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The purpose of this paper is to examine the extent to which accessibility is taken into account in the assessment and ranking of e-government web sites through the lens of a specific study related to Dubai e-government.

The paper considers a case study related to Dubai e-government and it evaluates the accessibility of each of the 21 Dubai e-government web sites, based on the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 and using an automated accessibility testing tool. A bivariate correlation analysis is performed to assess the correlation between web site ranking and accessibility score.

The research reveals that contrary to common intuition and some earlier studies, there is a weak correlation between e-government web site ranking score and web site accessibility.

The paper uses an accessibility metric that is a proxy indicator of web accessibility and is not a real assessment of accessibility as experienced by a person with disability.

When re-examined through the lens of Rawls's moral theory, this research suggests that accessibility should be given a higher priority in the general evaluation and ranking of e-government web sites.

The paper promotes universal accessibility to e-government information and services.

The paper uses ethical arguments to highlight the need to comprehensively consider accessibility as a major criterion in the assessment and ranking of e-government web sites.

This study aims to establish a set of best practices that reflect the spirit of the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and comply with the new 2010 Department of Justice regulations.

At each of eight academic libraries in four Rocky Mountain states, the librarian most directly responsible for library services to students with disabilities was interviewed, comprehensive criteria to physical facilities, services, management practices, and investments were used, access leading to and within the library was considered, and data and observations to place each library in the framework of the diametrically opposed reactive or universal access service models were analyzed.

Self‐reporting students with disabilities were the largest minority group at three campuses and the second largest minority group at another three campuses. Five libraries based their services primarily on reaction to complaints, and three libraries incorporated most elements of universal access. No consistent approach or set of best practices to serve students with disabilities existed across the eight participating libraries.

The best practices identified in this research provide academic libraries the resources to meet the spirit of the ADA and comply with the new Department of Justice regulations to be implemented in 2012.

No other recent study documents the broad spectrum of service needs that can be proactively addressed by academic libraries for students and faculty with disabilities. This study underscores the value of universal access to information as a civil right of this user group while also improving services for all.

The purpose of this paper is to show how personalisation of learning resources and services can be achieved for students with and without disabilities, particularly responding to the needs of those with multiple disabilities in e‐learning systems. The paper aims to introduce ONTODAPS, the Ontology‐Driven Disability‐Aware Personalised E‐Learning System, which has the mechanism for such personalisation.

This paper reviews current e‐learning systems that provide personalisation for students, including their strengths and weaknesses. The paper presents personalisation and its techniques and then presents ONTODAPS, which personalises learning resources and services to students. In total, three case studies are considered to show how personalisation is achieved using ONTODAPS.

This paper shows that it is possible to use automated ontology‐based agents intercommunicating to provide an effective personalisation for disabled students. The results reveal that ONTODAPS is flexible enough to provide enough control and freedom to drive their learning. The results also suggest that ONTODAPS has the ability to provide appropriate levels of learner control by allowing them to self‐direct learning through personalising learning resources and then allowing them to choose which resources they wish to access. This thus gives them a sense of ownership and control.

This research reveals that it is possible for e‐learning systems to personalise learning for users with multiple disabilities. Thus, by considering the needs of such users and consulting them in the design and development process, developers of e‐learning systems can produce systems that are both accessible and usable by students with disabilities.

The inclusion of multiple formats of learning resources and personalisation of their presentation to students means students will have increased access to such resources, with the potential of consuming and assimilating the information. This also has the potential of improving understanding and hence and improvement in results.

This research shows that ONTODAPS is a medium where disabled students can have equivalent learning experience with their non‐disabled peers. This could potentially increase access to learning for disabled students and possibly help improve their results due to an increase in accessibility of learning resources and usability of the system. This system thus complies with contemporary legislation which requires “reasonable adjustments” or “reasonable accommodations” to be made to meet the needs of disabled people.

Although personalisation has been applied in e‐commerce systems, making them very successful, such personalisation is still a wish for e‐learning systems which struggle to catch up. This research proposes a solution in the e‐learning domain and its novelty is in its application to disabled students, including those with multiple disabilities.

