Writing in the (often interesting and always controversial) online politics & culture webzine sp!ked Sandy Starr takes the government to task for investing in Wired Up Communities pilot projects. Why? Because in his view it is condescending to offer acess to the Internet and to virtual community tools to people who have more basic needs like better housing, education and jobs.

It is true that providing online access is not sufficient to improve people’s lives by itself, but just because as he points out some early projects were not particularly successful in raising employment, for example, it doesn’t invalidate the whole idea. These are only pilots – there is still much to learn. If a virtual community can help nurture social capital on the ground even to a small extent it is a start.

Sandy concludes:

“If the circumstances in which people live were genuinely improved, then they could get wired up on their own. And they could form online communities – if that’s what they wanted to do – without interference from a third party”

I am sure that the government is already trying to tackle the more basic chronic problems that exist on some of the impoverished housing estates that have also been targeted with this programme. Why not see if kick-starting online usage could help matters?

Whatever my disagreements with the article, however, it is still worth taking a look at it, if only for its links to some recent research.

Gill Sellar was hired as project coordinator for the Albany GateWAy in 1999 – a service designed to act as a community web portal for a rural, dispersed community in SW Australia. Fortunately for us, she was also a PhD student who decided to do her thesis on the subject of her work – particularly whether such a project could be sustainable. I have been hosting a draft of her thesis for a while, and now she has provided the final copy (3Mb – or 1.75 Mb as a Zip file). It’s 315 pages long but well worth a look if you are interested in how virtual community services can be sustainable and help to build social capital in rural areas.

I have asked her if she could provide an “executive summary” and if she does so I will post it here or link to it.

Academics and educators point out the obvious – broadband by itself won’t do much if anything to improve schools and hospitals – it depends what you do with it. Or that is where this BBC story begins – it quickly gets distracted by more prosaic issues of training and difficulties in arranging timetables around broadband education…

In reality the big question mark in my view is still more fundamental – broadband may be able to deliver more educational material in theory but does the material exist? Can it be integrated in the curriculum? Do teachers understand what it does (and doesn’t do)? Does the material provide the chance for real interactive learning or just a narrow set of branches towards a pre-programmed goal?

Similarly, broadband can only help doctors if they do perceive it as a benefit and rely on it.

I am very dubious about the repetition in this piece (and presumably in the thinking of some in the policy arena) about the importance of videoconferencing. Broadband does enable limited videoconferencing but is this really something valuable or would messageboards or mailing lists and other forms of communication (still helped by broadband) be more useful?

The gov’t is apparently promising broadband to every doctor’s surgery as well. And even better, I read that the e-minister grasps the important point that,

“It is no longer enough to have services enabled by 2005, we have to drive up the number of people using them… we have to re-engineer services around the needs of the citizen.”

Let’s see if they can walk the walk the way they talk the talk.
Also, I would like to take issue with the e-envoy who reportedly maintains that the UK had already achieved universal access thanks to the 6,000 UK Online centres and a raft of kiosks in high streets and railway stations. People are not likely to see a broad range of Internet services as part of their lives until they can access them from the comfort and privacy of their own homes.porn movies teachersex movie teacheramateur movies teen webcamteen kelly movieteeny movies sapphicbutterfly movie the effectmovie the doorsbooty thick movies Mapmovie big clips free titmovies dick black freeinternet bootleg free movies adultfree bukakke moviescfnm movies freemovies stocking free xxx dailyfree fuckingmachine moviesmovies free porn full lenght Map

This Salon.com article (no registration required) made me think. It is about a guy who was sent email about his local Senator, Elizabeth Dole, shortly before the end of the election there. My first impulse was, “ugh, spam”. Indeed, on balance it is still my main feeling. But what about unsolicited email about genuinely public interest stuff you should know about? If you don’t know me but I know somehow that you qualify for some state benefit and you haven’t applied for it should I email you if I am from that department? What about “pushing” health information that I know is relevant to you?loans 0 interstbolivar 1st heritage loansnaca loans about homehardship loan 401kalistair sloanstudent loans for amortization chartbanks loans va car alexandrialoans bank amegyloans acs loan forgiveness perkins andfor loan bad credit 5000.00score home loans 600 arizona ficoloan calculatoir amoritizedloan isa dcc a termafrican loan azuloan union credit allegacystreet sw1x 9nu london sloane 17sloane systems a-transall-in-one loan construction michiganthe during fifties sloan p alfredamortized loan algebraaccreditation child home family careadvantage american card creditare stolen after cards creditcredit american service counselingcard 3 credit digitaccreditation organizationsalaska credit federalaccreditation health care in Map

