I’m absolutely thrilled to be joining the second year of the Partnerships for Evidence-based Public Policy (PEPP) Fellowship program, which is sponsored and hosted by the Social & Behavioral Science Institute (SBSI) and the Institute for Government and Public Affairs (IGPA) at Illinois. As the newsletter announcement explains, Beginning in August 2026, PEPP fellows will undertake projects focused on…
Community Informatics
IS 420 Community Informatics Fall 2026
It is honestly a dream come true to be able to teach Community Informatics in the School of Information Sciences at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign this fall. I came to Illinois as a doctoral student in the fall 2010 to study community informatics under Dr. Kate Williams and later under Dr. Christian Sandvig. In…
Digital Equity Ecosystems Book Cover
The University of California Press has been absolutely wonderful to work with in designing the cover for my new book, titled Digital Equity Ecosystems: How Community Coalitions Reduce Inequality and Strengthen Democracy. Many thanks to Vanessa Rhinesmith for helping to inform the design, which is represented in this final version below! The image in the…
“The Ability to Pay for Broadband” Now Open Access
I am thrilled to announce that our 2019 paper, titled “The Ability to Pay for Broadband” (Rhinesmith, Reisdorf, & Bishop) is now open open access in Communication Research and Practice. As I described in a previous post after the article was published, “In our recent paper, published in a special issue of Communications Research and…
New Article in Journal of Participatory Research Methods
I’m absolutely thrilled to share the news that Sangha Kang-Le and I have a new peer-reviewed article that’s just been published in the Journal of Participatory Research Methods. The article, titled “Understanding the Value of a Digital Equity Researcher-Practitioner Collaboration Using Participatory Action Research,” presents an in-depth analysis of the participatory approach we used to…
20th Anniversary Issue of The Journal of Community Informatics Published
I am thrilled to announce that Peter Johnson and I just published the 20th anniversary special issue of The Journal of Community Informatics. As we explained in our editorial, the first issue of The Journal of Community Informatics was published by Michael Gurstein on October 1, 2004. Since then the journal has remained an open…
Call for Submissions: 20th Anniversary Issue of The Journal of Community Informatics
Call for Submissions: 20th Anniversary Issue of The Journal of Community Informatics Community informatics (CI) is the use of information and communication technology (ICT) to support community-defined development goals. It is a multidisciplinary field that includes researchers and practitioners from information studies, social work, rural sociology, public policy, urban planning, among other areas. Similar to…
Community Informatics and AI
(Lego Mesh Wireless Network at the 2011 Allied Media Conference photo by Colin Rhinesmith) [Editorial re-posted from The Journal of Community Informatics] In yesterday’s Op-Ed, titled “For all the hype in 2023, we still don’t know what AI’s long-term impact will be” written by Open University Professor John Naughton and published in The Guardian, Naughton…
New Report Highlights Participatory Action Research Project with Tech Goes Home
Over the past year, my team and I at the Digital Equity Research Center at METRO co-led a participatory action research project with Tech Goes Home (TGH). The purpose of the study was to develop a theory of change for TGH, as well as an analysis of the challenges and opportunities facing community-based organizations in…
New Book Contract with UC Press!
I am incredibly honored and excited to announce that I have just signed a contract for my new book to be published by the University of California Press! The title of the book is Digital Equity Ecosystems and will be published as part of the UC Press Technology Studies list. The book builds on the…