On 27–2805.Riga will host the International Conference on ICT for Information Accessibility in Learning (ICT4IAL). The conference will present guidelines developed over the past two years for the use of ICT in the learning process making the information more accessible, including for people with special needs. Issues covered at the conference correspond to one of the main priorities of the Latvian Presidency of the Council of the EU – Digital Europe.
The guidelines are the main outcome of the ICT4IAL project, which took place for two years and concluded in December 2014. Created as a tool for practitioners and organisations that provide information for learning, the guidelines contain a set of easy-to-follow steps to create accessible materials in text, video and audio formats.
The two-day conference will be opened at 09:00 on 27 May in the Islande Hotel (20 Ķīpsalas ielā), and will bring together experts in the field of education from the European Agency for Special Needs and Inclusive Education (the Agency), NGO representatives and specialists who have developed these guidelines. Held under the Latvian Presidency, the conference is organised by the Agency and is supported by the Latvian Ministry of Education and Science and the Latvian National Centre for Education.
The ICT4IAL project is a multi-disciplinary network formed by the Agency in cooperation with the European Schoolnet, the International Association of Universities, UNESCO, the DAISY Consortium and the Global Initiative of Inclusive ICTs (G3ICT). The project activities began in 2013, and the guidelines have been developed together with the partners and nominated experts from the Agency and partners’ member countries.
At the conference workshops, participants will have the opportunity to acquire and improve skills on how to create accessible materials, how to share these in different formats and how they can improve the accessibility of their existing materials. After the conference, the guidelines will be available on the project website as an open source material.
The Agency is an independent organisation that acts as a collaboration platform for 29 member countries: Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom.