[NFBCS] Blind and low-vision subscribers to NFBCS needed for research study on informal learning cultures

Wed Jan 29 06:28:58 UTC 2020

Hello Brian,

I hope this email finds you well. I would appreciate it if you could post t=
he below announcement to the NFBCS list. This research has been approved by=
 the NFB research advisory council for participation in by our members. Ple=
ase feel free to contact me if you have any questions. Thank you very much!

Best regards,

Lou Ann

The below research participant solicitation is being provided for informati=
onal purposes only. The National Federation of the Blind has no involvement=
 in this research, but we believe that it may contribute to our research mi=
ssion.

Dear NFB members,

I am JooYoung Seo, a Ph.D. candidate in Learning, Design, and Technology pr=
ogram at the Pennsylvania State University.

As a blind person myself and one of the NFB members involved in STEM discip=
lines, I wanted to contribute to STEM accessibility for the blind through m=
y dissertation research.

I am looking for 5 to 10 individuals who can share their learning experienc=
es of STEM subjects as being blind.

The individuals will be online-interviewed about 30 minutes, and they will =
be entered into a raffle for a $25 Amazon gift card.

Eligible participants for the online interview are those:

* self-identifying themselves as an individual who is blind or visually imp=
aired;

* age 18 or older;

* having any learning experiences with Science, Technology, Engineering, an=
d Mathematics (STEM) disciplines;

* and having a membership of any of the following NFB mailing lists:

NFB-Science; NFBCS; Artists-Making-Art; BlindMath.

If you are interested in participating, or have a question, please contact =
JooYoung Seo (jooyoung at psu.edu<mailto:jooyoung at psu.edu>). Please pass on th=
is information to other suitable candidates who you think may be interested=
.

More detailed information about this online interview and my dissertation s=
tudy is as follows:

=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D

Invitation to Participate in Research on Learning Cultures of Blind Individ=
uals Pursuing Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics

(STEM) Disciplines

A research team comprising blind and sighted scholars at the Pennsylvania S=
tate University is conducting data-science research on online interactions =
and informal learning patterns of blind people interested in STEM-related s=
ubjects. 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, softw=
are/hardware programming, science, technology, engineering, math, physics, =
biology.

Since all the email communications of the National Federation of the Blind =
(NFB) mailing lists have been publicly archived online at https://www.nfbne=
t.org/mailman/listinfo, we would like to employ this valuable textual data =
created by the list members to discover new knowledge about how blind peopl=
e pursuing STEM disciplines learn from and interact with each other.

More specifically, this research will include a large corpus of text data p=
roduced by the members of the following NFB mailing lists which can be retr=
ieved from the publicly downloadable archives:

* NFB-Science: http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/nfb-science_nfbnet.org/

* NFBCS: http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/nfbcs_nfbnet.org/

* Artists-Making-Art: http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/artists-making-art_nfbnet=
.org/

BlindMath: http://nfbnet.org/pipermail/blindmath_nfbnet.org/

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 wil=
l in turn scientifically highlight where we are and what we need in terms o=
f supporting blind STEM learners:

* The common STEM issues of blind learners that provoke discussion.

* The patterns of interaction between blind mentors and mentees in the STEM=
-related mailing lists.

* The strategies that are proposed or utilized by blind individuals pursuin=
g STEM disciplines in the mailing lists.

As of May 21, 2019, use of this text corpus in the public domain is determi=
ned as a non-human subject research category by the Office for Research Pro=
tections at the Pennsylvania State University: Study #00012478.

Aggregated text-mining and exploratory data science approaches will be used=
 to analyze shared cultural patterns of these mailing list archives after s=
ystematically removing personal information such as names, email addresses,=
 and email signature lines, which means researchers will make sure not to d=
isclose any of your personal information without your permission. However, =
in any event you still feel uncomfortable with some of your created text da=
ta being included in this research process, please feel free to contact Joo=
Young Seo, the principal investigator of this study, at jooyoung at psu.edu<ma=
ilto:jooyoung at psu.edu> to ask for the removal of your data from the analysi=
s and reporting procedures.

While all the email exchanges will remain anonymous, the researchers would =
like to invite some members of the listservs to an online interview to shar=
e their learning experiences of STEM subjects as being blind. This will all=
ow researchers to rigorously validate the computational results captured th=
rough the large-scale text archives with more pronounced qualitative findin=
gs from the individuals.

Eligible participants for the online interview are those:

* self-identifying themselves as an individual who is blind or visually imp=
aired;

* age 18 or older;

* having any learning experiences with Science, Technology, Engineering, an=
d Mathematics (STEM) disciplines;

* and having a membership of any of the NFB mailing lists specified above (=
i.e., NFB-Science; NFBCS; Artists-Making-Art; BlindMath).

If you are interested in participating, or have a question, please contact =
the Principal Investigator of this study, JooYoung Seo (email:

jooyoung at psu.edu<mailto:jooyoung at psu.edu>). Please pass on this information=
 to other suitable candidates who you think may be interested.

The researchers of this study will share any results that have benefitted f=
rom the NFB mailing lists with the target communities via email as the stud=
y progresses.

We appreciate the collective knowledge of the NFB and hope that our researc=
h can bring back meaningful results to the community in learning STEM subje=
cts as being blind.

Sincerely,

JooYoung Seo (PI) and Dr. Gabriela T. Richard (co-PI) JooYoung Seo, Ph.D. C=
andidate Learning, Design, and Technology The Pennsylvania State University

Email: jooyoung at psu.edu<mailto:jooyoung at psu.edu>

Phone: (814)-777-5825

Lou Ann Blake, J.D.
Deputy Executive Director, Blindness Initiatives
200 East Wells Street, Baltimore, MD 21230
(410) 659-9314, extension 2221 | lblake at nfb.org<mailto:lblake at nfb.org>

[National Federation of the Blind]<https://nfb.org/>

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tionoftheblind>     [Twitter] <https://twitter.com/NFB_Voice>     [Youtube]=
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The National Federation of the Blind is a community of members and friends =
who believe in the hopes and dreams of the nation's blind. Every day we wor=
k together to help blind people live the lives they want.

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