ACTIVITIES
The project’s objectives will be pursued through eight work packages (WPs) distributed between the eight partners and implemented in a logical, gradual progression to allow for close monitoring and assessment of project performance.
WP1 (User Needs Analysis) will pay great attention to what the end-users wish for, particularly the final end-users who are the blind and partially sighted population. Under WP2 (Text Analysis and Development) all partners will carry out extensive text analysis on a full range of audiovisual products, including material that has been already described and a large variety of ‘virgin’ texts that could be suitable material for AD. Such analyses will involve intralingual transposition of texts and numerous permutations of language combinations where interlingual translation and audiosubtitling are involved.
When the analyses are satisfactorily completed and confronted it will be possible to draw conclusions as to potential best practices, leading to the preparation of material for extensive testing (WP3) with the assistance of blind and partially sighted audiences (and sighted subjects, where appropriate or necessary, for purposes of comparison), first within the university environment (Partners 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5) in order to make some preliminary adjustments and subsequently, and most importantly, via collaboration with the television companies and the audiodescription services (Partners 6, 7 and 8). The results of the tests, obtained via questionnaires, interviews, focus groups and comparative studies, will provide a first step in the attempt to formulate standardised guidelines for all audiodescribers (WP4).
The texts audiodescribed following the tenets of the newly formed guideline will then be disseminated by producers and service providers and feedback from a wide and variegated range of blind and partially sighted subjects will be monitored. The information gleaned from this phase will also be used, crucially, to prepare reliable material for the preparation of sound curricula for higher education courses.
Two distinct WPs (WP5 and WP6) will be developed for the project’s dissemination and exploitation of results. WP5 involves the organization of outreach and a final conference at international level, as well as of two dissemination meetings for each partner institution at a local/regional/national level. WP6 (Exploitation) will serve to define scenarios and ways to exploit the results, and crucially envisages a mainstream seminar targeting decision-makers in month 36 (in conjunction with the final conference in Brussels).
WP7 (Practices and Review) involves a series of workshops, as well as the kick-off meeting, to be held every six months between partners. WP8 (Management and Coordination) is designed to guarantee smooth project management and governance.