Ron Faris: The Web of Life and the Web of Learning: Electronic Networks and Learning Communities

Ron Farishas spent many years working, researching and publishing on lifelong learning strategies, global training reform and interactive learning technologies. He has extensive experience in working with disadvantaged and aboriginal communities in Canada. For the past three years he have been helping a number of smaller communities to develop three-year pilot projects funded by the Canadian Office of Learning Technologies Community Learning Network Initiative. In recent years he has focussed on community capacity-building via the OECD/UK learning community model and the US community service-learning initiatives

5th Community Networking Conference: 3,4,5 July, 2002.

Conference proceedings from the original CD-Rom are being transferred online and more content will become available.

Introductory Essay by Graeme Johanson and Larry Stillman, Centre for Community Networking

Research

Non-Referred Papers

Keynote presentations

Refereed papers

Introduction to Conference Proceedings

Graeme Johanson, Larry Stillman, editors

For those who attend a conference, the proceedings are a second byte of the fruit, an opportunity to review what was presented and discussed face-to-face. For those who did not attend, the refereed and non-refereed papers and presentations provide a snapshot of the status of and thinking in the field of knowledge about community networking in Australia, New Zealand and elsewhere. The proceedings act as a record of contemporary activities and events related to the field of electronic community networks, and they offer insights into who are leading innovative developments. They show just how far the Community Networking Conferences have come since their inauguration in 1996. We are no longer novices.

Johanson, G, Hardy, G, Stillman, L, Schauder, D. and Denison, T. (2002). In Electronic networking 2002 - building community: Conference proceedings, Melbourne, Australia, 3-5 July 2002. (Published on CD-ROM)

It is easy to become confused by the enormous breadth of literature that is being published about theoretical, practical, and policy-oriented understandings and evaluations of community networking.

Johanson, G, Hardy, G, Stillman, L, Schauder, D. and Denison, T. (2002) In Electronic networking 2002 - building community: Conference proceedings, Melbourne, Australia, 3-5 July 2002. (Published on CD-ROM)

For publications by Larry Stilllman, also see the following listing .

A refereed paper for the Electronic Networking 2002 - Building Community Conference, Monash University, July, 2002

Tom Denison, Gary Hardy, Graeme Johanson, Larry Stillman, Don Schauder -- Centre for Community Networking Research School of Information Management Systems Monash University

http://www.ccnr.net

Abstract

'Community networking'is a troublesome catchphrase, packed as it is with many assumptions and unspoken expectations about how electronic tools can be used by community groups and organisations. It is our view that community networking, as it is currently constituted, will not progress without its stakeholders having a better understanding of the boundaries and relationships between the elements that constitute this emerging area of social and technological practice. Clarification of these different understandings will lead to better conceptual development, coherent cross-disciplinary integration and improved outcomes for community networking activity.

This paper reviews a number of key issues that currently concern researchers in the Centre for Community Networking Research, including:

• the nature of identity in a community, offline and online;
• taxonomies of community networking; and
• evaluations of community networks.

Publications will be added shortly

The Centre for Community Networking Research (CCNR) received major support from the Monash Research Fund in 2002 to undertake research about the uses of information and communications technologies (ICTs) by community and third sector organisations within Australia.

The outcomes of this research are presented here as the Monash Community ICT Index (CICT). The index is intended as part of a national longitudinal data series providing quantitative and qualitative indicators of use of ICTs by the participants in community organisations and their networks including, on a state-by-state basis, patterns of use and barriers to use. The creation of the Index has significant potential benefit for planning, policy development and national co-ordination as well as providing a basis for further research and analysis.