Beyond Traditional Ethics when Developing Assistive Technology for and with Deaf People in Developing Regions - Ethical Engineering for International Development and Environmental Sustainability - page 307

rate ourselves, we consult with the DCCT leaders to set pay scales to be in line with
their other jobs, because our assistants only work for us part-time. We adhere to
their recommendations.

4.9 SASL Interpretation

Even though postgraduate students and their supervisors take at least a basic intro-
duction to SASL class, we rely on professional SASL interpreters for all data-
gathering sessions. However, many times when we visit, both formally and
informally, with the Deaf Community, we often request and/or rely on informal
interpretation. We rely on informal interpretation sometimes due to budget con-
straints, yet more often because we make weekly visits. The latter is categorically
different from traditional data collection exercises because weekly visits stimulate
spontaneous forms of relationship building and refl ect the dynamic nature of the
project. This is simply because we need to communicate and at DCCT's premises or
at one of their functions, there will usually be someone who can interpret, although
they might not be an offi cial interpreter. At times, however, an informal interpreter
can get uncomfortable with a given situation, e.g. when he or she feels we should
hire a professional interpreter. There are few professional interpreters, as noted
above; and in the past few years, we could call upon four experienced interpreters
associated with DCCT, but they are very expensive. At least with basic SASL train-
ing, e.g. see www.sled.org.za , researchers can interact informally in the native
'tongue'. However, for data collection, research is bound to approved methods, and
Deaf people are familiar with indirect communication via an interpreter, who is
bound to a code of professional conduct. Furthermore, Deaf people, at least in the
community with whom we work, know and trust certain interpreters so as to not
cause problems with data integrity. There is another issue that researchers new
to collecting data with interpretation also need to be 'skilled up' to learn that an
interpreter is not meant to facilitate.
A related issue is the use of Deaf people from the community in recorded videos
for prototypes rather than fi lming an interpreter. The main reason to do this is
because DCCT is run by Deaf people, and interpreters are not necessarily considered
Deaf even though they 'speak' a signed language (recall the cultural attachments of
the capital 'D'). Thus, for all recording exercises, we involve an additional person.
We read text to an interpreter; the interpreter informs and/or clarifi es what the Deaf
person must sign, which could be relayed differently by the Deaf person; and fi nally
we record the Deaf person signing what we need for the application.

4.10 Writing About the Project

It is important to use appropriate language when reporting on studies related to dis-
ability. We now routinely follow the suggestions outlined by Cavender et al. ( 2014 )
on the ACM special interest group on access (SIGACCESS) website. For example,