Community Computer Networking and Community Centers: Models, Best Practices and Lessons Learned

Abstract

This paper presents a survey and analysis of models of community computer networking (electronic villages) in developing economies. The author investigates different participatory approaches, impacts and audiences of electronic villages versus community information technology centers in a variety of socioeconomic contexts. She presents findings from her own research in the US (Appalachia, the Blacksburg Electronic Village), North Africa and Iran (Zahedan IT Center; SchoolNet). The author aggregates findings from other studies to explain best practices and lessons learned in a diversity of community-based programs designed for socioeconomic development, and links this current knowledge to initiatives in Bangladesh.

Biography

Andrea Kavanaugh, Ph.D.
Senior Research Scientist and Assistant Director
Center for Human Computer Interaction
Department of Computer Science, Virginia Tech, U.S.A.
Email: kavan@vt.edu

Andrea L. Kavanaugh, a Cunningham Fellow and Fulbright scholar, is Senior Research Scientist and Assistant Director (since 2002) of the Center for Human Computer Interaction, a university-wide research center at Virginia Tech. Her research is focused on social computing, educational technology, and communication behavior and effects. She is the former Director of Research for the Blacksburg Electronic Village (BEV), a community computer network project of Information Systems, at Virginia Tech (1993 to 2001). She has collaborated over the past ten years with VT faculty, community organizations, local government and Virginia school systems on multiple sponsored research projects. Her work has examined the use and social impact of computer networking on community involvement, civic engagement and social relations. She has also examined the use and impact of computers and networking in the classroom (teaching styles, student interest and motivation), and on parental involvement (e.g., computer mediated communication between home and school). In collaboration with the Science and Arts Foundation, she has been leading the evaluation of computer networking in secondary schools and community Internet centers in, Iran, with support from the World Bank InfoDev Program. Her interest in mobile computing is focused on cell phones and web-enabled personal digital assistants which may act as intermediate or transition technologies to desktop computing for populations with low computer literacy (elderly, low education or income) due to familiar interface design and usability. Her research has also been supported by grants from the U.S. Department of Commerce and the National Science Foundation.

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