The Executive Committee of the Global Impact Study has approved five new in-depth studies to be undertaken by the project. We already have three in-depth studies underway on collaborative knowledge sharing, infomediaries, and non-instrumental uses of public access ICTs. The new studies are:

1. Public access, private phone: the interplay of shared access and the mobile internet — This study will assess and describe the interplay between public PC-based internet access and private mobile phone-based access in South Africa.
2. Public access ICT use and the community information ecology — This study looks at public access ICT use in context, measuring it against the availability and use of other formal and informal community information resources. The study will take place in two to four countries.
3. Public access ICTs and changes in information ecology — This study will investigate what changes occur in information and communication practices after public access ICTs are introduced into communities in Botswana. Areas of particular interest are education and local content creation.
4. Public access ICTs, mobile phones and e-government —This study will examine the impact of government services provided through PCs at public access ICT venues in the Philippines, comparing their impact with that of similar mobile phone-based services.
5. Costs and benefits of public access ICTs — This study will examine the relationship between the costs and benefits of public access to ICTs, from service provider and user perspectives.

Full proposals for these studies will be posted shortly.