This engineering education research project focuses on the development of a program called AccessEngineering, modeled after existing programs Accesscomputing and AccessSTEM. This is a workforce development activity that utilizes communities of practice, webinars, mini-grants, Capacity Building Institutes and an on-line clearinghouse to broaden the participation of persons with disabilities in engineering education and careers. Recognizing that there is a need to both increase and diversify the engineering workforce, the overarching goal of this project is to increase the participation of persons with disabilities in engineering education and workforce. This is achieved through a nationwide engagement of faculty and students in efforts to make engineering content accessible to all students, including students with disabilities.
The broader significance and importance of this project is that by educating faculty about the importance of accessible design, providing seed funding to enable incorporation of universal design principles in educational content, and creating a community of practice linked through Capacity Building Institutes, this project will address factors that directly inhibit the participation of students with disabilities in engineering education and the workforce. Engineering faculty will have access to a content rich website of research and practice in broadening participation that was developed as part of prior efforts. This project will enhance the content of this widely available website to include case studies from faculty using Universal Design in their course content development, proceedings from the Capacity Building Institutes, a collection of biographies of students with disabilities engaged in engineering and others artefacts from this project.
This project overlaps with NSF's strategic goal of broadening participation in engineering by increasing access to engineering education for groups that are currently underrepresented in the engineering workforce.
