Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
9.2 Survey Questions
Four topics were selected by a multidisciplinary working group in assistive
technology at UBC prior to the workshop. They represent a set of topics con-
sidered not only highly relevant to assistive technology, but also intractable
without multidisciplinary collaboration. The survey questions were designed
to address each of the four workshop topics:
Evaluation:
How and why are assistive technologies being used, and
what sensor technologies could provide accurate data to assess usage?
Sensing:
What ethical and privacy concerns might be raised by the vast
amounts of personal data that computer-controlled assistive technologies
can easily collect, and how might technologies incorporate features to ad-
dress those concerns?
Networking:
How do assistive technologies impact the sense of self,
agency, sense of privacy, and/or quality of life of users and the people in
their social circles (family, friends, caregivers, others)?
Safety and Mobility:
How, if at all, can technological innovations
improve or mitigate some of the ethical concerns surrounding powered
wheelchairs and their potential for harm to the wheelchair user as well as
to others in the environment?
Participants of the workshop were then asked to propose key issues and so-
lutions to these particularly dicult problems.
To generate the survey questions, the NERD research group solicited input
from the expert participants (the Advisory Committee to the PWIAS-ICICS
workshop): each expert was asked to contribute scenario-based questions that
they felt ought to be asked of the general public and which, in their opinion,
represented key issues. After some initial feedback, the Advisory Committee
was presented with an additional opportunity to comment on or revise the
scenarios and questions. These revisions were then compiled and edited by the
NERD research team to produce the final set of questions, which comprised
the AT Survey. In addition, a fifth scenario regarding athletic performance
was added, given the timeliness of the workshop with the 2010 Vancouver
Olympics.
The AT survey was formally launched to the general public 3 weeks prior
to the workshop. The twin objectives of the survey were to identify (1) key
ethical issues in assistive technologies and (2) the most significant topics in
each of the workshop theme areas. The survey scenarios and questions are
presented in Appendix
1
.
9.3 Results
A total of 95 people participated in the survey, including both the
general public as well as researchers involved with the workshop. Of the
