Special Issue of ACM Transactions on Accessible Computing (TACCESS) On Technology to Support Independent Orientation & Mobility of People with Visual Impairments (https://www.rit.edu/gccis/taccess/papers/call-for-papers-2018.html)

Lead Guest Editors: João Guerreiro, Anke M. Brock and Hernisa Kacorri

Guest Editors: Dragan Ahmetovic, Chieko Asakawa, Nicholas A. Giudice, Roberto Manduchi, and Daisuke Sato

Orientation and Mobility (O&M) skills are essential for the independence of people with visual impairments (PVI). O&M training, exploration of tactile maps and navigation aids such as the white cane and guide dogs help PVI to navigate and to acquire knowledge about their surroundings. However, this knowledge is often insufficient, as most PVI avoid visiting unfamiliar places by themselves and can have a fragmented or incomplete understanding of familiar environments.

This Special Issue of TACCESS will address the multi-disciplinary efforts trying to understand and support the O&M of PVI. We welcome contributions studying the behavior and spatial cognition of PVI, which can inform the design of future solutions. We also invite research on new solutions aimed to support PVI navigating in the real-world and acquiring spatial knowledge either directly or indirectly (e.g. by exploring maps or virtual environments). There is a growing number of researchers working on the theme of this Special Issue, and we invite contributions from different communities and areas such as Human-Computer Interaction, Accessible Computing, Computer Vision, Cognitive Sciences (e.g. Spatial Cognition, Psychology, Neuroscience), Haptics, Ubiquitous Computing, among others.

Accepted papers may be presented at the ASSETS conference following publication. Details about presenting accepted TACCESS papers at the ASSETS conference may be found at http://www.rit.edu/gccis/taccess/policy.html.

Topics of interest for this special issue include (but are not limited to):

Education and training of Orientation and Mobility (O&M) skills;
Real-World indoor and outdoor navigation assistance;
Tactile and interactive map exploration;
Interactive navigation or exploration using virtual environments;
Spatial cognition and cognitive mapping;
Novel positioning and localization algorithms;
Computer vision techniques for scene and object detection;
Analysis of large-scale user mobility data;
Fabrication technologies to ease the access to tactile maps;
Accessible transportation;
Studies of the current challenges and opportunities of daily O&M.

Submission and Review process

Manuscripts should be submitted through the Manuscript Central website (http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/taccess), indicating that the submission concerns the Special Issue. The Special Issue editors will invite 3 expert reviewers; paper acceptance will be based on these reviews. In keeping with the policies of TACCESS, we anticipate that one reviewer will be a member of the editorial board.

Contributions must not have been previously published or be under consideration for publication elsewhere, although substantial extensions of conference or workshop papers will be considered as long as they adhere to ACM's minimum standards regarding prior publication (http://www.acm.org/pubs/sim_submissions.html).

All submissions must follow the Guide for Authors as published in the Journal website at http://www.rit.edu/gccis/taccess/. Besides the suggested writing format (http://www.gccis.rit.edu/taccess/authors.html), submissions should follow the SIGACCESS guidelines for writing about accessibility (http://www.sigaccess.org/welcome-to-sigaccess/resources/accessible-writing-guide/) and authors should make an effort to make their papers accessible (http://www.sigaccess.org/welcome-to-sigaccess/resources/accessible-pdf-author-guide/).

Important dates:

Article submission: February 15, 2019
Initial response to authors: May 1, 2019
Revised version of articles due: July 1, 2019
Notification of acceptance: September 15, 2019
Final manuscripts due: October 15, 2019