Community Informatics and Geographic Community Development

Tamara Barker

Drexel University INFO-782-900 Winter 2010 Instructor: M. Carl Drott

Community Informatics and Geographic Community Development INFO 782-900 Tamara Barker Winter 2010

Abstract

Do information and communications systems have a role in geographic community development or is their use being over-sold by sociologists and non-governmental organizations? This paper explores current uses of community informatics, their impacts on the geographic communities to which their usage is applied, various perspectives on the systems used, and design and implementation policies surrounding their use. Research findings indicate that successful implementation is possible but also reveal many challenges to community informatics application. Cooperation between volunteer groups, social agencies, governments and other concerned parties is important to ensuring community informatics success.

Introduction

In the most basic sense of the word, a community is defined as “a social group of any size whose members reside in a specific locality, share government, and often have a common cultural and historical heritage” (Community). Yet, there is more to a community than simply their shared location and heritage. From a social viewpoint, community includes people’s interactions with each other, their sense of belonging, and their common goals. For many years now, groups that regularly work together to enable geographic community development have sought to enable community members in meeting their common goals and bringing about improvements to communities by incorporating community information and communications technologies (ICTs) into their development toolset. This use of ICTs to advance the economic and social status of geographic communities has become known by academics during the last decade as “community informatics”, although the field of practice is more mature. Community informatics has been described as:

“… a technology strategy or discipline which links economic and social development efforts at the community level with emerging opportunities in such areas as electronic commerce, community and civic networks and telecentres, electronic democracy and on-line participation, self-help and virtual health communities, advocacy, cultural enhancement, and others” (Pitkin, 2001, p. 1).

Many advocates of community informatics feel that by developing community ICTs (C- ICTs) they are improving the lives of all members of the community and providing the underprivileged members of the community, or underprivileged communities themselves, the information and communications tools they need in order to be as successful as the more privileged members or communities. Some researchers, however, feel that even in helping the underprivileged narrow the so-called “digital divide” – the gap between those who have access to ICTs and the World Wide Web and

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those who do not – the elite are really the class that is being helped. In addition, those who practice community informatics grapple with educating those people who believe that technology equals information and do not understand the call for needs assessments to determine just what C-ICTs are required and how best to implement them (Stoecker, 2005, p. 17).

The Impact of ICTs on Work within Communities

The goal of community informatics is simple enough: enable all members of a community through access to information. In practice, though, the challenge is much more complex. The needs of each individual and, in fact, each community are different.

During emergencies - global (consider 9/11/2001 and the impact to foreign travelers and Canadian air traffic controllers of the USA closing its airspace), national (consider the UK epidemic of Foot and Mouth Disease in 2001), or local (consider earthquakes, floods, natural gas leaks, or major police activities) - communities need a way to relate crucial information to their members.

During the 9/11 crisis, Canada closed their own airspace to all but incoming international flights plus outgoing police, military and humanitarian flights. Their air traffic controllers then used their ICTs, including both high-tech radar systems and low- tech flight management boards, to coordinate the over 200 international flights that came in at a rate of one to two planes per minute. As the planes landed and frightened and confused passengers disembarked, airports and their regional cities coordinated processing of the passengers and emergency shelter and provisions. Without ICTs, planes may have crashed due to so many being so close to each other in the effort to land all of them. And without internet access and ICTs, friends and relatives of those on the diverted planes wouldn’t have known where their loved ones ended up or if their planes had crashed, and Canadian community efforts to assist the displaced travelers would not have been as successful as they were (Operation Yellow Ribbon).

During the 2001 UK epidemic of Foot and Mouth Disease, farmers in rural communities suffered from a lack of information as well as from the effects of the disease on their cattle. This has been cited as one of the main reasons for the large scale to which the outbreak progressed. Communities, and farmers in particular, had difficulties planning their own strategies because they lacked information about the UK government’s strategy or had conflicting information about the disease and its management. Additionally, farmers who suspected their cattle were suffering from the disease were told to post keep-out signs and essentially isolate themselves from the community, which led to further lack of information due to lack of internet access in most rural areas. One successful C-ICT implementation during the epidemic was the Pentalk Network, established in the UK community of Cumbria to provide the isolated farmers in that community with computers and training on how to access information online regarding the disease and the government’s response. This also provided the participating farmers with communications access to other farmers and to the outside world,

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providing them with much-needed personal interaction and the ability to coordinate their strategies among their communities even though they could not physically gather to discuss the issues. Ultimately, the Pentalk Network also led to a greater sense of community among its users as they realized the benefits of sharing information online (Hagar, 2004).

