Logo courtesy of ICTD 2012, Georgia Tech

Many of the Global Impact Study research partners will be attending the upcoming ICTD 2012 conference in Atlanta, Georgia March 12-15, 2012. In addition to TASCHA researchers, representatives from our survey implementation teams in Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Ghana, and the Philippines will attend, as will some of the principal investigators of our in-depth studies. Components of the Global Impact Study will be highlighted in two open sessions and one presentation. We hope that any of you attending ICTD 2012 will consider participating in one or more of the sessions and presentation.

Open session: Want open research? Deep dive into data with the Global Impact Study

Technology and Social Change Group, University of Washington Information School

This session will bring together individuals interested in survey data analysis, for an intensive day of exploring user survey data from the Global Impact Study. As a core component of the project we carried out surveys of public access ICT venue operators, users, and non-users in five countries – Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Ghana, and the Philippines. The data with accompanying meta-documentation will be made publicly available upon completion of the project.

Session participants will have the opportunity to review and work with the user survey dataset representing approximately 5,000 users. The data cover a wide range of topics including user demographics, usage patterns, and perceived impacts. Opportunities abound for participants to pursue diverse lines of interest.

This session will be facilitated by the project’s management team with support from staff of the University of Washington’s Center for Statistical Consulting.

Open session: Distant fields, common findings? Identifying the challenges and benefits of multi-country qualitative research

Jenna Burrell, UC Berkeley; Janet Kwami, Furman University; Elisa Oreglia, UC Berkeley; Ricardo Ramirez, Independent, Canada; Andy Gordon, University of Washington; Balaji Parthasarathy, IIITB – Bangalore, India

The goal of this workshop is to discuss experiences in multi-country ethnographic/qualitative field work, an area that has been mostly the domain of quantitative studies. We build on the two separate multi-country projects carried out by the organizers, in order to identify what are the advantages and the risks of such research, how to coordinate research questions and hypothesis-making with the need to keep open to discoveries, and what role can this type of research play in the field of ICTD.

The first project is a 3-country (Ghana, Uganda, and China) study employing an ethnographic research to look at the adoption and use of ICT among ‘marginalized populations,’ focusing on market women in Ghana, farmers in rural China, and slum dwellers in Uganda, and comparing their practices and the information processes that exist around their businesses.  The second project combined several qualitative data collection tools, including ethnographies, with country-wide surveys to study ‘infomediaries’ (persons who combine a set of technological resources and coaching to meet users’ information needs and communication capabilities) in Lithuania, Chile, and Bangladesh. It focused on libraries, telecenters, and cybercafés to investigate and generate evidence on the scale, character, and impact of public access to ICT. Part of a larger project entitled Global Impact Study of Public Access to Information & Communication Technology, it investigates the impact of ICT in a number of areas, including communication and leisure, culture and language, education, employment and income, governance, and health.

Presentation: Sharing in public: Working with others in Ghanaian cybercafés

Michael Best, Bence Kollanyi, Sunil Garg, all of Georgia Tech

This paper explores the different ways in which people collaborate and share knowledge in public internet venues, or cybercafés, in Ghana, West Africa. Based on 150 survey interviews conducted in two different cybercafés, one urban and business-oriented and the other peri-urban and family-oriented, the authors find that most cybercafé customers, largely regardless of their demographic, would like to engage in collaborative work in public internet venues and that a large percentage already are. This paper is based on the Collaborative Knowledge Sharing in-depth study of the Global Impact Study.

Contrary to the belief of resource constraints driving shared use, those participants who reported already working together in the cybercafés generally did not cite economic motivations for their collaboration but instead identified enhanced productivity as the main reason. These collaborating respondents also reported performing more instrumental activities in the café and were more likely to have learned critical computing skills there when compared to those who were not already collaborating. Furthermore, they report being more social in their activities at the venue. Finally, the paper notes that collaboration and peer learning is not always planned or made public; voyeuristic forms of knowledge sharing, such as when someone glances at a stranger’s computer screen, are also cited by the survey participants as a learning opportunity in these public venues.

