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The purpose of this paper is to explore the copyright law in relation to access to information by persons with visual impairments. It assesses the barriers placed by the copyright law on access to information by the visually impaired persons, and then the exceptions and limitations therein with a specific focus on Marrakesh treaty. It further explores the benefits conveyed by the Marrakesh treaty in relation to the challenges. Finally, the paper makes suggestions on methods that can be employed to make the Marrakesh treaty benefit the persons with visual impairments to the fullest.

The paper reviews the copyright law and its requirements in relation to reproduction of copyrighted works, and then narrows down to the provisions of Marrakesh treaty as an exception in the copyright law. It then reviews existing literature on the challenges caused by copyright requirements on access to information by persons with visual impairments. Having looked at these two aspects, the paper then identifies from literature the benefits that come in the Marrakesh treaty in relation to access to copyrighted information by persons with visual impairments. Authors finally give their views on what can be done to make the treaty more beneficial to the visually impaired persons.

The paper finds that a there are many challenges that persons with visual impairments face while they seek to access information that is copyrighted, and these challenges cause both direct and indirect negative effects. However, looking at the provisions of the Marrakesh treaty against these challenges, the paper identifies the benefits that come with the treaty to avert the challenges.

This paper does an in-depth analysis of the copyright-related challenges that persons with visual impairments face while accessing copyrighted information, and derives solutions to these challenges from the Marrakesh treaty. The paper will be helpful to the librarians to make sure that none of their users continue to suffer from those challenges in this era of the Marrakesh treaty. The methods suggested herein for reaping as much as possible from the Marrakesh treaty will be beneficial to information managers toward fashioning ways of ensuring that persons with visual impairments are able to access information freely and easily.

Defined functionally, having low vision can mean the inability to read newsprint even with best correction (when wearing conventional eyeglasses or contact lenses) (Maino, 1993). Other functional definitions of low vision refer to a loss of vision that may be severe enough to hinder an individual's ability to complete daily activities such as reading, cooking, or walking outside safely, while still retaining some degree of useable vision. Low vision is decreased visual performance that prevents performance to full capacity compared with a typically sighted person of the same age and gender. It may be a consequence of reduced acuity, abnormal visual field, reduced contrast sensitivity, or other ocular dysfunction (Faye, 1984). This definition includes people who are legally blind and those who have a more significant amount of remaining vision.

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the functionality of the particular epistemological schools with regard to the issues of users with visual impairment, to offer a theoretical answer to the question why these issues are not in the center of the interest of information science, and to try to find an epistemological approach that has ambitions to create the theoretical basis for the analysis of the relationship between information and visually impaired users.

The methodological basis of the paper is determined by the selection of the epistemological approach. In order to think about the concept of information and to put it in relation to issues associated with users with visual impairment, a conceptual analysis is applied.

Most of information science theories are based on empiricism and rationalism; this is the reason for their low interest in the questions of visually impaired users. Users with visual disabilities are out of the interest of rationalistic epistemology because it underestimates sensory perception; empiricism is not interested in them paradoxically because it overestimates sensory perception. Realism which fairly reflects such issues is an approach which allows the providing of information to persons with visual disabilities to be dealt with properly.

The paper has a speculative character. Its findings should be supported by empirical research in the future.

Theoretical questions solved in the paper come from the practice of providing information to visually impaired users. Because practice has an influence on theory and vice versa, the author hopes that the findings included in the paper can serve to improve practice in the field.

The paper provides theoretical anchoring of the issues which are related to the inclusion of people with disabilities into society and its findings have a potential to support such efforts.

This is first study linking questions of users with visual disabilities to highly abstract issues connected to the concept of information.

This paper aims to propose a model entitled MMSPhiD (multidimensional similarity metrics model for screen reader user to phishing detection) that amalgamates multiple approaches to detect phishing URLs.

The model consists of three major components: machine learning-based approach, typosquatting-based approach and phoneme-based approach. The major objectives of the proposed model are detecting phishing URL, typosquatting and phoneme-based domain and suggesting the legitimate domain which is targeted by attackers.

The result of the experiment shows that the MMSPhiD model can successfully detect phishing with 99.03 per cent accuracy. In addition, this paper has analyzed 20 leading domains from Alexa and identified 1,861 registered typosquatting and 543 phoneme-based domains.

The proposed model has used machine learning with the list-based approach. Building and maintaining the list shall be a limitation.

The results of the experiments demonstrate that the model achieved higher performance due to the incorporation of multi-dimensional filters.

In addition, this paper has incorporated the accessibility needs of persons with visual impairments and provides an accessible anti-phishing approach.

This paper assists persons with visual impairments on detection phoneme-based phishing domains.

The purpose of this paper is to provide an evidence‐base for home modification guidelines for people with visual impairment due to age‐related macular degeneration (AMD), from the perspective of people with AMD, by exploring the home modifications they find useful and would recommend to other people with visual impairment due to AMD as being effective.

People with impairments may not be aware of their own coping with inability strategies until they are asked to express their strategies. A qualitative approach using semi‐structured individual interviews was used to elicit the perspectives of people with AMD with regards to their preferred home modification interventions. Interviews were recorded and then transcribed verbatim into text for thematical analysis using Nvivo 8.

