Community Informatics

Michael Gurstein, Ph.D.

Visiting Professor: School of Management

New Jersey Institute of Technology

Newark, NJ

What is Community Informatics?

Community Informatics (CI) is the application of information and communications technologies (ICTs) to enable community processes and the achievement of community objectives. Among the areas of most immediate concern and for which CI is an appropriate response is overcoming “digital divides” – the division between technology “haves” and “have not’s” -- both within and among communities. However, CI is not simply concerned with responding to the “Digital Divide” issue, but also it is directed to examining how and under what conditions, ICT access can be made usable and useful, to the range of users including excluded populations and communities and particularly to support local economic development, social justice and political empowerment using the Internet.

CI is the terminology that is coming to be used to describe the academic discipline and practise for systematically approaching Information Systems from a “community” perspective. It is seen as paralleling Management Information Systems (MIS) in the development of strategies and techniques for effecting community use and application of information systems. As well, CI is closely linked with the variety of Community Networking research and applications.

CI is based on the assumption that geographically-based communities (also known as “physical” or “geo-local” communities) have characteristics, requirements and opportunities that require different strategies for ICT intervention and development different from widely accepted models of individual or in-home computer/Internet access and use. Also, CI has arisen out of a concern for ICT use in Developing Countries as for example through telecenters.

CI is defined as “The application of information and communications technologies to enable community processes and the achievement of community objectives.” (Gurstein, 1999[i]) Other definitions proposed for Community Informatics address the use of ICT by individuals outside of the workplace but the social or personal sphere, either around areas of common interest or locality as in:

"The term Community Informatics (CI) refers to an emerging area of research and practice, focusing on the use of Information Technology (IT) by human communities. It links economic and social development at the community level with emerging opportunities in such areas as electronic commerce, community and civic networks, electronic democracy, self-help, advocacy, and cultural enhancement. CI brings together the concepts of IT and information systems with the concept of community development. As an area of research, CI is a growing body of theory underlying one of the most exciting phenomena of the last decade, namely the diffusion and use of Internet technologies within communities" [ii]

CI represents an area of interest both to ICT practitioners and academic researchers and to all those with an interest in community-based information technologies. CI addresses the connections between the academic theory and research, and the policy and pragmatic issues arising from the tens of thousands of "Community Networks", "Community Technology Centres", Telecentres, Community Communications Centres, and Telecottages currently in place globally.

This definition highlights a linkage with the field of community development, an observation that has been increasingly made by practitioners in the field in recent years, such as those working with community technology centers, telecenters and local community networks. The common theme of an emerging discipline or research area can again be seen here. The rapid evolution of the Internet and ICTs are compelling a range of newly emerging “informatics” disciplines with the s the need for new and emergingapproaches disciplines grows to improve understanding of how the Internet and ICTs can be effectivelyused.

A definition of social informatics is also worthy of note, in particular in how it seems to differ from Community Informatics:

"Social Informatics (SI) refers to the body of research and study that examines social aspects of computerization -- including the roles of information technology in social and organizational change and the ways that the social organization of information technologies are influenced by social forces and social practices.[iii]SI includes studies and other analyses that are labeled as social impacts of computing, social analysis of computing, studies of computer-mediated communication (CMC), information policy, "computers and society," organizational informatics, interpretive informatics, and so on."

e Community Networks

The term “community network” or when being discusses as a process, “community networking” has been used by hundreds of community-based ICT projects in many countries for many years, and combines the sense of both the geo-local and online contexts depending upon its usage. However, the geo-local context is basic to nearly every attempt to define the term. The Association for Community Networking, in its inaugural organizational publication (Community Networking, Vol.1. Issue 1. January-February, 1998 p.1.), defined “community networking” as occurring: "when people and organizations collaborate locally to solve problems and create opportunities, supported by appropriate information and communication systems. A Community Network is a locally-based, locally-driven communication and information system."

Merriam Webster defines community as a “unified body of individuals” or “people with common interests living in a particular area”. A Merriam Webster definition for “network” is “a system of computers, terminals, and databases connected by communications lines.” The combined definition could be: “A unified body of people with common interests using a system of computers, terminals, and databases connected by communications lines.” A somewhat broader definition that includes the technical wording while incorporating social values derived from the above variations might be:

A community network is a locally based, locally driven communication and information system designed to enhance community and enrich lives.

