Fall 2001 Seminar "Week of" Information
August 28 - Tuesday
11:30 - 1:00pm
Topic:
Initial meeting
- Additional Information:
- Please review the Center's website.
- Please review Thornton V. McClatchy Newspapers at 2001 WL 914019, or pick up a hard copy from Professor Blanck's secretary if you don't have Westlaw access, for the first Disability Center Seminar class.
September 10 - Monday
11:30 - 1:00pm
Topic:
Introduction to qualitative research. Sort out groups.
Additional Information:
Please look at MS information on the Web to get basic framework for MS research.
September 17 - Monday
9:00am - 3:45pm
Topic:
More on qualitative research. More on the study.
September 24 - Monday
11:30 - 1:00pm
Topic:
Guest Speaker: Dr. Alan Tomkins, Director of the Public Policy Center at the University of Nebraska.
Additional Information:
Please review the PPC's website at http://ppc.unl.edu.
October 1 - Monday
11:30 - 1:00pm
Topic:
Major research project discussion: Events and factors influencing current policy on accessibility.
Additional Information:
- Read the edited GL interview:
- Sketch out a timeline of the major events relating to major corporation and accessibility based on GL's interpretations. Send a draft of your timeline to Dave by Tuesday, Sept. 25.
- Write down what you believe to be the major events and factors that resulted in the current corporate policy on accessibility. Focus in particular on the period from 1993 through 1996. In preparing for this discussion, look for relevant passages and write down what they are and cite them by line number.
October 8 - Monday
11:30 - 1:00pm
Topic:
Major corporate research: discuss interview for background.
Additional Information:
- Read transcript of one of the JB interviews (the first one). Send Dave a brief timeline as you did for the GL interview. If you'd like to see what others have submitted for the previous timeline, note that they are currently posted to the Web under the Timelines link.
- You will need a recent version of Acrobat Reader (version 5), which you can download from www.adobe.com.
- Log in to the Research website.
- Click on Internal Resources Index. Then on People. Then on Lists of Biographies.
- Under Disability Advocates you should see JB's name. And below that you should click on the link for the transcript.
- Acrobat should launch in your browser to show a PDF file but will ask you for a password. The password is the same as the password for the computers in the Center.
You can view the JB transcript from a web browser.
October 15 - Monday
11:30 - 1:00pm
Topic:
Major corporation research: discuss interview for futher background.
Additional Information:
Read the DB interview.
Like last week, the transcript has been uploaded to the Research Web and is accessible through the Biographies page. The password for opening the Acrobat document is again the same as for the computers in the Center. Again, you must have Acrobat 5 to read it. There will be some copies at the Center to check out.
This is a great interview for understanding personnel issues at the major corporation, especially with respect to the accessibility group, and for an inside track on processes and history of accessible technology at the major corporation.
Again, this is good fodder for a timeline, which you can e-mail to Dave as usual by class time. This timeline will probably focus on time after 1995. You might also want to write down a chart of people's and organizations' names and how they fit into the storyline. You might also write down questions that arise while you read, such as what specific terms mean, why he discusses certain topics, why does he NOT discuss certain topics, and the like. You don't need to hand in these latter suggestions (hand in only the timeline), but do consider ways of making sense to this complex story for yourself.
October 22 - Monday
11:30 - 1:00pm
Topic:
No class. See Additional Information for assignment for this week and next class.
Additional Information:
Each person is to take on a person who has worked for the accessibility group at some time, except for Matt, Matt, and Becky, who will be searching for and compiling documents related to this activity.
- If you are assigned a character, read the interview transcripts for the character. Learn as much about the character and assume the personality of the character. While reading, you should consider the following issues:
- Note e-mail about this assignment for questions to consider about your character.
- Be alert to references about state and federal civil rights (e.g., ADA), telecom (e.g., section 255), and technology laws (e.g., section 508).
- Take note of points in the interviews that are credible, interesting, and relevant.
- List documents this person refers to and see if we can locate them (send e-mails to Dave, with CCs to James, Peter, and Len).
- Write down quotations that seem to crystallize important points or have other interesting or functional characteristics, such as ideas expressed in unusual, interesting ways, that sum up the personality of a character, that are attention getting, and the like. Include the page and line number(s) of the quotations.
- Listen to at least ten minutes of audiotape of the interview(s) to get a sense of the person from a different perspective.
- In some cases, you might want to go outside the interview to get more information about the person to fill out what you know. For example, you might try searching on the person's name from Google, WestLaw, Lexis-Nexis, and other search engines to see what comes up (news articles, participation in listservs and bulletin boards, etc.). In addition, it may be useful to have discussions with Matt, Matt, and Becky about documents they may have come across in the CDs.
- Make an appointment next week with Peter or Len to discuss your ideas. Be prepared to discuss the issues raised in Len's outline (which will be online) from the perspective of the character you've researched.
October 29 - Monday
11:30 - 1:00pm
Topic:
Roundtable discussion of the accessibility group, with students taking the roles of key people.
Additional Information:
See previous week for more detail about the assignment.
November 5 - Monday
11:30 - 1:00pm
Topic:
Continue the discussion of the accessibility group from previous class.
November 12 - Monday
11:30 - 1:00pm
Topic:
Examine the disability community side in the major corporation research.
Additional Information:
In the interests of time, seminar students have been assigned (more or less randomly) to individuals interviewed. However, students are free to negotiate with each other to change assignments, as long as these people are covered next Monday.
Again, as appropriate, look for supporting documents and use Web searches for additional background. Also check with Matt, Matt, and Becky about doing searches in the documents. We have some better search tools now that can facilitate the process. (Note that some information can also be had by going to the links page of the research Web.)
Also, review the GUI article (http://www.ncd.gov/newsroom/publications/gui.html) and other communications among the disability community on this issue.
Pay particular attention to the roles of these people within their organizations, and how the issues impact them and their organizations. How do people perceive their interview with us, and how will that impact what they say and how they say it?
Also, as before, note relevant dates and events (noting where the information comes from), and keep track of documents significant to you and where they can be located.
Len's addition: You might also take a look at yesterday's NY Times about I.B.M.'s policy of sharing proprietary codes and other materials as a new business strategy.
November 19 - Monday
11:30 - 1:00pm
Topic:
No class
November 26 - Monday
11:30 - 1:00pm
Topic:
Continue research discussion. Student feedback on materials provided by corporation (videos).
December 13 - Monday
11:30 - 1:00pm
Topic:
Preview of spring course. Topics for policy briefs will be presented and discussed.
December 10 - Monday
11:30 - 1:00pm
Topic: