THE COMMUNITY NETWORKS DESIGN CENTRE (CNDC)

      THE COMMUNITY NETWORKS DESIGN CENTRE (CNDC)

      A Telecommunities Canada Project
      Project Proposal Draft 2.2 - 29 November 1995

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      1.0 Abstract
      2.0 Understanding the knowledge needs of community networks
      2.1 Clients
      2.2 Opportunities for partnerships
      2.3 TC/CNDC's special advantages and strengths
      2.4 Trends and future directions
      2.4.1 Growth in community networking
      2.4.2 Pressure for participation in socio-economic policy
      2.4.3 Decreasing bandwidth costs
      2.4.4 Shift to electronic delivery of government services
      2.4.5 Community control of the "single window" on government
      2.4.6 Increased understanding of interactivity
      2.4.7 Community as the key to balancing local / global interests
      3.0 Meeting the knowledge needs of community networks
      3.1 Goals
      3.2 Outputs / objectives
      3.3 Approach and methods
      3.3.1 Approach
      3.3.2 Essential project start-up personnel
      3.3.3 Service components
      3.3.4 Promotion strategy
      3.3.5 Revenue and sustainability
      3.3.6 Project phases
      3.4 Evaluation process / performance criteria
      4.0 Budget
      4.1 Cost factors
      4.2 Year by year expenditure
      5.0 Appendices:
      5.1 What are community networks?
      5.2 What is Telecommunities Canada?
      5.2.1 TC strategic principles
      5.2.2 National issues identified by community networks

      1.0 ABSTRACT

      At the heart of a Knowledge Society, you will find electronic public space that is kept open by community networks.

      Maturing of the Canadian community networking movement has generated considerable experience in the use of computer mediated communications for community development. In addition, many other Canadian agencies now approach universal access and connectivity in electronic networks with a "community-centered" focus. The COMMUNITY NETWORKS DESIGN CENTRE project proposes to tap and disseminate that expertise by creating a national clearinghouse for information and research on community networks.

      The product of this project is knowledge. Much of the structure of CNDC can be virtual, and therefore the knowledge can be synthesized, accessed or disseminated electronically. By creating links among operational community networks that provide a window on an open and distributed national knowledge system, CNDC can assist the growth of new community networks, share operational experience among existing community networks, and coalesce and inform action on national issues of community network development.

      2.0 UNDERSTANDING THE KNOWLEDGE NEEDS OF COMMUNITY NETWORKS

      When you want to start a community network or community access site, when you want to solve a community networking problem, who do you call? Growing interest in community networking increases demands on the limited voluntary resources of existing community networks. This proposal outlines a Telecommunities Canada project to put the people and processes in place that can provide a national clearinghouse of information to assist community networks to start and operate.

      Operating a community network is very much a matter of balancing both social and technological systems roles. To date, the social systems role has been the hardest to explain. But there are real and huge demands for a continuing focus on technology delivery and the processes for technology implementation and deployment. Community networks will undergo sweeping technological changes, with the model of the last few years fading as the available technology and bandwidth change the standard. To retain the inventiveness and strength of purpose that comes from their grassroots autonomy, it is vital that community networks share a collective means of influencing those changes.

      2.1 CLIENTS

      CNDC is a not-for-profit service, meeting national needs for a focal point to concentrate Canadian community networking experience. The word "clients" is used in a social service agency sense, not a commercial sense. But in business case terms, the potential "market" for CNDC services includes:

      • Operational community networks and Free-Nets
      • Start-up projects of community networking associations
      • Community Access Programme (CAP) sites and projects (rural / remote)
      • Community Information Access Centres (CIACS - urban)
      • Social Change Networks: Net-based "communities" of common interest that operate in the not-for profit or "non-government organizations sector (for example, formal coalitions of sectoral, discipline-based, or special interest networks that use community as an organizational principle or target community as their point of service. Other phrases for these include "Public Access Networks" and "intentional communities"
      • Small businesses supplying net-based services with an interest in balancing small business and not-for-profit sector common interests in universal access
      • Commercial suppliers of community focussed software, services and connectivity
      • Federal, provincial and municipal government agencies with a focus on development of communications and information infrastructure
      • Federal, provincial and municipal government agencies with an interest in increasing net-based access to their services
      • Libraries
      • International clients, especially national programmes for community networking development
      • Individual researchers with an interest in community networking development
      • Other community networking development agencies, Morino Institute, NPTN, etc.

