Knowledge barriers to technology adoption:

Position paper submitted to the Broadening our understanding: Community networks and other forms of computer supported community work Workshop, ECSCW 99

Knowledge barriers to technology adoption: The case of second-generation community networking University-based systems consulting and outreach aimed at community development are needed most urgently today for two reasons. The first is the Internet; the second is the emerging phenomenon of high-speed community networking. As we argue below, knowledge barriers to community adoption of high-speed networks can be high. University-based programs can play a critical leadership and support role here to help communities adopt technology. Communities can serve as a provocative and rewarding locale for university-sponsored technology transfer efforts.

Community networking or computing has been defined in many ways. The term often stands for Freenets, defined as loosely organized, community-based, volunteer-managed electronic network servers (Victoria Freenet Association, 1994) that provide free dial-up access to the Internet and information about the local community (Beamish, 1998). The term may also refer to community centers that provide access to computer hardware, software and technical support, and to specially-developed online content that is focused on a specific low-income community or on a subject of interest to such a community. Based on our research in New York State (see below), by second-generation community network we refer to networks that include, but go beyond, these functions. A second-generation network is generally more complex than first generation networks such as Freenets. A second-generation community network

• provides high-speed links (well beyond dial-up speeds) not only to the Internet but also to a high-speed community network backbone
• is based on a high-speed backbone capable of transferring several hundred megabits a second, and can support more advanced, integrated, multi-media applications and more complex interaction, including one-to-many and many-to-many connectivity; such a backbone may take several years to plan and implement
• usually involves the installation de novo of such a backbone, which includes the wiring, transmission facility and connectivity equipment (One aspect that is rarely considered in community computing is the infrastructure needed to support the communication technology in neighborhoods. Few projects focus on ensuring that a community is wired, meaning that it has access to a broadband network which allows the high-speed transmission of data, including sound and graphics [Beamish, 1998, p. 398])
• because of the high cost and complexity, usually requires the participation of the telephone company and other service providers in its design, deployment, maintenance
• links not individual users but community non-profit institutions (e.g., K-12 schools, government, health and human service agencies); the institutional focus throws up many complex issues:
  1. as second generation networks are more pricey to participate in, potential participants have a challenging job convincing their management, and the institutions they may want to link to, to play
  2. potential participants have to be sensitive to interoperability issues because the new technology may or may not work seamlessly with existing technology
  3. potential participants, especially those in the government sector, will need to worry about how the new technology will impact the institutions bid process for technology acquisition
  4. potential participants will have to worry about how the new technology will affect the process by which they currently deliver services, and what kinds of retooling would be required on their part (new staff recruitment, new ways of working, new technology capabilities, relationships with new vendors and service providers)
• is seldom free and requires a fee for participation (line charges) and additional fees for services (not just Internet access but fees for maintenance and value-added services); the higher financial outlays for capital (equipment and lines) and monthly service charges and for operating expenses (such as staff) make such networks relatively more expensive for participants,
• usually requires maintenance and monitoring both on the backbone and user ends, and may span several layers: physical, Internet and value-added services, and applications layers; the telephone company and other service provider (such as the ISP) or providers may all have to cooperate to provide monitoring at these layers
• usually require a highly-skilled, dedicated, paid staff (and volunteer help) who provide these services; volunteer help alone is not sufficient

But because of their complexity, knowledge barriers to the adoption of advanced networking are correspondingly higher as well for the community. Attewell (1992) has noted that knowledge barriers can impede organizational adoption of computing technology. Extant research in innovation adoption and diffusion neglects the difficulties a potential adopter may face in not having the skills needed to use an innovation; such barriers can be high in the case of complex innovations like computing. Attewell suggests that firms may postpone adoption until they can overcome knowledge barriers, by developing know-how in-house or through external service agencies; external bureaus played a key role in the early years of business computing (1960s), helping lower knowledge barriers and speeding up diffusion in organizations (Attewell, 1992). This view of diffusion shifts the focus to organizational learning and skill development as adopters gradually develop the knowledge to adopt.

