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Community InformaticsCommunity Informatics, also known as community networking or electronic community networking, refers broadly to the use of technology within a physical community (as opposed to a community of interest, which is not rooted in a physical place). The study of community informatics is an emerging academic discipline and field of practice in applied Information and Communications Technology (ICT). The term was first brought to prominence by Michael Gurstein, a Canadian Professor of Management, and he brought out the first representative collection of papers in the field. This acadmic area also brings together the practices of community development and organization, and insights from fields such as sociology, feminism or library and information and management sciences. Its outcomes -- community networks and community based ICT enabled service applications -- are of increasing interest to governments of all persuasions, in many countries, concerned with ways to harness information and communication technologies for social capital and community development, disputed as these concepts may be. It may in fact, not gell as a single field within the academy, akin to Information Systems or Management Systems, but remain a convenient locale for interdisciplinary activity, drawing upon many fields of social practice and endeavour, as well as knowledge of community applications of technology. It might be characterized as a postmodern discipline, open to all comers. The field appears to have emerged from concerns with the "Digital Divide" as expressed in many policy statements and reports in the mid to late 1990s, and a body of common knowledge and key concepts emerged, providing a basis around which an increasingly large group of people in many countries have discussed their work and ideas. There is a healthy tension between the practice and research ends of the field. To some extent this reflects the gap, familiar from other disciplines such as community development,community organisation and community based research, community health and community education, between a desire for accountable - especially quantifiable and outcome-focussed social development, typically practiced by government or supported by foundations, and the more participatory, process-driven priorities of grass-roots community activists, familiar from theorists such as Paulo Freire, or Deweyan pragmatism. Some of the theoretical tensions are also familiar from such disciplines as program evaluation and social policy, and perhaps paradoxically, Management Information Systems, where there is continual debate over the relative virtue and values of different forms of research and action spread around different understandings of the virtues or otherwise of allegedly "scientific" or "value-free" activity (frequently associated with "responsible" and deterministic public policy philosophies), contrasted with more interpretive and process driven viewpoints in bottom-up or practice driven activity. Community informatics would in fact probably benefit from closer knowledge of, and relationship to, theorists, practitioners, and evaluators of rigorous qualitative research and practice. A further concern is the potential for practice to be 'hijacked' by policy or academic agendas, rather than being driven by community goals whether in Developed Country "Digital Divide" programs or in projects situated in Less Developed Countries. Ethical issues around such issues have not been at all explored. However, explicit theoretical positions and ideological statements or divisions have yet to emerge. Many projects appear to have emerged with no particular disciplinary affiliation, arising more directly from policy or practice imperatives to 'do something' with technology as funding opportunties arise. Research and practice ranges from concerns with purely virtual communities; to situations in which virtual or online communication are used to enhance existing communities in urban, rural, or remote geographic locations in developed or developing countries; to applications of ICTs for the range of areas of interest for communities including social and economic development, environmental management, media and "content" production, public management and e-governance among others. A central concern, although one not always realized in practice is with "enabling" or "empowering" communities with ICTs that is, ensuring that the technology is available for "effective use" http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue8_12/gurstein/index.html by the community. This further implies an approach to development which is rather more "bottom up" than "top down". Areas of concern range from small scale projects in particular communities or organizations which might involve only a handful of people, such as an on online community of disabled people; telecentres; civic networks (in Europe, see for example Milan Civic network and ruralnet UK); to large national, government sponsored networking projects in countries such as Australia or Canada (Networking the Nation and Community Access Program, both now ended); or local community projects such as Smart Newtown; or Computers in Homes, working with Maori families in New Zealand. The Gates Foundation has been active in supporting public libraries in countries such as Chile. For examples of ICTs for development in Africa, see Open Knowledge Network. Knet is an example of work with First Nations people in Canada. There is also an emerging interest in the area among those with an interest in the technical, both hardware and software, aspects of "community based" ICT use and applications. In part this is generated by a recognition that new approaches to hardware and software design may be needed to respond to the needs (and markets) found among lower income populations (many of whom may approach computing from a family, group or community perspective). Others approach these issues based on a concern for the social applications and uses of ICTs, while still others have an interest in pursuing these from the perspective of community based ICT strategies for knowledge creation, management and innovation; collaborative decision making and action; and flexible, dispersed and/or community based networking strategies for ICT enabled production and control. There are emerging online and personal networks of researchers and practitioners in community informatics and community networking in many countries (see, for example, Community Action Network) as well as international groupings. The past decade has also seen conferences in many countries, and there is an emerging literature for theoreticians and practitioners inlcuding the new on-line Journal of Community Informatics http://ci-journal.net. It is surprising in fact, how much in common is found when people from developed and non-developed countries meet. A common theme is the struggle to convince government of the legitimacy of this approach to developing electronically-literate societies, instead of a top-down or trickle-down approach, or an approach dominated by technical, rather than social solutions which in the end, tend to help vendors rather than communities. A common criticism is that a focus on technical solutions evades the less quantifiable changes that communities need to achieve in their values, activities and other people-oriented outcomes. The field tends to have a progressive bent, being concerned about the use of technology for social and cultural development connected to a desire for capacity building or expanding social capital, and in a number of countries, governments and foundations have funded a variety of community informatics projects and initiatives, particularly from a more tightly controlled, though not well-articulated social planning perspective, though knowledge about long term effects of such forms of social intervention on use of technology is still in its early stages. National associations and organisations have coalesced around these issues in the UK, US, Canada, Australia, the Commonwealth of Independent States and elsewhere. Most recently a community informatics research hub has been established in South Africa at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, that will be hosting the CIRN2005 conference 24-26 August 2005. Relevant online links include the conference web site, the Community Informatics Research Network from which connections can be made into listservs and events and The Journal of Community Informatics. Larryjhs 00:24, 20 Oct 2004
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