BEYOND COMPETENCIES: NEW CHALLENGES IN A DIGITAL SOCIETY ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- EASIT Training new professional profiles in easy-to-understand audiovisual media services Matamala, Anna Orero, Pilar Oncins, Estel·la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona Departament de Traducció i d’Interpretació I d’Estudis de l’Àsia Oriental Edifici K, 08193 Bellaterra (Barcelona) Anna.matamala / pilar.orero / estel·la.oncins@uab.cat 1. ABSTRACT: EASIT is an Erasmus + project which aims to define new professional profiles in the field of media accessibility that fulfil the societal need to have easier to understand audiovisual content. EASIT has mapped current practices in easy-to-understand language across Europe and has researched how they could be merged with existing access services. EASIT has proposed three innovative professional profiles, has suggested a curriculum to train each of them and has designed open educational components 2. KEYWORDS: 4-6 Audiovisual translation, accessibility, inclusion, audiovisual media, media accessibility Revista CIDUI 2021 ISSN: 2385-6203 1 BEYOND COMPETENCIES: NEW CHALLENGES IN A DIGITAL SOCIETY ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 3. DEVELOPMENT: EASIT (Easy Access of Social Inclusion Training) is an Erasmus + project which aims to define new professional profiles in the field of media accessibility that fulfil the societal need to have audiovisual content and services which are easier to understand by all audiences, regardless of their capabilities. To this end, EASIT investigates how existing audiovisual access services such as audio description, audio subtitling or subtitling could be merged with Easy-to-Read (IFLA 2010, ILSMH 1998, Inclusion Europe 2014, Bredel and Maass 2016) or Plain Language (Bailey 1990, Cutts 1995, Cheek 2010). Easy-to-Read and Plain Language are two approaches which have traditionally focused on facilitating access to the written text. In the project, and also in this paper, we include both Easy-to-Read and Plain Language under the umbrella term of easy-to-understand language. EASIT follows the path of previous educational projects such as Accessible Culture and Training (ACT) (Orero 2017, pagines.uab.cat/act), which focused on accessibility for the scenic arts; ADLAB and ADLAB PRO (Perego 2017, adlabpro.eu), which focused on audio description, and existing ones such as Interlingual Live Subtitling for Access (ILSA) (ka2-ilsa.webs.uvigo.es) or Live Text Access (LTA) (ltaproject.eu), both on live subtitling. All these Erasmus + educational projects could be seen as a response to the need to provide content accessible for all. EASIT is a three-year project (2018-2021) led by Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona in which universities (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, SDI München, University of Hildesheim, University of Vigo, University of Trieste), user associations from Sweden and Slovenia (Dyslexiförbundet, Zavod RISA) and broadcasters (RTV Slovenia) take part. There is also a list of external stakeholders and an Advisory Board which give support to the project and participate actively in the many activities the EASIT project organises in the form of “multiplier events”. The first step in the EASIT project was to map the current situation in terms of training and practice in easy-to-understand language across Europe, especially in the countries involved in the EASIT project. 128 participants replied to a survey which provided a snapshot of current experiences and pointed at future developments. The results of this survey can be found on the first report of the project (EASIT 2019a), available in open access on the project website. The survey identifies four categories: trainers, producers/creators/writers, translators/adapters, and validators/advisors. Most experts taking part in the survey state that their main task is to adapt printed and digital content into easy-to-read texts, generally for public administration and education. In terms of educational background, most of them have been trained outside academia or higher education institutions. The questionnaire provides data on the use of current guidelines and recommendations, end user involvement, and the needed skills and competences of future professionals, as well as suggested training activities. Revista CIDUI 2021 ISSN: 2385-6203 2 BEYOND COMPETENCIES: NEW CHALLENGES IN A DIGITAL SOCIETY ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The second step in the project was to analyse how the audiovisual content could be made easier to understand and to produce specific recommendations. It was observed that there is a lack of guidance on how to create easy-to-understand audiovisual content. Four focus groups and 23 interviews were carried out, delving into the following topics: the need for easy-to-understand audiovisual content, the more relevant genres to be made easier to understand, the process of creation of easy-to-understand content, the needed skills of the new expert, and how this new expert should be named, as well as other aspects related to quality assurance. The results of the focus groups and interviews are summarised in the second project report (EASIT 2019b), also available in open access. Overall, data show that there is a need for easy-to-understand subtitles, audio description and audiovisual news content. The third step in EASIT was to define the professional profiles for the new hybrid services in audiovisual media. Based on the results from the previous stages in the project, three professional profiles were defined: a) expert in easy-to-understand subtitles, b) expert in easy-to-understand audio description, and c) expert in easy-to-understand audiovisual journalism. For each of these profiles a list of skills was identified and structured in a skills card. The skills card for the three profiles shared some content, namely: a unit on media accessibility, a unit on easy-to-understand language, and a unit on professional aspect. Additionally, each skills card had a specific unit related to each profile. The elements included for each unit are the following: • Unit 1. Media accessibility. o Element 1. Human diversity. o Element 2. What is accessibility? o Element 3. What is universal design? o Element 4. Media accessibility services. • Unit 2. Easy-to-Understand o Element 1. Understanding Easy-to-understand. o Element 2. Legislation, standards and guidelines. o Element 3. Processes. o Element 4. The language of Easy-to-understand. o Element 5. Visual presentation. • Unit 3. Easy-to-Understand (and subtitling/audio description/audiovisual journalism) o Element 1. Processes. o Element 