Strengths:

The vision of this project is extremely important to promote diversity in science and technology. The use of web-based technology needs to be accessible to individuals with different types of disabilities. This is an excellent research team that has already proven its ability to work together and to integrate research and education. There is a specific plan and a good likelihood the plan will be achieved, given the previous successes of the research team

Weaknesses:

The technical jargon was quite high, sometime too high to reconstruct what the researchers were trying to accomplish. The proposal should be more concrete on the design and evaluation of the project. The proposal should reflect that the researchers have awareness of the background literature and that they are making new contributions to knowledge networking. They should specify the spectrum of diversity of the target population, given that there are hundreds of types of disabilities. The budget should be carefully considered, especially in the case of postdocs and technicians.

Panel Recommendation:

__x___ Encourage Submission of Full Proposal

_____ Discourage Submission of Full Proposal

RATING: Very Good

REVIEW:

Intellectual Merit

Good interdisciplinary research team. Project aims to use the web to make science and technology curriculum accessible to individuals with cross-disabilities. The pre-proposal constantly refers to a knowledge network but does not clearly describe the knowledge content nor the network. The research will explore the design and effectiveness of web-base course materials for individuals with cross-disabilities.

Broader Impact

Impact on teaching and learning of science and technology. The precise student audience is not clear. The curriculum suggested is science and technology for scientist majors.

Integration of Research and Education YES

Integrating Diversity into NSF Programs, Projects, and Activities YES

RATING: Very Good

REVIEW:

The reviewer rated this proposal 'Very Good'. The proposal was well presented, with concrete goals relevant to KN, and offers accessibility to much technology for those traditionally left out. The proposal is original, it offers a 'first of its kind' CDAKN, and laudable in its goals. The proposal is concrete, detailed and articulate, and well organized. The stated goals are of a fundamental and strategic nature, and in line with stated KN goals. The proposed research is directly targeted at those with a range of disabilities, and directly addresses educational issues (distance education and science). The research will allow a disadvantaged minority of people, namely the disabled, access to much of the technology currently being developed for the majority, thus permitting them better social integration into their increasingly technologically-oriented society. The research is basic, and as such, offers a starting point for broader based research and application for cross disability accessible knowledge networks. Any society benefits from allowing a maximal number of its members to contribute to that society. This project directly facilitates the inclusion of people who can contribute, and who are only looking for the means to do so.

RATING: Good

REVIEW:

This proposal on cross-disability accessible knowledge networks is well organized and presented. There is a clear focus on education and collaboration in using the tools being developed in the research while they are being developed and refined. They will build on core technologies such as TangoInteractive as well as NeatTools. There is a clear statement of the inclusion of under-represented minorities (disabled persons) and the research is likely to have a substantial impact advancing our understanding in this area.

RATING: Good

REVIEW:

The interdisciplinary research team will develop and investigate a knowledge network that is accessible to individuals with different disabilities (called a Cross-Disability-Accessible Knowledge Network, CDAKN). The attention to populations with disabilities is of course a positive strength of this proposal. It was difficult for me to reconstruct the concrete plans for technology development, methods, and data analysis because the proposal had a high density of jargon and it was frequently unclear why some of the off-the-shelf software components would be thrown together in the system. How will this research advance science and technology? That was not obvious; the project seemed to be more of an exercise or an application of how existing technology can be used, than a solution to some critical challenges that face usage of internet technology by disabled populations. How will the researchers trace (measure) the usage and interaction patterns of the disabled individuals? The specification of the model in the figure is too vague to reconstruct what the design is all about. How is this model an advance over existing technologies? The goals, unique design features, methods, and analyses need to be more concretely specified. It is my understanding that there is a large variability in the nature of disabilities, so large that common disabilities are not the norm; there are catalogues of thousands of devices that help very specific disabilities (not a few dozen). Perhaps NeatTools will be able to accommodate the diversity. The team of researchers covers the expertise that appears to be needed for this project.

RATING: Very Good

REVIEW:

Although the project summary reads like a complete list of NSF buzzwords generated by an intelligent grant writing program, the authors do have in their favor some actual web-based realizations that I found interesting. I have doubts on whether one project can pretend to help with several disabilities, 'someone who pretends to solve all problems is a charlatan', but I guess even if a few are addressed it is worth the try. I don't see actually in the project who the testbed of people with disabilities will be, there needs to be a complete section on evaluation and diffusion. The budget suffers from overinflation of the number of postdoctoral and other professionals compared to the amount of senior personnel's time available for overseeing their work.