Who uses public access ICTs? With the release of the first survey working paper, Public access to ICTs: Sculpting the profile of users, the Global Impact Study offers insight into who the users of public access ICTs are. Written by George Sciadas, with input from Hil Lyons, Chris Rothschild, and Araba Sey, this working paper results from data analysis of the user surveys in Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Ghana, and the Philippines.
Research Summary: Youth movements and ICT in Egypt and Tunisia
Maria Garrido is leading a TASCHA research project, with other University of Washington researchers Fernando Baron, Volodymyr Lysenko, and Marwa Maziad, that investigates the role of technology in the youth movements in Egypt. Here is the project description: From a Facebook page to a Social Movement The evolution of the April 6th Youth Movement and [...]
New Research: Transnational Migrants in the Information Society
Maria Garrido is expanding on her past TASCHA research by examining the way that transnational migrants are appropriating ICT to adapt to life in their new homes. Here’s the story: The Voice of Transnational Migrants in the Information Society Technology appropriation and the paths towards social and economic participation of migrants in the European Union [...]
Benefit cost analysis components of the Global Impact Study
One of the research questions the Global Impact Study is considering is the relationship between the costs and benefits of providing and using public access to information and communication technologies (ICTs). Understanding this relationship is important for governmental and non-governmental decision makers who fund or are thinking about funding public access ICT venues. There is a multitude of approaches in the cost-benefit analysis field for examining this issue, as well as a multitude of perspectives from which it could be studied. The Global Impact Study is employing three different methods to estimate the use and non-use benefits of providing public access to ICTs and examine how these are distributed by geographic and demographic characteristics. Tyler Davis, PI for the Benefit Cost Analysis in-depth study, describes the three methods.
Reconstructing Cambodia: The role of libraries in development
Following Open Cambodia 2011, I spent a day touring libraries with Margaret Bywater, a 25 year veteran of Cambodian libraries and development work. Margaret is at the epicenter of the movement to train librarians and open libraries in Cambodia. It is an uphill struggle because the genocide perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge in the 1970′s [...]
