Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
research programme, so we start by addressing needs prioritised by DCCT where
we have expertise, such as designing appropriate and accessible AT and building
ICT capacity.
Academic researchers from Computer Science departments at two local uni-
versities, University of the Western Cape (UWC) and the University of Cape
Town (UCT), have been involved for many years with DCCT. Our initial intent
was to support remote communication between Deaf people and hearing people,
e.g. voice relay with instant messaging (Glaser and Tucker 2004 ; Yi and Tucker
2009 ); between Deaf people, e.g. with PC-based video (Ma and Tucker 2008 ;
Ramuhaheli 2011 ) and mobile-based video (Wang and Tucker 2010 ; Erasmus
2012 ); and then, with collaboration from Industrial Design Engineering at Delft
University of Technology (TU Delft), from Deaf people to offi cialdom, e.g. with
a doctor (Looijesteijn 2009 ) and pharmacist (Chininthorn et al. 2012 ; Motlhabi
et al. 2013a , b ).
While the technical goals of these research projects have been achieved to a
certain extent, of equal interest has been the way the research-provided computer
systems have been appropriated, in a positive sense, by the Deaf community for
other purposes. This relates to the unexpected uptake in the use of the computers for
general access to information and social networking, e.g., the prolifi c use of
Facebook. Included in these spin-off uses was the demand by the community for the
training of Deaf people in ICT literacy. We facilitated this by the introduction of the
internationally accredited ICDL programme 5 which recently saw three Deaf people
at DCCT receive e-Learner certifi cates (see Fig. 10.2 ). While three appears a small
number, we are not aware of anyone associated with DCCT, with approximately
2,000 members, possessing even a high school matriculation (diploma). Thus, this
accomplishment truly stands out (and all three granted permission to use this photo).
In addition a Deaf person was trained to maintain the computers at the DPO. Our
research efforts provided access to hardware, software and network 6 , and over time
the system has been adapted for advocacy and empowerment. A clear mandate of
engaging the Deaf community at all stages in the research process, as defi ned by
action research and community-based co-design (see Sect. 6 ), is the role for researchers
to educate communities on the possibilities of technology. Otherwise communities
are not in a position to set the agenda and decide what technologies they want, as
they do not know what is available. By engaging with communities in this manner,
they become empowered to enact these activities in an informed way. The remain-
ing subsections call out various aspects of our experience while doing this together
with the Deaf community.
5 ICDL (International Computer Drivers License), www.icdl.org.za , is an internationally
recognized computer skills certifi cation programme run by the (European) ECDL foundation
( www.ecdl.com ) .
6 The network costs are now being borne by the community itself.
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