      2.2 OPPORTUNITIES FOR PARTNERSHIPS

      In addition to providing them with services, opportunities exist for establishing formal working relationships, including collaborative service arrangements, contracts and shared cost agreements, with client organizations that have similar interests in the development of community networks, including:

      • Government agencies at all levels with a focus on development of communications and information infrastructure for the electronic delivery of government information and services
      • Government agencies at all levels with an interest in increasing net-based access to their services
      • Education and health systems networks
      • Commercial suppliers of community focussed software, services and connectivity
      • Other community networking development agencies, Morino Institute, NPTN, CNet, provincial services, etc.

      2.3 TC / CNDC's SPECIAL ADVANTAGES AND STRENGTHS:

      • Operating community networks already know imaginative and practical ways to get things done at the community level. They increase connectivity and interactivity among community centered groups and non-government agencies.
      • Social sector and community development focus
      • Ability to tap existing Canadian operational community networking expertise
      • Ability to express existing Canadian operational community networking expertise in national regulatory and policy forums on communications and information infrastructure
      • Ability to organize national design projects and events on an essentially volunteer basis
      • Net-based social structures are neither centralized nor decentralized. Community networks understand how to operate in the new environment of open and distributed systems.
      • Community networks are consciously structuring themselves as learning organizations that assist average Canadians in experiencing the Knowledge Society on their own terms. CNDC can easily leverage already embedded learning systems and "in-place" descriptive data on how to organize and use community networks into a national shared knowledge base, without evoking federal-provincial jurisdictional issues
      • Communities evolve approaches to networking that are specific to their own circumstances. Grassroots infrastructure cannot and will not become homogeneous. By devolving actual service delivery to direct points of service within communities, CNDC can counter "centralizing" approaches to national network development. This actively supports the emergence of diversity and innovation in approaches to community network design.

      2.4 TRENDS AND FUTURE DIRECTIONS

      2.4.1 Growth in community networking

      As of May 6, 1995, The 93 listings in the CANADIAN COMMUNITY NETWORKS DIRECTORY showed that 26 community networks were in full operation, and an additional 67 were in various stages of organizing. The 9 operating community networks that provided membership statistics showed a total membership base of 116,500. It now seems reasonable to assume there are at least 30 operating networks with a Canada wide membership of approximately 200,000. Since these networks are connected to the Internet, it also seems reasonable to assume membership growth curves similar to Internet use growth curves, especially as community networks evolve toward WEB browser based formats for some of their services.

      A combination of factors will ensure that the growth of membership participation rates and benefits continues. Lower cost systems for home-based access to the Internet are coming into the market. These can make the technology costs affordable for almost all households. Many organizations, such as public libraries, business assistance centers, community centers, and ethnic or cultural organizations want to act as access points for those they serve who are currently without personal access. An attitude of self-help characterizes the spirit of community networking. The early adopters of community networks are actively passing on their expertise to new participants. This spirit of mutual assistance on the part of individuals is worth encouraging.

      2.4.2 Pressure for participation in socio-economic policy

      The on-going success of community networking depends on the degree to which there is universal participation in designing the STRUCTURE of electronic public space. This is more a question of social and economic policy than of technology policy. Creating a capacity to voice the concerns of the Canadian community networking movement provides a powerful and necessary means of increasing direct participation by all Canadians in socio-economic transformation.

      2.4.3 Decreasing bandwidth costs

      Changing regulatory approaches and converging technologies will continue to lower the cost of bandwidth and network connectivity. But how fast will the rapidly descending costs of providing bandwidth and connectivity be passed along to consumers? Community networks need to have a "bits are bits" attitude in their relationships with regulatory agencies and commercial providers of net connectivity. Partial approaches to deregulation that protect obsolete technologies inhibit the growth of the Knowledge Society. Community networks need the formal means to advocate for "convergence" to occur in a fully de-regulated market that is NOT limited to particular technologies of connectivity.

