Revised 4/19/99 (CT).
Please note this is not intended to be a static document. This is a preliminary
schedule and will adjusted as the term proceeds.
Meets Tuesdays 1-4 in 409 West Hall
Class home page
In this class, you will learn how to apply your skills as an information professional to community needs. Information systems facilitate the collection and organization of information and facilitate people's access to that information. A community information system has information gathered by the community's members, about a community and its members, for the benefit of the community and its members. For our purposes, we will define a community as a set of people that are held together by some common bond (e.g., a shared location or resource, a shared identity, or a shared problem) that creates some sense of mutual obligation. Community information systems provide people with information about their physical and social surroundings and other information they can use for public purposes, and can help to foster a felt sense of community. They can help to form new connections between people, coalesce those connections into sustainable organizations and institutions, and effectively marshall those connections in service of public goals.
As with all PEP workshops, students will have specific project responsibilities and an opportunity to reflect together on the larger context and implications of their project experiences. Each student will play some role in maintaining the University of Michigan Community Connector web site (http://www.si.umich.edu/Community), a national resource for information about community networks. Each student will also participate in a project team working with a community organization or government agency on the design, deployment, and/or evaluation of an information system.
After participating in SI 597-697, you should be able to:
Most of the Connector assignments will build on what you are looking for in pursuit of identifying good resources for the Team Projects. This is an opportunity to share what you are learning with community folks who benefit from the Community Connector. The team appreciates your contributions to the Connector-and so do users around the world. We will provide more detail about specific ways to submit your work. Thanks very much.
This semester, our main focus will be on training "Community Information Officers" in low-income communities. A Community Information Officer is someone who has acquired skill at gathering, organizing, and disseminating information, and puts that skill to use in serving the needs of other community members or the community as a whole. We will explore some of the information roles that have traditionally been filled by professionals, assess the extent to which they could be augmented by volunteer Community Information Officers, then train individuals and help them start providing information-based services to their neighbors. We will continue our work at North Maple, and we may also work with the Cobble Creek housing complex in Ypsilanti, which has an established after-school community learning center.
If we are able to train effective Community Information Officers at North Maple and at Cobble Creek, our eventual goal will be to create training and other materials that enable people elsewhere to implement similar programs.
Each student will also have an opportunity to explore a community information system project of their choice. The purpose of these explorations is to develop ideas that are promising but which are not quite ready for a semester long group project, either because the idea is not yet well enough developed, because specialized software needs to be developed, or because community partners are not yet ready to act on the idea.
Students who choose to spend a lot of time on an exploratory project will get some relief from other duties. Some ideas for possible explorations (not an exhaustive list):
SI 597-697 requires SI 501 as a pre-requisite or co-requisite. You are strongly encouraged, but not required to take SI 540 (Understanding Networked Computing) as a co-requisite. We'll try to take advantage of any other skills or resources you bring to the class: please tell us about them! If you haven't taken SI 501 yet, make sure you've registered for SI 597 rather than SI 697.
Assignment Due Dates
Jan 19 - site visit
Jan 26 - draft of contract; technology
tools exploration
Feb 2 - signed contract
Feb. 9 - Identify
an additional article for the Connector Reading Room. Develop
an annotation for it.
Feb. 23 - identify three 'best practice' sites for the Community
Connect Such a site might be the Making Healthy Music Website http://music.umdnj.edu/
which focuses on community health. You can search the Community
Connector website for excellent examples or you can find them
elsewhere on the web. Write an annotation for the site.
Write a copy for a press release describing these Connector resources
which can be used by the marketing team.
Apr 6 - (1) outline of final report (2) Write an article for Connections on a topic of
your choice which is relevant to the Community Connector's audience.
Check past articles for length and scope.
Apr 13- add
to the Connector's strength in providing relevant resources for Community
Technology Centers by identifying one or more additional resources to be
added to the site. (This will come as a result of your explorations
finding sites that can be of value to community technology centers). This
assignment is to add to the Connector's strength in providing relevantresources
for Community Technology Centers. This means that you are lookingfor something
we don't have, of course. Please identify one or more additional resources
to be added to the site. You may already have identified resources as a
result of your explorations.You might want to look for more topics like
economic development or non-profits that serve community technology centers.
If so, take a look at what we have under: http://www.si.umich.edu/Community/comminfo.html
We are adding a new section on the front page that focuses on training so
we have some good training resources. If you see any super resources to
add to this, that is a possibility. Th temporary URL is: http://www.si.umich.edu/community/training.html
Apr 20 - group presentation
Apr 27 (by 4 pm) - final report
Durrance: 10 - 11:30 Tuesdays and by appointment
Resnick: Mondays 4-5 PM and Fridays, 3:30-4:30, and by appointment
Cynthia Terwilliger Project Coordinator Wed 11-12, and by appointment
| DATE | EXERCISES AND ASSIGNMENTS DUE | IN-CLASS TOPICS AND DISCUSSIONS | READINGS |
| Jan 12 | - | Class overview Project introduction (Dale Griffin and Charles Aileni guests) |
- |
| Jan 19 | Attend McKnight talk Review resources Site visit report |
Brainstorming about examples | Hear McKnight, attend workshop Read Introductory chapter, McKnight (at Ulrich's) Review:
|
| Jan 26 | Draft of contract |
Contract review Technology discussion |
- |
| Feb 2 | Final contract signed by partners
|
Asset mapping Mark
Creekmore |
McKnight, Chapters 1-3 Lappe & DuBois "Me to We: Devlovled Community to Involved Community" (hand out) |
| Feb 9 | CN Reading Room annotation | Community Technology Centers Peter Miller guest |
CTC binder (on reserve at UGLI; ask for SI.697 Coursepak) McKnight book |
| Feb 16 | - | Funding |
TIIAP Funding application/guidelines http://www.ntia.doc.gov IMLS Funding application/guidelines http://www.imls.gov LSTA Funding applications/guidelines Lapeer County Government On-line - grant documentation http://www.county.lapeer.org/grant/ |
| Feb 23 | CN 'best practice' sites | Community journalism Best practice CN |
Rosen, "Public Journalism" (handout) |
| Mar 2 | Spring Break | Spring Break | Spring Break |
| Mar 9 | - | Tech support | Revisit Cisco Academy http://www.cisco.com/edu/academies/ |
| Mar 16 | - | Public Work Holly Carter CTCNet guest |
Boyte and Kari, "Introduction", Building America (handout) Boyte lecture: Wed evening 7/17 7:30 Michigan League or Thur evening 3/18 at7 pm Ann Arbor District Library CTC Net http://www.ctcnet.org |
| Mar 23 | - |
Amy Borgstrom (ACENet) video guest |
|
| Mar 30 | - | Information and referral Reference services Jennifer Kush (SOS) guest |
Durrance, "Factors that Influence Reference Success" (handout) AIRS position paper http://www.airs.org/library/airsposition.htm I & R National Standards (handout) Galileo http://www2.iwd.state.ia.us/galileo 211 NUMBER http://www.airs.org/211/ INDEXING WITH THE AIRS / INFO LINE TAXONOMY OF HUMAN SERVICES |
| Apr 6 | Community Connector article (by Apr 27 th) | Evaluation | - |
| Apr 13 | CTC / Training relevant resources (by Apr 27 th) | Civil Society
Prof. Derrick Cogburn guest |
Walzer, "The Idea of Civil Society" MPCICs and Globalization Power Point slides or RTF |
| Apr 20 | Project presentation | Group presentations Reflections; planning for next semester |