Let's get Wild: Building a National Research and Service Agenda for Community Technologies and Networking

Submitter: Heekyung Choi

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/15178 Copy

Description

Title

Let's get Wild: Building a National Research and Service Agenda for Community Technologies and Networking

Issue Date

2008-02-28

Keyword(s)

• community technologies
• research
• impact
• society

Abstract

Community technology programs often lack the funding and technical assistance needed to sustain successful programs, let alone improve and expand their services. In the United States, these programs are training low-income youth, getting GEDs and technology skills to high school dropouts, upgrading the skills of recent immigrants, and working with a host of other residents to bring them towards success in the 21st century. Internationally, community technology programs are often the first step in empowering individuals and communities to move toward fuller participation in a global society. However, ensuring digital inclusion requires effective policy and sufficient investment, and good research to determine impact and provide the necessary underpinnings for policy and investment decisions. We are proposing a wildcard submission under the conference theme of “Community Technologies and Networking (CTN),” with participants from eight institutions heavily involved in CTN. Our wildcard session will comprise a 90 minute forum in which faculty and doctoral students—with varied academic and professional backgrounds—share their involvement, challenges and dreams for making a difference through CTN in different settings. The anticipated outcome of this session will be a clear picture of the landscape for research programs moving forward, and a better understanding of the breadth and depth of work already being done or planned in this area across the iSchool community. Building on the successful preconference community informatics workshop at the 2006 iSchool Conference at the University of Michigan, our wildcard session will be synergistic with the upcoming 2009 “Communities and Technology” Conference being held at Penn State. The wildcard session will provide an opportunity for the CTN community to meet and discuss multi-level issues with an aim of charting a unified path toward meaningful outcomes.

Type of Resource

text

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/15178

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