Open Call for SIGCHI Accessibility Committee

At our community’s recent Equity Talk roundtable discussion about Making SIGCHI Accessible, many community members articulated a need for people with a wide range of expertise in accessibility–especially those who have lived experience of disability–from around the globe to be more tightly integrated into accessibility planning, policy development, and implementation efforts. The SIGCHI Accessibility Committee will serve as volunteers under the Adjunct Chair(s) of Accessibility (currently Soraia Prietch and Stacy Branham) and work closely with other SIGCHI EC members to realize our shared Vision for an Accessible SIGCHI. 

We are looking to convene a group of 10-15 globally dispersed accessibility experts and experts-in-training (e.g., students, people who are new to the field of accessibility) who are members of the SIGCHI community. Qualified candidates for this volunteer position are those who have experience with participating in and/or organizing ACM SIGCHI events and those who care deeply about pioneering an accessible, inclusive, equitable SIGCHI community. We seek a diverse applicant pool, including students, academic and industrial researchers, and practitioners. 

We expect that the work will entail planning and carrying out accessibility initiatives, providing consultation for SIGCHI leadership on matters of accessibility best practices and policy development, and contributing inputs to a longer term strategy and budgeting for accessibility. Activities may include, but will not be limited to:

• Proposing new policies and practices
• Editing accessibility-related help documents and policies
• Testing the accessibility of tools (e.g., conference platforms, PrecisionConference)
• Developing internal (e.g., for the EC members and conference organizers) and external (e.g., for universities and technology companies) educational materials
• Producing accessible media (e.g., writing alternative text and image descriptions, editing [inaudible] or incorrect captions on videos, etc.)
• Supporting selection of vendors for accessibility services (e.g., CART, SLI, etc.)
• Developing assessment tools to evaluate accessibility in the SIGCHI community
• Coordinating efforts with other SIGCHI EC committees, the ACM, and external volunteer organizations (e.g., the SIGCHI EC Communications Committee, the ACM Diversity and Inclusion Council, SIGACCESS, Access SIGCHI, etc.)

This will be achieved through weekly teleconferences, asynchronous coordination through group chat and email, and collaborative document editing. We ask, therefore, that you be willing to make a time commitment of approximately 10-12 hours on a monthly basis.

If you are keen to be a part of this group, please fill out this application form by April 28, 2021, 5pm in your local time zone** clearly indicating your motivation, experience, and availability for this commitment. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact Soraia and Stacy at sigchi-access@acm.org.

** we have updated our application form to use Survey Monkey to be more globally inclusive (thank you, Neha Kumar, for your help), and we have consequently extended the deadline by two days to April 28. Those who have previously submitted via Google Form––your application has been received and no further action is needed on your part.