eBulletin May 2013

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Dear Readers,

This eBulletin presents the new ICT for Information Accessibility in Learning project, provides news on the 3-year Vocational Education and Training project, the results of which are now available on the Agency website, and the Raising Achievement for All Learners project that will now form the basis of a follow-up project.

The Agency has published three calls for tenders looking for co-operation in the areas of web development and translation work. Information on these calls is available in this bulletin and also on the Agency website.

Thank you for your interest in the Agency’s work, for more information visit the project web areas and follow our news on /news 

Sincerely,

Cor J.W. Meijer
Director
European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education

 

Vocational Education and training

The results of the Agency's Vocational Education and Training (VET) 3-year project will be presented and debated in the framework of a round table in the European Parliament on 8 May 2013.

Ádám Kósa MEP will be the moderator and the following representatives of European institutions will take part in the discussions: Heinz K. Becker, MEP; Dana-Carmen Bachmann, Head of Unit – Vocational training and adult education; Leonardo da Vinci, Grundtvig, European Commission; Olympia Stylianou, Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education and Culture, Cyprus; Rudi Delarue, Director, Office for the European Union and the Benelux countries, International Labour Office; Simona Giarratano, Social Policy Officer, European Disability Forum and Don Mahon, Ministry of Education, Irish Presidency.

More information on the event is available in the agenda. To read more about the Agency VET project visit the project web area.

 

Raising Achievement for All Learners – Quality in Inclusive Education

The one year Raising Achievement for all Learners – Quality in Inclusive Education (RA4AL) project came to an end in December 2012. The project has received a very positive report from the European Commission and will now form the basis of a further three year thematic project by the Agency.

All of the project outputs including a full report of the RA4AL conference, exhibition materials, a synthesis report and a summary flyer  (available in 22 languages) can be found on the Agency website.

Drawing on past Agency work, recent research and the outcomes of the RA4AL conference, the project recommends further work based around six themes which contribute to raising the achievement of all learners:

  • Collaborative policy and practice
  • Support for school and system leaders
  • Inclusive accountability
  • Personalisation through lstening to learners
  • Professional development for inclusive education
  • Pedagogical approaches for all

The RA4AL project identified the need for a stronger evidence base, in particular on effective approaches to raise the achievement of all learners. The plan for the continuation work will be finalised in autumn 2013.

 

ICT for Information Accessibility in Learning – ICT4IAL

The ICT4IAL project is a multi-partner network of European and international organisations that represent both the learning and the ICT communities. The Agency is the project co-ordinator for the network and will work together with European Schoolnet, the International Association of Universities, UNESCO, the DAISY Consortium and the Global Initiative of Inclusive ICTs on all activities.

Project activities began in January 2013. The first major event for the project – the Guideline Development Workshop – will take place on 20–21 June 2013 in Lisbon, Portugal. The aim of the workshop is to develop practical guidelines for making information for learning accessible. This workshop will include nominated experts of all partner organisations. The network aims to include participation of NGOs representing people with disabilities, ICT and accessibility experts working in or for secondary, primary, vocational education, or higher education representatives of standardisation organisations, publishers, library and archivist organisations, media professionals, graphic designers as well as learners who would directly benefit from and can provide personal feedback on accessibility of learning material in the workshop discussions.

 

CALL FOR TENDER FOR WEBSITE HOSTING AND DEVELOPMENT
www.european-agency.org

The European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education has an exceptional website in terms of content and usage. The website has over 5000 static web pages; 1000 individual downloadable files; 3 interactive databases; numerous dedicated web areas of thematic information; dedicated web sections for each Agency member country; closed web sections for registered users; a publications downloads section where as much information as possible is provided in multi-lingual formats.

The current Agency website receives around 1900 visitors a week and an average of 26,250 unique page views a month.

The Agency is now looking for a partner institution for:

(i) Hosting the Agency public and closed website and

(ii) Supporting the Agency in developing new website tools and databases.

The initial contract will be offered for 1 year (with the possibility of renewal) and will cover:

  • updating or selection of a new CMS platform (currently Plone 3),
  • migration of the current website content (within the first year),
  • hosting,  
  • maintenance and
  • ad hoc development work.

The Agency aims for its website to be a model of accessibility.

Institutions who wish to be considered for this work must be able to demonstrate their range of experience in website development. Specifically they should be able to prove their experience in accompanying customers in the process of further developing their websites and putting customers’ requirements in the centre of their development and maintenance work. Most importantly, they should demonstrate their understanding of and ability to implement accessibility and usability standards and maintain a high level of practical accessibility.

The selected institution will work together with a dedicated team of web content editors. It is therefore vital that the institution is familiar with working with teams of individuals that work at a distance from each other and use different forms of on-line communication tools. Flexible working hours and practices as well as open minded and creative work attitudes are very important. The Agency welcomes proposals from institutions that are willing to share simple, innovative and accessible solutions for this website.

All Agency communication is in English. Members of the selected institution need to demonstrate the ability to communicate in this language and to present their solutions to a group with varying knowledge of ICT.

The contract will begin no later than 1 September 2013. Specific tasks, duties and activities to be carried out by the successful institution will be negotiated and agreed at the time of awarding the contract. The Agency will consider expressions of interest from both hosting and development institutions willing to work together as a partnership.

Institutions who wish to be considered for this contract should prepare an initial letter expressing their interest detailing their relevant experience, shortly describing the processes employed to reach high levels of usability and accessibility, and presenting a detailed budget and time plan for the tasks listed as well as clear public examples of their work. The deadline for receipt of expressions of interest is 17 June, 2013. Shortlisted institutions will be invited to present their ideas to the staff team in person.

