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AD HOC – Accessible and Digitalized Heritage of Culture for Persons 
with Disabilities: a project and its results 
AD HOC – Dostopna in digitalizirana kulturna dediščina 
za osebe s posebnimi potrebami: projekt in njegovi rezultati
Martina Blečić Kavur
University of Primorska, Faculty of Humanities, Slovenia 
martina.blecic.kavur@upr.si
Boris Kavur
University of Primorska, Faculty of Humanities, Slovenia 
boris.kavur@upr.si
99
Management and protection of archaeo-logical heritage nowadays is unthinka-ble without the active participation of 
the general public. Gone are the days when ar-
chaeology was a discipline and technique acces-
sible only to a narrow academic circle and sup-
ported exclusively by national or international 
funding agencies. Archaeology and archaeolog-
ical heritage should be accessible to different 
profiles, including persons with special needs: 
People with visual or hearing impairments 
and people with intellectual disabilities. These 
groups have been largely denied access to their 
archaeological heritage and deprived of the op-
portunity to fully experience their past.
The aim of the project AD HOC – Ac-
cessible and Digitalized Heritage of Culture for 
Persons with Disabilities was to create a strate-
gic partnership in the field of higher education 
to develop and share innovative practices in the 
field of digitization of cultural heritage and its 
accessibility for persons with disabilities. The 
overall goal was to bring archaeological cultur-
al heritage closer to the public, including diverse 
populations, preferably through the creation of a 
website and online courses developed by univer-
sity educators that promote different approach-
es to presenting the topic. The project activities 
made archaeological heritage more visible to the 
general public and popularized conservation sci-
ence. The main work in the project was organ-
ized in the form of 4 Intellectual Outputs – clus-
ters of activities in which partners, contributing 
their specific experience based on their areas of 
expertise, participated in the creation of a com-
mon product.
IO1 – Field and desktop research was in-
tended to define least accessible archaeological 
and cultural heritage in participant countries. It 
was conducted with the purpose to define which 
aspects of the archaeological cultural heritage 
can be digitalized and made accessible to the 
wider population including persons with disa-
bilities. Within this activity, the parameters for 
digitalization of certain types of archaeological 
heritage were set.
IO2 – Digitalization of archaeological her-
itage will prepare the material for the creation of 
a web site used for the promotion and education 
about archaeological heritage. The main goal of 
this activity was the optimization of using mod-
ern technologies and testing possibilities of ma-
nipulation with data in order to present archae-
ological heritage.
IO3 – Accessibility of the digitalized ar-
chaeological heritage through a web site as ad-
aptation of the digitalized archaeological and 
cultural heritage content for students with dis-
abilities focusing on vision and hearing impair-
ments and intellectual disabilities. The main 
goal of the activity was making archaeology and 
cultural heritage more accessible to marginal-
ized groups.
ht t ps://doi .org /10. 26493/2350-54 43.10(1)99-104 © aut hor/aut hors
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IO4 – Creation of online courses for the 
promotion and interpretation of archaeologi-
cal heritage. Developed by university teachers 
of different profiles it was intended for the wid-
er public including persons with disabilities. Ar-
chaeological heritage presented in the form of 
basic concepts and case studies of topics relevant 
for the understanding of human societies in the 
past.
The researchers from the Faculty of Hu-
manities of the University of Primorska, who 
participated in all the activities, invested most of 
their time and experience in the creation of the 
intellectual outputs 3 and 4 of the activities, or-
ganized a learning and training activity (LTTA 
2), multiplier event (ME 4) and the final event 
of the project partners (TM4). They focused on 
the creation of a website, a platform with infor-
mation about what archaeology is about, and on-
line courses proposing how archaeology should 
be presented to the wider public, children, and 
especially people with special needs, creating an 
interwoven network of the content presenting 
archaeological heritage.
The main product of IO 3 was the creation 
of a website that enables learning about the past 
through archaeology. The website is structured 
to represent the past through concepts such as 
living, eating, loving, making war, and dying, 
and includes adapted text that is easily under-
stood by both the public and people with in-
tellectual disabilities. Although archaeological 
sites from all partner countries are presented, 
most of the cases featured are from Slovenia and 
Northern Macedonia. Some of the most inter-
nationally significant but sometimes difficult to 
access sites and finds are presented, such as the 
cave of Divje Babe, the Bronze Age settlements 
of Sodolek and Ormož and the cemetery of Za-
vrč, the Iron Age finds from the cemeteries of 
Brezje, Vače, Novo Mesto and Srednica, the Ro-
man Age tombs from Miklavž and Zagonce, and 
the mediaeval city of Koper and the city walls of 
Piran. The visual design of the site and the nec-
essary preparation of the visual material were 
also adapted to the needs and abilities of the var-
ious users. Supplemented by the created blocks 
and plug-ins that make sign language videos and 
text-to-speech applications easily accessible, it 
offers a number of additional features that make 
it exceptionally transparent and user-friendly.