For more information about ICTD 2012, please visit http://ictd2012.org/.

Photo courtesy of Flickr user mlibrarianus

This paper presents various characteristics of public access ICT users. While earlier research suggests that public access ICT users are young, male, and only play games, the Global Impact Study has found that a myriad of user profiles exist. Looking at a variety of variables, from gender to income and education to age, this working paper highlights the diversity found among public access ICT users.

Abstract

Based on a survey of public access ICT users in five countries, this working paper outlines some basic characteristics of users – their demographics, history of using ICTs and reasons for using public access ICTs. This preliminary analysis indicates that while a large proportion of public access ICT users are young (40% under 20 years old), male (65%), students (44%), and have at least secondary education (82%), there is a fair amount of diversity in user characteristics. The significance of public access ICTs is demonstrated in the finding that most users’ first contact with computers (50%) and the internet (62%) was in a public access venue, and even those who have access at home patronize venues for other reasons, such as better equipment, faster connections, being with friends, or having access to help from venue staff.

Download

Full report: Public access to ICTs: Sculpting the profile of users

Recommended Citation

Sciadas, G., with Lyons, H., Rothschild, C., & Sey, A. (2012). Public access to ICTs: Sculpting the profile of users. Seattle: Technology & Social Change Group, University of Washington Information School.

Keywords

public access, users, cybercafés, internet cafes, libraries, telecenters, internet, ICT, ICTD

Judith discussed the study’s background, as well as the structure of the study, the research questions that underlie it, and how they initially planned to collect data.

Judith also discussed a series of computer-based exercises (CBE) developed by the project to try and quantitatively measure skill acquisition among varying populations of computer users. She then talked about the findings from a field visit she and Kolko did in September.

You may download this video as an iPhone-friendly mp4, or as a radio-quality mp3.

You can also view the presentation slides.

TASCHA Talks are bi-weekly sessions to share, discuss, and advance new ideas around topics related to technology and social change. Learn more at tascha.uw.edu/taschatalks.

The following is the update Beth and Judith sent from their time in Brazil:

The study’s research partner, PensamientoDigital, connected us with local researchers and internet professionals in Rio den Janeiro and Porto Alegre (in Rio Grande del Sul). In Rio de Janeiro, we had the chance to chat with a LAN house owner in one of the poorest neighborhoods, Favela Rocinha, about his experiences. He provided valuable insights on user habits and limitations of the study. We also visited two other favelas, both of which are part of a new government program of “pacification”: Santa Marta and Cantagalo. In Cantagalo,we visited a social center called Crianca Esperanca (the visit was featured on their blog. Find their entry here.). The art community center allows free, unrestricted computer access for children starting at the age of three years. In Santa Marta, we were accompanied by researchers currently doing mapping and survey work for the Global Impact Study surveys, and we were delighted to be able to learn from the survey team’s community contacts. We also visited two LAN-houses and a community radio station.

We have been surprised by the significant differences between the two LAN-houses; despite a shared label, the location and clientele were significantly different. We also spent an afternoon at a private LAN-house in a working class neighborhood in the northern part of the city where they piloted instruments with users and watched a roomful of young boys spend the day playing Warcraft on pirate servers. During the visit so far, we have seen public access venues that welcome gaming, those that ban it, and those that block social networking and gaming when there are many users waiting for the computers.

We are currently in Porto Alegre, where we have visited governmental telecenters, a social center called Villa Cruzeiro, LAN houses, and cybercafes. Every visit contributes to a deeper understanding of what people do in public access points. Through screening questions that inquire about their gaming habits, their social-network use, as well as their more instrumental uses like creating resumes and working in spreadsheets, we have been able to create profiles that will be used for the study’s sampling strategy.

