Activities

The R&D activity of Project @pple was continuously set in the context of its targeted user communities of education, social care and academia through a full programme of presentations by the team. This featured academic and industrial partners working together to address exploitation opportunities and simultaneously influence policy and debate.

Partnership with Macromedia enabled us to address the W3C WAI Group directly with our findings, ensuring our direct input into guideline and standard discussion. The global standards group have requested access to the project's 'persona' set with an interest in incorporating this into their own publications. US network building was also achieved through presentations at CSUN >conferences for ICT and Persons with Disabilities in LA in 2005 and 2006 with outcomes including the prospect of findings dissemination to developers through Adobe's Web communications and a licensed beta-testing role with Microsoft on the development of accessibility features for their new desktop, Vista.

The social care sector in the UK has been addressed via conference presentation at the Intellectual Disability Group conference on Transition and subsequent consultancy with the Social Care Institute of Excellence (SCIE). International dissemination has included project presentation and workshop sessions delivered at the Australasian Association for Study of Intellectual Disability and widely disseminated through Inclusion International, the global umbrella organisation for service providers. Links with this group have also >established dialogue with United Nations and World Bank representatives concerning potential influence on the strategic response to UN Development Goals for Inclusive Education.

Conference presentations and papers at the Association of Internet Researchers, Brighton UK (2005), the STS community at '4S & EASST', Paris (2004) and the 'Adaptive Hypermedia Conference' in Eindhoven (2004) have helped to share the Project's methods and results in progress throughout.

Ultimately Project @pple will share its findings and outcomes with all of its communities of interest in our own conference at UEL on January 19th 2007. This is to include people with learning disabilities through a programme of accessible hands-on workshops as well as presentations with participants showcasing their own experiences.