The search for an open curricula platform

December 14, 2017

In the movement towards more open education, the question eventually arises as to which content management systems (CMS) are most conducive to open research. There is a wide spectrum of hosting services available to researchers looking to create, manage, and publish their open curricula, and each platform offers flexibility and constraints with larger design implications…

New book highlights public access ICT venues across cultures

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.

Resources from the Global Impact Study

July 31, 2014

We’ve developed numerous resources to help answer the overarching question, “Why do public access ICTs matter for development? The goal of the resources listed below is to help make the study’s findings and data more accessible and relevant to the international development, public library, and public access communities. It is our hope that you’ll find these materials useful in understanding the study’s key findings and recommendations, as well as for use in your own work

New TASCHA research projects

April 30, 2014

It’s finally spring here in the Northern Hemisphere, and we decided to celebrate by highlighting some of our new research at TASCHA. From crunching big data on mobile money and developing new resources based on research findings to travelling around the world and working with new partners in the field, we’ve accomplished quite a bit in 2014 so far! Here’s a snapshot of a few new TASCHA research projects.

Digging deeper into the phenomenon of public access

TASCHA’s Global Impact Study of Public Access ICTs wrapped up last year with the publication of the final research report, Connecting people for development: Why public access ICTs matter. In addition to the final report, we have also released research reports and summaries of the Global Impact Study’s in-depth studies, which were designed to answer more specific questions about the public access phenomenon, such as whether we even need public access ICTs anymore since everyone has a mobile phone (spoiler alert: yes, we do!).

Project in Vietnam uses Open Data Kit (ODK) for data collection

April 17, 2014

We recently launched a project that is looking at public internet access and use in Vietnam. One of the main objectives of the study is to understand the role library-like institutions, such as cultural post offices in Vietnam, play in providing public access to information and communication technologies (ICTs). Surveying public access venues, users, and non-users to gather data about public access in Vietnam is a critical component of the study. While critical to answering our research questions, collecting data on a large scale like in this project can be challenging. As such, we are excited to employ a different method of data collection in this study, using the Open Data Kit (ODK), developed here at the University of Washington’s Department of Computer Science and Engineering. Using Android-based tablets, researchers in the field will implement the surveys and collect data through ODK.

Global Impact Study: Final report & findings released

July 2, 2013

While you’re likely reading this on your personal computer, enjoying reliable and fast internet, millions of people around the world still lack private access to this increasingly necessary resource to function and prosper in today’s world. How do those people connect to digital society? For many, digital inclusion is found at a library, a telecenter, or a cybercafé – their local public access ICT venue. For over a decade, significant investments have been made in these venues. However, their ability to contribute to development agendas has come into question in recent times, spurred by the spread of mobile phones and other new technologies and applications. The Global Impact Study was designed to address this debate by generating evidence about the scale, character, and impacts of public access ICTs.
Today, TASCHA is excited to announce the release of the study’s final report, Connecting people for development: Why public access ICTs matter.

News from TASCHA: April 2013 Newsletter

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.

Open research in practice: Open source, open data

April 16, 2013

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.

Release of public access ICT venue database

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.