D6.5 Dissemination Report: M13 - M20 Revision: 1.2 Authors: Andrew Macfarlane, Lucia Carragher (CASALA) Project co-funded by the European Commission within the ICT Policy Support Programme Dissemination Level P Public C Confidential, only for members of the consortium and the Commission Services DELIVERABLE Project Acronym: DISCOVER Grant Agreement Number: 297268 Project Title: Digital Inclusion Skills for Carers bringing Opportunities Value and Excellence
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Authors: Andrew Macfarlane, Lucia Carragher (CASALA)
Project co-funded by the European Commission within the ICT Policy Support Programme
Dissemination Level
P Public
C Confidential, only for members of the consortium and the Commission Services
DELIVERABLE
Project Acronym: DISCOVER Grant Agreement Number: 297268 Project Title: Digital Inclusion Skills for Carers bringing Opportunities Value and Excellence
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Revision History and Statement of Originality
Revision History
Revision Date Author/s Organisation Description
1.0 2 Dec 2013
Lucia Carragher Andrew Macfarlane
CASALA CASALA
First version completed
1.1 17 Dec 2013 Nikki Spencer BIRM Review & Update of Dissemination Activities
1.2 23 Dec 2013 Nicola Bryant BIRM Final edits and publication
Statement of originality
This deliverable contains original unpublished work except where clearly indicated otherwise. Acknowledgement of previously published material and of the work of others has been made through appropriate citation, quotation or both.
This project is partially funded under the ICT Policy Support Programme (ICT-PSP) as part of the Competitiveness and Innovation Programme by the European Commission (Grant Agreement no. 297268)
Any views or opinions expressed in this publication reflect only the author(s)’s own view. The European Commission is not liable for any use that might be made of the information contained in this publication.
This report details specifically the communication and dissemination activities during Month 13 – Month 20 (30th November 2013) on the DISCOVER project, as part of the responsibilities of WP6. Our dissemination activities include communications between partners and externally to stakeholders and the general public. To date since the start of the DISCOVER project partners have represented DISCOVER at 33 events and in 32 publications during Period 1 (M1-M12) and 8 publications and 43 events during Period 2 up to M20, and this has included four stakeholder engagement events; four DISCOVER recruitment workshops; one national workshop on the application of new technologies in rehabilitation of cognitive impairment; one European workshop with health and social care professionals; and participation in an eChallenges conference in Dublin in October 2013. This conference attracted participation from senior representatives of leading government, industry and research organisations around the world. The work on website content has intensified during Period 2 in preparation for the pilot test-bed stage of the project which will commence in early 2014 and will run throughout 2014. Future dissemination plans for 2014 are also included.
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Dissemination methods
DISCOVER uses the following mechanisms for disseminating project information including information to carers, stakeholders and the general public. Our approach is designed to share information through as many channels as possible, but the DISCOVER website is the primary means of communicating our messages to the public in general. Through our online newsletter, RSS Feed, Facebook and Twitter, we are developing a strong online network for disseminating ongoing information, alerts, and resources to care organisations, and people with a caring role, policy makers, educators, and industry. Our dissemination mechanisms also include the publication of deliverables and updating of the DISCOVER website with regular blogs, videos etc. In addition, as resources permit, we also engage in targeted publicity campaigns linked to recognised events, such as National Carers’ Week, and in workshops, and conferences where possible and where feasible.
Dissemination activities during the period month 13 to month 18
Stakeholder engagements
Four stakeholder engagement workshops, which included a Tele-care and Independent Ageing Workshop attracting academic researchers, service providers, tele-care suppliers, ministers and voluntary organisations, providing extensive networking opportunities.
A number of recruitment workshops were held to support user engagement (e.g. to inform stakeholders about the project) and to test an alpha version of the signed consent form to engage in further testing.
DISCOVER was represented at a national workshop in the GRADIOR Course ‘Neuropsychological Rehabilitation of Cognitive Impairment’ – the application of new technologies in rehabilitation of cognitive impairment.
