Is online course-taking helping or hindering students with disabilities in U.S. community colleges?

Students with disabilities in U.S. community colleges continue to disproportionately experience lower degree attainment compared to students without disabilities. Furthermore, students with disabilities are twice as likely to choose community colleges for postsecondary education compared to four-year colleges. Students with disabilities in postsecondary education endure learning barriers including inflexible instruction, inaccessible content, and intimidating and unsafe learning environments. The purpose of this study is to address the increasing achievement gaps for students with disabilities in community colleges. Specifically, this study intended to answer the question to what extent, if at all, does online course-taking impact degree attainment for students with disabilities in U.S. community colleges? Even though the current study did not find statistically significant results, there was a directionality for the odds of positive degree attainment when students with disabilities participated in online course-taking, specifically for certificate and associate’s degree. Since online course-taking can be a conceivable option to help students with disabilities, the researcher points to previous research for educational policy makers to consider: online learning can provide flexible instruction, accessible content, and a safe learning environment. Recommendations for postsecondary education policies are discussed. Implications of this study has global impact because the number of people with disabilities around the world are increasing. Because disabilities disproportionately impact poor and developing countries, it is proposed that globally responsible organizations consider online learning to be a part of existing inclusive education initiatives such as the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal 4. Recommendations for global education policies are discussed

Music jamming as a participatory design method. A case study with disabled musicians

We propose a method that uses music jamming as a tool for the design of musical instruments. Both designers and musicians collaborate in the music making process for the subsequent development of individual “music performer’s profiles” which account for four dimensions: (i) movements and embodiment, (ii) musical preferences, (iii) difficulties, and (iv) capabilities. These profiles converge into proposed prototypes that transform into final designs after experts and performers' examination and feedback. We ground this method in the context of physically disabled musicians, and we show that the method provides a decolonial view to disability, as its purpose moves from the classical view of technology as an aid for allowing disabled communities to access well-established instruments, towards a new paradigm where technologies are used for the augmentation of expressive capabilities, the strengthening of social engagement, and the empowerment of music makers

Fictional Instruments, Real Values: Discovering Musical Backgrounds with Non-Functional Prototypes

The emergence of a new technology can be considered as the result of social, cultural and technical process. Instrument designs are particularly in uenced by cultural and aesthetic values linked to the speci c contexts and communities that produced them. In previous work, we ran a design ction workshop in which musicians created non-functional instrument mockups. In the current paper, we report on an online survey in which music technologists were asked to speculate on the background of the musicians who designed particular instruments. Our results showed several cues for the interpretation of the artefacts' origins, including physical features, body-instrument interactions, use of language and references to established music practices and tools. Tacit musical and cultural values were also identi- ed based on intuitive and holistic judgments. Our discussion highlights the importance of cultural awareness and context-dependent values on the design and use of interactive musical systems

Beholden to Our Tools: Negotiating with Technology while Sketching Digital Instruments

Digital musical instrument design is often presented as an open-ended creative process in which technology is adopted and adapted to serve the musical will of the designer. The real-time music programming languages powering many new instruments often provide access to audio manipulation at a low level, theoretically allowing the creation of any sonic structure from primitive operations. As a result, designers may assume that these seemingly omnipotent tools are pliable vehicles for the expression of musical ideas. We present the outcomes of a compositional game in which sound designers were invited to create simple instruments using common sensors and the Pure Data programming language. We report on the patterns and structures that often emerged during the exercise, arguing that designers respond strongly to suggestions o ered by the tools they use. We discuss the idea that current music programming languages may be as culturally loaded as the communities of practice that produce and use them. Instrument making is then best viewed as a protracted negotiation between designer and tools

Mirroring the past, from typewriting to interactive art: an approach to the re-design of a vintage technology

Obsolete and old technologies are often used in interactive art and music performance. DIY practices such as hardware hacking and circuit bending provide e ective methods to the integration of old machines into new artistic inventions. This paper presents the Cembalo Scrivano .1, an interactive audio-visual installation based on an augmented typewriter. Borrowing concepts from media archaeology studies, tangi- ble interaction design and digital lutherie, we discuss how investigations into the historical and cultural evolution of a technology can suggest directions for the regeneration of obsolete objects. The design approach outlined focuses on the remediation of an old device and aims to evoke cultural and physical properties associated to the source object

SOURCE 2016 Program

This is the full program of the Symposium of University Research and Creative Expression (SOURCE) 2016

Impact of Nuclear Domains On Gene Expression and Plant Traits

Multiples lines of evidence indicate that spatial 3D organisation nuclear DNA is critical in adapting to different environmental conditions and the Impact of Nuclear Domains On Gene Expression and Plant Traits (INDEPTH) network aims to decipher how nuclear architecture, chromatin organisation and gene expression are connected and modified in response to internal and external cues

The Sabotaging Piano: key-to-pitch remapping as a source of new techniques in piano improvisation

In this paper we present the Sabotaging Piano, a prepared electronic piano that alters key-to-pitch correspondence by reassigning adjacent pitches (i.e. one semi-tone higher or lower) to each key. Performers can control how many keys to remap through an expression pedal. If the pedal is not pressed the Sabotaging Piano works as a normal piano. When fully pressed, each key is remapped one semi-tone up or down with equal probability. Each new performance (i.e. when the piano is turned on) triggers a new and unknown remapping pattern, but the specific pattern remains fixed throughout the whole performance. This aims to provide a balance of uncertain but still explorable and learnable behaviour. We invited three professional piano improvisers to rehearse with our piano in order to prepare a final improvisation concert. We aimed to explore how much can be rehearsed or prepared with a piano that will behave somewhat differently for each new performance. We asked pianists to document their rehearsal processes to witness the appearing of strategies or techniques with the Sabotaging Piano. Through analysis of the rehearsals reports and the MIDI data collected in the final concert, here we show that the three pianists not only developed different techniques with the Sabotaging Piano, but they also leveraged the particularities of it to use them as creative resources