During local emergencies, communities with ICTs and internet access use these technologies to disseminate information regarding the emergency and recovery tactics, to enable volunteer mobilization, to provide evacuee services, and to provide community members with a way to notify each other of their location and safety. Often, grass-roots organizations establish such emergency C-ICTs before the local government does, due partly to the bureaucratic red-tape involved for governments and partly to the fact that local governments are fixated at the time – rightfully so, in my opinion - on dealing with the crisis at hand, rather than establishing information and communication networks. This can lead to conflicts between the volunteers and the governmental bodies and emphasizes the need for disaster plans which include the development of C-ICTs before the disaster need arises and the coordinated use of such C-ICTs by the government and community organizations during a disaster (Shankar, 2008).

As mentioned previously regarding the use of C-ICTs by rural farmers in Cumbria UK, properly planned and implemented C-ICTs can successfully be used by communities beyond their use during emergencies. Community ICTs have been developed to assist communities in creating community memory – “the collective representation of past events and experiences that leave traces in the appearance of the built environment and contribute to a shared socio-cultural understanding of residents in a given locale” (Klaebe & Foth, 2006, p. 2). In developing countries, and especially the rural areas of those countries, C-ICTs are often accessed through Telecentres, which are public access facilities, much like internet cafés, developed to support technology needs and provide technology services such as training on computer use and online information research. Often, such C-ICTs are focused on information such as weather or market conditions and other information of immediate concern to rural areas and developing countries (Gurstein, 2001). Access to e-commerce provides communities with opportunities to expand their purchase power and compete globally with sales of their own products, and online education and training affords communities with opportunities to educate members in a range of information that pertains to their community and will help community members improve their particular production needs, such as learning new farming techniques (Gurstein, 2001).

Simply using C-ICTs to find work opportunities, health information, government services, or manage personal finances can make a major impact on citizens’ lives. Consider the pilot project in Edinburgh, Scotland named “Getting Connected”. The project was designed to assist elderly residents in engaging in civic activities and the democratic process within their community via C-ICTs. In particular, several care homes were able to connect electronically to their Local Development Council meetings via

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web cams, enabling them to not just watch but actually participate in the meetings even though they were unable to physically attend (Malina & Ball, 2005, p. 75).

One interesting and different study regarding C-ICTs and their effects on the community to which they are applied is that by Claire Bure, of the University of Edinburgh Science and Technology Studies department. Bure (2005) studied homeless people in central Scotland and their use of mobile phones and the internet to gather information and communicate with others. Often, homeless individuals in Edinburgh and Glasgow access the internet at homes of family or friends or at one of a few free public access locations, but there is also a free internet café in Glasgow that was created specifically for, and at the request of, the homeless (Bure, 2005, p. 119). Mobile phones are used far more than internet services by the homeless community in central Scotland. Some of the uses of mobile phones are for darker uses. For those who use drugs, the phones are effective tools for locating and purchasing the drugs or they can be traded in return for drugs. They also provide those performing criminal acts with a method to communicate and warn each other of potential police activity (Bure, 2005, p. 120). The more beneficial effects of mobile phone and internet use by homeless persons include enabling the homeless to communicate with family and friends, social services and employers; providing a greater sense of connection in an unconnected society and a greater sense of security that others are as close as a phone call; and providing a valuable tool in their attempt to overcome their homelessness by providing them with access to information (Bure, 2005, pp. 121 - 122). Bure’s (2005, p. 122) research led her to the conclusion that “social inclusion and digital inclusion are not synonymous concepts” and that ICTs are more likely to facilitate homeless persons’ inclusion within their own subculture rather than society at large. However, she also notes that for those who choose to work at stabilizing their life, ICTs provide critical access to communication and information.

The Design of ICTs for Community Development

Community ICTs are not created in a vacuum and there are many perspectives to be considered when developing them:

Governments: In return for public funding to develop C-ICTs, governments want some control over the design and use of the C-ICTs. Community ICTs also need to be coordinated with local governments to ensure that local policies and resources support the C-ICTs (Goodwin, 2007, pp. 197 - 198).

Non-Governmental Organizations: These are generally the groups initiating the C-ICT projects. Their perspectives, based upon their research and their other project experiences, will most certainly be important to the project.

Citizens: These are the most important perspectives to consider, as the C-ICTs are being designed to assist them with their information needs. “Citizen autonomy and citizen-oriented decision-making” conflict with the control needs of the local government

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(Goodwin, 2007, pp. 197 - 198). Other than autonomy and decision-making, the understanding of what citizens actually need in terms of information and ICTs is not well understood and depends upon the individuals and communities under consideration for each C-ICT (Stoecker, 2005, p. 20).