      2.4.4 Shift to electronic delivery of government services

      There are substantial savings to be realized from the shift to electronic delivery of government services. Community networks are essential partners in the process of achieving these savings. The amount saved within any service or program will vary directly with the rates of participation in communications and information flows. The more participants, the more savings. Simple access to multiple services and information resources provide the attraction that brings in users. Least cost access will bring the highest participation rates. Therefore the simple and low cost access provided by community networks are most likely to generate the highest participation rates and the most rapid shift to utilization of electronic government services.

      2.4.5 Community control of the "single window" on government

      From the individual's point of view, the least personal cost will be incurred when all electronic government services are accessible along a simple path using a single set of methods. But the goal of simplified wide-spread access to government services does not mean standardized use of any particular government's "single window." No one government will succeed in providing a single window for governments overall. Yet the high rates of participation necessary to create cost savings in the shift to electronic delivery of government services are less likely to occur unless participants feel that they have easy access at the desk top level. Community networking is the best least-cost method of working together to achieve this. Government networks will themselves benefit from higher usage if there is a general public acceptance and use of community networks that include a rich selection of gateways to many types of government electronic services.

      Some governments at the municipal and provincial level are already contracting with community networks for backbone services. The models provided through current examples can be generalized to all levels of government. The resulting partnerships will accelerate the evolution of a low cost national system of universal access to electronic delivery of government services. It will also sustain community-based control of computer mediated communications and the essential role of community networks in defense of electronic public space.

      2.4.6 Increased understanding of interactivity

      Networks as computer mediated communications media are radically different from broadcast media. Understanding what "participation" actually means depends on understanding that clients and service providers "interact." Interactivity causes the presently separated client / service provider relationship to converge. Good ideas can come from anywhere. From a social perspective, the most wonderful aspect of community networks is their ability to encourage voluntary participation in projects that benefit others.

      2.4.7 Community as the key to balancing local / global interests

      This project supports the autonomy of community networks as organizations that are voluntary, grassroots, and based on direct citizen action in support of the quality of life in community.

      The Government of Canada has stated three strategic objectives for the information highway: jobs, cultural identity and universal access. Community networks address these objectives head on. And they do so in a manner that is compatible with the excitement generated by that prototype of Knowledge Society institutions, the Internet. In community networks, the volunteers that participate in bringing a community online are investing their own time in learning new skills and roles. Community networks intensively collate community knowledge and experience, leading to a bottom-up global sharing of Canadian identity on a neighbourhood by neighbourhood basis. And community networks provide a powerful model of how universal access to the information highway can actually be used. They don't create a society of consumers. They do support citizens in sustaining communities that better meet their needs.

      3.0 MEETING THE KNOWLEDGE NEEDS OF COMMUNITY NETWORKS

      3.1 GOALS

      • To create a CNDC that is in the business of supporting and sharing the learning that occurs in Canadian communities as they design, implement and operate community-controlled computer mediated communications systems.
      • To establish CNDC as a national clearinghouse of community networking information and an operational component of Telecommunities Canada, thus, strengthening TC's ability to respond to national issues.
      • To understand and express the significance of Canada's transition to a Knowledge Society in terms of people's experience by documenting how people and organizations actually use computer networking technologies in the service of community on a day to day basis.

