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SIGs

AccessAbility SIG

[AccessAbility SIG logo]The AccessAbility SIG (formerly known as the Special Needs SIG) serves as a focal point both to help members with special needs achieve their potential and to help ensure the accessibility of technical communication products to end users with special needs. We accomplish this by researching and publishing information about products, services, and literature that can assist technical communicators with disabilities in their career activities and to assist all technical communicators in developing products that are fully accessible to users with disabilities.

Examples of "special needs" include speech recognition software, Braille keyboards, improved wheelchair access, a Telecommunications Device for the Deaf (TDD) business line, and Section 508-compliant Web site design. Managers and instructors are often unaware of resources that can help those with special needs. Additionally, they may be unaware of ethical guidelines that are also important in such cases. The Special Needs SIG is the first STC-supported endeavor to address these gaps.

Take a moment to read The Story of the Starfish, by Dan Voss, and review the SIG Mission Statement.

For complete information about this SIG, please see the Society-level AccessAbility SIG website.

Resource lists and current accessibility news are on the SIG's blog at Society-level AccessAbility SIG Blog.

Contacts

WDC-MB Chapter SIG Manager

Vacant

At present, there is no local SIG associated with the Washington, DC - Metro Baltimore Chapter. Some members of the chapter belong to the Society-level SIG. If you are interested in volunteering to manage a local SIG, please contact the chapter president, Carolyn Kelley Klinger, at .

For more information, the local contact is Cynthia Lockley, A-SIG Web Diva, at .

STC SIG Advocate

Karen Mardahl
E-mail:

Society-Level SIG Officers

See http://www.stc.org/membership/sigDescription01.asp?ID=2 for the current SIG managers, newsletter editor, treasurer, and webmaster.

Join the AccessAbility SIG

If you're already an STC member, you may add or delete affiliations to chapters and SIGs with the STC Membership Change/Upgrade Form.

You may affiliate with your local chapter and other STC chapters or SIGs that interest you for an additional $10 each.

STC redesigned its membership structure to include several new categories of membership, each of which offers a different value to members. Before joining, please read the descriptions of Classic Membership, Limited Membership, E-membership, and Student Membership on http://www.stc.org/membership/join-or-renew-now.

Application for New Membership Forms

Mail application forms to the Society office:

Membership Department
Society for Technical Communication
9401 Lee Highway
Suite 300
Fairfax VA  22031
Phone: 703-522-4114
Fax: 703-522-2075
E-mail:

Taking the 'Dis' out of 'Disabilities': AccessAbility SIG Seeks Support

The AccessAbility SIG is dedicated to providing information to assist technical communicators with disabilities; furnishing all technical communicators with information to help them make communication products more accessible for users with disabilities; and offering strategic leadership, to help harness technology and methodology to assist people with disabilities in the general population.

These are lofty goals, but we have a highly committed and energetic team to pursue them. Already, we have a comprehensive website, a dynamic online newsletter (Achieve!), the publication of Guidelines for Persons with Special Needs at the annual STC conference, a highly successful progression at the same conference, and the publication of several articles.

But we have much yet to do, and we need more people. If you have a disability, if you don't have a disability but prepare communication products for users who do, or if you are committed to the concept of helping people take the "dis" out of "disabilities," then we urge you to join us.

As an AccessAbility SIG member, you will (with your permission, of course) be added to our robust and spirited listserv, receive our online newsletter, and join our efforts to fulfill our mission. Even if you are not in a position to contribute time as an Active participant we still ask for your support in joining us now as a Patron, thereby committing to include your SIG affiliation when you submit your STC membership dues renewal.

SIGs • STC SIG information

Last modified Saturday, 01-Oct-2011

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