This cluster brings together a multi-disciplinary team with track records in developing computer systems for older and disabled people, and other digitally disenfranchised groups, and in developing methods to ensure the accessibility of I.T. systems. The cluster will survey both the literature and the current commercial practice in this area, and institute a number of specific pilot research projects / these will include focus groups with users which will be used to discuss the challenges which a digital economy will present to them. There will also be mixed focus groups of users and designers / these have been found to be particularly useful in requirements gathering and awareness raising where users are older people. We will be conducting pilot research into the development of social networking sites as methods for encouraging older and disabled people to be part of the Digital Economy, and the challenges and the possibilities of multi-modal interfaces and pervasive technology for this group of users. In addition we will be investigating the development of an ontology of disabilities with specific reference to the challenges these provide to designers and policy makers within the digital economy.The major activities of the network will be based on open meetings of the cluster: specific meetings will be used to (a) scope the research, (b) develop links with the proposed Usability Cluster, (c) review the national and international research in the field, (d) assess the impact of inclusivity on the work of the other clusters, (e) develop plans to respond to the challenges raised in the previous workshops, and (f) determine future research in this area. The series of meetings will culminate in an open public meeting which will present the conclusions of the clusters activities. This conference will include a live theatre event which will highlight the important issues which have emerged during our deliberations.As this cluster is cross cutting, members of the cluster will attend meetings of the other clusters, both to raise the issue of inclusivity within those clusters and to ensure that inclusive cluster addresses the challenges highlighted by these other clusters. Clearly links with the proposed usability cluster will be particularly important and, as indicated above, a specific joint meeting is proposed with this cluster.A number of other networks and groups of people are working in the field of digital inclusivity. Formal links will be made with these organisations, and their mailing lists used to publicise the work of this cluster. In order to set the deliberations of the cluster in context with international research, members of the cluster will be encouraged to attend international conferences in the field. A major challenge the cluster will address is changing attitudes of designers, policy makers and other stakeholders in the Digital Economy. There is significant evidence that traditional standards and guidelines and best practice are not very effective as a way of encouraging designers and other stakeholders to really understand and be empathetic to the characteristics, needs and wants of older and disabled people. We will use professional theatre, both live events and professionally produced videos to present the challenges older people have in using digital systems. Research by members of the cluster has shown that these techniques are a very powerful way of requirements gathering with older people and of raising awareness amongst designers both in an educational and international conference settings. This particular aspect of the work of the cluster will expand the knowledge of the use, and the increase awareness, of these techniques. The videos produced will provide a lasting and permanent educational tool for digital technology designers, and other stakeholders in the Digital Economy, as well as provide pointers to future use of these powerful educational techniques.

We live in an information society where multiple methods of communication are commonplace. The rapid advancements in Information Communication Technologies (ICT) over the last few years has led to new methods of communication; both socially and professionally. This technology has allowed collaboration to become a cornerstone of problem solving through enabling people to work together with ease, despite being geographically apart. The improvement in ICT has also increased the inclusion of people who have perceptual impairments, for example, text messaging allows a person with hearing impairments to communicate relatively easily on their mobile phone. There is still, however, much work needed in the area of technology that allows collaborative communication between people who have differing perceptual awareness. In this project we will examine this important issue by addressing the challenge: How do we design support for collaboration where participants have differing access to modalities?Specifically, we will look at collaboration between visually impaired users and sighted users in the context of editing diagrams in the software engineering workplace. The deliverable for this project is an open-source software tool that enables collaborative diagram editing between visually impaired and sighted users.To do this, we will draw on a pilot study undertaken by the authors which demonstrates that auditory access to diagrams created in a collaborative context, in conjunction with shared auditory awareness mechanisms, supports participants in non-visual collaborative diagram editing and construction. The project will enlist the assistance of two project partners who have experience in this area (Royal National Institute of Blind People and British Computer Association of the Blind). The partners will assist in the recruitment of the user groups and sit on the steering committee. The user group studies will be carried out 'in the wild' to ensure the improvements are relevant. The feedback from the user studies will allow us to add appropriate haptic and auditory components, producing a user centric software tool. This tool will be released as an open-source resource and we will make the findings of our studies available to both academic and practitioner communities. The results of this project will broaden inclusion in the workplace and give the UK an advantage in the area of assistive technology. As the ageing population increases, so does the need for assistive technology, the software produced from this project will be contributing towards both inclusion in work based collaboration as well as social and creative collaboration. This project will also lead to further work such as creating software plug-ins and addressing the area of assistive collaborative technology in the teaching environment.