Elites: The development of C-ICTs to help the disadvantaged may inadvertently function to serve elites by appeasing the disadvantaged and providing the appearance of including them in community decisions, as well as providing elites with a “we tried but it’s their own fault” argument if the C-ICTs do not actually improve the lives of those for whom they were created (Stoecker, 2005, p. 19).

Academics: Careers are built and research grants awarded around studying community informatics. Academic experts believe they know what is best and attempt to lead C-ICT projects. This can lead to a disconnect between what communities really need and what the academic experts think the communities need (Stoecker, 2005, p. 20).

Community Workers: The second most important perspectives to be considered, as they support the C-ICTs and the community members using them. Their known needs may include training the trainers, but otherwise how the workers’ viewpoints and needs should be incorporated into designing C-ICTs has been studied little (Stoecker, 2005, p. 20).

Unions: In Scandinavian countries, unions are involved in ICT development projects because of the ways the system can change the work and working conditions of the employees the unions represent (Benjamin & Eriksson, 2001, p. 199)

The above list of stakeholders is not purported to be comprehensive, for each C-ICT project will have its own list of stakeholders. As Bill Pitkin (2001) states, “Just when [project leaders] think that they have included all necessary “stakeholders” in the design and implementation of their project, they should ask themselves what interests may still not be represented”. In addition to stakeholder considerations, it is important to remember that the design of C-ICTs is less about the technologies used and more about how the technologies support the information needs of the stakeholders. Unless community members are able to, and are taught how to, access content that is pertinent to their needs, simply providing internet access or access to specific ICTs does not ensure that the needs of a community are met and that the community’s development will be enhanced by such access (Klaebe & Foth, 2006, pp. 4,8).

Throughout my research, two somewhat complementary design approaches were prevalent. The first approach is that of “effective use”. Michael Gurstein (2003) defines effective use as “The capacity and opportunity to successfully integrate ICTs into the accomplishment of self or collaboratively identified goals”. He goes on to describe the effective use approach as including the following design decisions:

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1. Carriage facilities – What is the telecommunications infrastructure need for the ICT under consideration? 2. Input/output devices – What input/output devices, such as computers and printers, will be needed to meet the purpose of the ICT under consideration? 3. Tools and supports – Are there software, textbooks or other support components necessary for effective use of the ICT by its intended community? 4. Content services – What content is needed and what are the usability and environmental requirements of the community the ICT is intended to support? 5. Service access/provision – What social and organizational support is needed to ensure effective use of the ICT by its intended users? 6. Social facilitation – What local services, including local leadership, are needed to facilitate and support the ICT and its users? 7. Governance – What financing, legal, and political support is needed to either manage the ICT or facilitate its implementation?

The second design approach is that of participatory design. The basic tenet of this approach is that it is both morally and pragmatically desirable for the end-users of the C-ICTs to be fully engaged in the design of the system that is being developed to support their information and communication needs in order to boost the odds of success (Carroll & Rosson, 2007, p. 243). Because all affected stakeholders are involved in every step of the design and implementation process, much collaboration is required to address the concerns of each stakeholder group and ensure that all affected parties’ needs are acceptably met by the C-ICT. An example of the successful use of participatory design in community informatics is the case of the Blacksburg Electronic Village, which was developed in the early 1990s. It started with collaboration by Virginia Tech, Bell Atlantic, and the Blacksburg town government, but evolved first to involving the community members and organizations in its development and content and then ultimately to ownership and control by the community when Virginia Tech and Bell Atlantic left the project (Carroll & Rosson, 2007, p. 248). Since they were involved almost since the beginning of the project, the community members were able to develop the Blacksburg Electronic Village to meet their needs, rather than having a particular technology or irrelevant information forced on them.

Carroll & Rosson (2007, pp. 250 - 256) identify the following high-level activities for community informatics projects:

1. Identify IT needs – Identifying not just the technology, but also the information content. 2. Organize for IT change – Coordinating the implementation effort among all stakeholders. 3. Learn new IT skills – Identifying and making use of available resources to train the project’s staff on the technology skills needed to implement the project and to be able to train the community members. 4. Create and sustain intrinsic motivation – Engaging community members in the ongoing support of the C-ICT.

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They also point out the competing needs of community informatics projects - direct participation, which is time-consuming, and the limited resources available by community groups to apply toward project development – and suggest that using the participatory design approach helps balance the struggle between the two sides (Carroll & Rosson, 2007, pp. 250 - 251).

