<html><body><span style="font-family:Verdana; color:#000000; font-size:10pt;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size:12pt;"><span style=""> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size:12pt;"><span style="">The below research participant solicitation is being provided for informational purposes only. The National Federation of the Blind has no involvement in this research, but we believe that it may contribute to our research mission.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style=""> </span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">Dear NFB members,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style=""> </span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">I am JooYoung Seo, a Ph.D. candidate in Learning, Design, and Technology program at the Pennsylvania State University.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style=""> </span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">As a blind person myself and one of the NFB members involved in STEM disciplines, I wanted to contribute to STEM accessibility for the blind through my dissertation research.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style=""> </span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">I am looking for 5 to 10 individuals who can share their learning experiences of STEM subjects as being blind.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">The individuals will be online-interviewed about 30 minutes, and they will be entered into a raffle for a $25 Amazon gift card.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style=""> </span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">Eligible participants for the online interview are those:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">* self-identifying themselves as an individual who is blind or visually impaired;<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">* age 18 or older;<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">* having any learning experiences with Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines;<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">* and having a membership of any of the following NFB mailing lists:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">NFB-Science; NFBCS; Artists-Making-Art; BlindMath.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style=""> </span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">If you are interested in participating, or have a question, please contact JooYoung Seo (<span class="MsoHyperlink" style=""><a target="_blank" href="mailto:jooyoung@psu.edu" style="">jooyoung@psu.edu</a></span>). Please pass on this information to other suitable candidates who you think may be interested.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style=""> </span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">More detailed information about this online interview and my dissertation study is as follows:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">==============<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">Invitation to Participate in Research on Learning Cultures of Blind Individuals Pursuing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">(STEM) Disciplines<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style=""> </span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">A research team comprising blind and sighted scholars at the Pennsylvania State University is conducting data-science research on online interactions and informal learning patterns of blind people interested in STEM-related subjects. In this context, STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics, and this is used for an overarching acronym to represent any relevant fields, including making, hacking, tinkering, designing, software/hardware programming, science, technology, engineering, math, physics, biology.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style=""> </span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">Since all the email communications of the National Federation of the Blind (NFB) mailing lists have been publicly archived online at <a target="_blank" href="https://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo" style="">https://www.nfbnet.org/mailman/listinfo</a>, we would like to employ this valuable textual data created by the list members to discover new knowledge about how blind people pursuing STEM disciplines learn from and interact with each other.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style=""> </span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">More specifically, this research will include a large corpus of text data produced by the members of the following NFB mailing lists which can be retrieved from the publicly downloadable archives:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style=""> </span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">* NFB-Science: <a target="_blank" href="http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/nfb-science_nfbnet.org/" style="">http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/nfb-science_nfbnet.org/</a> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">* NFBCS: <a target="_blank" href="http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/nfbcs_nfbnet.org/" style="">http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/nfbcs_nfbnet.org/</a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">* Artists-Making-Art: <a target="_blank" href="http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/artists-making-art_nfbnet.org/" style="">http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/artists-making-art_nfbnet.org/</a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">BlindMath: <a target="_blank" href="http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/blindmath_nfbnet.org/" style="">http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/blindmath_nfbnet.org/</a><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style=""> </span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">The expected value of this study is that we will get a better sense of the following topics from a evidence-driven data science perspective, which will in turn scientifically highlight where we are and what we need in terms of supporting blind STEM learners:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style=""> </span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">* The common STEM issues of blind learners that provoke discussion.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">* The patterns of interaction between blind mentors and mentees in the STEM-related mailing lists.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">* The strategies that are proposed or utilized by blind individuals pursuing STEM disciplines in the mailing lists.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style=""> </span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">As of May 21, 2019, use of this text corpus in the public domain is determined as a non-human subject research category by the Office for Research Protections at the Pennsylvania State University: Study #00012478. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style=""> </span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">Aggregated text-mining and exploratory data science approaches will be used to analyze shared cultural patterns of these mailing list archives after systematically removing personal information such as names, email addresses, and email signature lines, which means researchers will make sure not to disclose any of your personal information without your permission. However, in any event you still feel uncomfortable with some of your created text data being included in this research process, please feel free to contact JooYoung Seo, the principal investigator of this study, at <span class="MsoHyperlink" style=""><a target="_blank" href="mailto:jooyoung@psu.edu" style="">jooyoung@psu.edu</a></span> to ask for the removal of your data from the analysis and reporting procedures.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style=""> </span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">While all the email exchanges will remain anonymous, the researchers would like to invite some members of the listservs to an online interview to share their learning experiences of STEM subjects as being blind. This will allow researchers to rigorously validate the computational results captured through the large-scale text archives with more pronounced qualitative findings from the individuals.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style=""> </span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">Eligible participants for the online interview are those:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">* self-identifying themselves as an individual who is blind or visually impaired;<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">* age 18 or older;<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">* having any learning experiences with Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) disciplines;<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">* and having a membership of any of the NFB mailing lists specified above (i.e., NFB-Science; NFBCS; Artists-Making-Art; BlindMath).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style=""> </span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">If you are interested in participating, or have a question, please contact the Principal Investigator of this study, JooYoung Seo (email:<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span class="MsoHyperlink" style=""><span style=""><a target="_blank" href="mailto:jooyoung@psu.edu" style="">jooyoung@psu.edu</a></span></span><span style="">). Please pass on this information to other suitable candidates who you think may be interested.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style=""> </span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">The researchers of this study will share any results that have benefitted from the NFB mailing lists with the target communities via email as the study progresses.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style=""> </span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">We appreciate the collective knowledge of the NFB and hope that our research can bring back meaningful results to the community in learning STEM subjects as being blind.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style=""> </span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">Sincerely,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style=""> </span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">JooYoung Seo (PI) and Dr. Gabriela T. Richard (co-PI) JooYoung Seo, Ph.D. Candidate Learning, Design, and Technology The Pennsylvania State University<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">Email: <span class="MsoHyperlink" style=""><a target="_blank" href="mailto:jooyoung@psu.edu" style="">jooyoung@psu.edu</a></span><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoPlainText" style=""><span style="">Phone: (814)-777-5825<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="font-size:12pt;"><span style=""> </span></div><div><br></div><div><span style="font-family: andale mono,times;">Ann Cunningham</span></div><div><span style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><span style="font-size: 12pt;"><em><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Tactile Art </span></em></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: andale mono,times;">303 887-1713</span></div><div><span style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><a href="mailto:ann@acunningham.com">ann@acunningham.com</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><a href="http://www.acunningham.com">http://www.acunningham.com</a></span></div><div><span style="font-family: andale mono,times;"><a href="http://www.sensationalbooks.com">http://www.sensationalbooks.com</a> </span></div><div><br><br></div></span></body></html>