Celovec, DEAFVOC - Conference on Deaf education with a special focus on vocational education MUSEUM SIGN LANGUAGE GUIDE Simona Korez, Tatjana Dolinšek, Boštjan Jug Racio, Human capital development company, ltd.

Programme background  Grundtvig is a part of the European programme Lifelong Learning and is intended for the general education of adults. Its main purpose is to implement the measures and solutions to include as many adults as possible into different formal and informal forms of education.  Equalizent GmbH (Austria) was the project applicant, but there were other partner organisations in the project. Project duration: Project value:

Accessibility problem  Museum activity and exhibitions are not equally accessible to all the visitors.  The existing video guides and projections for the deaf and hard of hearing.  Printed materials, catalogues and exhibition guides are written in expert language, which is too abstract and difficult to understand for most deaf persons.

Project partners  3 partner organisations - Museums  Art Collections of Veste Coburg (DE)  Muzej novejše zgodovine Celje (SI)  Schloss Schönbrunn Kultur und Betriebsges.m.bH (AT)  2 organisations specialised for training and counselling for deaf and hard of hearing persons  Equalizent (AT)  Racio d.o.o. (SI)  Management of knowledge & communication  Nous (AT)  Hardware development  numCAD (DE)  Project coordinator (Finance and Management & EU coordination)  Queraum. cultural- and social research (AT)

Purpose of the project The project Sign Language Guide was intended for the development of a video guide for deaf and hard of hearing persons. Video guide enables deaf and hard of hearing to receive information in a language acceptable for them and serves as a museum exhibition guide.

Material development Preparation of contents for the museum exhibition. Preparation of written notes – story board. Making scripts and live tests with a deaf person. Corrections and preparation of work materials with recording instructions.

Recording and montage of films Recording of video and audio contents. Participation of a sign language interpreter in the filming process from the beginning until the end. Cutting of the video/sound recording – they must be in sync. Quality of picture and sound is crucial.

Preparation of the application Co-creation of the design, preparation of appropriate photos for the background, translation of words and submitting the package to the Austrian partner Nous, which developed the software.

Preparation of the application Programming, transfer of videos to the portable devices.

Testing in the museum Testing included deaf persons of different profiles: high school students, undergraduate students, persons with vocational education, adult deaf persons with and without vocational education, etc. Prior to the testing we gave the users instructions on how to use an iPod touch device. We invited the deaf persons to assess the comprehensibility and usefulness of the museum guide using a questionnaire and an interview.

Results and findings The majority of participants understood the contents of the exhibitions pretty well. They found the menus easy to use after receiving instructions on how to use them. Technical errors found during the testing were noted and fixed as soon as possible. The participants helped to improve the menus with their suggestions. The deaf persons said the guide was a practical, useful, indispensable aid for visiting museum exhibitions.

Final project activities Fixing technical errors. Preparation of practical instructions for the production of video guides in the future. Informing of deaf and hard of hearing on the possibilities offered by the video guide.

Activities after the project is finished Informing and animating the deaf and hard of hearing to visit museums with video guides. Searching for financing possibilities to equip other museums with the video guide. Successful tendering at the invitation to tender by the Ministry of culture with the project Museum in sign language.

Information on the project Project links:  Racio d.o.o. racio.si Tel: /

Beginning of the implementation of the new project Museum in sign language. Purpose of the project: training of unemployed deaf and hard of hearing persons in the field of accessibility of culture, based on the multimedia adaptation of accessibility of the exhibition FOLLOWING THE TRAILS OF THE ANCIENT EMONA – guide through the most famous locations of the ancient city on the territory of today’s Ljubljana, to the understanding of the deaf and hard of hearing persons Duration: – Funding providers: Ministry of Culture of RS, ESF, the applicant’s own resources Activities after the project is finished