The final report will highlight the findings about the impact of public access to ICTs, situate the findings in the context of development, and make recommendations for policy makers, funders, public access practitioners, and researchers.

The final report will be posted on our website, but if you’d like to receive the final report via email, please sign up here.

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By participating in this panel, the Global Impact Study will support the discussions with rich data and evidence about public access in developing countries. Our findings will contribute to the panel and inform WSIS participants by describing the socio-economic impacts of public access, the benefits of public access, the role of public libraries in providing access, and providing recommendations for future policy and funding decisions, public access program design, and the future of public access. This panel, along with all of the other sessions of WSIS, features remote participation.

Participation in this event precedes our forthcoming final report, which will be released in March 2013. Make sure you receive a copy of the report by signing up here.

This TASCHA Talk is part of the iSchool’s Research Conversation Series

Monday, February 4

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Barely two decades ago, public access information and communication technologies (ICTs) were high on the global development agenda as the best approach to making computers and the internet available to people in low and middle-income countries. Shared access in telecenters, libraries, and similar venues would make ICTs more accessible and affordable. Furthermore, this could be coupled with other valuable services such as digital training, job placement resources, and delivery of government services; thereby charting a path to social and economic inclusion for disadvantaged populations. In recent years, however, this view has fallen out of favor in some government and donor communities, due to a variety of factors – lack of clear evidence of positive socio-economic impact (particularly in terms of returns to investment), the preponderance of internet cafes offering relatively low-cost access while publicly funded models struggle for sustainability, the appearance that public access venues are mostly populated by young people preoccupied with social networking and entertainment, and the apparent redundancy of computers in the wake of mobile telephony. Yet on the ground, based on patronage levels, it appears that public access venues are important to those who use them. And while some agencies are dropping public access from their portfolio of development strategies, others are ramping up their efforts to expand public access to ICTs.

Is the dismissal of public access ICTs warranted? Have public access venues outlived their usefulness, or are they (still) effective tools for social inclusion? Is their utility broad-based or limited to particular contexts and areas of endeavor? What precisely are the impacts (if any) they deliver and how? Is public access a perfect substitute for private access to computer and internet technology? Designed and implemented by the Technology & Social Change Group (TASCHA) at the iSchool, the Global Impact Study was designed to investigate  these types of questions, in the largest study of its kind.

This iSchool Research Conversation and TASCHA Talk, presented by Araba Sey, discusses insights from the Global Impact Study. It outlines some dimensions of public access as a strategy for socio-economic development, addressing questions such as: who uses public access ICTs and why, what value do users perceive, what types of outcomes have users experienced and in what areas? Based on these findings we suggest how vested interests might realistically characterize the nature of public access impacts and make decisions about the role public access could play in their development agendas.

About the presenter

Araba Sey is a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Washington’s Information School. Her research focuses on the social and economic implications of information and communication technologies (ICTs) including: the dynamics of mobile phone appropriation by low income populations and telecommunication industry actors, the impacts of public access to ICTs, and other manifestations of the interaction between ICTs and socio-economic development issues in low and middle income countries.

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Three claims addressed how things are:

C1A: Public access and private mobiles offer different affordances. Among low-income users, free use (such as that in a library) supports more resource-intensive goals (storage space, time, bandwidth) and stable media production, while paid use (such as via a phone) supports time-sensitive goals and transient media production.

C1B: Teenage users have developed complex, fine-grained practices which help them to negotiate the respective strengths and weaknesses of public access and private mobiles—including practices that help to minimize costs and maximize convenience—and a keen sense of which affordances or use settings will be more productive to reach given goals.

C2: The Public Access Venue (PAV) provides non-substitutable impact to resource-constrained users, even those with “the Internet in their pocket.”

C3: Public access supports the development of generative digital literacies associated with hyperlinked media, while mobile access supports everyday social literacies.

Two claims addressed how things could be:

C4: Teens can use a combination of mobile and public access Internet resources to participate in generative social networks (though not all do so).

C5: PAV operators can improve venue rules and skills to encourage the complementary use of the mobile Internet.

The full post can be found here.

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Full report

Two-page brief

The web application is written in PHP, using the Symfony framework, with a MySQL database back-end. Accompanying the source code is basic documentation describing the various components of the system. The extent of documentation is intended for individuals with experience deploying these types of environments. Please note that development of the Global Impact Study inventory database has ended. Although most bugs have been addressed, there is the possibility that some remain. As such, please treat the code as beta. This is open-source software licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License v. 3.