BIRM hosted a successful Swedish study visit, which brought together project managers from IT Piloterna and IT Lyftet. This provided the opportunity to exchange knowledge, good practice and learning as well as a visit to see two of Birmingham’s Care centres in operation. There was mutual exchange about the use of the Virtual Learning Environments and pedagogy, which provided an insight into how the Swedish project was applying the use of technology in the caring role that could be adopted as part of the DISCOVER work.
DISCOVER was also presented as an example of good practices in e-Health at a European workshop with health and social care professional concerning a Virtual Living Lab developed in the Framework of the e-Resater Project funded by the SUDOE PROGRAM. This program aims to stimulate the development of new health and social approaches based on open innovation (networking, co-production of solutions, and
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adaption of the use of ICT solutions) with the creation of a network of knowledge in the health and social sector.
Papers at scientific conferences
During the month 13 to month 18, DISCOVER was included in the eChallenges Conference in Ireland. This conference promoted applied ICT related knowledge sharing and innovation to exchange experiences at a sectorial, national and regional level and stimulate rapid take-up of RTD results by industry and in particular SMEs, as well as identify opportunities for future international research collaboration under Horizon 2020.
Targeted media and publicity activities
National Carers Week is designed to raise awareness of the important and often unrecognised role carers play in society. DISCOVER launched a publicity campaign entitled ‘Hello Carers’, involving all partner countries during Carers Week in Ireland and the UK (June 2013). This campaign was designed to encourage carers to go onto the DISCOVER website and ‘say hello’ and share their stories (Figure 2).
The DISCOVER4carers online portal was launched in Ireland by the Minister for Disability, Older People, Equality and Mental Health, Kathleen Lynch, on 12th of June 2013 during National Carers Week and during Ireland’s Presidency of the Council of the European Union. The Minister spoke extensively about the important online resource offered by DISCOVER, congratulating everyone involved and added her support to the Hello Carers campaign.
Information activities for stakeholder:
The public website acts as a main catalyst for disseminating DISCOVER activities. During the reporting period month 13 to month 18, a DISCOVER online newsletter has helped to keep stakeholders included in on-the-ground development through our, RSS Feed, Facebook and Twitter channels.
DISCOVER public Website:
The DISCOVER public website (Figure 1) is regularly updated to ensure that carers and stakeholders are aware of project developments, and can access information about the development of the pilot sites as well as all public documents for the project. The address of the public website is http://www.discover4carers.eu/.
Individual partners’ homepages:
All project partners have links to DISCOVER on their specific organisational websites and use the most effective key words to increase the search engine ranking of the DISCOVER homepage.
Website
The DISCOVER public website serves as the primary source of information for carers, stakeholders and the general public. It provides extensive information
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about the DISCOVER project as well as a repository for all public deliverables. It also provides information about the consortium, including contact details for each of the partner organisation and links to their respective websites. All information on the DISCOVER website is updated regularly.
Publications, photos, videos and or presentations can be accessed from http://www.discover4carers.eu/?q=content/library
Public deliverable published by DISCOVER can be found at http://www.discover4carers.eu/?q=content/library.
The DISCOVER platform is accessed through the public facing website. This platform includes the carers section which aims to help carers to gain confidence to join our online carers’ forum and presents a short video clip to help communicate this effectively. The services section provides access to a wide range of information relevant to carers. ScoopIT pages are used to bring together websites that partners consider valuable to carers to support basic digital skills or acquire caring skills. The skills section supports the development of digital skills and care skills learning and makes use of video resources and guides, discrete interactive SCORM compliant multimedia resources and online simulations designed to promote more engaging learning experiences to social networking and e-portfolio creation to support learning and enhance employability.
