This is the first virtual meeting.
Agenda to be discussed but could include:

• Welcome
• Work packages:
  1. Early selection of participants and stakeholders known to HMC with collaboration from the Mada AAC forum as user participation was cited as a plus in comments from reviewers.
  2. Discuss the need for an advisory group and if so – who?
  3. Discuss need for systems to support the research and development phases as well as the actual Arabic Symbol Dictionary – Do we need a forum, blogs, a wiki and other social networking sites plus a dedicated website for the dictionary?
  4. Making Symbol Choices – Further research into available symbols sets to assess suitability, availability and development prospects – so far we only have three free choices and even these will need adaptations.
  5. Core vocabulary – select words that can be shown in each symbol set chosen as possibly being suitable for use by Arabic AAC and other symbol users. Prepare selections for participants as a series of the symbols representing similar concepts via an online portal and in print format.
  6. Gather a group of participants (AAC users, carers and stakeholders) to observe choices of symbols.  Discuss outcomes with the team and if possible have the results available as an online voting system so that we can clearly show which symbol set was the best for the users.
  7. Symbol systems ranked in order of preference with particular reference to symbols that have proved to be inappropriate – mini report of outcome.
  8. Decisions around the development of a Gulf Arabic Core Vocabulary for AAC users – how this will be achieved so that we can then start to develop the dictionary.
  9. Appointment of additional staff.
  10. AOB.  Date for next meeting.