渲染图可以打印在已经部署在世界各地教育和职业环境中的商用打印机上。这一概念验证将与教育利益相关者进行反复评估，并将在第二阶段跨合作伙伴进行扩展，以开发一个跨任务、环境、硬件该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响进行评估，被认为值得支持审查标准。

Lack of access to information in a readily available, refreshable format is one of the most pressing challenges faced by persons with disabilities (PWDs) today. Consider the various data representations that were shared during the COVID-19 pandemic to inform the public on population spread; the numerous charts, graphs, and equations that flood Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) textbooks in U.S. classrooms; or the barrage of visual presentations that are given in professional, social, or news media outlets. Much of the information presented through today’s technologies is visual, widening an already persistent information access gap that is not inclusive to individuals relying on nonvisual access, such as those with blindness or visual impairments (BVI). The fall-out of the information-access problem is starkly evident from the independence, education, and employment statistics of this community: 30% of individuals with BVI do not travel independently outside of their home, only around 11% of the BVI population have earned a bachelor’s degree, and the under/unemployment rate of working age BVI individuals has hovered between 60-70% for decades. These unacceptable statistics are not limited to the BVI community but are widespread across the PWD community, which encompasses approximately 61 million adults in the United States. While there are many contributing factors, one of them is a fragmented accessibility model that has only provided sporadic access to specific information, in specific situations, using specific (and often expensive) approaches. This project breaks down existing accessibility silos, converging across ideas, approaches, and technologies, to create the AIMS (Automated, Integrated, Multimodal Software) system that provides inclusive content creation, conversion, and delivery in a unified, integrated framework across various platforms and file formats. This project serves national interests by advancing inclusive approaches to information access and ensuring the inclusion of PWDs in the rapid digital transformation of content across educational and professional settings. The societal impacts of this work support PWDs in being independent and active contributors in highly underrepresented STEM domains.This project brings together a first-of-its-kind team to address information access as a consolidated initiative from beginning to end, including leading academic researchers in the accessible information domain, cutting-edge startup companies in multisensory information access, an industry-leading hardware manufacturer of tactile graphics, a leading publishing and assessment company, and consultants from the world's largest private nonprofit educational testing and assessment organization. In Phase I, the team will build on partner innovations to create a unified framework for authoring accessible materials; converting inaccessible materials into accessible equivalents; and delivering the accessible materials in an inclusive method that is agnostic to underlying tasks, contexts, platforms, and modality. Using this integrated framework, the team will develop a proof-of-concept AIMS system with a focus on individualswith BVI in Phase I. The output of the AIMS system will generate both a digital, multimodal rendering and a physical, embossed rendering which can be printed on commercially available embossers already deployed within educational and vocational settings worldwide. This proof-of-concept will be iteratively evaluated with educational stakeholders and will be scaled across partners in Phase II toward developing an access ecosystem that works across tasks, contexts, hardware, and modalities and extends beyond individuals with BVI to the broader PWD community.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.