May 23, 2013
The 4th Global Forum on Telecentres, Spark 2013, will take place in Granada, Spain May 28-29. Four TASCHA researchers are looking forward to attending the forum to participate in conversations on technology and development and present on various TASCHA research projects. Chris Coward & Maria Garrido will be presenting on TASCHA research, and Melody Clark & Chris Rothschild will attend, participating in various sessions and live Tweeting from the event.
April 17, 2013
We have just revamped our email newsletter. We will send these quarterly with news and insights on TASCHA and our research. For this issue, we include a teaser for the final report from a major 5-year study on the impact of public access to ICTs that we’re excited to launch this month. We also highlight our work on a topic, public libraries, that is underappreciated in international development circles, and on a topic that has received great attention, the use of social media in advancing political freedoms in Egypt. Finally, at TASCHA, we’re committed to open research and have begun releasing not only formal project outputs, but also research instruments, data, and other resources so that others can reanalyze, replicate, remix, or otherwise add new value on top of the work we’ve already done.
April 16, 2013
A recent TASCHA project, in the research area of Social Movements, explored how Facebook and social media was used in Egypt before and during the Arab Spring. The Youth, ICTs, and Democracy in Egypt project drew on social movement theory and emphasizes various lines of analysis, asking the main research question, how did the use of ICTs impact the evolution of the youth movement and the trajectory of the Egyptian revolution? Findings from this research have recently been presented at multiple venues by members of the project team.
TASCHA is committed to research that contributes to advancing knowledge and practice, and that can be used to make better decisions. One element of this commitment is open research — making research processes, tools, findings, and data broadly accessible and encouraging others to build on and extend our work. TASCHA implemented project, the Global Impact Study, is an excellent example of how TASCHA is striving to make research open and accessible.
March 11, 2013
This Thursday, March 14, UK newspaper, The Guardian, will be hosting a live chat as part of their Global Development Professionals Network. From 1pm-3pm GMT, participants are invited to ask questions about libraries as drivers of development, among other topics. The chat will include all types of people who work with libraries in development: from the librarians themselves, to the community organizers who work with the libraries, to the government officials who support them. The chat will be informal, and will take place in the comments thread of an introductory blog.
March 8, 2013
Today, March 8, 2013, is International Women’s Day. Access to technology can empower women and girls of all ages, giving them the access and skills to participate in today’s digital and information society. We’re celebrating this day by showcasing some of the research we’ve done about women and technology, as well as highlighting some of the work our partners and associated organizations have done regarding women and technology.
March 7, 2013
The Communities Connect Network (CCN) will host the Washington State Digital Inclusion Summit, a one-day unconference connecting people from the public, non-profit, and private sectors to share policy, research, curriculum, and other technology resources. The Summit will be held on Thursday, March 14, 2013, from 8:30am-4:30pm, followed by an optional reception until 6:30, at the South Seattle Community College.
February 22, 2013
TASCHA Director, Chris Coward, will be participating on a panel organized by IFLA during the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) +10 review Meeting in Paris, France, February 25-27, 2013. The panel, Supporting Knowledge Societies through Public Access to the Internet, will cover various issues related to public access to technology. This is a great opportunity for Chris to present the findings of the Global Impact Study, the largest, most comprehensive study on public access centers to date.
February 18, 2013
The Global Impact Study, a research project led by TASCHA, is excited to announce the upcoming release of the study’s final research report soon! After five years of research design, research implementation, and data interpretation and analysis, we are looking forward to finalizing and sharing the final report. The final report will be posted on the Global Impact Study website, but if you’d like to receive the final report via email, please sign up here.
February 7, 2013
Mobile phone use is soaring, especially in developing and transitioning countries. What does the dramatic increase in mobile use — and particularly mobile Internet use — mean for public access venues? Do mobile phones replace public access to computers and the Internet in venues such as libraries, cybercafes, and telecenters? If you have the Internet in your pocket, why do you still use public access ICTs? As part of the Global Impact Study of Public Access to Information and Communication Technologies, researchers in South Africa set out to answer these questions and more. The full research report and research brief are now available.