The linkage between an ICT application area such as a community networking and the academic discipline of Community Informatics is quite direct, and shows the potential for the kinds collaborations between practitioners and researchers that this NSF project hopes to encourage.

Research Issues in CI

What characterizes a CI approach to public computing is a commitment to universality of technology-enabled opportunity including to the disadvantaged; a recognition that the “lived physical community” is at the very center of individual and family well-being—economic, political, and cultural—and a belief that this can be enhanced through the judicious use of ICTs; a sophisticated user-focussed understanding of Information technology; and applied social leadership, entrepreneurship and creativity.

The research issues of interest to CI include the nature of "community" in a technology enabled environment; urban as compared to rural technology applications and strategies; and the practical significance of multiple and only partially overlapping networked linkages (particularly ethnic/cultural) in urban communities as compared to the more limited overlapping in rural communities. A further issue of considerable practical importance is the on-going economic/institutional "sustainability" of local access—how it will survive once initial funding sources and volunteer participation are exhausted. The issue of "sustainability" of course, raises issues of the on-going benefits that ICTs provide to community members. Also, many community technology efforts have been linked with community empowerment, i.e. providing community members with the tools and techniques to accomplish objectives including political and cultural objectives that may have been impossible without these.

The most useful philosophical foundation or ethical framework for investigating Community Informatics would be one favoring the potential for human growth and development potential and democracy and citizenship, and a recognition of human needs for individual freedoms, liberty, privacy and the free expression of ideas andalong with a drive towards both personal and community health and well-being. This seems obvious in a way; however by clarifying an underlying philosophical foundation or ethical foundationramework, it then becomes possible to distinguish certain types of information systems and methodologies as either useful or antithetical in the construction of Community Informatics tools.

A theory and a practise of Community Informatics is gradually developing. Partly this is arising out of experiences with community access and community networks in the US and Canada and partly out of a need to develop systematic approaches to some of the challenges which ICTs are surfacing with astonishing speed, including the recognition that access in itself is insufficient—rather it is what is and can be done with the access that makes ICTs meaningful. CI is also developing out of a recognition that there is a need to ensure a local, civic and “public” presence in an increasingly commercialized Internet environment.

The use of ICTs as a basis for local economic development and as a way of enabling and supporting local innovation is of considerable interest as well, particularly in the context of communities having to adjust to the often dramatic changes in local circumstances and opportunities resulting from technology change and globalization of production and competition. ICTs are also emerging as a tool for enabling the development and enhancing the effectiveness of local leadership and providing the means to create collaborative networks of economic, social and political initiatives particularly for local responses to externally imposed change.

Community Informatics: “Discipline” and “Practice”

CI functions both as an academic discipline for study and research and as a practice for those working, implementing or managing community-based technology initiatives. In both areas it is still emerging, with a number of recent initiatives in universities and colleges and with attempts in various parts of the world to provide formalization and certification for community based technology practitioners.

As an academic discipline CI draws resources and participants from a wide range of backgrounds including Computer Science, Management, Information and Library Science, Planning, Sociology, Education, Social Policy and Rural, Regional, and Development Studies. As a practice, CI is of interest to those concerned with Community and Local Economic Development both in Developing and Developed Countries and has close connections with those working in such areas as Community Development, Community Economic Development, Community Based Health Informatics, Adult and Continuing Education, and Agricultural Extension.

Currently there are CI academic programs and research being undertaken in a number of universities world-wide including in Australia (Central Queensland University), the UK (University of Brighton and the University of the West of England), the University of Buenos Aires, the University of Milan, and the New Jersey Institute of Technology and Evergreen College in the USA and there are a number of recent Ph.D.’s including from the University of Brighton, Aarlborg University in Denmark, Georgia Tech and UCLA and several in the University of Michigan, School of Library and Information Science.

