[Federal Register Volume 79, Number 108 (Thursday, June 5, 2014)]
[Rules and Regulations]
[Pages 32487-32490]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2014-13095]
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DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
34 CFR Chapter III
[ED-2014-OSERS-0025]
Final Priority; National Institute on Disability and
Rehabilitation Research--Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers
AGENCY: Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services,
Department of Education.
ACTION: Final priority.
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[CFDA Number: 84.133E-5.]
SUMMARY: The Assistant Secretary for Special Education and
Rehabilitative Services announces a priority for the Disability and
Rehabilitation Research Projects and Centers Program
[[Page 32488]]
administered by the National Institute on Disability and Rehabilitation
Research (NIDRR). Specifically, we announce a priority for a
Rehabilitation Engineering Research Center (RERC) on Technologies to
Enhance Independence in Daily Living for Adults with Cognitive
Impairments. The Assistant Secretary may use this priority for
competitions in fiscal year (FY) 2014 and later years. We take this
action to focus research attention on an area of national need. We
intend the priority to contribute to improved outcomes related to
independence in daily activities in the home, community, or workplace
setting for adults with cognitive impairments.
DATES: Effective Date: This priority is effective July 7, 2014.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Patricia Barrett, U.S. Department of
Education, 400 Maryland Avenue SW., Room 5142, Potomac Center Plaza
(PCP), Washington, DC 20202-2700. Telephone: (202) 245-6211 or by
email: [email protected].
If you use a telecommunications device for the deaf (TDD) or a text
telephone (TTY), call the Federal Relay Service (FRS), toll free, at 1-
800-877-8339.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
Purpose of Program: The purpose of the Disability and
Rehabilitation Research Projects and Centers Program is to plan and
conduct research, demonstration projects, training, and related
activities, including international activities, to develop methods,
procedures, and rehabilitation technology that maximize the full
inclusion and integration into society, employment, independent living,
family support, and economic and social self-sufficiency of individuals
with disabilities, especially individuals with the most severe
disabilities. The program is also intended to improve the effectiveness
of services authorized under the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, as amended
(Rehabilitation Act).
Rehabilitation Engineering Research Centers
The purpose of the RERCs, which are funded through the Disability
and Rehabilitation Research Projects and Centers Program, is to achieve
the goals of, and improve the effectiveness of, services authorized
under the Rehabilitation Act through well-designed research, training,
technical assistance, and dissemination activities in important topical
areas as specified by NIDRR with guidance from its Rehabilitation
Research Advisory Council. These activities are designed to benefit
rehabilitation service providers, individuals with disabilities, family
members, policymakers, and other research stakeholders. Additional
information on the RERC program can be found at: http://www2.ed.gov/programs/rerc/index.html#types.
Program Authority: 29 U.S.C. 762(g) and 764(b)(3).
Applicable Program Regulations: 34 CFR part 350.
We published a notice of proposed priority for this program in the
Federal Register on April 2, 2014 (79 FR 18490). That notice contained
background information and our reasons for proposing the particular
priority.
There are no differences between the proposed priority and this
final priority.
Public Comment: In response to our invitation in the notice of
proposed priority we did not receive any comments on the proposed
priority.
Final Priority
The Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative
Services establishes a priority for a RERC on Technologies to Enhance
Independence in Daily Living for Adults with Cognitive Impairments.
The RERC must focus on innovative technological solutions, new
knowledge, and implementation strategies that enhance the independence
and self-management of adults with cognitive impairment.
Under this priority, the RERC must research, develop, and evaluate
new technologies, or adapt and evaluate existing technologies, to
enhance the ability of adults with cognitive impairment to perform
daily activities of their choice in the home, community, or workplace.
Technologies developed or adapted must be designed for
commercialization as consumer products or for integration into
rehabilitation practice or relevant service delivery systems. Research
and development topics under this priority may include, but are not
limited to: Monitoring and prompting technologies or other information
or communication aids; assistive technologies, including socially
assistive robotics; mobile and wearable technologies; virtual reality;
and care coordination or tele-health, tele-rehabilitation, and other
tele-support systems to facilitate improved activities of daily living.
In responding to this priority, applicants must specify the target
populations or subgroups of adults with cognitive impairments that they
intend to focus on and identify the setting or settings for which they
intend to develop technologies: Home, community, or workplace.
Applicants must also limit the number of research and development
projects to a maximum of eight, and restrict the range of different
types of technologies to what is manageable with available resources.