      3.2 OUTPUTS / OBJECTIVES

      • To provide a national clearinghouse system for current information on community networking services, roles, issues, technologies and experiences
      • To know more things faster - to increase the rate and volume of learning and knowing about community networking and its relationship to community development.
      • To utilize existing community networks to help other communities get into the process of community networking
      • To encourage and support the development of community networks in small, isolated or marginalized communities
      • To increase network connections and dialogue among national organizations that provide services within communities, and to encourage Canadians in the development of electronic ways to connect, to work cooperatively, and to share electronic resources among themselves and with the world.
      • To encourage Canadian and cooperative international experiments with methods, alternative technology platforms for community networks, software improvements, and content standards
      • To minimize duplications and overlaps in services, as well as identify gaps
      • To influence the direction of national regulatory and policy change in favour of community network development
      • To share the methods, the means, and the learning that occurs in community networks by helping local communities to:
        • generalize and document their community networking experience and improve their internal self-learning system capacities
        • negotiate expansions of community-level connectivity
        • create and manage on-line groups
        • get access
        • accelerate the growth of community content

      3.3 APPROACH AND METHODS

      3.3.1 APPROACH - an overview of operating concepts

      The intention is to utilize shared knowledge to lower overall "national" costs and to move to sustainability by the end of the project. An essential outcome of the CNDC project is to be perceived as a pragmatic and legitimate expenditure of public funds on the community networks development component in the achievement of the national objective of universal access.

      To create a shared knowledge base, CNDC must consciously become a microcosm and prototype of the systems it serves. Capturing what we learn as we learn it (ie. explicitly creating feedback of our own experience) is, in itself, a product. To achieve explicit feedback, there are essential "functions" that an organization dedicated to the creation and use of a shared knowledge base must consider. These include:

      • The shared knowledge base itself
      • It's "interface" - as a coherent technical basis for a system of continual learning
      • The interactors - in effect, the clients FOR the system and the creators / users OF the system are the same people. They "interact" in conversations about purpose and use
      • Promoters of the learning environment
      • Information resource managers
      • Strategic formulation - feedback intelligence (patterns) on use and issues that re-define purpose
      • Social system developers - to foster relationships and defend rights, when competition over organizational or functional boundaries threatens to close off the openness that is essential to learning

      CNDC will organize around teams and projects that focus on increasing knowledge, not functional tasks. We can dynamite the barriers among functions and jurisdictions by focussing on the essential outcomes of projects that address common issues. Choices of activities are a function of mindset. The mindset of community networking is oriented to open systems, where everybody sees everybody and everybody knows everything. If we start with a cooperative approach to ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS, then all participants in CNDC activities will be committed to achieving the results of those choices. Flexibility in accommodating broad participation by others should be used to foster mentoring and to attract and engage the best and the brightest in community networking skills and experience.

      3.3.2 ESSENTIAL PROJECT START-UP PERSONNEL

      The staff team's job is to create, facilitate, and negotiate participation in projects. Team members must be aware of (trained in) the performance of each other's tasks. All staff are directly involved in learning more about community networking, synthesizing and disseminating that knowledge, advocating for community network development, and consulting on community network design. Labour intensive jobs include; content management for the websites that store the information generated and collected, dissemination activities, and operational management for an organization based in part on projects. The staff team includes five positions:

      • Research director - anticipate future events
      • Management director - executive direction of operations and external representation
      • Knowledge base developer - organize knowledge as it becomes available
      • Knowledge base connector - maintain sites and linkages that make knowledge accessible
      • Administrator - operational control of near-term events

      3.3.3 SERVICE COMPONENTS

      Specific online content, library and documentation centre services:

      • Electronic directory of Canadian community networks and community access sites, including direct hypertext access to the descriptive information homepages of operating community networks
      • Directory of specialized expertise
      • Production of specialized bibliographies as needed (ie. just- in-time information rather than just-in-case information)
      • Inventory of in-centre collections of:
        • Documentation / Research reports / issue discussion papers / reviews / conference proceedings and/or links
        • inventories of technical solutions and successful content development approaches
        • Current awareness file / anticipation / future scan file / coming events
        • electronic publication, newsletter, reports
        • mailserver, newsgroup links

      Examples of subject "content":

