[Scipy-organizers] accessibility contact information

[sheila miguez]

I'd be in danger of over-comitting if I sign up to do it, and doing a bad
job at helping people who need information on accessibility might be worse
than not having a contact page that people could go to for information.

I only know a limited amount of information due to asking about small
things we do in Chicago. One of my chipy friends put me in touch with his
family member when I had questions re chipy locations and small project
nights because for classes or project nights we have limited availability
of accessible spaces and I wanted to understand how to epxlain to people up
front what type of amenitites we have.

She said it was okay to quote her, jen.lav at gmail.com

re soliciting requests--we always just have a name, contact info, (email
> should be enough, considering the audience) and a time frame.  For example,
> hard to get an ASL interpreter w/less than a week's notice, other
> accommodations take even more time..  so you want to have a cut off date.
>  We just say, "requests for reasonable accommodations should be made to X
> by Y date"
>
> re space--my basic thought it that it needs to be physically accessible
> (including bathrooms!) and most things beyond that the onus is on the
> participant w/the disability to request, because you can't foresee every
> kind of accommodation.
>
> But easy things to do ahead of time:
> -, ask people not to wear perfume, scented products, etc.
> -keep in mind needs re Autistic Community--here is a good resource --
> http://www.aucd.org/docs/add/sa_summits/ASAN.pdf
> --are you using AV system for presentations? there are separate
> accessibility stuff that I am not so familiar with for bigger
> presentations, like live captioning, making sure handouts are in accessible
> formats, etc. But not knowing what you're doing, hard to say.
> --if seating is available/provided, have space for wheelchair users.
>

My chipy friend's contribution to the conversation

I also found the IEEE's guidelines with a link to a more extensive
> PDF, which might also be helpful:
>
> http://www.ieee.org/conferences_events/conferences/organizers/holding_accessible_conference.html
>

And her followup

Sure--feel free to share, with the caveat that I'm not really a
> "professional."  I do mental health law--haven't dealt with physical
> accessibility much.  But Aaron, I like the IEEE guidelines--good reminder
> of some things I forgot.
>
> I think the most important thing is a clear contact person ahead of time,
> so requests can be made.
> also here is a handy publication from DOJ.
> http://www.ada.gov/business/accessiblemtg.htm
>

Hopefully this isn't too obsessive of me. I was at a conference once where
they didn't help people and some folks even got mistreated. I didn't know
how to handle it at the time, so I looked for information in order to be
prepared in case I see anything like that happen again.





On Fri, Nov 22, 2013 at 11:17 AM, Andy Ray Terrel <andy.terrel at gmail.com>wrote:

> Hey Sheila,
>
> This looks like a good thing to have, but I unless someone wants to
> take on the role of finding all the information, I'm hesitant to make
> it a priority at this time.  For now we can just have folks email this
> list and deal with things on a case by case basis.
>
> -- Andy
>
> On Thu, Nov 21, 2013 at 7:39 PM, sheila miguez <sheila at codersquid.com>
> wrote:
> > Hi all,
> >
> > Could we have a contact address similar to what wiscon has for
> > accessibility information? I like this text from their access page,
> > <http://wiscon.info/access.php>.
> >
> > We always welcome discussion exploring how we can better accommodate
> > our members. [...] Please contact access at wiscon.info for accommodation
> > requests, questions or suggestions.
> >
> > If we find volunteers to help field emails, could we have an address
> like this?
> >
> > --
> > sheila at codersquid.com
> > _______________________________________________
> > Scipy-organizers mailing list
> > Scipy-organizers at scipy.org
> > http://mail.scipy.org/mailman/listinfo/scipy-organizers
>



-- 
sheila at codersquid.com