Further information (including technical specifications) is available from and formal expressions of interest should be emailed to ict@european-agency.org by 17 June, 2013.

 

CALL FOR TENDER FOR THE ICT4IAL PROJECT WEBSITE HOSTING AND DEVELOPMENT

The ICT for Information Accessibility in Learning (ICT4IAL) project is a multi-partner network of European and International organisations that represent both the learning and ICT communities. The Agency acts as project co-ordinator for the network and works together with European Schoolnet, the International Association of UniversitiesUNESCO, the DAISY Consortium and the Global Initiative of Inclusive ICTs on all activities.

The project activities will run January 2013 until the end of December 2015. This project is funded by the European Commission under the Lifelong Learning Transversal Programme, Key Activity 3: Information and Communication Technologies. All project activities adhere to the regulations within the grant agreement between the project partners and the European Commission.

The Agency is now looking for a partner institution to work together with the project team in developing the project website that will be a ‘model’ of accessibility.

The selected institution will be offered a contract of 2½ years that will cover:

  • Website hosting,
  • Development (including selection of the CMS platform, the design of the website and advising on accessibility issues) and
  • Maintenance.

Institutions who wish to be considered for this work must be able to demonstrate their range of experience in website development. Specifically they should be able to show prove their experience in accompanying customers in the process of further developing their websites and putting the customers requirements in the centre of their development and maintenance work. Most importantly, they should demonstrate their understanding of and ability to implement accessibility and usability standards and maintain a high level of practical accessibility.

The selected institution will work as part of the extended, international network of the project team led by the Agency and it is therefore vital that the institution is familiar with working with teams of individuals that work at a distance from each other and use different forms of on-line communication tools. Flexible working hours and practices as well as open minded and creative work attitudes are very important. The project welcomes an institution that is willing to share simple and innovative solutions for this accessible website.

The project language is English and all project communication will be in English. Members of the institution working on the project website need to demonstrate the ability to communicate in this language and to present their solutions to a group with varying knowledge of ICT.

The contract will begin 1 July, 2013. Specific tasks, duties and activities to be carried out by the successful institution will be negotiated and agreed at the time of awarding the contract.

Institutions who wish to be considered for this contract should prepare an initial letter expressing their interest, detailing their relevant experience, briefly describing the processes employed to reach high levels of usability and accessibility and presenting a detailed budget as well as clear public examples of their work. The deadline for receipt of expressions of interest is 3 June.

Further information is available from and formal expressions of interest should be emailed to ict4ial@european-agency.org by 3 June.

 

CALL FOR TENDER FOR THE PROVISION OF TRANSLATION SERVICES TO THE European Agency for Development in Special Needs and Inclusive Education

The European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education (the Agency) has been established by its member countries to act as their platform for collaboration in the field of special needs and inclusive education. The Agency disseminates research and project results via electronic and printed publications. English is the Agency’s working language, and most publications and key national documents are translated into all official languages of the Agency member countries: Czech, Danish, Dutch, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Maltese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Slovak, Slovene, Spanish and Swedish.

The Agency is seeking a Language Service Provider (LSP) to carry out translation, revision and proofreading tasks in all the above-mentioned languages.

Quality requirements

LSPs that wish to be considered for this contract must be able to demonstrate their experience in managing and delivering large, multi-lingual projects in a timely manner. They must hold current quality certifications, such as the EN 15038 and ISO 9001 standards.

The translations produced must conform to linguistic and cultural norms in the target languages. They must be of sufficient quality to be suitable for publication upon delivery, not requiring any further revision or correction by the Agency. Furthermore, they must adhere to the Agency’s Style Guide, formatting guidelines and any other specific instructions provided by the Agency. The translations must be consistent with any glossaries or reference material provided by the Agency and the agreed deadlines must be met.

Technology requirements

The source texts will mainly be in the form of Microsoft Word documents, but other formats may also be used such as Adobe Acrobat or InDesign. The selected LSP should use up-to-date Computer-Assisted Translation (CAT) tools and translation quality assurance software in order to ensure translation quality and consistency.

The LSP may be asked to use the Agency’s existing translated materials to produce glossaries and translation memories. Such material must be in a portable, standard format (e.g. TMX for translation memories) and will remain the property of the Agency.

LSP staff requirements

As far as possible, the LSP should assign the same project management and translation team to all Agency projects. In particular, for each language combination the same translators and revisers should be used for all Agency translations. All translators and revisers must possess an excellent command of English and work into their native language. They must also meet one of the following profile criteria:

  • A university degree or post-graduate qualification in translation and two years of translation experience in the language combination;
  • A university degree and three years of translation experience in the language combination;
  • Five years translation experience in the language combination.

Experience in at least one of the following fields will also be required: education, special needs education, inclusion, European affairs, sociology, or psychology. Membership of a professional translators’ association is desirable.

Contract details and expressions of interest

The contract will begin Autumn 2013 and ends mid-2014, with possibility for renewal. The contract period will cover up to 150 pages of text.

Specific tasks, duties and activities to be carried out by the successful LSP will be negotiated and agreed at the time of the contract being awarded.

LSPs that wish to be considered for this contract should prepare an initial letter expressing their interest, detailing their relevant experience and providing examples of previous work, contact details of two referees / previous clients and a detailed translation and revision quote in euro per page (where one standard page is 1500 characters, excluding spaces). The deadline for receipt of expressions of interest is 10 June 2013.

Formal expressions of interest should be emailed to information-dissemination@european-agency.org by 10 June 2013.

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