Browsing All Posts filed under »Community Informatics Practice«

Community Innovation and Community Informatics

April 6, 2013

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Innovation is the buzzword of the moment. Countries large and small, rich and poor, international agencies, private companies even individuals are pre-occupied with finding the key to "innovation". What precisely is meant by "innovation" of course, varies from context to context and even within contexts it is difficult to find a hard and fast definition that goes beyond simply referring to "change" of some sort and hopefully change for the better or change that builds on what has gone on before.

Community Informatics for Improving Health

March 11, 2013

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Maintaining and improving the health of its members is one of the most important functions that a community must fulfill. As well, we know that the cost of health care is in many parts of the world becoming a huge and even unsupportable burden because of the directions in which health care has been evolving. Finally, we know that there is a strong and positive relationship between health and one's involvement in social relationships, including those of family, friends and community. Thus exploring how Information and Communications Technologies might enable health and health services by, through and within communities would seem to be a natural focus for Community Informatics.

Glocality: Thinking about Community Informatics and the Local in the Global and the Global in the Local. Special Issue of the Journal of Community Informatics

September 3, 2012

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One of the peculiarities of conceptualizations in the age and context of the Internet is the continuing desire to retain the traditional categories of the pre-Internet age. We talk of rural development and urban environments, of the "local" as feature of spatial connection and the "global" as the field in which large processes and interconnections take place.

Two Worlds of Open Government Data: Getting the Lowdown on Public Toilets in Chennai and Other Matters

April 10, 2012

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There is it appears, two worlds of "Open Government Data"--one the world of smart phones, and Ipads, of apps and upscale "demographics" of interest to sponsors like Proctor and Gamble; and the contrasting world of slum dwellers without access to sanitation, of populations subject to systematic mal-and even corrupt administration --worlds where app providers and the folks who make the OGD available to them go public with multi-million dollar IPO's and ones where those with the courage to pursue public information may be putting their lives at risk.

Community Informatics and Older Persons: The Necessary Connection

March 6, 2012

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As is well known, there is a looming demographic crisis in Developed Countries with a rapidly aging population (people are living longer) and a rapidly declining birth rate. The effect of this is to put significant strains on overall economic activity and particularly on health care and support systems, as the aging population results in an increasing need for health care and medical interventions and for support and care services.

Evolving Relationships: Universities, Researchers and Communities:: Special Issue: Journal of Community Informatics: University — Community Relationships

January 12, 2012

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This issue of The Journal of Community Informatics (JoCI) deals with research relationships between universities and university based ICT researchers and communities. These matters are, of course of central significance to Community Informatics since much of CI is, in one form or another, linked into this type of relationship.

Up from Facebook: #Occupy—(Re)Building and Empowering Communities

October 22, 2011

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#OWS (occupy Wall Street and the “Occupy” movement) have been widely discussed but not as yet in the context of a broader understanding of an evolving Digital/Information Society.

The Data Divide: Some Positive Developments

July 19, 2011

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What I find so positive about this is that the DoL is taking the issue of a potential Data Divide seriously and is devoting some of its development resources to responding by providing tools that those with more limited technical experience can use to design applications for using DoL data.

A Data Divide? Data “Haves” and “Have Nots” and Open (Government) Data

July 11, 2011

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The idea of a possible parallel “data divide” between those who have access and the opportunity to make effective use of data and particularly “open data” and those who do not, began to occur to me. I was attending several planning/recruitment events for the Open Data “movement” here in Vancouver and the socio-demographics and some of the underlying political assumptions seemed to be somewhat at odds with the expressed advocacy position of “data for all”.

Louder Voices and Learning Networks

June 25, 2011

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But in looking at this array of attractive intellectual baubles I’m left with one nagging concern. Amidst all this media and networking and mobility what exactly will be the content of this “Twenty-first Century University as global learning network”? Where will the content come from, that will constitute the “learning” component of this learning network? How exactly will the promise implicit in this statement—“digital learning is increasingly recognized as an important part of development worldwide” be realized in fact, and by whom, and ultimately in whose interests?

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