Under this priority, the RERC must be designed to contribute to the
following outcomes:
(a) Increased technical and scientific knowledge relevant to
technologies for increasing independence in daily living for adults
with cognitive impairments. The RERC must contribute to this outcome by
establishing a rigorous research and development plan that is balanced
between technology development or adaption and technology evaluation
and incorporates needs assessment, usability testing, and intervention
development or efficacy studies, as appropriate. The research and
development plan must be designed to build a base of evidence for
assessing the usability, accessibility, acceptance, utility, and cost-
benefit of technologies intended to improve independence in daily
activities for adults with cognitive impairment in the home, community,
or workplace settings. The RERC must contribute to this outcome by:
(i) Building a transdisciplinary team of collaborators from
relevant disciplines, such as: Rehabilitation and bio-engineering,
computer science, human factors specialists, cognitive and behavioral
scientists, clinicians, and other relevant providers;
(ii) Conducting research and research syntheses or secondary
analysis of existing data to evaluate user needs and specify the
accessibility, acceptance, and human factors design features that will
need to be built into the technology solutions developed and evaluated
by the RERC to accommodate the cognitive impairments and preferences of
the target population;
(iii) Conducting rigorous usability testing in the settings in
which the technology will be used;
(iv) Developing and prioritizing a list of evaluation topics that,
when addressed, will lead to research-based information on the utility
or efficacy of technology solutions developed by the RERC; and
(v) Involving key stakeholders in the research and research
planning activities to maximize the relevance and usefulness of the
research products being developed. Stakeholders can include, but are
not limited to, individuals with disabilities and their families;
national, State, or local-level policymakers, administrators, or
service providers; and industry representatives.
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(b) Improved usability and effectiveness of technologies, products,
devices, systems, performance guidelines, and assessment tools through
systematic development or adaptation, testing, and evaluation of
innovations. In developing the technologies under this priority the
RERC must:
(i) Incorporate user-centered design strategies and consider the
context in which the technology product, device, or system will be
used;
(ii) Emphasize the principles of universal design and, as
appropriate, conform to human factors standards, such as reliability,
safety, and simplicity; accessibility and acceptability to users;
protective of users' privacy preferences; intuitive user interfaces;
feedback in meaningful sensory modalities; and appropriateness to
diverse populations;
(iii) Incorporate ongoing training opportunities or user supports
into the design of the technology or into the practice settings or
delivery systems in which the technology will be integrated; and
(iv) Ensure that the technologies are interoperable within existing
rehabilitation systems or home or mobile technologies and that they
communicate with existing information technology systems, as
appropriate.
(c) Improved research capacity areas that will contribute to
enhancing the ability of adults with cognitive impairment to perform
daily activities. The RERC must contribute to this outcome by
collaborating with the relevant institutions of higher education,
professional associations, clinicians and service providers, and other
researchers or educators, as appropriate.
(d) Improved awareness and understanding of cutting-edge
developments and promising technology solutions that will contribute to
enhancing the ability of adults with cognitive impairment to perform
daily activities. The RERC must contribute to this outcome by
identifying and communicating with relevant stakeholders, including
NIDRR, individuals with disabilities and their representatives,
disability organizations, service providers, professional journals,
manufacturers, and other interested parties regarding trends and
evolving product concepts related to its designated priority research
area.
(e) Increased impact of research and development activities carried
out under this priority area. The RERC must contribute to this outcome
by:
(i) Providing technical assistance to relevant public and private
organizations, individuals with disabilities and their families, long-
term services and supports providers, and employers on policies,
guidelines, and standards; and
(ii) Establishing or contributing to an existing program or service
that provides objective information and technical and consumer reviews
about technologies of promise to support independence in daily living
for adults with cognitive impairments.
(f) Increased transfer of RERC-developed technologies to the
marketplace for widespread testing and use by developing and
implementing a plan to ensure that technologies developed by the RERC
are made available to the public or to service delivery systems that
serve the public. This technology transfer plan must be developed in
the first year of the project period in consultation with the NIDRR-
funded Center on Knowledge Translation for Technology Transfer.
Types of Priorities
When inviting applications for a competition using one or more
priorities, we designate the type of each priority as absolute,
competitive preference, or invitational through a notice in the Federal
Register. The effect of each type of priority follows:
Absolute priority: Under an absolute priority, we consider only
applications that meet the priority (34 CFR 75.105(c)(3)).
Competitive preference priority: Under a competitive preference
priority, we give competitive preference to an application by (1)
awarding additional points, depending on the extent to which the
application meets the priority (34 CFR 75.105(c)(2)(i)); or (2)
selecting an application that meets the priority over an application of
comparable merit that does not meet the priority (34 CFR
75.105(c)(2)(ii)).
Invitational priority: Under an invitational priority, we are
particularly interested in applications that meet the priority.
However, we do not give an application that meets the priority a
preference over other applications (34 CFR 75.105(c)(1)).