Attewell (1992) found support for his knowledge barrier approach. Analyzing early computer diffusion data from market surveys, he found that availability of technical skills in the adopting organization decided if the innovation (computing technology) would be used or not used. A few firms never used their computers due to problems or lack of skills. Firms that could hired experts, but 70 per cent of firms had no in-house specialist. Attewell shows that computer bureaus speeded up diffusion by mediating between the technology and the adopting organization by providing technical services. He notes a two-stage process of adoption in the early decades (the 1960s), wherein firms purchased technical services from bureaus (mediating institutions) before acquiring computers in-house. Mediating institutions helped decouple user expertise from the benefits of innovation: What is striking about the computer revolution was the emergence of institutional arrangements that removed a large part of the burden of knowledge acquisition from the backs of potential users, and enabled a relatively complex tech to diffuse rapidly into firms that lacked expert knowledge and did not employ in-house specialists (Attewell, 1992).

The explanatory power of Attewell's (1992) knowledge barrier approach became evident to us in our research into second-generation community networking in parts of NY State. As part of an ongoing research program, we studied eight such second-generation community networks in central, western and parts of southern New York State. Two of these have been operational for two years; the other six networks have passed the planning stage will be implemented within the next year. These eight networks, among others in the state, are being funded under the New York State Diffusion Program.

Our research into second-generation community networking began in late 1996 with the planning for the Syracuse MetroNet, a New York State Diffusion Program-funded community network to be implemented in Syracuse. We developed two surveys one designed to elicit user needs and the other to elicit information on the technology and human support infrastructure at respondent sites. These surveys were distributed to 150 non-profits in the community through the MetroNet steering committee. Eighty-five agencies responded to both surveys. Analysis of the infrastructure survey responses revealed that a little under 65 per cent of the respondents believed lack of access to technical expertise to be a major barrier or barrier to their ability to plan effectively for technology. The technology infrastructure was primitive in many cases. A few agencies were relatively better off, and relied on the telephone company for T1 service or dedicated 56 Kbps lines. Dial-up Internet access was becoming more common among the bigger agencies. Fifty-five per cent of this population had no in-house technical staff person, and looked to vendors for technical advice. We followed up with group interviews with a sub-set of 22 non-profits; of these, ten were from the major barrier category and the rest from the barrier category. Respondents were unprepared for the MetroNet; the technologies involved asymmetric digital subscriber line, ATM, and Internet Protocol-based video/data conferencing -- were new to them (some of the technologies were new to the world, see Applegate, 1994). Besides, there was much confusion surrounding the intersection of telephone company service options and these technologies, and about provisions in the Diffusion Program guidelines themselves. Nevertheless, respondents were enthusiastic about the MetroNet and were sure of what they wanted from it: the most frequently mentioned needs were desktop videoconferencing with other local non-profits, shared database access, high-speed Internet access, and one-stop kiosks for delivery of a wide range of information and services to users. Overall, non-profits evinced a high level of interest in participating in the MetroNet; they saw it as helping meet a vital community need by supporting increased cross-cluster linkages, that is, interaction across functional clusters (K-12 schools talking to law enforcement agencies, for example). The desire for increased cross-cluster linkages was a key finding from the planning process, and boded well for a truly interactive community network. However, anticipation was tempered with fears about the knowledge and skills resources that would be needed to take full advantage of such a network. 2

This summer, we surveyed and interviewed the leaders of eight Diffusion Program networks two in Buffalo, one in the Albany area, and five others in Syracuse, Watertown, Cortland, Leatherstocking and Binghamton areas -- to gauge their impressions of the network planning and implementation process. Notes and minutes from several planning meetings at these different venues were also used in the analysis. The eight networks together cover a multi-county area spanning central, western and parts of southern New York State. The eight networks together reflect a financial commitment of several million dollars under the Diffusion Program; when all eight networks are implemented, they will serve several hundred non-profits, and many thousands of users through them. The Diffusion Programs investment in the upstate region to network low-income and underserved communities must count as significant by any criterion.