Almost two million people in the UK live with sight loss that significant impacts on their daily lives. This number will increase dramatically in the coming decades, driven by our aging population. People with sight loss experience lower levels of participation and increased restrictions across many aspects of their lives, both compared with other disabled people and compared with the general population (McManus and Lord, 2012). Analysis conducted by RNIB (with NatCen Social Research) found that people with sight loss: - Had lower levels of wellbeing and self-confidence, and lower satisfaction with health - Experienced more difficulties accessing health services - Were more likely to experience financial hardship - Faced more restrictions to participation in education and employment - Reported less choice about how they spend their free time - Faced major barriers to travel and shopping. A wide range of organisations, from large national charities to small local voluntary groups, work to improve circumstances for people with sight loss. 97 local sight loss charities are members of Visionary, the umbrella organisation for local sight loss organisations. VISION 2020 UK, an organisation bringing together national sight loss organisations, has a further 52 members. Both actively endorse this bid. Organisations need evidence to develop services and secure funds to deliver those services, but many within the sector highlight lack of research awareness, skills and resources as a critical issue. We believe that it is vital that good quality survey data, and social research in general, be communicated to and understood by a wide range of people across the sight loss sector, to enable the sector to: - Develop services on the basis of evidence of need. - Make an evidence-based case in funding applications and fundraising activity. - Inform their internal organisational strategies and priorities. - Generate authoritative statistics for campaign work. - Avoid unnecessary external research commissioning. - Identify gaps in their evidence base. - Lobby or influence the policy and practice of public and private organisations from a position of informed authority. Our programme of work involves five Work Strands: Work Strand 1 - Knowledge exchange across the sector. Eight regional workshops and networking events to examine local sight loss organisations' evidence needs and to provide training in how existing datasets and research could meet those needs. Work Strand 2 - Professional and workforce development. A bespoke social research training programme for researchers, policy officers and service managers in the national sight loss sector. Skills developed would include: conducting rapid evidence reviews, principles of research design and specification, processes for data acquisition, data management and basic analysis skills, and techniques and tools for data visualisation. A new post for a formerly unemployed blind or partially sighted trainee will be created, to join the project team to help deliver these work strands. Work Strand 3 - Knowledge Hub. A centre of knowledge and expertise, embedded at RNIB, offering sight loss organisations a point of contact for: data requests, advice on datasets or social science research studies to use, whether research already exists that meets their needs, supporting people to do further analysis themselves and, where necessary and possible, conducting or arranging further analysis. Work Strand 4 - Collaboration and networking. A research network focused on sustainability for the project by developing collaboration and cooperation to help inform or scope new research priorities. Work Strand 5 - Project management and governance. We are organisations with a strong track record of collaborating on projects and networking together. We will build on this, maintain tight project management, and evaluate the programme with clear measures of success.

The project will investigate the experiences and life trajectories of amateur and professional blind and visually-impaired (BVI) adult musicians. Our objectives are to understand the acceptance or marginalisation of BVI musicians within professional, amateur and educational musical communities; their involvement with different musical styles, instruments, practices and roles; opportunities and barriers they perceive in relation to personal development and participation throughout the life-course, along with their adaptive strategies; and their learning practices, both when they were children and into adult life, including how, for example, a blind professional musician prepares for a concert. Findings from our pilot study have indicated that BVI musicians tend to feel, on one hand, excluded and discriminated against; and on the other, highly respected amongst musicians generally for their abilities. Overall, there is a pressing need to develop and share information and increase understanding. The findings will be relevant for many parts of the musical community, including employers such as orchestras, educational providers including conservatoires and schools, music therapy organisations, community music groups, and others. Our investigation will begin with a questionnaire survey extended to 700 musicians who are currently registered with the RNIB (Royal National Institute for Blind People) as being BVI musicians. The survey will explore the demographics of musical participation (e.g. age, gender, instrument choice, reasons for starting or stopping musical participation, musical idiom, training background, and so forth). A purposive sample of approximately 40 of the adult participants will then be invited to contribute detailed life history interviews. The interviewees will represent a range of genres and instrumental disciplines, with a mix of professional and amateur performers, composers and teachers. They will be of various ages and sight-loss backgrounds. The study will look at their musical pathways from childhood to adulthood, their life-course issues, their musical practices, perceived barriers, and successful adaptations to musical participation. There will be two half-day seminars held at the Institute of Education, University of London to allow respondents to network, reflect on preliminary findings and offer feedback, and feedback will also be sought throughout the fieldwork process. Our pilot interviewees highlighted the need to belong to a community of music practitioners who share a disability, since this augurs for gaining information necessary for musical development. A website will be created that is accessible both to sighted and BVI visitors. It will be search-engine optimised and linked to the RNIB site and other prominent music industry sites; and the aforementioned survey will be linked to this site. The website will assist in recruiting participants and sharing information about the reflective seminars, our main conference event and findings. There will also be a blog to which the research participants can contribute, thus assisting in building a national network of BVI musicians. These blog reflections will become part of the analysis with respondents' permission. Finally, the Royal Academy of Music (RAM) have agreed to invite the PI, CI and RNIB colleagues to present findings within the LRAM diploma and Open Academy programmes; from this platform, outreach days will be formed that engage music undergraduates in powerful, life-enhancing practical experiences with BVI adult musicians and children.

Towards an Equitable Social VR Social Virtual Reality (SVR) constructs a digital parallel to the physical world, enabling remote social engagement mediated by modern immersive Virtual Reality (VR) technology. This social engagement is not strictly limited to conventional social interaction, but has also recently expanded to include activities such as remote participation in training, work, and service delivery. This digital parallel world offers significant opportunities for greater inclusion of individuals who are currently marginalised by the physical world, thereby widening access to the Digital Economy. SVR is a rapidly emerging technology and its pace of adoption has accelerated in the global pandemic. However, to date, there has been limited research examining the accessibility and inclusion requirements of SVR for users who currently face digital access barriers due to a disability or age-related capability loss. As a society, we sit at a critical juncture where concepts of inclusion and accessibility can be embedded into SVR while the technology is still in its formative stage. Towards an Equitable Social VR addresses the need to ensure that SVR platforms are accessible and inclusive for people with disabilities and older people, thus allowing for the potential of the platforms in contributing to the quality of life of these population groups to be realised in full. The project will undertake a programme of R&D with the aim of delivering the SVR Inclusion Framework: a collection of formalised guidance and tools serving to facilitate equal participation in SVR for disabled and older users. The project will take into account the whole spectrum of capability loss manifestations, including vision, hearing, mobility, dexterity, and neurodiversity aspects of cognition (learning difficulties) and mental health, as well as the co-occurrence of capability loss.