A key aspect of the project was to define skills and competences of the manager profile, beginning by its denomination. This was also the basis for the curriculum development in IO3. Two different but complementary profiles were developed in this project, namely:
1) Accessibility Coordinator, and
2) Accessibly Manager.
During this intelectual output, all partners worked together and designed two skills cards defining the two job roles respectively. The skills cards for an Accessibility Coordinator can be found here and the skills cards for an Accessibility Manager here.
Accessibility Coordinators are those who work at a venue and take care of all accessibility needs for successful integration of all people to access culture. Meanwhile, Accessibility Managers are those who are in charge of cultural event management with a focus on accessibility. However, they are not based in any venues, such as a theatre. An accessibility manager may be in charge of coordinating accessibility at various venues within his or her local district. This work will involve collaborating with accessibility coordinators at individual venues where such a role exists. If there is no accessibility coordinator for any given individual venues (such as in smaller venues), the accessibility manager will oversee accessibility across these venues. They shall have basic knowledge on accessibility and are able to decide accessibility policies or adequacy when choosing venues or productions.
The two job roles share a lot of similarities in the basic skills. IO2 identified the major skills required in the perspectives of understanding accessibility, venue accessibility, accessibility services, accessibility management for live events, and promoting accessibility. The main distinction between the two functions resides in the context within which the two specialists operate. The accessibility manager must, in fact, have an additional skill: be flexible and be able to transfer his knowledge and competences to different environments. This applies to his/her material skills (i.e. related to the venue) and to his/her interpersonal skills. This explains the rather limited number of differences between the two skill cards.
The skills cards were created by all partners over a period of 6 months. Each partners contributed to the final outcome based on their specialities.
The final outcome was developed after 6 rounds of feedback from all partners, the timeline of which can be seen as below:
• 30 June 2016: the 1st draft was composed by University of Vienna, the IO leader and sent off to all partners for feedback.
• 22 August 2016: the 2nd draft was circulated by University of Vienna to all partners for further considerations.
• 23 September 2016: the 3rd draft was sent off by University of Vienna to all partners for suggestions.
• 17 October 2016: the 3rd draft was discussed by all partner at the project meeting in Vienna
• 11 November 2016: the 4th draft was circulated by University of Vienna to all partners for suggestions
• 07 December 2016: the 5th draft was circulated by University of Vienna to all partners for considerations
• 14 December 2016: the 6th and final draft was circulated by University of Vienna to all partners to validate
• 20 December 2016: the final draft was validated by all partners
The 3rd version of the skills cards was presented by University of Vienna on 4 November 2016 at Languages & Media, the 11th International Conference on Language Transfer in Audiovisual Media in Berlin, the PPTs and information can be found here.