A preliminary analysis of the available data suggests interesting extensions to Attewell's (1992) knowledge barrier approach. First, given that second generation community networks are complex, multi-layered, multi-functional environments, we found that knowledge shortfalls were complicated; although technology accounted for much of the confusion in the groups we talked to, telecommunications regulation and service provisions were contributors. Second, knowledge barriers may impede supply-side institutions (technology vendors) as well, contributing to delays in diffusion of newer technologies and services. Third, university-sponsored outreach programs have played a key role in lowering barriers by providing technical services, instructional services (informal and formal) aimed at improving the general level of knowledge in the community, by activism expressed through participation in the network planning and implementation processes, and in network monitoring and trouble-shooting functions. Findings are briefly summarized below. Knowledge barriers perceived by the leaders (note that we talked to the network leaders not end-users) can be classified into backbone and connectivity, customer premise equipment and interoperability, services, and applications.

• Backbone and connectivity: ATM was new to most. Most knew it to be a pricey but high-performance technology, but had no clear general idea of its capabilities on the backbone. The user connectivity options available under the Diffusion Program asymmetric digital subscriber line, cell relay at DS-1 and DS-3 rates, and cell relay at OC3 rates occasioned many problems as well, centering on reach, bandwidth, and cost elements.
• Customer premise equipment and interoperability: Knowledge shortfalls in this area were more critical because the CPE and interoperability issues affected adopting organizations directly, unlike backbone issues which were the purview of the service provider. Questions centered on how ADSL and cell relay fit with existing PC-based office technology, how or whether these technologies would affect regular telephone service, and how they might fit with the Internet access provisions in place in the adopting organization. A minority said they didnt know enough even to ask questions about CPE and interoperability.
• Applications: Two issues muddied the waters here: the PC and the Internet, both of which were relatively new to respondents. PC-based software applications to integrate both data and video conferencing over the Internet (using the H.323 standard) would be supported by the backbone. The H.323 standard is new and complex; the older H.320 standard was more familiar to some of our respondents. The Internet introduced additional layer of complexity. The customer would have to deal with multiple service providers (the telephone company, the ISP, the value-added services provider for multi-point bridging and gateway services for video conferencing, and the software vendor, at the very least) for acquisition and trouble-shooting help, whereas earlier the telephone company had provided all these video services.
• Services: The intersection of technology and telephone company service options occasioned many questions. What was a limited service offering (LSO)? How exactly would it benefit a participant? How was it different from a regularly tarriffed service under the provisions of the Diffusion Program? Lack of understanding of operational specifics on these service types led to social networking among some of the network groups to locate and share documented information, but fundamental questions remained at the time of the interviews. Service level agreements with Bell Atlantic pertinent to ATM also occasioned many questions. Knowledge barriers can go beyond technology to include regulatory and business issues as well.

Eveland and Tornatzky (1989) note that diffusion is more challenging if the technology is abstract or complex, fragile (i.e. does not work consistently), requires continued hand-holding of adopters after sale, affects a sizeable portion of the adopting organization, and is not easily turned into a standardized commodity or package. These features are shared by many advanced technologies, and second generation networks are certainly an example of advanced technology. As outlined above, the Diffusion Program networks we examined were complex, and many of the technologies were new. Software applications using the H.323 standard had to be specially assembled for best results, using products from different vendors. This was an advantage, and allowed customization. From the users viewpoint, they were less stable, and less standardized, than the older H.320 solution, which had come as a complete solution from one vendor. Also, the H.320 platform had an installed user base in the community, so an informal help network existed that users could tap into if problems occurred.

Understandably, respondents adopted a wait and see attitude to the network. When implemented, they said they would want to be connected, but in a restricted way so as to circumscribe its effects on the organization. This is a problem for the network supplier, who would like to demonstrate that the adopters investment could be amortized over many uses and applications. Indeed, the new technologies were designed to support multiple uses and integrate with popular office solutions (ADSL, for example, can handle voice and data simultaneously and will work with Ethernet). But given their complexity and newness, respondents were cautious. Also, organizational culture and history influenced their attitude. The government institutions were very concerned about the security of their data on the Internet; they did not have much of a culture of data sharing either, and their databases tended to be proprietary and difficult to access except over secure intranets. The larger non-profits had access to government databases, but were somewhat reluctant about sharing their data with other non-profits. For all these reasons, the mood favored a circumscribed experimental participation in the new networks. Technology demonstrations and trials, discussed below, offer a low-cost, low-risk way for potential adopters to test-drive a technology before adoption.