The UK Gov’t has pledged at the recent e-summit to get every school onto broadband by 2006. This is rather good but if you are going thereby to ensure every remote village has broadband access anyway, why not find some way to ensure that the bandwidth is also available to other people in the area who are not already served? How about some form of public wireless mesh network with schools as the hubs in internet-deprived areas?advances loan 10 payday texas 1415 10 for loan paydayloan 14 payday 10 payday loans12 payday credit 17 loanpayday 6 free 4 information loan5 payday no loan credit 7payday 7 texas loan 5payday cash account advance loanhouse add loan urlloan payday quick advance

According to a new report which was summarised in the Guardian, despite extensive effort being put into getting Government services online, the British public have shown very little interest compared to other countries. Just 13% of the population had used Government online services in the UK over the last year, less than even the Czech and Slovak republics and less than a quarter of the proportion using them in any Scandinavian country.

Overall in the 28 countries examined, most of the use of e-Government by citizens has been predominantly to seek information (24% of total adult population) compared to just 4% who used the Internet at any point in the year to provide feedback of any kind into the government process. Clearly the potential of the Internet to improve participation in government is barely being tapped.new about equity loans home jerseycredit loan $5000 bad withguaranteed approval loans 100approval guaranteed loan home 100loans 0 new car percentno 20 loans land doclouis st mo loans advancewith 10000 loan dollar small paymentscash 90 loan dayadvantage alaska loans

A report published recently into e-government by the British Department for Work and Pensions makes gloomy reading. It suggests (perhaps not surprisingly) that, ” only 8% of the working population said they would prefer to contact the government about benefits through the internet or email, rather than traditional channels. The most popular channel is face-to-face contact at the local office, closely followed by a telephone call.”

Of course this is a false comparison, as you might find you have to travel for a half an hour and queue for another half hour to meet someone and you might have to hang on the phone for ages to speak to them. I have always maintained that if one important aspect of e-government is cost saving or increased efficiency, some of those benefits should be passed on to the users to encourage them to use it. If the government guaranteed faster service online (or offered a slightly higher benefit for those who got it paid in electronically) people might be prepared to overlook the unfamiliarity of the transaction.

There’s a little information on the feasability of offering e-government services online via digital TV as well. So far the government is only offering a DTV gateway on the (expensive) Sky Digital platform. Where it might make a difference would be on Freeview, the new no-subscription DTV service. But alas the providers of Freeview have not built two way interactivity into their low-cost boxes, so anything more than “brochureware” government services will have to wait for a Freeview v.2.

The government is trying hard to seem “au courant” by talking about uses for text messaging in government, for “court appearances, flood warnings, driving tests and hospital appointments”. Sadly, these examples aside, there just aren’t that many places where SMS services are useful for government services.
More advanced services based on location and with images as well as text I could see being useful for tourism, for example, but that sort of thing is a couple of years away from mainstream use…nipples extremeunderage nude dark bbstits largest evernude wwe babescock sucking underagehairy wife youngvaginas asian smallcreampie amataurclits huge hairyhairy pusygroup sex adult partiesafrican sex moviesadult blonde pornamateur free teens nudeporn cotent adult freeadult sex audio2 big porn be true 2games 1000 sex Mapconvert adp mp3mp3 convert adpconvert mp3 adp1920 music mp3acoustic guitar mp3critical acclaim a7x mp3critical a7x mp3 acclaimcritical acclaim a7x mp3 Map

The presentation I did to UK local government about the usefulness of virtual community and its care and feeding is now online in Powerpoint format.