The Latest News section presents highlights of interesting stories and events at national and European and international levels. It will also be used to highlight upcoming presentations and conferences for DISCOVER etc. The Tweets section offers visitors to DISCOVER the opportunity to comment on the news items or other carer related stories, fostering information sharing and the exchange of ideas. This interactive section of the DISCOVER website provides a useful way for the project partners to engage with stakeholders and to gather followers.
The links section contains a list of key links to other EU initiatives and European networks and will be regularly updated as necessary.
Figure 1, below, shows a screen shot of the DISCOVER public website which contains the following main section:
o Project o Latest News o Library o Links o Carers o Services o Skills
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Figure 1: the DISCOVER public website
Development and maintenance of the DISCOVER project website
Following the EU Review recommendations regarding the localisation and customisation of the public web site, significant development work has been undertaken to create national versions of the website with individual domains. These are managed by each of the test bed partners to support localisation and address different audience needs in the pilot countries.
The plan to replicate the website for each of the test beds was proposed and undertaken by CETEMMSA under the agreement of all involved partners, and proved the best technical solution to solve the problem of the customisation, which is not just about translating the contents but also about ensuring they are suitable for national country audience needs.
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When a user visits the DISCOVER public website (portal), it will recognize the user according to the visitor country and the server will automatically redirect the visitor to the appropriate national site. Through a multisite configuration it is possible to host several sites with the advantage of using the same Drupal engine (which is shared among each of the portals). The difference is that each portal will have its own database, contents and administrators. In this way is not necessary to replicate completely all the websites but each administrator can manage the contents of their own site.
Third level domains have been used to identify each of the DISCOVER national portals:
nl.discover4carers.eu
es.discover4carers.eu
gr.discover4carers.eu
uk.discover4carers.eu The use of third level domains does not require buying new domains, and there is only a need to create the different sub domains that are being used.
Each pilot site country will be responsible for the creation and management of the contents of their local portal with technical service and support being provided by CETEMMSA.
An early priority in the next period is to ensure that the content on the local national sites is developed and refreshed.
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Figure 2: Hello Carer
Table 1: Summary of Dissemination activities
Partner Date Event Coverage Topic Target Group Key Outcomes / Minutes / Text
OU 12/12/2013 advisory
board
meeting
European AKTIVE: Advancing knowledge
of telecare for independence
and vitality in later life.
Academic researchers, service
providers telecare suppliers,
MPs.
advisory board member raising awareness
of DISCOVER
OU 09/10/2013 Conference European eChallenges e-2013 Conference
, Ireland
Academic researchers, service
providers telecare suppliers,
Waights, V., Losada Duran, R., Bamidis, P.
and de Graaf, H.(2013) 'Enhancing e-
Inclusion through development of carers’
digital skills' Paper presentation of
DISCOVER findings Full paper in conference
proceedings
OU 09/10/2013 Article European eChallenges e-2013 Conference
Proceedings, Ireland
Academic researchers, service
providers telecare suppliers,
Waights, V., Losada Duran, R., Bamidis, P.
and de Graaf, H.(2013) 'Enhancing e-
Inclusion through development of carers’
digital skills' Paper presentation of
DISCOVER findings Full paper in conference
proceedings
OU 01/10/2013 Recruitment
Workshop
Local Milton Keynes formal and informal carers 4 carers and 1 older person explored alpha
version and trialled evaluation initial
questionnaires, consent form signed to
engage in further testing
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Partner Date Event Coverage Topic Target Group Key Outcomes / Minutes / Text
BIRM 25/09/2013 Study visit European Swedish/UK Study Visit – Carers
and Digital Skills.
Delegates from Swedish local
municipalities, carer
organizations and carer
representatives attended a two
day study visit with delegates
from Birmingham City Council,
the Open University,
Birmingham City University and
Birmingham Carers Association
Exchange learning from current projects in
UK and Gothenburg and to discuss trialling
DISCOVER in Sweden during 2014.
INTRAS 21/09/2013 Workshop National Oral communication in the