Knowledge barriers can also afflict technology suppliers. Telephone companies do not themselves develop all the products and solutions they sell. Some technologies are more familiar to them than others. ATM is relatively new to the world, and ATM skills are not common (Nolle, 1999). ADSL and IP fall under the same category. Video conferencing solutions based on earlier standards (multi-channel video over a DS-3 circuit) had been successfully implemented at major sites during the first round of the Diffusion Program; where basically, as one engineer put it, its all one signal. Contrast this with the second round technologies, which entailed organizational learning because they were new; they meant interfacing with new partners and vendors, and involved mastering complex new accounting mechanisms necessitated by a pay only for what you use business model.

What can university-sponsored outreach programs do to help lower knowledge barriers to technology diffusion?

University-sponsored outreach programs can help in many ways to transfer technology and knowledge to aid diffusion in communities. They can help greatly in sustaining technology momentum by deepening the living knowledge base in communities (by this we mean training human capital college students as well as non-profit leaders and staff -- locally to use new technology as well as lead in its planning and change). It has been argued that sustained and significant support from state and federal governments would be needed to realize the high democratic ideals of the National Information Infrastructure (NII) (see Schon, 1998). University-sponsored outreach can augment such assistance by providing ongoing instructional and transfer support using students, in effect plying the role of a mediating agency (Attewell, 1992) in the community.

University-sponsored outreach programs played a key role in the development of four out of the eight networks we studied in this research. Two of these networks were implemented in the first round of the Diffusion Program; the other two will be implemented in the next year. These four networks together account for $8 million out of the $50 million Diffusion Program fund, and qualify as significant initiatives under the program. Functions of a university-sponsored outreach program could include:

• Research and development: Research could be technical or regulatory, but this is an essential function. The research products should be distributed among the network steering committee, and the content and implications of the findings explicated at steering committee meetings. The research should be led by faculty, and should involve student help and participation. Software applications development is another service that we have provided, notably Web-accessible database-enabled applications.
• Technology demonstrations and trials: These provide interested agencies a chance to check out the technology at low risk and low cost; they help answer three questions that agencies usually have: what is a Diffusion Program network? What will it do for my institution? And, When is it going to happen? We are working with several vendors and service providers to implement 12 trials in the community this summer using MetroNet technologies; trials sites will be linked up for three months, at a minimal or no cost to themselves. Trials and demonstrations can also be useful to counter vendors who may try to interest potential adopters in more expensive services by discrediting cheaper services; actually showing what cost-effective alternatives can do is a big help to people who are trying to decide.
• Class projects: For the past eight years, the first author has incorporated a one-semester field project assignment in his Telecommunications Project class. Graduate and undergraduate students enrolled in the class for course credit work in teams to provide a consulting service free of charge to community non-profits. Thirty-five agencies have taken advantage of this opportunity. Student projects have ranged from LAN design to telecommunications planning. Class projects contribute indirectly to the second-generation networking effort by preparing the non-profits for it both technologically, by helping lay the office technology foundation for more advanced networking, and psychologically by serving as vehicles of gradual change in the client organization. Using students in active learning via technology consulting in the community is an excellent way to build sustainability into the community change effort.
• Client as peripheral participant: The client representative can be a peripheral participant in the class projects. They may start out as the project contact person for the student team, and learn with the team as the project progresses. The following semester, they may graduate into a higher level of participation, learning along with a different student project team, as their technical knowledge develops. This has happened in the case of roughly half of the 35 clients we have worked with so far, and has helped deepen the communitys technology knowledge base by raising awareness about technical matters.
• Forging consortia: Social networking with other communities is invaluable. The authors convened the Upstate Diffusion Networks Group (UDNG) to serve as a social network for the leadership of the five Upstate New York communities slated to receive funding under the Diffusion Program for second-generation network implementation. The UDNG membership shares technical information and project implementation updates via a listserv and periodic meetings, and regularly consults with leaders of implemented Diffusion Program networks. Social groupings sharing information can be an effective bulwark against a vendors divide and rule tactics.
• As outlined above, knowledge barriers to technology diffusion can stem from regulatory and business issues. The UDNG group has worked with the State Public Service Commission on incorporation and Limited Service Offering (LSO) contractual issues. Institutions like the PSC can play an important role in helping communities overcome certain kinds of knowledge barriers.
• The community knowledge base can be deepened through activism and active participation in planning and negotiation meetings. The authors have played this role with the Syracuse MetroNet; the two other university-sponsored outreach programs examined in this research have also played a similar role in their communities prior to network implementation.

