Community Informatics Design Applied To Digital Social Systems

This book introduces a Digital Social System Praxis Framework (DSSPF) integrating Computational Media, Evolutionary Systems Thinking and Design Thinking approaches to E-transformation practice, also called Community Informatics Design (CID). The DSSPF framework is intended to create communication spaces dedicated to knowledge production and sharing for social and organizational change. It allows social systems researchers and practitioners to recognize their synergistic roles in the praxis process to shape their future through social innovation projects. This transdisciplinary text provides potential students and practitioners fundamental concepts and tools for such design. It offers resources from the Pragmatic and Systemic philosophy of science for the co-construction of social architectures and infrastructures, and multi-aspectual design methodologies by which government, organizations and civil society can learn to ethically co-design common ground. This approach provides complementary and common patterns from known methods, models, and theories of social systems interventions that could support a generic framing of large scale sociotechnical systems: digital social innovation ecosystem, living Labs, Fab Labs, enterprise collaborative networks. There will be a particular focus on understanding and addressing the dimensions that make people from different communities of practice able to communicate and collaborate through multiple digital media, design platforms, worldviews and modeling approaches.

Community Informatics (CI) is the application of information and communications technologies (ICTs) to enable community processes and the achievement of community objectives. CI goes beyond the "Digital Divide" to making ICT access usable and useful to excluded populations and communities for local economic development, social justice, and political empowerment. CI approaches ICTs from a "community" perspective and develops strategies and techniques for managing their use by communities both virtual and physical including the variety of Community Networking applications. CI assumes that both communities have characteristics, requirements, and opportunities that require different strategies for ICT intervention and development from individual access and use. Also, CI addresses ICT use in Developing Countries as well as among the poor, the marginalized, the elderly, or those living in remote locations in Developed Countries. CI is of interest both to ICT practitioners and academic researchers and addresses the connections between the policy and pragmatic issues arising from the tens of thousands of Community Networks, Community Technology Centres, Telecentres, Community Communications Centres, and Telecottages globally along with the rapidly emerging field of electronically based virtual "communities."

Community groups, social support networks, voluntary agencies and government organisations are all actively exploring the potential of the new information and communication technologies to bring about democratic development and renewal. A rich variety of social experiments in what has become known as Community Informatics is now beginning to provide useful research findings and exciting examples of innovative applications. This book sets down some of the defining features of a Community Informatics approach and some of the common themes which are emerging. In particular it considers the following issues: * sustainability * employment * community management * public service provision * partnerships of stakeholders * local learning * social support and networks. This edited collection brings together leading exponents of Community Informatics from around the world and critically evaluates their experiences.

Community Informatics is developing as an approach for linking economic and social development efforts at the community level to the opportunities that information and communication's technologies present. Areas such as SMEs and electronic commerce, community and civic networks, electronic democracy and online participation are among a few of the areas affected. Community Informatics: Enabling Communities with Information and Communications Technologies is an introduction to the discipline of community informatics. Issues such as trends, controversies, challenges and opportunities facing the community application of information and communications technologies into the millennium are studied.

Successful strategies and principles for using information technology to transform regional and community economies exist, and they are presented here with clarity and insight in a way that is useful to both practitioners and researchers. Although the communities discussed here range far and wide, from those in Russia to Australia and to Kenya, any community can benefit from enhanced utilization of information and communication technologies. The ways in which technology can help improve economic, social, cultural, and political conditions are as numerous and various as the communities themselves. In Central Queensland, Australia, community leaders have brought in a high-tech expert advisory system to help them control weed infestation. New Zealand and Australia have pioneered telehealth, the exchange of health care information and the delivery of some services across great distances. In Russia, wiring a community was found to be about more than mere hardware and software; vital to the process was understanding how communities provide access to information technology, how authorities and volunteers can improve computer literacy among citizens, and how connectivity can be extended to greater numbers of people. In some areas of south Asia, nongovernmental organizations have teamed up with local governments to increase access, empowerment, and e-commerce opportunities. These are but a few of the ways this volume contributes to our knowledge base about the impact of technology on economic development.

Here is a sustained investigation into the human contexts of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs), covering both research and theory in this emerging field. Authors Kling, Rosenbaum, and Sawyer demonstrate that the design, adoption, and use of ICTs are deeply connected to people's actions as well as to the environments in which they are used. In Chapters One and Two, they define Social Informatics and offer a pragmatic overview of the discipline. In Chapters Three and Four, they articulate its fundamental ideas for specific audiences and present important research findings about the personal, social, and organizational consequences of ICT design and use. Chapter Five covers Social Informatics education; Chapter Six discusses ways to communicate Social Informatics to professional and research communities; and Chapter Seven provides a summary and look to the future.

Today, "community" seems to be everywhere. At home, at work, and online, the vague but comforting idea of the community pervades every area of life. But have we lost the ability truly to understand what it means? The Neighborhood in the Internet investigates social and civic effects of community networks on local community, and how community network designs are appropriated and extended by community members. Carroll uses his conceptual model of "community" to re-examine the Blacksburg Electronic Village – the first Web-based community network – applying it to attempts to sustain and enrich contemporary communities through information technology. The book provides an analysis of the role of community in contemporary paradigms for work and other activity mediated by the Internet. It brings to the fore a series of design experiments investigating new approaches to community networking and addresses the future trajectory and importance of community networks. This book will be of interest to students of sociology, community psychology, human-computer interaction, information science, and computer-supported collaborative work.

As a discipline, Informatics has developed over the years from its initial focus on data processing and software development, towards a more recent emphasis on people’s use of technology and its impact on their working and private lives. Gunilla Bradley, an internationally recognized expert in this field, has researched this area for many years and here, authors this indispensable volume on the topic. Providing a broad and deep analysis of the relationship between people, ICT, society and the environment, Bradley examines the impact on/change in organizations and individuals, both in the workplace and in the home. Taking a firmly humanistic view she also looks to the future as ICT increasingly transforms and impacts on our lives, and explores issues including stress, power, competence and psychosocial communication. She proposes normative research questions for the future and presents actions to achieve the Good ICT society. This thought-provoking book will be of interest to students and academics studying social informatics, computing and MIS as well as organizational behaviour, sociology, psychology and communications. Research-based and cross-disciplinary, Bradley's book is a valuable, and topical, resource.