The final activity of the project, IO 4, was 
the creation of a freely accessible educational 
platform. This platform was created by members 
of the Faculty of Humanities in Moodle pro-
gramme and contains content from the website 
that has been transformed into educational ma-
terial. With its accessibility features, it can easi-
ly be used to introduce archaeology to children 
and the public, as well as to persons with disabil-
ities. The content of the website is presented in a 
visually enriched and textually reduced version 
of PowerPoint presentations, which have been 
translated into all languages of the participating 
countries and into English. Sign language videos 
interpreting key elements of the texts from the 
presentations were also added. The medium al-
lowed us to enrich the content with additional 
videos introducing the sites discussed, as well as 
three-dimensional scans and videos presenting 
the digitized artefacts of these sites.
The April 2022 partners meeting was for the 
Learning Teaching Training Activity (LTTA 2). 
It was organized by the teachers and researchers 
of the Faculty of Humanities and the Faculty of 
Education of the University of Primorska in co-
operation with other project partners. The ac-
tivity had a wide reach as it was attended by nu-
merous members of the University, students, and 
professionals working in various institutions in 
the region. The organized training activity was 
primarily aimed at presenting the development 
and implementation of online curricula in the 
field of cultural and archaeological heritage. In 
order to address the complexity of field-specific 
issues in the presentation of archaeological herit-
age, a broader range of programs was created. It 
included introductions to relevant topics in edu-
cation, tourism, and historic preservation, with 
an emphasis on the potential for adaptations for 
persons with disabilities.
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Participants gained valuable insights into 
the results and experiences of the host partner 
institution, both in the conference and in the 
practical field work. Various previous projects 
and project results related to the research and 
promotion of the cultural heritage of the Uni-
versity of Primorska were presented – starting in 
the city itself and slowly expanding to the sur-
rounding area. Introducing Koper and its herit-
age was just the beginning, the Roman villa in 
Simonov zaliv (bay) was presented as an example 
of an archaeological park with a developed infra-
structure and an organised programme of pres-
entations for the public – with special attention 
to the people with disabilities. We also presented 
the infrastructure and activities of the Centre of 
Excellence InnoRenew CoE in Izola, as well as 
an example of a successful initiative of the Uni-
versity of Primorska, which in cooperation with 
regional and international partners has created 
a modern international research infrastructure. 
From the University led Aquarium to the park 
of freestanding monumental stone sculptures 
Forma Viva in Portorož, on the path of good 
practises was also presented The Rodik Mythical 
Park, as well as the potential of the surrounding 
area such as the Castle of Socerb and the Church 
of the Holy Trinity in Hrastovlje.
The fourth multiplier event (MP 4) of the 
project was included in the European Research-
ers Night, organized at the University during the 
last weekend of September. In the ARTLabora-
tory of the Institute of Archaeology and Herit-
age, 2D and 3D technologies for the digitization 
of archaeological heritage and technologies for 
the preliminary analysis of archaeological finds 
were presented to the public (and especially to re-
gional schools). The inclusion of an internation-
al event allowed us to increase the impact, as the 
organization provided additional promotional 
opportunities for the activities, not to mention 
the numerous visitors to the presentations.
The final event of the project, the Fourth 
Transnational Meeting (TM 4), was again or-
ganized at the Faculty of Humanities of the 
University of Primorska. At this final meeting, 
all participating organizations contributed to 
the visibility and sustainability of the project 
results so far. One of the outcomes of the pro-
ject is the derivation of a framework for the cre-
ation of new approaches to the creation of acces-
sible online materials in the field of cultural and 
archaeological heritage, new curricula for on-
line courses and new open educational resources 
(OER) for people with special needs. The inno-
vative value of the project lies in the accessibility 
of OER and the development of greater compat-
ibility with special technology, easy connection 
to screen readers and speech recognition soft-
ware for the visually impaired. In addition to 
concluding comments, project ideas and future 
collaboration opportunities between the part-
ners were discussed during this meeting.
This issue of Studia Universitatis Hereditati 
is dedicated to presenting challenges we have en-
countered, case studies we have examined, and 
solutions we have proposed.
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