      • evolution of technology platforms for community network support
      • fund raising methods and financially sustainable models for community network operations
      • background on board development and community network governance
      • background on public policy issues surrounding the development of Canada's communications and information infrastructure
      • acceptable use in community networks and the development of an electronic common
      • gender and computer networking
      • the role of computer networks in education, the social sector and grassroots organizing
      • the impact of computer mediated communications on social networking, including how to work with volunteers and diverse community groups in this environment
      • getting beyond "computer literacy", to the functional set of intellectual, social and technical skills necessary to create and use relational thinkspace
      • How-to-use manuals, policy manuals, promotional brochures
      • Sources of expertise in meeting the needs of those without home, office or school access to computers
      • Reference and referral services
      • New community network consulting and project planning services (ie. dealing with implementation questions and answering specific design questions on demand)
      • National research project coordination / facilitation services
      • Dynamic evolution of the "cookbook" (ie. "how-to" guidelines) for creating new community networks, based directly on operating network experience

      3.3.4 PROMOTION STRATEGY

      CNDC must express its message to its clients on three levels. It must increase awareness of community networking generally. It must be seen to assist specific communities in understanding how a community network can be used to achieve their goals. It must support the central message of community networks overall. If people remember just one sentence about the purpose of community networks, that sentence should that be:

      At the heart of a Knowledge Society, you will find electronic public space that is kept open by community networks.

      The effort required to market this service is considerable. Over the period of this project, as both individual network connectivity and the number of operating community networks increase, the necessary mix of traditional and new media will continue to change rapidly . It will be important to remain flexible in adapting promotional methods to the changes. In the initial stages, part of promotional activity will be aimed at a growing network of community networks, but the majority of it will have to be oriented to the needs of communities that have not yet become connected.

      Channels for getting out the message include:

      • Off-line promotion via traditional media for the uncommitted and unconnected:
        • hands-on demonstrations
        • liaison with organizations and institutions
        • Community contacts
        • Conference / workshop presentations on services, research projects or issues
        • broadcast networks, including active creation of programs and reactive response to media requests
        • publication
        • mailings

      • Use of computer mediated communications for promotion for the Net connected and community networks:
        • listservers and newsgroups (Network activists will only recognize expertise in community networking through consistent and effective participation in online dialogue. The greater the visibility, the more work this entails)
        • Homepage key word structure
        • Links to Saskatchewan / CAP / Morino Institute / NPTN / WELL / sites on community networking
        • Intervening in "Information Highway" policy forums
        • advanced project development workshops or issues forums
        • electronic publication

      3.3.5 REVENUE AND SUSTAINABILITY

      This proposal anticipates full funding for the start up period. Opportunities for experimenting with revenue sources during the first four years include:

      • Operational cost recoveries from the design and implementation of national "gateway" services delivered through operational community networks.
      • Partnerships with industries in development of products and services
      • Research and design project funding
      • Component of TC membership revenue
      • Charges for extensive reference services and state-of-the -art reviews
      • Publication and subscription revenue from "dissemination" products
      • Charge non-members of primary client groups for access

      3.3.6 PROJECT PHASES

      Workplan (timetable / project events chart / phases)
      a. project negotiation / approval - six months
      a. project implementation phase - one year
      b. operational phase - two years
      c. evaluation / re-thinking phase - one year

      3.4 EVALUATION PROCESS / PERFORMANCE CRITERIA

      (an accountability checklist about how project performance and progress will be assessed)

      • Cost reduction test: within CNDC, and in client operating systems?
      • Value added test: did the sharing of knowledge contribute to new knowledge about the role of community networks in Canada's transformation into a Knowledge Society?
      • Service delivery and productivity test: impact on goals / objectives?
      • Transferability test - how much self-learning / self organizing capacity built into operating community networks as direct result of CNDC knowledge sharing activities?
      • Grassroots and open systems culture test: is CNDC staff behaviour consistent with the approach?
      • Affordability test: progress to sustainability?
      • Electronic public space as commons test: increased citizen participation in online dialogue on socio-economic and political issues?
      • Single window test: increases in the number of people accessing electronic government services via community networks?