While incorporating different techniques, both the effective use approach and the participatory design approach focus on the direct involvement of all stakeholders in all stages of development of C-ICTs to ensure both the information and the technology needs of the end-users are met. Both approaches can ensure that the “magic bullet theory” – the theory that “IT changes people and organizations by empowering them to do things they couldn’t do before and by preventing them from working in old, unproductive ways. I am an agent of change because I initiate, design, or build a powerful technology. When people use my systems, desirable organization changes result. (Markus & Benjamin, 1997, p. 57)” - does not lead community informatics project teams to develop C-ICTs that may ultimately be useless or do more harm than good for the community.

ICT Policy for Community Informatics

Much has been written about the “digital divide” – the gap between those who have access to ICTs and the World Wide Web and those who do not – by academics, social researchers and the news media. It is of great concern to many, hopefully most, citizens in developed countries, that there are communities within their own country, and entire countries themselves, for which basic access to information is not available. However, as mentioned previously in this paper, those who consider bridging the digital divide as merely providing internet access, or even access to a C-ICT, are doing a disservice to those they seek to empower. Michael Gurstein (2003) argues that providing internet access alone merely provides community members with the opportunity to shop online for internet-based services or goods, which in terms of community informatics does little to benefit the local community socially. He states that, “What is significant is having access and then with that access having the knowledge, skills, and supportive organizational and social structures to make effective use of that access and that e-technology to enable social and community objectives” (Gurstein, 2003).

As discussed regarding the design of C-ICTs, there are many stakeholders who should be involved in C-ICT projects. In order to ensure that effective C-ICT projects are developed, policies need to be in place that ensure open access to information and that C-ICTs are developed with the end-users in mind, not simply in response to political posturing or an “if you build it, they will come” mentality. However, there seems to be lacking a comprehensive policy model for C-ICT project developers to build upon when developing their own projects.

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Design without policies can lead to unsuccessful projects and unintended negative consequences. C-ICTs developed or implemented without effective policies in place to guide the design or implementation can ultimately complicate the lives of the community members by containing too much or too little information to be truly useful or can frustrate users due to lack of training or post-implementation system support. An example of unintended consequences is the study mentioned previously regarding mobile phones being supplied to homeless persons in an effort to provide them with access to information and the ability to communicate with social workers, family and friends. Unintended consequences of this C-ICT effort included some homeless persons selling their phones for money or drugs, using the phones to make drug deals, and using their phones to facilitate other criminal activities (Bure, 2005, p. 120).

Based upon my research of successful C-ICT projects and the stated goals of community informatics practitioners, I have identified the following directives that should be incorporated into the policies of any community informatics project:

1. Include all stakeholders in project development. Do not presume to know what end users need without their input. 2. Meet end-users’ information needs, not just technology needs. 3. Connect users in the virtual world to their physical communities. 4. Promote social inclusion and equal access to information. 5. Promote community face-to-face interactions and community engagement. 6. Be sustainable by the community after project development and implementation ends.

These directives should guide policy-making at various levels, from project management policies, to advocacy policies, to government policies. Where the policies are not currently in place to support these directives for C-ICT development, community informatics advocates must lobby for them to ensure successful community development via C-ICTs and not unexpected unintended consequences or merely providing technology access. Those persons involved in policy-making for community informatics projects must consider how instant access to information may negatively impact communities and societies that may be decades or centuries behind the developed world. How might knowledge about other cultures, religions or even gadgets negatively affect communities and what policies might be enacted to mitigate the disruption or chaos that may come with the knowledge?

Conclusions

While the practice of community informatics has existed longer than the academic study of the subject, it is still fairly young and undeveloped. With some exceptions, there are generally no global, national or even local policies designed to facilitate development of C-ICTs to aid regions and nations in community development. Many successful C-ICT implementations have proven that with proper design and policies in place, communities and individuals can benefit socially and economically from the application of C-ICTs.

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However, research has also shown that those who benefit from C-ICTs are not always those for whom the systems were developed and some communities, such as the homeless, may always struggle to achieve any societal benefit from C-ICTs due to the nature of their circumstances. The challenge for those who are developing C-ICTs for such struggling communities will be tasked with the difficulty of identifying the true information needs of such communities and how to provide that information to the individuals in such a way as to help them help themselves. Community informatics is an exciting field of practice that can have wide-ranging and deep impacts on the communities involved and others with which they interact. There is a great amount of research being performed around this field. With time and collaboration we should see many more successful community informatics implementations.

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