Major new national connectivity initiatives such as the NII emphasize equity of access to the Internet and networked resources. While this should be a non-negotiable goal, knowledge barriers may effectively block the diffusion of network connectivity, thereby impeding equity of access, in low-income areas. New York States Diffusion Program is a multi-million dollar initiative to provide second generation community networking and Internet access in poor communities across the state. Based on ongoing research into the network planning/implementation effort, the authors found knowledge barriers to be a very real concern in nearly all eight communities studied. The troubling prospect is: if communities do not have the requisite knowledge both technical and other to make optimal choices, how can the goals of the NII be served? Second generation community networks can be complex, and as such threaten to exacerbate the technology gap between the haves and the have-nots. The good news is, university-based technology transfer outreach programs can play a role in helping lower knowledge barriers and promote the sustainability of technology diffusion in communities.

Attewell's (1992) knowledge barrier approach to technology diffusion provides a promising theoretical perspective on second generation community networking. We have found the approach useful in studying the diffusion process, while also addressing important issues of equity of access and developing human capital in communities.

Endnotes:

In 1995, The NY State Public Service Commission adopted a Performance-Based Incentive Regulatory Plan for NYNEX (now Bell Atlantic). The Plan establishes a regulatory structure to increase NYNEXs efficiency and provide consumer benefits and protections. The Plan provides for the distribution of $50 million over five years beginning September 1, 1995 for advanced telecommunications infrastructure, customer premises equipment and related training in economically disadvantaged areas within New York State that otherwise would not have access to this kind of technology. The Plan also establishes a Diffusion Program Committee to solicit and evaluate proposals, and make awards not to exceed $10 million in any single year. The Committee consists of representatives from NYNEX, the NYS Consumer protection Board, the Public Utility Law Project of New York, the NYS Senate and Assembly, NAACP, the NYS Board of Regents, the Empire State Development Corporation, the NYS Departments of Health and State, and the NYS Office of the Advocate for Persons with Disabilities (from Diffusion Program Guidelines, 1995). The first round of Diffusion Program funding funded implementation of high-speed networks in New York City, Buffalo, and the Adirondack area, among others. The second and last round of the program is funding the networks in Syracuse, the Binghamton area, Watertown, the Leatherstocking region, and Cortland, among others.

2. A recent report by the National Strategy for Non-profit Technology (NSNT) states that most non-profits are hesitant to use technology and are ill-informed about the impact it could have on their work, and concludes that the fundamental problems causing this situation are lack of knowledgeand lack of skills (P.3).

References

Attewell, P. (1992), Technology diffusion and organizational learning: The case of business computing, Organization Science, 3 (1), 1-19.

Beamish, A. (1998), Approaches to community computing: Bringing technology to low-income groups, Chapter 15 in D. A. Schon, B. Sanyal, and W.J. Mitchell, High technology in low-income communities, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Eveland, J.D. and L. Tornatzky (1990), The deployment of technology, Chapter 6 in L. Tornatzky and M. Fleischer, The processes of technological innovation, Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.

Nolle, T. (1999), Is it time to reconsider ATM?, Network Magazine, July, 34.

Schon, D.A. (1998), Introduction, Introduction in D. A. Schon, B. Sanyal, and W.J. Mitchell, High technology in low-income communities, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Victoria Freenet Association. (1994), Free-Net strategic and marketing plan. Available at http://freenet.careleton.ca/freeport/freenet/conference2/issues/menu.