On August 11, the Global Impact Study made public the inventory data through a web application. The database was officially launched to the public with the poster presentation at IFLA 2010.

Features of the inventory database include location, classification, and other descriptive data about public access ICT venues in Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, Lithuania, and the Philippines. The database tool allows for various query options through which users can search by country, type of venue, urban or rural public access venues, and more. The inventory data can be viewed as lists, as graphs, and in a map view.

The picture below displays the map view of public access venues in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

As a part of our open access research approach, we have developed this site to publicly share the inventory data and to add power to the user viewing experience by providing querying, mapping, and other data visualization tools. In the future, we will also be making available the source code used to create the web application.

To register for access and use the application, visit the site at http://database.globalimpactstudy.org/.

All data in the site are available under Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial Share Alike.

1. Cognitive testing to check for comprehension problems with the survey questions.

2. Field testing to check for potential problems in the entire survey adminstration process (e.g. structure, content, flow and length of the questionnaires) as well as  the actual data collected.

We begin with cognitive testing on a small scale, after which we make revisions to the survey instruments to address issues revealed by the cognitive tests. Next we carry out the field testing with a larger number of locations and respondents.

This strategy enables us to use the results of the cognitive testing to eliminate comprehension of survey questions as a potential major source of delays during field testing. For example, we are likely to get a more accurate estimate of the length of the surveys if interviewers don’t have to spend too much time trying to explain what specific survey questions mean.

Our survey implementation teams have been given detailed guidance in our survey testing guidelines.

The study asks:

• Do people gain any ICT skills (i.e., keyboarding skills, knowledge of operating systems and file structures, etc.) through non-instrumental uses of ICTs?
• Are any skills gained through non-instrumental uses transferable to other (instrumental) uses of ICTs (i.e., searching strategies, information evaluation, synthesis and summary)?
• How do the characteristics and consumption patterns of non-instrumental use differ between public and private access points?
• How do user’s understandings of and attitudes towards ICTs differ between public access sites where the emphasis is on consumption of information versus the creation of content and multimedia?
• How do the characteristics of users affect skill level and activity choice in public access sites?

It’s important to look at public access venues (such as libraries and telecentres) because they are different from private access points (such as home computers). Many public spaces explicitly create collaborative or learning environments as part of their social mission — but in doing so they may also prohibit or discourage non-instrumental use.

This two-year study (2009–2011), led by Beth Kolko, includes fieldwork in Chile and Brazil. Fieldwork will consist of venue and user observations, user and operator interviews, computer skills assessments for users, and a case study on creating content and multimedia at a telecenter in Brazil. Our hypotheses:

1. Novice and experienced users engage in a mix of instrumental and non-instrumental uses of ICT.
2. Because of the surveillance aspects of public use, as well as policies that are in place at certain centers that may encourage or discourage non-instrumental use, the type of non-instrumental uses may differ (with regard to frequency, volume, visibility) in public versus private spaces.
3. Engaging in communication and entertainment activities results in users gaining computer skills, cognitive abilities, content knowledge, and other potential skills.
4. The computer skills gained through non instrumental uses transfer to instrumental uses of ICTs.
5. Public engagement with ICTs for non instrumental uses leverage collaborative shared space, and thus emphasizes specific kind of skills — skills that transfer to other areas of life, including those domains mentioned in the Global Impact Study.
6. Having an opportunity to create multimedia gives people different skill sets than just consuming media, and it also gives them a different sense of themselves as agents and participants in a knowledge and technological society.
7. Some demographic characteristics may affect skill acquisition.

People are more likely to use computers in telecenters, libraries, and cybercafés for social and entertainment purposes than for anything else. (See our Literature Review.) If such non-instrumental uses promote general ICT skill acquisition, the fact that traditional instruments or measurements do not investigate these non-instrumental usage patterns may have hindered our understanding of how people acquire ICT skills that then have impact on their lives.

Browse non-instrumental use updates »