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AVIDICUS 3 (2014-16)

Research Report: AVIDICUS 3 focused on videoconferencing solutions for legal proceedings that involve an interpreter. The project conducted a comprehensive assessment of existing VC solutions in the justice sector across Europe in order to ascertain whether they are suitable for bilingual, interpreted-mediated communication. The research drew on  a series of interviews with different stakeholder groups, site visits to courts, police stations and prisons with VC facilities, observation of VC-based bilingual proceedings and a qualitative analysis of interpreter-mediated court hearings using video links. This report presents the findings of all parts of the study. – Download pdf version

Handbook of Bilingual Videoconferencing: This handbook is designed to be a comprehensive guide to the use of videoconference (VC) in legal proceedings where such proceedings are conducted with the assistance of an interpreter, leading to situations of bilingual (or multilingual) videoconferencing. The handbook applies to the use of VC in judicial and law enforcement proceedings at national level and to cases of mutual legal assistance, which entail cross-border videoconferencing. This guide is designed for policy makers interested in learning more about good practices in order to develop or improve the procedures of procuring and implementing VC at institutional level; legal professionals (e.g. judges, lawyers, prosecutors, court clerks, police officers) using VC in their everyday work at different levels, from organising VCs to handling or chairing them, or even ‘just’ VC participation; legal interpreters wishing to expand their knowledge about VC communication for their continuous professional development; technicians tasked with installing, maintaining and managing VC equipment, setting up and operating VC sessions; and system designers developing VC facilities for the justice sector. The handbook may also serve as a resource for eliciting guidance for speakers of another language who take part in video links as litigants, witnesses, victims, accused persons, suspects or defendants and require the assistance of an interpreter. – Download pdf version

AVIDICUS 2 (2011-13)

Research report: As a follow-up to the AVIDICUS 1 Project, AVIDICUS 2 sought to expand the initial research into videoconference-based interpreting that was conducted in the earlier project with the broad aim of enhancing and refining the initial insights intohow the combination of videoconferencing and interpreting affects the specific goals of legal communication; how problems arising can be overcome or mitigated; the role that system design, training and familiarisation can play in this process; the guidance that users need to optimise videoconference-based and interpreter-mediated communication in legal proceedings. This report provides the context in which this research took place and describe the specific research objectives. It then reports the main results and outlines the conclusions to be drawn. – Download pdf version

Workshop Report: One of the aims of AVIDICUS 2 was to disseminate the knowledge about videoconference-based interpreting in criminal proceedings gained in AVIDICUS 1 and the guidelines and recommendations developed in AVIDICUS 1. A related aim was then to develop the training further into a joint training module for legal practitioners and legal interpreters. The first of these aims was achieved by organising a series of European training workshops on videoconference-based interpreting in legal settings targeted at legal practitioners and legal interpreters, and by giving presentations about videoconference-based interpreting at the four European TRAFUT workshops for legal practitioners. The feedback from these workshops and events and the additional insights gained through the research conducted in AVIDICUS 2 were used to achieve the second aim, i.e. to develop a training module on video-mediated interpreting in legal proceedings that addresses the information and practice needs of legal practitioners and interpreters alike and by piloting this module in two joint training workshops. This report focuses on the workshops and events that were organised. The report is divided into three sections. Section 1 is devoted to the workshops for legal practitioners and legal interpreters which were based on the training modules developed in AVIDICUS 1. Each workshop report first outlines the basic parameters such as workshop location, date and participants, and then describes the main aims, the key content and materials used, before giving a summary of the discussion, which always took an important place on the agenda, and providing an evaluation of the workshop based on the participants’ feedback and/or the observations of the AVIDICUS partners who coordinated the workshop. – Download pdf version

AVIDICUS 1 (2008-11)

For information on the results of the AVIDICUS1 project, see the book page.