It is perhaps not surprising that when workshops occur between technology developers, professional AT folk and users that some of the same themes appear when discussing open source assistive technology softeware. This seems to have been the case during the two recent AT conferences as the main topics seemed to be around licencing, IP, funding and maintenance leading to the success or not of certain types of business models.
Three members of the team ran workshops at AAATE and RAATE 2010 around the concepts of open innovation and AT software and REALISE. Ross Gardler from OSSWatch also discussed with a group of University of Southampton MSc students, some of the issues around licensing related to the REALISE project and open source.
Key points that came out of all the discussions that need to be taken forward to the Advisory Group meeting and workshop.
- Try and connect tools that already exist including finding out existing projects
- Focus on people rather than tools and keep the language around Assistive Technology easy to understand.
- Keep it simple so tools don’t get in the way – in particular the online market place
- Make use of Tags, vocabulary, icons, to aid navigation and searching.
- Make sure users are engaged – A member of Scope offered beta testers/link up with D4D for trials of website.
- Login – is it neceassary – via Linkedin? Facebook? Google, OpenID – lazy login, no login?
- How do we link developers, business and users?
- Is it important to have a separate AT community? Or to join mainstream communities?
- Terminology for the main tabs…. Incubator works in Italian – incubator (for eggs, baby) incubatrice f Translation English – Italian Collins Dictionary
- Timing of when an idea moves into the incubator remains uncertain but it was agreed a summary must be added when the move occurs
- Link up with Drumbeat: similar but not focused on AT but with support from Mozilla