Other professional arenas that presently producinge skilled practitioners who choose to focus their work on the effective use of ICTs in human communities. Other emerging programs of interest include the community technology program at University of Massachusetts Boston College of Public Service, the new Technical Communications doctorate program in the University Of Washington, School Oof Engineering and the flexible doctorate program at the New Jersey Institute of Technology, School of Computer and Information Sciences designed for the older professional. There are likely to be many more such degree programs offered in the future, under different names and conceptual frameworks.

Virtual Community Informatics

As the Internet grows, the need for this kind of convergence of relevant research and practice is manifestly simply self-evident. Several examples identified in the discussions help to illustrate this trend:

  • A recent set of large public meetings in New York City dealt with public response to architectural design alternatives to the Ttwin Ttowers destroyed on 9/11. A cluster of well- attended, face to face public meetings was followed up by professionally moderated online discussions designed to capture and extend the initial dialogues for several weeks further. The organizers of both the “real-world” interactions and the “online” interactions worked closely together to coordinate both.
  • The World Bank is pursing new Kknowledge Mmanagement efforts in some development projects to link global KM, K-creation, kK-repository processes, with processes of local development including the hiring of local KM content coordinators.
  • Entire Ddot-cCom business models sought to build virtual communities for purposes of stimulating real-world purchases of products and services, often without success due in part to the lack of an established research base for in such a new market.

Resources

Recent collections of papers in CI include L. Keeble & B, Loader (Eds.) Community Informatics: Shaping Computer-Mediated Social Networks, Routledge, 2001; M. Gurstein (Ed.) Community Informatics: Enabling Communities with Information and Communications Technologies, Idea Group, 2000 and the Proceedings of the IT in Regional Areas Conference: Using Informatics to Transform Regions (Eds. S. Marshall, Wal Taylor and Xinghou Yu). Several more are either in planning or in press.

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If anything, the overwhelming impact of the Internet has increased the challenges for both the theory and practise of Community Informatics where CI practitioners and researchers are leading the way forward as in the following Canadian examples, including

  • Designing ways of using ICTs to enhance the quality and coverage of electronically enabled public services such as the Conservation Council of New Brunswick.
  • Building, rebuilding and re-rebuilding the bridges across the Digital Divide as the multiple chasms of income, education, location, nationality widen between the sides such as through the Canadian Community Access Program (CAP); or Community Learning Networks
  • Developing sustainable models for a community public space on the Internet such as the Vancouver Community Network;
  • Developing strategies and techniques so that local E-Commerce can find ways to co-exist/collaborate/compete with global E-Commerce such as the Strait East Nova Scotia Community Enterprise Network; or Keewaytinook Okimakanak ;
  • Creating local, national, and global democratic practices in a world of Electronic Citizenship such as WebNet;
  • Using the Net to support development in the Third World (such as the Acacia Network;
  • Supporting communities as they find ways of using the Net to be contributors to as well as consumers of global culture and global (See Cape Breton Music Online; and
  • Applying the principles of open source to the practise of civic governance such as Citizens for Local Democracy.

Conclusion

Community Informatics continues to provide a place where academics and practitioners can meet and discuss issues of common interest—assess strategies, develop models, explore controversies. As the area of community based technology applications grows, one can expect an increasing interest in and formal institutional attention to Community Informatics as a discipline.

The development of strategies to enable management use of ICTs to accomplish corporate ends is a well-recognized and widely supported component of business research, education and training. Community Informatics provides a parallel set of opportunities for those with an interest in enabling community objectives with ICTs. The emergence of CI suggests a maturing of community based technology initiatives and provides continued opportunities for linking research with practice in enabling and empowering local communities.

Michael Gurstein, Ph.D. is Visiting Professor with the School of Management at the New Jersey Institute of Technology in Newark, NJ. He was formerly on the Board of the Vancouver Community Network, the British Columbia Community Networking Association and Telecommunities Canada and a charter member of the Global Community Networking Partnership.

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[i] Gurstein, M. (Ed.) Community Informatics: Enabling Communities with Information and Communications Technologies, Idea Group Publishing, Hershey PA, 1999

[ii] ( Call for papers for the Informing Science Conference 2001, June 19-22, University of Economics, Krakow, Poland

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