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Global Impact Study Inventory Database Source Code

1. Public access and private mobiles offer different affordances, and teenage users have developed complex, fine-grained practices which help them to negotiate the respective strengths and weaknesses of the affordances.
2. The public access venue provides non-substitutable impact to resource-constrained users, even those with “the Internet in their pocket.”
3. Public access supports the development of digital literacies associated with hyperlinked media and large-format documents, while mobile access supports everyday social literacies and messaging.
4. Teens can use a combination of mobile and public access Internet resources to participate in networked media production and grassroots economic mobilization.
5. Public access venue operators can improve venue rules and skills to encourage the complementary use of the mobile Internet.

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Full research report

Two-page research brief

Citation

Walton, M. & J. Donner. (2012). Public access, private mobile: The interplay of shared access and the mobile Internet for teenagers in Cape Town. Global Impact Study Research Report Series. Cape Town, South Africa: University of Cape Town.

Acknowledgement

This research was conducted as part of the Global Impact Study of Public Access to Information & Communication Technologies, a five-year (2007-2012) project to generate evidence about the scale, character, and impacts of public access to information and communication technologies. Looking at libraries, telecenters, and cybercafes, the study investigates impact in a number of areas, including communication and leisure, culture and language, education, employment and income, governance, and health. The Global Impact Study is implemented by the University of Washington’s Technology & Social Change Group with support from the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and a grant to IDRC from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Learn more at globalimpactstudy.org.

Abstract

Public access to information and communication technologies (ICTs) can play an important role in development. Communities benefit when people can access information and communicate with experts and people in their social networks to learn about health, jobs, education, leisure activities, or whatever inspires them. When access to ICTs is public and available to everyone in the community, such as in public libraries, telecenters, and cybercafés, it can be an effective tool for those that need it most. The findings in the brief are evident at all venues in the public access landscape, including libraries. However, in some instances, libraries may offer users unique benefits.

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Two-page brief: Public access and development: The impact of public access venues and the benefits of libraries

Recommended Citation

Clark, M., Sey, A., & Sullivan, J. (2012). Public access and development: The impact of public access venues and the benefits of libraries. Seattle: Technology & Social Change Group, University of Washington Information School.

Another objective of the session was to discuss how libraries can use research findings for advocacy purposes. We were fortunate to be joined by Sandra Adomaviciute of EIFL who presented as well, providing concrete and effective ways libraries have been able to use findings from the Perceptions of Public Libraries in Africa study for advocacy and communication activities.

Participants discussed questions and ideas about effective use of research findings in their advocacy activities, challenges they come up against, and how research studies, such as the Global Impact Study and the Perceptions study can help meet their advocacy needs.

The session was sponsored by IFLA’s Action for Development through Libraries Program (ALP), who recently released a report on the impact of their Building Strong Library Associations program.

Download & View

• Global Impact Study presentation
• EIFL’s presentation on the Perceptions of Public Libraries in Africa
• IFLA’s Building Strong Library Associations impact report

Access & download user survey data:

• Create a free user account to login to our web library
• Download user survey data & readme file in SPSS/SAV format
• Download user survey data & readme file in CSV format

Access & download related documents:

• Survey methodology report
• User survey instrument
• User survey codebook

• Public access venue inventory information for Ghana
• 2011 updated data for all six countries
• Interface improvements
• New search features

Access to the inventory database is easy and free – just sign up and sign in below to explore the different types of venues, number of venues, location of venues, and much more in six countries: Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Ghana, Lithuania, and the Philippines.

Access the Global Impact Study inventory web database

We will also be releasing more documents on the user survey and user survey data, including sampling strategies, in the coming weeks, which can all be found in the Global Impact Study web library. Data from our venue and non-user surveys will also be released in the near future.

We look forward to hearing how you are using the data!

Access & download user survey data:

• Create a free user account to login to our web library
• Download user survey data & readme file in SPSS/SAV format
• Download user survey data & readme file in CSV format

Access & download related documents:

• Survey methodology report
• User survey instrument
• User survey codebook

Most public access venue users are either students or employed

Percentage of students & employed; Sciadas, G., with Lyons, H., Rothschild, C., & Sey, A. (2012)

As illustrated above, most public access users are either employed or students. In Bangladesh and Ghana, we see that over 50% of public access venue users report that they are students. In Brazil, over 50% of public access venue users are employed. This is interesting to keep in mind as subsequent findings are released. If most users are students or employed, how does that affect usage and perceived impacts? Is use affected by occupation? Does employment make a difference in perceived impacts? These are a few of the questions we’ll be discussing in upcoming posts.