Libraries in the USA are required by law to make library programs and services accessible to people with disabilities. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act (1998) mandate that the responsibility for accessibility extends to the electronic environment. Increasingly, librarians who purchase electronic journals are becoming aware of the urgent need to consider accessibility issues, but many are uncertain about how to actually determine whether a product is accessible, and what to do if it is not. This study examines 11 major electronic research journal services for basic accessibility. Findings reflect that awareness of accessibility issues is low among electronic research journal service providers, with some notable exceptions. A strategy for increasing awareness of accessibility issues among e‐journal providers is offered.

This paper aims to contribute to an understanding of current accessibility efforts and practice in librarianship by providing a broad overview of the information about services, resources and facilities on academic library accessibility pages. By compiling and analyzing data from 85 libraries, this study seeks to facilitate comparisons between current and past accessibility practice and to provide perspective on how libraries communicate to users about accessibility efforts across libraries.

The authors conducted a content analysis of 85 library accessibility pages from a sample population of 98 institutions, consisting of all members institutions of four US academic library consortia. Pages were coded for content elements regarding services, facilities, collections, staffing, assistive technologies and general information. Webpage features, architecture and accessibility/functionality were also assessed.

Libraries have broadened and strengthened efforts to publicize/provide services and resources to functionally diverse users. Pages most commonly prioritize information about assistive technologies, services and facilities. Pages varied greatly in size, complexity and detail, but public institutions' pages were more prevalent and informative than their private counterparts. Libraries can work to foreground accessibility pages and increase transparency and evidence of currency to improve communication to their users.

This study provides a large-scale content analysis of library accessibility webpages. It allows for comparison of the features and information most commonly featured on these important online points of service.

The purpose of this paper is to explore a topic where blind participants expressed significant concern: obtaining full text and accessible full text.

This qualitative study includes 18 open-ended telephone interviews with blind academic library users in the USA. The study uses the viewpoint that understanding blind peoples’ perspectives is essential for equal accessibility.

Locating full text via link resolvers seemed problematic. Inaccessible articles and complications and delays creating accessible versions of print books limited participants’ use of materials. Enabling technologies and services were highlighted.

Caution should be used when generalizing from this study due to its sample size and methodology. The study is not a web accessibility test, which would analyze coding, nor a usability test, which would observe users. Additional research would be ideal; however, libraries should not wait to attend to accessibility.

In addition to improving digital accessibility, to address difficulty obtaining full text, libraries could offer to locate full text for blind users and implement SmartLinking and single sign on authentication. To deal with inaccessible full text, libraries could work with disability offices to obtain accessible materials and to convert materials to accessible format. DRM free HTML or EPUB e-books can have accessibility advantages. Outsourcing conversion to accessible format can also help. Libraries could offer reader service to assist blind users locating relevant sections of books to convert.

Compared to previous studies, this study includes a larger number of blind screen reader users; describes some unique issues; and includes blind users’ own interpretations.

Since the market penetrations of service robots are only successful to a limited types of services, the purpose of the paper is to look into the reasons why the market penetrations are lagged from both technical and nontechnical perspectives. Automatic robotic recharging services, especially robotic refueling systems, are used as the case study for the investigation.

This paper surveyed the relevant technologies and products and conducted the feasibility study and risk management for new development of automated robotic refueling systems. This paper developed a cost model for the evaluation of robotic refueling systems.

There are no major technical barriers that exist for the development of robotic refueling systems, but two main risks of developing new robotic refueling systems are interference of existing patents and the extreme effort to further reduce the development cost of automated refueling systems. The recommendations have been made to new developers of service robots.

The suggestions are made for further development on service robots, in general; however, this paper does not cover the physical development of service robots.

This study was actually conducted for a client company who has a strong interest in developing new products for automatic robotic refueling systems. The reported work has great significance for new comers in this area to understand the state of the art, technological challenges and some potential risks in the field.

To the best of authors’ knowledge, it will be the first academic paper to summarize the research and development effort on automatic recharging business. The targeted field is very typical in promoting robots in services. Even robotic refueling was proposed at very early stage of robotic application, the market penetration of refueling robots the market penetration is very limited, not because the technology readiness but some other factors. This work has its significance to identify technical and nontechnical challenges to promote robots in services.