2. Linguistic aspects. o Element 3. Technical aspects. • Unit 4. The profession o Personal skills. o Interpersonal skills. Revista CIDUI 2021 ISSN: 2385-6203 3 BEYOND COMPETENCIES: NEW CHALLENGES IN A DIGITAL SOCIETY ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The report and the skills card are available open access on the project website: pagines.uab.cat/easit. Based on these skills cards, EASIT took a fourth step in the project and produced two very different curriculum proposals: on the one hand, a university proposal and, on the other hand, a proposal for a vocational course to be offered as a massive open online course (MOOC). The suggested university course is a six-month programme with 30 ECTS that can be easily integrated in a longer postgraduate programme or can be offered as a stand-alone course. Following the structure of the skills card, this university course includes: • a 9 ECTS module on media accessibility, • a 9 ECTS module on easy-to-understand language, • a 9 ECTS module on each of the specific topics identified in the project (easy-to- understand subtitles, easy-to-understand audio description or easy-to-understand audiovisual journalism), and • a 3 ECTS module on the profession. This university course can be seen as a well-grounded proposal with a high degree of flexibility so that it can be easily adapted to different university systems across Europe. As for the MOOC, it has been planned as a general introduction to the topic. It is a vocational programme that can be a first step in training future professionals or in expanding the knowledge of media accessibility experts in other fields. The suggested structure includes 5 units to be developed in 7 weeks, as indicated next: • Unit 0. General introduction to MOOC. Week 1. 1 hour. • Unit 1a. General introduction to accessibility. Week 1. 1-3 hours. • Unit 1b. Media accessibility. Week 2. 2-4 hours. • Unit 2a. General introduction to easy-to-understand language. Week 3. 2-4 hours. • Unit 2b. Processes and visual presentation of easy-to-understand language. Week 4. 2-4 hours. • Unit 3. Specialisation: easy-to-understand subtitles, easy-to-understand audio description, easy-to-understand journalism. Week 4. 2-4 hours each specialisation. • Unit 4. The profession. Week 6. 2-4 hours. • Unit 5. Final assignment. Week 7. 2 hours. The next stage in the EASIT project has been the design and development of educational materials which will be available open access in 2021 on the project website. The educational materials will also be available on UAB’s open access repository (DDD, Dipòsit Digital de Documents), to guarantee the project sustainability. The typology of content the EASIT partners are creating is the following: Revista CIDUI 2021 ISSN: 2385-6203 4 BEYOND COMPETENCIES: NEW CHALLENGES IN A DIGITAL SOCIETY ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- • Video lectures: short videos based on a slide presentation by a lecturer. Video lectures summarise central topics. Apart from offering access to the slide-based video lecture, EASIT will offer access to the slides only, to a video transcript, to subtitles and to a podcast with audio only, to cater for a wide range of needs. The fact that the slides are available for download will allow prospective trainers to adapt these materials to their needs. • Other videos: these are videos with a diverse format, including interviews and samples. For example, if a video lecture discusses easy-to-understand audio descriptions for museums, another video can actually provide examples of existing audio descriptions. • Reading lists, with suggested references, organised per units and with online links for easier access where possible. • A list of suggested tasks for lecturers willing to use the materials in their course. • Additional materials considered complementary, such as links to materials from other projects, websites, etc. • A training guide, giving suggestions to lecturers who want to integrate these materials in different types of courses. In terms of topics, the content has been organised following the skills card in IO3, already presented in this article. These educational materials can be used in different situations: they can be used as a whole course or they can be used partially in already existing courses, they can be used as supporting material for both face-to-face and online classes, and they can even be used as self-learning. The aim of EASIT is to offer flexible content that can be integrated in many educational environments. It should be highlighted that all along the project certification procedures have also been taken into account, to make sure the proposal made within the EASIT project can be later adapted and implemented in different settings. To this end we have followed recognised procedures such as those of ECQA but have also paid attention to specific national requirements both in academic and vocational environments. All in all, EASIT is putting forward the need to have professionals who are able to produce audiovisual media access services using an easy-to-understand approach. To that end, the project has defined new professional profiles, has produced skills cards for each of the profiles and has generated training proposals in different environments. The project is currently generating open access training materials to be freely used by anyone, while discussing certification processes. More information can be found on the project website: pagines.uab.cat/easit. Revista CIDUI 2021 ISSN: 2385-6203 5 BEYOND COMPETENCIES: NEW CHALLENGES IN A DIGITAL SOCIETY ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Acknowledgements The project EASIT has received funding from the Erasmus + Programme of the EU under the call Strategic partnerships for higher education, grant agreement No 2018-1-ES01-KA203-05275. The European Commission support for the production of this article does not constitute an endorsement of the contents, and the Commission cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein. TransMedia Catalonia (2017SGR113) is funded by the Catalan government. 4. REFERENCES Bailey, E. P. (1990). The Plain English approach to business writing. Oxford: OUP. Bredel, U.& Maaß, Ch. (2016). Leichte Sprache. Theoretische Grundlagen, Orientierung für die Praxis. Berlin: Duden. Cheek, A. (2010). Defining plain language, Clarity, 64, 5-15. Cutts, M. (1995). The Plain English Guide. Oxford: OUP. EASIT (2019a). EASIT IO1 report [02.11.2019]. EASIT (2019b). EASIT IO2 report [02.11.2019]. EASIT (2019c). EASIT IO3 report [02.11.2019]. IFLA (2010). Guidelines for easy-to-read materials [02.11.2019]. ILSMH European Association (1998). 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