RESNA 2008
Meeting called to order by Todd Schwanke, chair at 8 am. Dave Jaffe handed out and explained the SIG-11 Membership Resource Form. The proposed change in the RESNA ATP/ATS Certification was discussed. A member of the Professional Services Board led the discussion. The ATP and ATS credentials originally were designed to designate a persons role, but this has proven problematic.. The AT and the ATP exams only differ by 50 questions. It is proposed ATP & the ATS certification be combined into a single baseline certification, tentatively to be referred to as the ATP (Assistive Technology Professional). Those holding current ATP or ATS certifications currently would be able to convert to the new ATP certification without taking the test again. There is a blog that we can post there or we can email Anjali Weber (aweber -at- resna.org) any comments about the proposed change. Along with this change in the certification there is also discussion about additional specialty certification such as Seating and Mobility. There could be additional specialization credentials in other areas such as AAC. Members are encouraged to submit their suggestions to the PSB. Denis Anson suggested a specialization in Technology-Human Interface. Todd discussed items from the SIG Chairs meeting that was held on Saturday, June 28, 2008.
Todd discussed difficulties with updating your contact information and making sure that it gets changed everywhere. If you change your address/email/phone, make sure to check with RESNA about the various places that your contact info is housed and used, including the membership database, ATP/ATS database, ATP/ATS directory on the website, SIG pages, etc. The election for Chair and Vice Chair were conducted the week prior to the conference via e-mail. Jamie Prioli was elected Chair and Mark Bresler was elected Vice-Chair. The RESNA Job Bank was discussed at the meeting. It currently costs an employer / organization $250.00 a month to post job openings. Different options were discussed and we will have to watch for any changes. Feedback will be provided to the Board and the Office because it seems there are concerns that this cost is a barrier to organizations posting jobs there. While the current job bank system has many more features than the previous method of listing job openings, it appears that the cost may outweigh the features, and may also be reducing the number of jobs being posted there. The Developers Forum was also discussed. There were 8 developers this year, and they were not charged a fee to participate. We did not limit it to computer applications developers. We need to be considering how the format may be affected if the number of participants increases as a result of promoting the event to a broader range of AT developers. No decisions were made. SIG-11 thanked Dave Jaffe for his management of the SIG-11 distribution list, Andy Lin for doing the Computer Applications Show and Tell session, Denis Anson for the Tech Lab, all those who reviewed papers and those who presented this year. Jamie discussed the Mentor program and handed out registration sheets for it. The Mentor program partners newcomers in the computer applications field with those who have had years of experience. Newsletter and AT Journal articles are needed. Potential articles and projects could be on Operating system efforts or the accessibility of the new RESNA website. The meeting was adjourned at 9:05 am. |