Introduction
In a fair society, the provided societal services should be personalized to cater individuals’ differences and needs and ensure a Quality of Life (QOL) for everyone. QOL covers eight domains that have been validated in several cross-cultural research (Schalock et al., 2005; Jenaro et al., 2005; Verdugo, et al, 2005, Wang et al., 2010), namely: personal growth and self-determination which reflect a person’s level of independence; interpersonal relations, social inclusion, rights for social participation; emotional well-being, physical well-being, and material well-being. In line with this, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) mentioned that no one should be left behind, emphasizing on the importance of preventing discrimination and fostering equity and equality (VanderDussen, 2018: Lutfiyya & Bartlett, 2020). Specifically, people with disabilities are suffering from having a QOL, due to the difficulty of accessing several services. This could be because the physical environment is not adapted to their personal needs (Petry et al., 2005); lack of assistive technologies that can help them use a specific service or facilitate their inclusion in the society (Borg et al., 2011); and, negative attitudes of people towards disability (Spandagou, 2020). The United Nations (UN) mentioned that in normal circumstances, over one billion people with disabilities are less likely to participate in the community and access several services, including health, education and employment. They are more likely to suffer from poverty, violence and death in crisis-affected community, as further seen during the COVID-19 pandemic (United Nations, 2020).

UNESCO pay attention to foster application of technologies in learning at all age’s learners need to activate for peaceful, tolerant, inclusive, secure and sustainable societies.

Objective

To ensure services for people with disabilities, even in times of crises, UN has made disability inclusion as one of the central points of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development (Luna, & Montaño, 2017). Meanwhile, with the rapid of evolution of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), several technology-based solutions have been developed to enhance the QOL in health (Grange et al., 2020), tourism (Um et al., 2020) and education (Dudley, et al., 2014). For instance, using chatbots and artificial intelligence can provide in-time services from home (Davenport, & Ronanki, 2018; Garg & Sharma, 2020; Southgate, 2020). The use of robots can also foster social interaction and learning (Lee, et. al., 2013). However, despite this increasing interest towards emerging technologies to provide technological and smart solutions that can enhance services for all, limited practical findings are reported in the literature to explain how technology can be used for people with disabilities (Tuparevska, Santibáñez & Solabarrieta, 2020). In this context, Saran et al. (2020) pointed out that there is a lack of research in the literature assessing the effectiveness of the provided services for people with disabilities, hence enhancing those services remain partial. The latest report of the International Conference on Computers Helping People with Special Needs ICCHP (2020) further shed the light on the importance of e-accessibility and e-inclusion to support people with disabilities via technology. For instance, it is now possible to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to provide societal services that can be automatically personalized according to the detected individual’s disability, hence ensure the “services for all” concept.

Therefore, given the background above, this special issue calls for practical findings, using rigorous methodologies on the innovative use of technologies to support people with disabilities within the eight domains presented above.

Recommended Topics

-Technology and smart societal services
-Technological emergency solutions in times of crises
-Accessible design of systems
-Artificial intelligence for inclusive societies
-Mobile technology for educational equity
-Robots for fostering social interaction
-E-inclusion of families and parents
-Big data analysis for personalized services
-Life long learning and all levels of education
-Unobstructed information technology and assertive technologies
-Managerial and strategical actions for social involvement

Submission Procedure

Researchers and practitioners are invited to submit papers for this special theme issue on Application of emerging technologies for people with disabilities through smart services on or before February 3, 2023.

All submissions must be original and may not be under review by another publication. INTERESTED AUTHORS SHOULD CONSULT THE JOURNAL’S GUIDELINES FOR MANUSCRIPT SUBMISSIONS

All submitted papers will be reviewed on a double-blind, peer review basis. Papers must follow APA style for reference citations.

This is a full open access journal. Authors of manuscripts that are accepted to publish in this special issue will be expected to pay the article processing charge.