Community informatics
[4] Communities are defined as people coming together in pursuit of common aims or shared practices through any means, including physical, electronic, and social networks.
[6] Communities can use the infrastructure of ICTs as a method of continuing cultures within the context of the Internet and the World Wide Web.
[9] Since the inception of the Internet and the World Wide Web, we have seen the exponential growth of enterprises[10] ranging from electronic commerce, social networking, entertainment and education, as well as a myriad of other contrivances and file exchanges that allow for an ongoing cultural enrichment through technology.
[11] However, there has been a general lag as to which populations can benefit through these services through impediments such as geographic location, a lack of funds, gaps in technology and the expertise and skills that are required to operate these systems.
the "Bottom of the Pyramid") and from companies concerned with finding a delivery channel for goods and services into rural and low income communities.
While the progress of ICT4D has been remarkably fast in general as communities become more information-based, digital divide appears to be a great challenge to its proponents.
Although access to information technology in North America and Europe is high, it is the complete opposite in other regions of the world, particularly in Africa and in some parts of Asia.
[14] The effectiveness of ICT as a tool for development is highly contingent on the capacity of all countries to accommodate and maintain information and communications technology.
[2] This type of community may persist over time, but the inclusion and the exclusion to it may happen consistently as people are no longer in that distinct life stage.
[2] Three important concepts are considered while forming community of practice which are mutual engagement, joint enterprise, and shared repertoire.
Community informatics is a technique for looking at economic and social development within the construct of technology—online health communities, social networking websites, cultural awareness and enhancement through online connections and networks, electronic commerce, information exchanges, as well as a myriad of other aspects that contributes to creating a personal and group identity.
Its outcomes—community networks and community-based ICT-enabled service applications—are of increasing interest to grassroots organizations, NGOs and civil society, governments, the private sector, and multilateral agencies among others.
[clarification needed] A first formal meeting of researchers with an academic interest in these initiatives was held in conjunction with the 1999 Global Community Networking Conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Moreover, examples of using computer networking to initiate and enhance social activities was acknowledged by women's groups (Balka 1992) and by the labor movement (Mazepa 1997).
[29] In addition, the difficulty that Information Systems has in recognising the qualitative dimension of technology research means that the kind of approach taken by supporters of community informatics is difficult to justify to a positive field oriented towards solutions of technical, rather than social problems.
There are long-standing debates about the desire for accountable – especially quantifiable and outcome-focused social development, typically practised by government or supported by foundations, and the more participatory, qualitatively rich, process-driven priorities of grass-roots community activists, familiar from theorists such as Paulo Freire, or Deweyan pragmatism.
[30][31] Some of the theoretical and practical 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), and 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.
[33] This exists despite the presence of several gender-oriented studies and leadership roles played by women in community informatics initiatives.
An area of rapidly developing interest is in the use of ICT as a means to enhance citizen engagement as an "e-Governance" counterpart (or counterweight) to transaction oriented initiatives.
A key conceptual element and framing concept for Community Informatics is that of "effective use" introduced initially by Michael Gurstein in a critique of a research pre-occupation with the Digital Divide as ICT "access".
[36] Clement and Shade have contended that accomplishing insignificant specialized connectedness to the Internet is no assurance that an individual or group will prevail with regards to appropriating new ICTs in ways that advance their improvement, independence, or empowerment.
In some countries such as the UK, there is a tradition of locally based grassroots community technology, for example in Manchester, or in Hebden Bridge.
The past decade has also seen conferences in many countries, and there is an emerging literature for theoreticians and practitioners including the on-line Journal of Community Informatics.
A common criticism that is frequently raised amongst participants at events such as the Prato conferences is that a focus on technical solutions evades the social changes that communities need to achieve in their values, activities and other people-oriented outcomes in order to make better use of technology.
Even though that community networks and public libraries have similitudes in various ways, there are some obstacles that upset the probability of cooperation in the future between them.
Albeit both CNs and libraries are concerned with giving information services to the society, an exchange is by all accounts lacking between the two communities.
The mission of libraries is frequently rather barely engaged and, with regards to managing people and different institutes, their methodology can be to some degree unbending.