This notice does not preclude us from proposing additional
priorities, requirements, definitions, or selection criteria, subject
to meeting applicable rulemaking requirements.
Note: This notice does not solicit applications. In any year in
which we choose to use this priority, we invite applications through
a notice in the Federal Register.
Executive Orders 12866 and 13563
Regulatory Impact Analysis
Under Executive Order 12866, the Secretary must determine whether
this regulatory action is ``significant'' and, therefore, subject to
the requirements of the Executive order and subject to review by the
Office of Management and Budget (OMB). Section 3(f) of Executive Order
12866 defines a ``significant regulatory action'' as an action likely
to result in a rule that may--
(1) Have an annual effect on the economy of $100 million or more,
or adversely affect a sector of the economy, productivity, competition,
jobs, the environment, public health or safety, or State, local, or
tribal governments or communities in a material way (also referred to
as an ``economically significant'' rule);
(2) Create serious inconsistency or otherwise interfere with an
action taken or planned by another agency;
(3) Materially alter the budgetary impacts of entitlement grants,
user fees, or loan programs or the rights and obligations of recipients
thereof; or
(4) Raise novel legal or policy issues arising out of legal
mandates, the President's priorities, or the principles stated in the
Executive order.
This final regulatory action is not a significant regulatory action
subject to review by OMB under section 3(f) of Executive Order 12866.
We have also reviewed this final regulatory action under Executive
Order 13563, which supplements and explicitly reaffirms the principles,
structures, and definitions governing regulatory review established in
Executive Order 12866. To the extent permitted by law, Executive Order
13563 requires that an agency--
(1) Propose or adopt regulations only upon a reasoned determination
that their benefits justify their costs (recognizing that some benefits
and costs are difficult to quantify);
(2) Tailor its regulations to impose the least burden on society,
consistent with obtaining regulatory objectives and taking into
account--among other things and to the extent practicable--the costs of
cumulative regulations;
(3) In choosing among alternative regulatory approaches, select
those approaches that maximize net benefits (including potential
economic, environmental, public health and safety, and other
advantages; distributive impacts; and equity);
(4) To the extent feasible, specify performance objectives, rather
than the behavior or manner of compliance a regulated entity must
adopt; and
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(5) Identify and assess available alternatives to direct
regulation, including economic incentives--such as user fees or
marketable permits--to encourage the desired behavior, or provide
information that enables the public to make choices.
Executive Order 13563 also requires an agency ``to use the best
available techniques to quantify anticipated present and future
benefits and costs as accurately as possible.'' The Office of
Information and Regulatory Affairs of OMB has emphasized that these
techniques may include ``identifying changing future compliance costs
that might result from technological innovation or anticipated
behavioral changes.''
We are issuing this final priority only on a reasoned determination
that its benefits justify its costs. In choosing among alternative
regulatory approaches, we selected those approaches that maximize net
benefits. Based on the analysis that follows, the Department believes
that this regulatory action is consistent with the principles in
Executive Order 13563.
We also have determined that this regulatory action does not unduly
interfere with State, local, and tribal governments in the exercise of
their governmental functions.
In accordance with both Executive orders, the Department has
assessed the potential costs and benefits, both quantitative and
qualitative, of this regulatory action. The potential costs are those
resulting from statutory requirements and those we have determined as
necessary for administering the Department's programs and activities.
The benefits of the Disability and Rehabilitation Research Projects
and Centers Program have been well established over the years, as
projects similar to the one envisioned by the final priority have been
completed successfully. The new RERC would generate, disseminate, and
promote the use of new information that is intended to improve outcomes
for individuals with disabilities in the areas of community living and
participation, employment, and health and function.
Accessible Format: Individuals with disabilities can obtain this
document in an accessible format (e.g., braille, large print,
audiotape, or compact disc) on request to the program contact person
listed under FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT.
Electronic Access to This Document: The official version of this
document is the document published in the Federal Register. Free
Internet access to the official edition of the Federal Register and the
Code of Federal Regulations is available via the Federal Digital System
at: www.gpo.gov/fdsys. At this site you can view this document, as well
as all other documents of this Department published in the Federal
Register, in text or Adobe Portable Document Format (PDF). To use PDF
you must have Adobe Acrobat Reader, which is available free at the
site.
You may also access documents of the Department published in the
Federal Register by using the article search feature at:
www.federalregister.gov. Specifically, through the advanced search
feature at this site, you can limit your search to documents published
by the Department.
Dated: June 2, 2014.
Michael K. Yudin,
Acting Assistant Secretary for Special Education and Rehabilitative
Services.
[FR Doc. 2014-13095 Filed 6-4-14; 8:45 am]
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