The normalization of people with disabilities is an objective assumed by all countries signing the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Education should encourage present and future citizens accept the commitments, principles and values of the Convention. The project Mobiablity is in the frame of this horizontal priority.One of the areas less standardized in the lives of people with disabilities is international mobility in general and, in particular, international mobility during university studies (see e.g. "The European Higher Education Area in 2015: Implementation Report Bologna Process" , or the low mobility rates in Spain, i.e.the average of the last 5 years is 15 people per year), despite the reinforcement of active policies in this field (e.g., increasing direct financial support to the group; promoting actions between institutions such as the Conference on Special Needs, organized by the SEPIE in 2015).Among the possible causes of the low rate of European mobility of persons with disabilities, experts agree that one of the main reason is the lack of a common position or standard on key curricular adaptations to performed that should be accepted by the participating countries. These should be assumed as measures of accessibility and reasonable adjustments which have to be guaranteed in order to promote equal opportunities for any student with disabilities interested in international mobility.This project aims to advance and innovate in this aspect. The main objective is the development of a European transnational standard of measures and reasonable adjustments at academic level for students with disabilities in international mobility as well as an online and multilingual platform that hosts a catalog of institutions reaching this standard. The platform will also serve as an effective communication tool for the exchange and setting of common curricular adaptations that universities should implement for mobility students.To achieve these objectives, a number of methods of research and study will be considered by all members in the consortium. First year of the project is to perform a diagnostic analysis of the situation, by reading and analyzing literature (reports, books, legislation, etc.) as well as by consulting academic and social entities through a survey. During the second year the standard of basic measures of attention to diversity that must be guaranteed by the university institutions will be outlined. Furthermore, a protocol for efficient and transnational communication between the specialized units of universities will be proposed. To this end, the obtention of information from institutions and groups will be extended through surveys and focus group analysis (responsible academics, social entities, students with disabilities, technical assistance units on disability, etc.). Finally, the third year, the online platform will be implemented. This platform will house the standard of basic measures, a catalog of universities meeting this standard, and an efficient and multilingual communication protocol between attention to diversity units. In addition, virtual and face-to-face meetings of the working group will be carried out, apart from controls and monitoring quality and compliance objectives, and disseminating actions on partial and final results will be scheduled.The consortium is made up of an international academic part (4 universities from 4 European countries, all with extensive prior experience in international mobility and attention to diversity) and other civil and social part (3 entities leaders in the national and international field of defense and exercise of the rights of persons with disabilities). This academic and social alliance is a necessary condition in order to achieve sustainable and widely accepted results, obtained from the different experiences, visions and expectations of all groups involved in the area (people with disabilities, associations, academics responsible at universities, technical staff, policy entities, etc.).A high direct and indirect impact of the results is expected, with an international scope and a large number and diversity of people and organizations concerned. In fact, it is intended that the intellectual products, as well as being freely available to all citizens, will be analyzed and taken as their own by regulatory agencies or organisms involved in the EHEA, in international mobility and in the rights of persons with disabilities.
Participation of people with special needs in the field of international mobility, and in particular at university level is one of the areas with a lowest participation ratio. Some reasons could be the lack of specific information on the support measures offered by the host university, as well as no personalized follow-up of cases where the stay was not completed or was unsatisfactory. In an effort to solve these problems, the Mobiability project has developed two resources. The project consortium consists of seven institutions (four universities and three social entities) from four European countries. These resources are: 1)A “Standard of support measures for Erasmus + students with special needs”. That is a pan-European standard of reasonable measures and adjustments in the university academic field of international mobility for students with disabilities and / or difficulties in learning. It has been prepared based on the combination of three types of studies: a) a legal one, with a legal analysis of the national regulations regarding disability in the field of higher education in 21 states (together they represent more than 95% of the Erasmus + students - in general - and 98% with disabilities), b) another empirical, consisting in the collection, through a detailed and exhaustive online survey, of the measures, reasonable adjustments and support services that European universities are currently offering to international students in terms of attention to diversity (N = 31); and a survey of experts, which has complemented the information from previous studies. Thus, on this triple basis, 213 minimum measures and 29 recommendations for supporting students with special educational needs are proposed, structured by areas of application (access and admission, physical accessibility, technological and information accessibility, teaching-learning process, etc. ) promotion of participation, scholarships and grants, internal processes of support services, and evaluation of the mobility program by students) and by type of disability (physical and organic, psychosocial, visual, auditory, deafblindness, intellectual and learning difficulties). The Standard has been evaluated by a focus group and is published in open and accessible format (https://www.um.es/mobiability/es/resultados/estandar-medidas-apoyo/). The Standard is expected to become a reference for universities, staff involved in the Erasmus + programme and associations and students with special needs, among other groups. 2) The second result of the project is the “MobiAbility web platform” (www.mobiability.eu) located on the servers of the University of Murcia (UMU). This platform contains specific information on the disability support measures offered by the universities registered in the system. In addition, tools are offered to make easy to students with special needs the participation in mobility programmes. In particular, the platform provides the following tools: a) university search engine best suited to the academic and special needs of the students; b) communication protocol between the interlocutors (universities and students) for the acceptance of the student at the host university with the commitment to meet their special needs; c) facilitate the elaboration of a detailed memorandum of the resources and actions to be activated to meet the needs of the student; and d) an evaluation procedure by the students of their experience and / or, where necessary, the detection of incidences. The design of the platform was evaluated by a representative focus group of the final recipients. It has been programmed with MySQL databases in SQL language, JavaScript script language and PHP programming language, for viewing in HTML and CCS. On the other hand, the platform has been audited and reaches AA level accessibility standards (WCAG 2.0), and complies with the European directive on personal data protection. The first year of operation will be a pilot Project with users and real cases with the aim of testing the platform before opening it to the public. It is expected that it can be a reference portal for students with special needs and for the staff of the universities involved. In short, it is expected that these two tools serve to homogenize the European procedures and standards of attention to university students who perform academic mobility. And that this, in turn, supposes an increase in the participation of this group in the Erasmus + Programme.