The next steps in action research in community networking:

The position paper is primarily the executive summary of: Christian Talbot and D. R. Newman (1998) "Beyond Access and Awareness: evaluating electronic community networks", London: British Library Research and Innovation Centre Report RIC/G/375 ( http://www.qub.ac.uk/mgt/cicn/beyond/).

I would add to this paper a few comments that are particularly relevant to this workshop. In particular, I want to stress the diagram in which we summarize our model of the processes through which a small organisation (community group, voluntary group, or even a small business) need to go before they can first use, and then derive benefits from, community networks. Overcoming the initial hurdles of getting access to computers and network connections, paying the telephone bills and learning how to use a browser and e-mail client are necessary, but far from sufficient. To get strategic benefits from these technologies, participants need to take part in an exploration of ways of using the tools, learning from others in the same sector. Those politicians and civil servants who focus on public access versus social exclusion are missing the point.

Following this model based on an evaluation of two community networks from the perspective of the users (not the network organizers), we can go on to the next phase of an action research cycle: design to meet social needs.

The participants in the CNs can cross the "how-to" gap in this model through an exploration process (cf. heuristic search in AI). This can be speeded up in three ways:

1. Setting up informal and formal networks in which community groups can exchange their experiences, so that newcomers can learn from the successful pioneers (e.g. Conservation Volunteers Northern Ireland). The focus is on sharing tacit knowledge through human networking.

2. Local or regional training courses, on the effective _human_ use of the software systems provided within and between community networks. Instead of learning how to send an e-mail, learn about who to communicate with, and how to find the right people (mailing lists, newsgroups, discussion fora, listings, and so on).

3. The development of Socially Appropriate Internet Technologies, each designed to meet a need common in the community and voluntary sector, but less common among the large business users normally considered by software developers.

Many people can experiment along the lines of 1, 2 and 3, just as ordinary people and engineers experimented on alternative technologies during the 1970s. But for others to learn from these actions we need research. In the CSCW context I will focus mainly on 3, Socially Appropriate Internet Technologies, although I realize groupware could be used to assist co-operative learning in 1 and 2.

It is well understood by sociologists of science that technologies and societies affect each other. We speak of the social shaping of technology (Edge 1998). No matter how much a technologist claims to design only to objective scientific criteria, he works on the problems for which he is paid, and spends more time with those producers and users of particular interest to the sponsor, or those who share similar interests and have a similar cultural background and class position. In the 1960s even economists began to notice that engineers often selected or designed technologies that were not appropriate to local conditions (Marsden 1970).

Consider software used in CSCW. Some software tools are appropriate to the needs of poor people and local communities, such as the use of IRC by young unemployed people on the Falls Road in Belfast to chat to people they might otherwise never meet (such as protestants). But others may not be, such as the GDSS tools that assume that everyone wants to co-operate and reach a solution (or at least have the same boss who can order them to co-operate, or else). And there are things that people in a community want to do that are not equivalent to any standard work processes.

Consequently, there is a need to adapt, modify, or design from scratch groupware to meet specific community needs. The context is set by specific problems. In our recent work in Belfast, we have identified two such needs:

a) Tools to help local community groups, and associations of community groups, dynamically publish electronic community newsletters. Given the available skills, these are much simpler in design than even the MIT Media Lab's web newspaper tools. Jeremy Spence has developed a prototype in which people fill in a form on the WWW, the article or event notice goes into a database, and it is immediately viewable on a database driven web site. Once a month they press a button and the output goes into a DTP program for paper publishing and distribution.

b) Advisory systems (expert systems or case-based reasoning systems) that help someone in a small community group or charity decide upon an overall strategic and information design for their first web site. Too often they plunge straight into graphic design, before even working out who might read the site, why they might come back again, and what reader behaviour they want to encourage (donations, letters to MPs, chatting with others until they change their beliefs, getting journalists to report on particular issues, turning up to volunteer at the right time and place, ...). A very simple example of such a system is reported at http://intsys.fin.qub.ac.uk/website/.

Other needs were identified at the Connective Intelligence Workshop on Public Debates on the Internet, Amsterdam, May 1998. Indeed, in the whole area of electronic democracy there is a big gap between the manufacturers of voting machines, current simplistic discussion boards, the mathematics of voting systems, and the psychology of debate, mediation and decision-making.

Given the specific need for a tool, what informs its design? Again harking back to the design of hardware Appropriate Technologies (Jequier 1979), the criteria are set by an in-depth understanding of the social, technical, economic, psychological and environmental needs. To meet such subtle, complex, and apparently contradictory criteria, requires innovative thinking that synthesizes new solutions, drawing on new technology, theories of social and community communication, and the personal experiences of people in the communities. My work has been founded on theories of Appropriate Technology design, and theories of critical thinking and deep learning (references in Newman et. al. 1997), but there are many others.

I would hope that in this workshop we could at least develop lists of theories, evaluation criteria, and example projects to undertake in CSCN (Computer Supported Community Networking).

References

See Christian Talbot and D. R. Newman (1998) "Beyond Access and Awareness: evaluating electronic community networks", London: British Library Research and Innovation Centre Report RIC/G/375 ( http://www.qub.ac.uk/mgt/cicn/beyond/), and the references in it.

In addition, I have referred to:

David Edge (1995) "The Social Shaping of Technology". In Nick Heaps et. al. (eds.), 'Information Technology and Society: a reader', London: Sage Publications. p. 14-32.

Nicholas Jequier (1979) "Appropriate Technology: some criteria". In A. S. Bhalla (ed.) 'Towards global action for appropriate technology', Oxford: Pergamon Press. p. 1-22

Keith Marsden (1970) "Progressive technologies for developing countries", Int. Labour Review, Vol. 101, p. 475-502.

D. R. Newman, Chris Johnson, Brian Webb and Clive Cochrane (June 1997) "Evaluating the quality of learning in Computer Supported Co-operative Learning". JASIS.