News: Announcements

May 27, 2015

A component of the Global Impact Study was the The Amy Mahan Research Fellowship Program, led by Universitat Pompeu Fabra, which aimed to deepen the capacity of emerging scholars with the goal of increasing the quality and quantity of research on public access to ICT produced in developing countries. The findings from this work have been compiled into a new book publication, Public access ICT across cultures: Diversifying participation in the network society. The book, edited by Francisco Proenza, is co-published by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and MIT Press and is available online in PDF freely through a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 (CC-BY 4.0) license.

On Tuesday, June 9th, 2015, GlobalWA will host a panel of social entrepreneurs in a discussion about new products, tools, and ideas for global development. The conversation will challenge participants to think about the role of technology in creating a more equitable, healthy, and prosperous world. TASCHA Director Chris Coward will moderate the panel, which includes Ali Arjomand (Director of Global Good), Beth Kolko (CEO of Shift Labs), and Laura McLaughlin (Director of Global Health at Mountain Safety Research). A reception will follow the panel discussion. More about the event on GlobalWA’s website.

May 13, 2015

TASCHA kicked off field research for the Regional Study & Resource Center Evaluation project in Namibia in March 2015. Fieldwork is crucial to research success, particularly when performing evaluation work. Principal Investigator Araba Sey and Research Analyst Michelle Fellows visited Namibia to conduct research activities that comprise part of the first component of the project. Over the period of a few weeks, the researchers went to Windhoek, Gobabis, Oshakati, Helao Nafidi, and Eenhana to visit the Regional Study & Resource Centers (RSRCs), conduct interviews, and observe staff and patrons in the RSRCs.

May 7, 2015

During winter quarter 2015, TASCHA held a research seminar open to University of Washington students. The research seminar was originally designed to get students involved with our Information Strategies for Societies in Transition project. So many students registered for the seminar, though, that we expanded the seminar to include other TASCHA projects, like the current evaluation of library-like resource centers in Namibia and our recently launched MOOCs for development project.

April 29, 2015

ICTD 2015 is almost here! In Singapore this year, ICTD 2015 will take place May 15-18, 2015. As is usually the case, University of Washington will have a strong presence at the conference this year. Here’s how TASCHA and our colleagues at the Information School will be participating:

April 10, 2015

Incredible temples range across Myanmar; from the magisterial Shwe Dagon in Yangon to Bagan’s sprawling complexes they show the country’s rich Buddhist art, culture and heritage. The monks often built them high up, as in Mandalay Hill, above. Sitting closer to God and above the everyday,as in many other religions, was a beneficial position for…

March 18, 2015

This blog post is the fourth of five of the blog post series, “Making and the maker movement: A democratizing force or an example of cultural reproduction?” See the first blog post, second blog post, and third blog post.

Spaces and ‘Maker’ activities are promoted as being inclusive, open spaces. Yet, as Dunbar-Hester writes in Radical Inclusion? Locating Accountability in Technical DIY,
The promotion of a sphere in which “universal” technical (or civic) participation occurs may require bracketing inequalities of access and status, which obviously fails to reflect a social reality where certain groups enjoy privilege and dominance relative to other groups. (Dunbar-Hester, 2014)

March 10, 2015

Online courses have the potential to expand quality education and career training worldwide, but few people in developing countries access them. Now, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and CourseTalk.com, the largest source of reviews of online courses, are launching a two-year, $1.55 million project to investigate and address this unmet potential. The initiative, called Advancing MOOCs for Development, will be driven by research on online course enrollment in Colombia, the Philippines, and South Africa. TASCHA will lead this research, with support from IREX.

March 5, 2015

On Tuesday, March 10, 2015, Maria will present to the Data Management Association of Puget Sound (DAMA of Puget Sound) on her research involving collecting and analyzing data from social media platforms. Using examples from her work investigating the role of Facebook in the Arab Spring and the use of Twitter as a collective voice in political protests, Maria will explore the challenges that researchers face when collecting and analyzing data from social media platforms.

January 27, 2015

We are pleased and honored to announce that the Technology & Social Change Group at the University of Washington Information School, including our longstanding research collaborators at the US Impact Studies group, has been identified as one of the three legacy partners expected to do this work. We will work closely with Global Libraries and our fellow legacy partners, the Public Library Association (PLA) of the American Library Association and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA), to further determine and refine the strategies, goals, and activities of the legacy work going forward.