Briefs

THE NEWS-GAZETTE, Jan 18, 2004.

In a project by the NCSA and the Disability Research Institute at the UI, the supercomputing center will use its D2K, short for Data to Knowledge, "data-mining" software to examine the Social Security Administration's Ticket to Work program.

Under Ticket to Work, launched in 2001, beneficiaries receive "tickets" that they can redeem for employment services from various agencies, educational institutions and employers with on-the-job training. The service providers are paid based on the long-term employment success of their clients. Gallagher said services such as job retraining, job search assistance and help obtaining assistive devices to get to and from work and to do a job are among those popular in the program. The problem is that Social Security has experienced low participation rates, Prudhomme said. He and Welge will use the D2K software to analyze data from the first 13 states in which Ticket to Work was rolled out, including Illinois and neighboring Iowa and Wisconsin. By studying who received tickets, whether they used them and what services they received, the researchers hope to create a computer model that predicts which of the more than 10 million individuals receiving Social Security disability assistance are most likely to benefit, how participation can be maximized and how Social Security can be most beneficial to Americans with disabilities.

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