Through venue operator interviews, user focus groups, and surveys, Principal Investigators, Jonathan Donner and Marion Walton, have found that mobile Internet can be co-present with public access venues. Meaning that users that have mobile Internet use mobiles for some things and public access computers for others. For example, users may be more likely to use their mobile phones for staying in touch with their friends and family over chat and social networking applications, while they tend to use public access venues for multi-tasking, document creation (such as Microsoft Word), and Internet searching.

Jonathan and Marion recently presented their findings at a workshop with library and cybercafe staff in South Africa, as well as the mobile pre-conference at the 2012 International Communications Association conference in Arizona. Materials from the workshop will be made available later this summer.

Stay tuned for the in-depth study final reports, as well as other resources and posts about findings from the in-depth studies.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user ninanord

As discussed in a previous post, communications & leisure tops the list of uses for public access ICT. While this is not surprising, use of public access venues for communications & leisure is often frowned upon, especially if the venue is publicly funded or has a development mission. Funders, governments, and non-governmental organizations of public access venues would often like to see lower use in the communications domain and higher use in other “development” domains such as government, health, and employment & income. The reality, however, is that communication activities, such as the use of social networking sites and emailing with family and friends, remain high across all types of venues. But does this mean other public access venue objectives, such as developing ICT skills and filling information gaps, aren’t being met? How do communications & leisure activities contribute to other objectives of public access initiatives?

Communications as a means to other ends

Is communications a stand-alone domain? That is, are public access venue users just using Facebook to share funny photos with their friends and emailing their friends and family about “frivolous” things? Or does the use of social networking sites and email fulfill user information needs in other domains, such as health, culture & language, and education? Our user surveys asked what the most important online resource is for particularly activities in each domain. While websites are overwhelmingly the most important online resource, communicating with friends and family are important as well.

Users report online communications with friends and family as an important resource for finding information on a wide variety of topics

As illustrated in the chart above, many public access users value communicating online with their friends and family as an important resource for other domain activities. It makes sense that, for many activities, such as choosing a doctor, people seek information from the people they trust, their friends and family.

Communications & leisure activities may lead to improved overall digital skills

Through the user survey data, we have also learned that using public access venues for communications & leisure activities contribute to building better ICT skills. Using computers and the Internet at public access venues for “fun” or “trivial” activities can be an effective on-ramp to gaining overall digital skills and digital literacy. 94% of all public access users claim that using public access venues for communication & leisure activities have improved their overall ICT skills!

Has using public access venues for communication & leisure activities improved your overall ICT skills?

Recommendations

Given these findings that communication uses can be a means to other ends and that using public access venues for communications & leisure activities increases overall ICT skills, we recommend that funders, governments, and other public access stakeholders re-examine how they view “non-development” computer and Internet activities. Many public access venues, particularly libraries and telecenters, ban the use of Facebook and social networking and prohibit users from playing games and other “fun” activities. Perhaps these venues should reconsider their policies based on our findings presented here.

More information

One of our in-depth studies, non-instrumental uses, is looking at if and how playing games online leads to “instrumental” ICT skills. The final report with this study’s findings will be released this summer.

Representatives from the Lithuanian library program highlighted achievements made over the past five years, as well as areas they intend to focus on moving forward. To bring a broader perspective on libraries in Europe, as well as from around the world, event organizers kindly invited the Global Impact Study to present, along with Kristine Paberza on the economic value of public libraries in Latvia and Jens Thorhauge of Denmark on transforming libraries in the knowledge society.

Chris presented on findings from the user survey, as well as some top line findings from two in-depth studies, Mobile Internet and Infomediaries. In addition to presenting these findings, Chris also had the opportunity to discuss the Global Impact Study with delegates from Georgia, which is planning a public access program roll-out in the near future. Christine Prefontaine, TASCHA’s Knowledge Sharing and Communications Facilitator, has written more about Georgia’s program here.

We’ll be posting more on the findings presented in the coming weeks, but for those who just can’t wait, you can download the presentation slides below. Stay tuned for more presentations from the Global Impact Study…next up: IFLA 2012 in August.

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View presentation video