This paper aims to explore the use of an appeal, belonging and commitment social marketing intervention to rescue a failing corporate “charity of the year” exercise that involved a mental disability charity. It describes the improvements experienced consequent to the introduction of volunteer “charity ambassadors” (CAs) appointed to champion the charity’s cause.

The study revolved around company employees’ responses to an open-ended question concerning their attitudes towards people with mental disabilities. A semi-automated qualitative research technique (structural topic modelling [STM]) was used to analyse the replies both pre- and post-intervention. Regression analyses were undertaken to explain whether employees’ replies to the question fell in specific categories.

The intervention was successful. Employees’ attitudes regarding mentally impaired people shifted substantially away from fear and towards feelings of benevolence and compassion. Employees’ financial donations to the charity increased significantly consequent to the intervention. Levels of benevolence and compassion depended significantly on participants’ prior exposure to people with mental disabilities, gender and degree of involvement in activities associated with the intervention.

Stakeholders other than employees were not sampled. Open-ended responses to a single question can oversimplify complex issues.

Outcomes to the research demonstrate how CAs can induce positive attitudes and behaviour towards an “unpopular cause”.

The results highlight some of the problems attached to corporate sponsorship of unpopular causes. A relatively recently developed open-ended qualitative research technique, STM, was used to examine employees’ attitudes. Classifications of findings emerged from the data and did not depend on a predetermined coding scheme.

Students with developmental/intellectual disabilities (ID/DD) often have serious health issues that require additional medical care and supervision. Serious health issues also mean increased absence and additional lags in academic achievement and development of adaptive and social skills. The incorporation of artificial intelligence in the education of a child with ID/DD could ameliorate the educational, adaptive and social skill gaps that occur as a direct result of persistent health problems.

The literature regarding the use of artificial intelligence in education for students with ID/DD was collected systematically from international online databases based on specific inclusion and exclusion criteria. The collected articles were analyzed deductively, looking for the different gaps in the domain. Based on the literature, an artificial intelligence–based architecture is proposed and sketched.

The findings show that there are many gaps in supporting students with ID/DD through the utilization of artificial intelligence. Given that the majority of students with ID/DD often have serious and chronic and comorbid health conditions, the potential use of health information in artificial intelligence is even more critical. Therefore, there is a clear need to develop a system that facilitates communication and access to health information for students with ID/DD, one that provides information to caregivers and education providers, limits errors, and, therefore, improves these individuals' education and quality of life.

This review highlights the gap in the current literature regarding using artificial intelligence in supporting the education of students with ID/DD. There is an urgent need for an intelligent system in collaboration with the updated health information to improve the quality of services submitted for people with intellectual disabilities and as a result improving their quality of life.

This study contributes to the literature by highlighting the gaps in incorporating artificial intelligence and its service to individuals with ID/DD. The research additionally proposes a solution based on the confounding variables of students’ health and individual characteristics. This solution will provide an automated information flow as a functional diagnostic and intervention tool for teachers, caregivers and parents. It could potentially improve the educational and practical outcomes for individuals with ID/DD and, ultimately, their quality of life.

Access to services for consumers with disabilities (CwD) has gained increased attention from researchers and service providers in recent years. Consequently, ensuring that services are designed and maintained in a manner that is more inclusive and accessible to CwD has become imperative. However, academic literature is fragmented and thus, this study aims to provide a state-of-the-art synthesis for further theoretical development.

This study reviews 77 relevant articles in the domain using a multidisciplinary review following the PRISMA protocol, and a thematic analysis was conducted.

The study thoroughly synthesizes the theories, contexts and methods used in the extant literature. Next, the study presents a new theoretical framework with four broader dimensions: beyond regulations, towards accessibility, value co-creation, inclusion of CwD and role of stakeholders. Furthermore, it highlights the related sub-dimensions attributed to the service design stages (planning, usage and post-usage). Based on this, the study offers critical avenues for future research using the Double Diamond framework.

The study contributes significantly to service design literature for CwD and transformative service research by developing a new consolidated theoretical framework. The findings should direct service providers towards better service designs in related fields. Socially, the study has implications for promoting accessibility and inclusion for CwD, while providing them the freedom of choice.