Working in Reading 1984 - 1989
Nick Hine entered the field of rehabilitation following a period working for a major computer systems manufacturer where he gained practical experience in the functional and technical design of large computer systems.
For five years he trained people with disabilities to use computer systems so that they had skills to enable them to get jobs. This work was funded by the Commission of the European Communities and the UK Employment Services, and was conceived as a study into the process of attempting to gain employment following a disabling experience.
This work is reported in:
"Vocational Training at the Reading Information Technology Centre", N. A. Hine, in "Information Technology Training for people with disabilities" by M. Floyd (Ed.), Jessica Kingsley Publishers, London, 1993 (ISBN 1-85302-129-6), pp. 120-137.During this period he was frequently able to witness the practical difficulties that people with disabilities encounter both using computer systems and in overcoming social and practical barriers to employment."Vocational Training of People with Disabilities in Information Technology Skills - Conclusions from Practical Experience", N. A. Hine and P. A. A. Waring in Computers for Handicapped Persons: Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference, Zurich, Switzerland, 3-5 December 1990, by A. Min Tjoa, R. Wagner and W. Zagler (Eds.) Oldenbourg, München (ISBN 3-486-21785-2), pp. 133-142.
The course received a special commendation in the 1986 Computer Weekly Training Awards presented to Mr. Hine at the Houses of Parliament.
By the time he left Reading he was the deputy manager of a training centre with an annual intake of over 100 young people and 20 adults with disabilities, as well as a large number of commercial customers from local companies.
Working in Leuven, Belgium 1989 - 1992
1989 he moved to Belgium to work as a researcher investigating access issues for people with disabilities to future telecommunications systems and services. The research was funded by the Commisson of the European Commuinity (CEC) under the Research in Advanced Communications in Europe (RACE) programme. The IPSNI (Integration of People with Special Needs in Integrated broadband communication) project undertook a theoretical analysis of the problems and possible solutions encountered by people with disabilities seeking to use multimedia telecommunications systems.
In addition to the research, Mr. Hine was involved in the formation of the Human Factors for People with Special Needs group of the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), and took part in two project team research studies:
ETSI Project PT6V: Telecommunications Standards for People with Special Needs. The project analysed the standards relevant to people with disabilities applying within the European nations and at the international level. Made recommendations to ETSI for priorities for future research and standardisation activities.He was also called as an "Expert" by the Commission of the European Communities (CEC) to assist with the market survey that was the initial phase of the Technology Initiative for Disables and Elderly (TIDE) programme. He then assisted in formulating the scope of the research workplan for the pilot phase of the programme.ETSI Project PT36: Design of ISDN Terminal Equipment. The project collated human factors best practice from the literature and standards into a handbook for ISDN terminal designers. I was responsible for ensuring that the handbook properly represented the needs of people with disabilities.
Working in Dundee 1992 -
He returned to the UK to continue research in the IPSNI II (Access to Broadband Telecommunications Services by People with Special Needs) project. The project was concerned with the demonstrating that it is possible for even severely disabled people to access broadband multimedia services. The work in Dundee focused on special terminal adaptations such as eye gaze tracking and other alternatives to keyboards, and the addition of software to assist non-speaking people to convey information as text or by picture display and annotation.
Link to the main IPSNI project page :
This work has continued with the following projects:
Project leader of the CEC funded COPERNICUS/TIDE project LEARN-ED (Learning and Education Access by Remote Networks - Enabling the Disabled). The project is concerned with the problems that disabled students have being involved in the life of universities. Research is focusing on the development of new Internet services to make information, teaching and social activities available to disabled students both on campus and at home, and the application of the results of the IPSNI projects to a practical scenario. The project has developed an inter-application message passing protocol that allows the remote control of applications across the Internet. It is used in the project to remotely control the presentation of teaching material by passing messages to the Ntescape Navigator WWW browser.
Link to the main LEARN-ED project page :
EPSRC/DTI LINK funded T-CALL project (TeleCommunications
for ALL). The work in Dundee
is concerned with ensuring that solutions to the problems of using celluar mobile
systems and services proposed for deaf people are reviewed and modified to take
the needs of non-speaking people into account.
Link to
the main TCALL project page :
CEC funded ACTS project UMPTIDUMPTI (Using Mobile Personal Telecommunications
Innovation for the Disabled in UMTS Pervasive Integration). The research
is concerned with the problems faced by people with disabilities in using mobile
telecommunications services. In particular, the work in Dundee is concerned
with the provision of using mobile multimedia telecommunications services to
meet the communications needs of non-speaking people.
Link to the main UMPTIDUMPTI project page :
CEC funded TIDE project MORE (MObile REscue phone). The research is concerned with the development of a suite of GSM mobile phones with GPS tracking capabilities. The role of Mr. Hine in the project is as a member of an internal peer review board.
Link to the main MORE project page :
CEC funded TIDE project RESORT (REmote SuppOrt for Rehabilitation Technology). The project was concerned with the technical feasibility of providing remote support for users of Rehabilitation Technology, and specialist support for primary carers.
Link to the main RESORT project page :
British Council funded IBDE (Internet Based Distance Education). This project was a cooperation between the University of Dundee and the Comenius University Bratislava. It ran a set of workshops in Slokvakia to explore the possibilities for the provision of distance education in Slovakia, and the use of technology in enabling interactive distance education..
UKERNA funded VIP Demonstrator Project (Video over IP). The research was concerned with exploring the issues arising from the migration from ISDN to IP videoconferencing in Higher education. The specific issue of concern to Dundee was the implication of the use low-cost (software based) videoconferencing clients and servers on departmental network infrastructures.
Link to the main VIP project page :
CEC funded PEARL Project (Practical Experimentation enabling Accessible Remote Learning). The research is concerned with investigating the value of providing remnote access to real experimental equipment to university students. In Dundee the team is cooperating with the School of life sciences to provide remote access to an electron microscope, and seeking to validate the educational value of this approach within the curriculum.
Link to the main PEARL project page :
ETSI funded Special Task Force 204 - Access to information and communication technology (ICT) by young people; Issues and guidelines. This is a small investigative project funded by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute. The international project team is investigating the future standardisation issues arising from the anticipated use of ICT by children.
ETSI funded Special Task Force 204 - Multimodal interaction, communication and navigation. This is a small investigative project funded by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute. The international project team is investigating the use of transactional service by people with disabilities and elderly people, in particular considering the role of content transformation.
CEC funded RAFT Project (Remote Accessible Field Trips). The research is considering the pedagogic and practical aspects of providing a bridge between children taking part in a field trip and their peers in classrooms. This bridge will enable all the students to participate live in the field trip activities. The project is set in the context of situated learning and is intended to generate reuasable learning objects for subsequent use within the curriculum.
In 2001 Dr Hine completed his PhD entitled "Towards a Multimedia Communication Service for People with Disabilities". This research explored the problems that non-speaking people face when engaging in social interaction, particularly in the context of the use of video-conferencing technologies. The use of multimedia was found to improve the accuracy of the understanding of the stories being told and to convey a stronger impression of personality traits of the non-speaking person to the audience as compared to stories bieing presented just as text.
Other duties in Dundee include teaching on subjects such as Databases, Multimedia and Mobile Data Communications, and student project supervision.