September 10, 2010
The Global Impact Study is excited to announce the release of our public access ICT venue database. Utilizing the inventory data collected in Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Lithuania, and the Philippines, the web database offers multiple search options, three different visualizations of the data, and is part of the Global Impact Study’s commitment to open research.
August 23, 2010
The Global Impact Study presented a poster, Open data and open tools: The Global Impact Study inventory and web application, at the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) annual conference in Sweden. The theme of the conference — open access to knowledge — offered the perfect opportunity to highlight the project’s achievements.
December 10, 2009
Briefs are important communication tools for linking research findings to policy and practice — and ultimately affecting change. Because face it: in the attention economy no one has time to read the full report. Here’s the format we’ve developed at the Technology & Social Change Group for writing a research brief.
November 16, 2009
What’s important is the ability to gather with others and the possibility to be accompanied in your work. To be able to ask questions and bounce around ideas. I’ve been thinking for some time that public-access venues and coworking spaces are connected. This is why. They provide access to helpful people — librarians, dinamizador@s, infomediaries, the-guy-sitting-across-the-table-from-you.
October 29, 2009
People have strong beliefs about “libraries.” There are true believers and skeptics. Our work at TASCHA, recently changed from CIS, has been thinking about libraries as mechanisms for community development, especially outside the US. We have been trying to step back and focus on what they DO and what FUNCTIONS they serve. I understand libraries […]
September 25, 2009
Over the past 1.5 days I had the privilege of attending Harvard Forum II: ICTs, Human Development, Growth and Poverty Reduction. Convened six years after the first event, HF2 was convened to allow the (mostly) same 20 participants to reflect on what has changed since 2003 and what they believe are the most important trends […]
September 23, 2009
The Non-instrumental Use of ICT as a Component of General ICT Skill Acquisition Study will explore the benefits library and telecenter users gain from playing computer games, sending email, and chatting. These types of uses — known as “non-instrumental” — are often ignored in studies on public access to ICT. But we suspect that they can help people develop the comfort, skills, and expertise they need to improve their social and economic situations, particularly in the areas of employment and education.
Sharing a computer in a telecenter, cybercafé, or library is the only option for some people — often because they lack the income, skills, or infrastructure at home. But sometimes people prefer sharing computers in public-access venues. The Collaborative Knowledge Sharing Study examines the reasons why. Researchers will visit a dozen public access venues in Ghana — large and small, rural and urban, upscale and relatively modest — to identify when sharing enhances or diminishes a user’s experience as compared to individual or private use.
What is the role of a librarian, cybercafé manager, or telecenter employee? How do people working in public-access venues such as these act as infomediaries — influencing which services people learn, use, and value? The Infomediaries: Brokers of Public Access Study will examine how infomediaries bring people and ICT together, both as service providers (offering advice, training, and content) and mediators (empowering individuals for whom services would otherwise appear unfathomable).
September 4, 2009
Last week the Gates Foundation awarded the 2009 Access to Learning Award to the Fundación Empresas Públicas de Medellín (EPM Foundation) for its network of public libraries in the Medellin district of Colombia. By sheer coincidence – since this award is a closely guarded secret – a team of CIS researchers was in Colombia at […]
