VISUS methodology

The implementation of VISUS for assessing the safety of learning facilities follows the following phases:
   1. establishment and organization for the project management
   2. adaptation
   3. training
   4. execution of school surveys
   5. elaboration of data and creation of reports
   -. use of the outcomes.

In the establishment phase, preliminary meetings are developed to explain how VISUS works and which are the competencies required for its implementation. This phase leads to the establishment of a Local Committee for the VISUS implementation, with the appointment of a VISUS Focal Point that will lease with the VISUS Steering Committee.

The adaptation phase aims to calibrate the method to the realities of the geographical areas where the assessment will be performed, in terms of typologies of buildings, with the potential inclusion of existent knowledge and studies available for the Country concerning the building structural behaviour; hazard profile, with the identification of the hazard maps to use for the definition of the reference events for the safety evaluations; and definition of the reference costs of construction and refurbishment.

The training purposes are to build local capacities for the self management of school surveys as well as to strengthen local capacities for self-developing the project. The training phase foresees meetings with decision-makers to explain how to use the VISUS outcomes; the training of trainers, that will become experts of VISUS; and the training of the VISUS surveyors, which are usually students of local universities or local technicians.

The survey phase is carried out by the trained VISUS surveyors, who collect the information for each school using the i-VISUS application (in the SPRINT engine ) for doing the surveys, acquiring both information and photos.

The collected information is then the input of the elaboration phase, that calculated the outcomes and prepare the individual and collective reports. This phase is performed by UNESCO-SPRINT experts using automated software.

The outcomes (summary indicators and reports) are available for being used by decision-makers to define the strategies for upgrading school safety, according to criteria and rules that will be established by decision-makers also considering the outcomes.
The VISUS outcomes are a set of indicators for supporting decision-makers in the definition of safety upgrading strategies. They are presented in a collective report with the outcomes for the entire analysed geographical area, and individual reports illustrating the situation of each of the inspected school.

When administrators of a province/region/country express their interest in implementing VISUS, the following process should be applied. A local representative has to contact either UNESCO or the SPRINT-Lab at the University of Udine (Italy). A first meeting will be organized in order to quickly illustrate the methodology and to explore the different mechanism for its implementation. For the success of the implementation, the involvement of concerned stakeholders (e.g. Ministry of Education, Ministry of Public Works, National Disaster Management Agency, etc.), and local academic partners (such as universities and technical institutes) is fundamental. A local Focal Point with scientific background needs to be identified and appointed.

In close collaboration with UNESCO and SPRINT-Lab, the Focal Point will collect the necessary information for the adaptation phase, organize the different capacity-building activities (training for decision-makers; training for trainees -academicians and training of VISUS surveyors -inspectors from related ministries or national institutions, and/or last year programme students of civil engineering or architecture of local universities), facilitate the planning and development of the survey phase, and, secure the quality of the collected data.