About

ViPi survey on ICT training needs for people with disabilities

The ViPi team would like to announce the release of the ViPi user requirement survey. The survey aims to assess:

• the needs of the potential ViPi community;
• the requirements for ICT training;
• what training material is currently available;
• which teaching approaches and methodologies are employed/most successful.

The survey is tailored to people with disabilities and organisations representing them, relatives, carers and trainers of people with disabilities, and also people dealing with the employment of and policy regarding people with disabilities.

While there are a high number of total questions, it will guide you to those parts of the survey which are relevant to you. The survey length varies dependent on your particular interest in the ViPi project, but should not take more than 15 minutes to complete. All personal questions are optional.

The outcomes of this survey will guide the focus of future ViPi project developments, and hence it is a very important part of the project. It is also your opportunity to express your opinions on ICT training for people with disabilities. Please spare the time to complete the survey, and guide ViPi in the direction that will benefit all stakeholders best.

The survey can be found here:

• English
• Dutch
• Greek
• Lithuanian

Many thanks in advance,
The ViPi team.

About

A majority of Europe’s people with disabilities are unemployed (ANED figures state over 60%). There are many reasons for this. Many people with disabilities have advanced skills but suffer significant barriers to employment. This is an important issue which must be addressed. For others, skill acquisition must be facilitated. ViPi aims to support and facilitate the acquisition of basic ICT skills for those people with disabilities who lack them.

ViPi aims to provide a “one-stop-shop” interactive portal & learning environment for ICT skills by delivering:

• a comprehensive multilingual portal, with;
• an embedded multilingual social community (for VET centres, people with disabilities, ICT training centres, etc.), using the latest social media, facilitating interactive information sharing, interoperability, and collaboration, with access to all;
• an accessible (WCAG 2.0) multilingual Web 2.0 enabled online learning environment for ICT for people with disabilities and their trainers, with an interactive and extensive repository of interoperable SCORM compliant learning objects (LOs) that focus on basic ICT literacy to support  the acquisition of core skills by  people with disabilities, in order to facilitate  their entry into or sustain their employment in, the regular labour market; LOs will be enriched with intuitive mobile Java and Flash Lite based mobile and internet/PC based educational/serious games;
• The final outcome will be an entire set of applications and services that will be streamlined via a blended educational and pedagogical framework, making full usage of the interaction possibilities offered by web 2.0, and localised, tested, piloted and subsequently fine-tuned with GR, BE, LT, UK and CY end-user communities.

The platform will equally act as a “one-stop-shop” for trainer organizations to find and contribute LOs that they can integrate in existing learning environments and practices. Using Open Source Software, ViPi platform extensions can be easily integrated.
The ViPi platform will thus be able to support a fully accessible and Open Source based pan-European learning network and community, bringing together key stakeholders and gatekeepers (VET, target groups, umbrella organizations), while offering a vast set of reusable (PC and Mobile) LOs, supported by Web 2.0 social services.