Category Archives: Community Informatics

New JoCI Issue (Vol 16) Published

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Journal of Community Informatics Vol 16

It’s wonderful to be able to finally announce the new issue of the Journal of Community Informatics! The journal is also now hosted at the University of Waterloo Library and sponsored by the Simmons University School of Library and Information Science (iSchool).

There are many, many people to thank for this new issue and the Journal’s re-launch, particularly during such an incredibly difficult year. Many of whom I have included in my Editorial. I would particularly like to thank David Nemer, Tom Denison, Eduardo Villanueva-Mansilla, as well as Jordan Hale and Graham Faulkner at the University of Waterloo Library.

I am also grateful, of course, to the authors of this new issue for their patience during this transition to our new home at UW Library. I also want to thank our wonderful Editorial Board and other reviewers who contributed their time and expertise to help make this issue so strong.

The Journal is also accepting new Submissions from researchers and practitioners in the field of community informatics. To learn more, visit our new Journal website.

New Report on Digital Equity Ecosystems

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Benton reportI am excited to announce that our Community Informatics Lab at Simmons University has authored a new report, titled “Growing Healthy Digital Ecosystems During COVID-19 and Beyond,” which was published last week by the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society.

In the report, my co-author, Susan Kennedy and I present findings from a survey of individuals representing a diverse group of organizations across the United States that have self-identified as being part of either a formal, informal, or emerging digital inclusion coalition. The purpose of their study was to better understand the role these coalitions have played in supporting what they are calling “digital equity ecosystems” in their communities during the challenges of the pandemic.

In our Digital Beat blog post announcing the report, Susan and I argued that based on our report, “we believe there are several federal policy recommendations that we can make moving forward. On their transition-team website, President-elect Biden and Vice President-elect Harris have made it a priority to promote universal broadband. In order to achieve this goal, we argue that the new administration must connect its economic recovery agenda to its work to promote racial equity.”

We conclude the post by sharing the following four steps that the new administration should take to make their economic recovery and racial equity priorities a reality:

  1. Make broadband affordable for low-income communities of color.
  2. Support second chances for economic success through digital literacy programs.
  3. Ensure care workers receive training and support to help promote digital and racial equity.
  4. Make federal funding opportunities available for digital inclusion organizations.

Read the full descriptions of each recommendations in our full blog post on the Benton Institute for Internet & Society’s website.

Digital Equity Ecosystems

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Digital Equity EcosystemsRecently, in our Community Informatics Lab at Simmons University we have started a new research project to investigate what we are calling Digital Equity Ecosystems. This project builds on the excellent work of researchers and practitioners in the Digital Equity Lab at The New School, National Digital Inclusion Alliance, Detroit Community Technology Project, and others. We define digital equity ecosystems as the following:

Digital Equity Ecosystems are interactions between individuals, populations, communities, and their larger sociotechnical environments that all play a role in shaping the digital inclusion work in local communities to promote more equitable access to technology and social and racial justice.

Our research in this area seeks to understand the impact of COVID-19 on individuals and families without household internet access and how digital inclusion coalitions across the nation have responded in turn. The goal of the study is to provide data and evidence to help local, state, and federal policymakers in the U.S. develop more effective digital equity strategies nationwide.

Findings from the study will also be useful for key stakeholders working to promote economic and racial justice in communities struggling with poverty during COVID-19 and after the pandemic ends. This is because, as we know from scholars such as Seeta Peña Gangadharan, Chris Gilliard, Virginia Eubanks, and many others who have noted that, the digital divide is rooted in systemic injustices and structural inequalities in our society. Therefore, we are keenly focused on the social, rather than the technological, solutions to digital inequality. We believe that a social ecological approach using participatory methods rooted in community knowledge and expertise is the pathway forward in this approach.

The publication of the first phase of our research to be published in 2020 is supported by the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society.

CIRN Virtual Webinar Series

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CIRN Virtual Webinar SeriesThe annual Community Informatics Research Network (CIRN) conference hosted at the Monash University Prato Centre in Italy has been postponed this year due to COVID-19. In its place, we have organized CIRN Virtual Webinar Series which you are invited to attend. The events are being organized by a team from the Digital Equity Group at Monash University (Australia) and the Comunity Informatics Lab at Simmons University (USA).

Registration is free and a zoom link will be provided.  Speakers will be participating from around the globe. Here is the list of online seminars taking place from October 19, 2021 to November 16, 2020:
  • The Informatics of Community Mutual Aid on October 19, 2020 9PM US EST (1AM GMT)
  • ICT4D beyond ICT on October 26, 2020 US 4AM EST (8AM GMT)
  • Indigenous Archives Collective on November 2, 2020 12PM EST (4PM GMT)
  • Globalization, Power, and Community Empowerment in Pandemic Times on Nov 9, 2020  (3PM GMT)
  • Memorialization, Digital Media and the State November 16, 2020 *time tbd
To learn more and to register, please visit: https://sites.google.com/view/community-informatics/events
We look forward to your participation online!

 

JoCI Accepting New Submissions

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Community Informatics LogoI am excited to announce that after a brief pause and transition in editorial leadership, the Journal of Community Informatics is once again accepting new submissions here: http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/information/authors

The scope and aims of the Journal are located on the website here: http://ci-journal.net/index.php/ciej/about

It is my honor to lead the Journal as the third Editor-In-Chief since the journal was launched by Michael Gurstein with its first issue published in 2004. I want to thank Eduardo Villanueva-Mansilla for his leadership over these past years. I also want to thank Tom Denison who has joined Eduardo as the Journal’s Associate Editors.

I am also excited to announce our esteemed Editorial Board with both new and returning members. We are preparing our next issue to be published in Sept/Oct. 2020, and we look forward to receiving new submissions in the months and years ahead.