      4.0 BUDGET

      5.0 APPENDICES

      5.1 WHAT ARE COMMUNITY NETWORKS?

      Community networks are known by many names, including Free-Nets(sm), CivicNets, Community Information Systems, and several others. But they all share a broad-based focus on serving the communications and information needs of a local community in a specific geographic location. Because of Internet connection cost consequences, that location is usually bounded by the local telephone flat-rate dialing zone. Beyond geography, community networks encompass the description of needs within the metaphor of a community "space" in an "electronic commons," whereby non-technical members can visit the electronic equivalent of a schoolhouse, hospital, town hall, post office, citizen's forum, etc. They emphasize the role of the member as citizen of that electronic public space - and encourage dialogue and interaction among those citizens by offering them equal access to a common and convenient medium of computer-mediated interactive communication.

      The key differentiation between community networks and the other types of public access networks lies in the breadth of focus - and the communication and interaction that takes place around that focus. To continue the "community space in the electronic commons" metaphor, the special focus networks could be seen as individual buildings, organizations or "land uses" - while the community networks encompass the entire electronic public space and all its services, and particularly the "town square" or open common areas that give any online community its unique character.

      5.2 WHAT IS TELECOMMUNITIES CANADA?

      Telecommunities Canada is the "national voice" for the rapidly developing Canadian community network movement. In August 1994, over 40 Canadian community network associations and Free-Nets came together for a conference in Ottawa. They recommended the formation of a national association, to support their common interests in the development of the Canadian community networks movement. They affirmed their interest in having the means to share the practical experience that they are gaining of Canada as a Knowledge Society, and to speak to federal-provincial-municipal interests that affect their development. But they want that "means" (ie. Telecommunities Canada) to be true to the grassroots nature of community networking and to be autonomous from governments.

      As a national voice for the needs and concerns of community networks, Telecommunities Canada is an association of associations. Ordinary membership in Telecommunities Canada, with full privileges, is limited to Canadian electronic community network organizations that:

      • operate on a not-for-profit basis;
      • have their legal membership open to every citizen of their community;
      • provide equitable access to all citizens in their community;
      • encourage exchange, publication and access to the broadest possible range of information of interest to the community;
      • endeavour to create connections with other computer based networks and to allow the free and interactive flow of information between different communities; and
      • whose membership application has been approved from time to time by the board of directors.

      5.2.1 TC strategic principles

      The role of Telecommunities Canada in creating a national strategy for the development of community networking is based on the following perceptions and principles:

      • Community networks are primary vehicles for Canadians, as private individuals, to learn about and gain access to networked services. Community networks are enormously efficient in dealing with public issues of Canada's transformation into a Knowledge Society.
      • The essential element for community network development in Canada is grassroots community control. Community networks are not "infrastructure." Community networks are caretakers of electronic public space created BY the community, not providers of something FOR the community.
      • The responsibility to articulate a long term strategy for Canadian community network development is inherent in Telecommunities Canada's mandate. Sustaining the essential autonomy of community networks requires the means of coordinated collective action among community networks over issues of national concern.

      5.2.2 National issues identified by community networks:

      While Telecommunities Canada provides the "national voice", it's the community networks themselves that actually address those needs. To date, the needs identified by Canadian community networks that a national voice would address include:

      • Self definition of community nets
      • Mentoring (experience sharing)
      • Advocacy related to national issues of Community Network development
      • International Relations
      • Research and Development (Socio- economic and political impact, organizational governance, and technology platforms)
      • Communications Strategy (Internal and external)
      • Francophone Services
      • Federal / Provincial / Municipal issues (infrastructure)

      PROJECT CONTACTS:

      Project draft by:
      Garth Graham
      Director for Research, TC Board
      aa127@freenet.carleton.ca
      Box 86
      Ashton ON K0A 1B0
      Tel: 613-253-3497
      Project budget by:
      Lisa Donnelly
      Director, TC Board
      am412@freenet.carleton.ca
      375 Wilbrod Street
      Ottawa ON K1N 6M6
      Tel: 613-241-9554 Fax: 613-241-2477
      President, Telecommunities Canada
      Michael Gillespie
      michaelg@gray.mb.ca
      708 Oakenwald Avenue
      Winnipeg MB R3T 1M7
      Tel/Fax: 204-943-9000
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