In total, 31 individuals (aged 79.1±5.6 years) with AMD and no other ocular diseases were recruited from a low vision clinic or the Macular Degeneration Foundation database in a metropolitan city. Interviewees had not received any formal home modification assessment from a government provider. Nevertheless, 70 per cent of participants stated that they undertook home modifications themselves or with the assistance of family and friends. The most important functional modifications as perceived by the participants concerned the installation of hand rails, non‐slip matting, colour contrasting safety stair nosing, single lever taps, slip resistant flooring, lift chairs and motion sensors that activated pathway lighting. Kitchens, steps and bathrooms were perceived as hazardous locations. Most participants had difficulties with reading fine‐print material on kitchen appliances, washing machines, microwave ovens and remote controls for electronic devices in the home.

An evidence‐base for useful home modifications as suggested by people with visual impairment was perceived to be a valuable resource for other people with visual impairment who may not yet have developed adaptive strategies. Industrial and interior designers and low vision rehabilitation services who aim to improve functionality of the home environment will also find these suggestions useful.

This study investigated demographic factors, attitude and knowledge of persons with special needs towards COVID-19 in Nigeria between 12 May and 25 May 2020. This cross-sectional online survey was conducted among 72 persons with special needs purposively selected from the six geo-political zones in Nigeria. A questionnaire comprising questions on demographic information (three), knowledge (24) and attitude (28) towards COVID-19 was completed via Google forms by the participants (r=0.78). There were more males (51, 70.8%) than females (21, 29.2%) and the most common age group was 34-44 years (37.5%). The number of participants with a hearing impairment was 34 (47.2%) and the number with a visual impairment was 26 (36.1%). The results indicate adequate knowledge about the characteristics of COVID-19. It was found that 98.6% of the participants had heard about COVID-19; 94.4% were aware that COVID-19 is a contagious disease, 91.7% stated that COVID-19 is a virus and 88.9% reported correctly that the incubation period is 3-14 days. The knowledge about symptoms of COVID-19 among participants was high (x=2.63; participants obtained 87.8% of the total achievable score for these questions). The knowledge about prevention and control of COVID-19 among participants needs was very high (x=2.77; participants obtained 92.3% of the total achievable score for these questions). Attitude of participants towards the COVID-19 outbreak was positive and above average (x=2.84). However, participants reported that it is hard to get palliatives or financial support from others during COVID-19 lockdown (52.8%) and that they feel frustrated by the uncaring attitude of the government towards them during COVID-19 lockdown (55.6%). On this basis, counselling and social policy implications were suggested including the provision of palliatives by the government and the need for widespread enlightenment among individuals with special needs on prevention of COVID-19.

The purpose of this study is to examine the health and social care information needs of people with a visual impairment; to identify the health and social care information sources used by visually‐impaired people seeking information; to identify differences in the information needs of people with different visual impairments; to examine ways in which developments in information provision may help to meet the needs of visually impaired people.

In total, 28 semi‐structured interviews (face‐to‐face or telephone) were conducted with 31 visually impaired people living in or near Sheffield, UK. The participants included two groups: people with an age‐related visual impairment, and people with a visual impairment since birth or early childhood. Framework analysis was used to analyse the findings.

Four major themes were identified: health and social care information needs, sources of health and social care information, possible improvements, and “intervening variables”.

In this study only a small proportion of the health and social care information needs of visually impaired people were currently being met. There was minimal co‐ordination of information between the different information providers. Visually impaired people were dependent on acquiring and seeking out additional information from a wide variety of sources.

This paper provides new insights into the health and social care information needs of visually impaired people and their sources of information, and starts to fill gaps identified in an earlier systematic review. The paper reinforces the view that visually impaired people are a heterogeneous group, with different needs according to their visual impairments.

This chapter discusses the elements of interventions provided to students who are visually impaired within the context of past instructional advancements still in effect today and current instructional advancements preparing the field for tomorrow. Disability-specific interventions and the theoretical framework that encompasses the unique areas of instruction for students with visual impairments are described. Important additional considerations of interventions for students with visual impairments are presented. Needs of students who are visually impaired, alignment with state standards, management of limited instructional time, and shortage of qualified specialists who teach students with visual impairments are examples of significant matters to be considered for effective instructional practice in present-day classrooms.

This research aims to study the coping experience of visually impaired (VI) bankers in India after they have received reasonable accommodation from their employers, that is, the work process or environment has been suitably modified to ensure a barrier-free environment for them.

Data were collected through semi-structured interviews with 12 VI bankers working with public sector banks in India. A phenomenological approach was adopted during data analysis.

Despite the provision of reasonable accommodations, VI employees often find it difficult to fulfill their job responsibilities. This is on account of extensive paperwork required for completion of their jobs and the partially accessible information systems available to them. As a result, these VI employees are found resorting to workarounds to carry out their jobs, with the nature of workarounds adopted varying with the type and extent of visual impairment. Furthermore, it is observed that VI employees require social support not only from their superiors and peers but also from their subordinates and customers to carry out their tasks.

Data collection was done through snowball sampling which could have resulted in sampling bias. Due to confidentiality issues, observation of workarounds in practice by VI employees could not be carried out as part of the study.

The study contributes to the literature on integration of persons with disabilities (PwDs) by examining their coping experience after provision of reasonable accommodations. It emphasizes the role of workarounds, an under-studied area in PwD integration, as well as support of other stakeholders in the experience.

This chapter provides a comprehensive description of special education in Bangladesh. It begins with the early origins of special education and then proceeds with definitions of and prevalence of current disabilities in Bangladesh. This section is followed by governmental policies and legislation related to the right to education for all students with disabilities. Next, educational intervention methods are delineated along with a description of governmental special schools and teacher training and preparation of special educational professions. Early intervention practices and working with families is also discussed. The chapter ends with the progress that Bangladesh has made and the challenges that remain.