The Camfield Estates - MIT Creating Community Connections Project

This chapter is a case study of a community-university partnership that is investigating strategies to bridge the “digital divide” by examining the role of community technology for the purpose of community building in a low- to moderate-income housing development. Since January 2000, the Camfield Estates-MIT Creating Community Connections Project, a partnership between the Camfield Tenants Association and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has taken place at Camfield Estates, a 102-unit, low- to moderate-income housing development in Roxbury, Massachusetts, and its surrounding environs. This chapter includes the history and background of the project, the theoretical frameworks guiding the initiative, the project methodology that has been employed to integrate community technology and community building, early results, and a set of recommendations and lessons learned for other initiatives.

Building Educational Technology Partnerships Through Participatory Design

Over more than five years, we worked with a group of public school teachers to define, develop, and assess network-based support for collaborative learning in middle school physical science and high school physics. From the outset, we committed to a participatory design approach, in part to explore what issues and possibilities arise when participatory design is pursued more extensively. The nature of our interactions, and in particular the nature of the roles played by the teachers, did change significantly through the course of the project. We suggest that there may be a long-term developmental unfolding of roles and relationships in participatory design.

University/Community Partnerships

The University of Leeds is the largest campus-based university in the United Kingdom in terms of student numbers. The School of Computing has, in recent years, sought to share its academic and technical advantages with schools in economically deprived inner-city areas. This chapter describes some of the projects which have been initiated and managed by the School of Computing. We discuss how these have benefited both the schools and our participating undergraduate students. The chapter concludes with a discussion on some of the difficulties encountered and those factors that, from our experience, help to achieve success.

Service-Research Partnerships

The concept of service-research is described in this chapter. Service-research is the integration of community service with faculty research. It can benefit the researcher as well as community agencies. For organizations, such as non-profit agencies and schools, service-research can help provide free training, documentation, and help with systems development or management. For the researcher, service-research can provide inexpensive access to research subjects or data. This chapter discusses the data collection techniques that can be used with service-research, and how service-research can help bridge the digital divide, as well as the usability divide. Possible applications of service-research are presented, including user training, documentation, information systems management, systems design methodologies, and policy awareness. Two case studies of service-research are also discussed.

Theoretical Foundations for Enterprise Systems Technology Collaborations

Industry/academic collaboration, involving the utilization of advanced information technologies (AITs), is an expanding phenomenon involving a substantial commitment of resources. This chapter presents a comprehensive framework for studying this phenomenon by extending adaptive structurization theory at the inter-institutional level. We suggest propositions, derived from the framework, to advance further research and to inform decision-making by stakeholders in industry/academic collaborations.

The Development of IT/Community Partnerships at a Small Regional University

Lacking the resources and national recognition of large universities, small regional universities and state colleges must employ different strategies in the formation of IT partnerships with community organizations. Opportunities for mutually beneficial relationships with K-12 students and parents, current CIS students and alumni, CIS faculty, local businesses, the local IT industry, government agencies, non-profit organizations, and current and prospective employers of program graduates are plentiful. These relationships can lead to stronger curriculum, improved student job opportunities, increased enrollments, high quality adjunct faculty, private funding sources, and enhanced reputation of the IT program and the university within the region.

Research Partnerships to Support Rural Communities in Malaysia with Information and Communication Technologies

Governments and aid agencies now recognize the potential for sustainable economic development from the deployment of information and communication technologies (ICTs) among marginalized and poor populations. Yet such populations have little or no access to such technologies. Deriving sustainable development from the provision of such access requires more than mere technology. The emerging discipline of Community Informatics addresses community-based approaches to development with ICTs. New knowledge is required to understand how development activities can be merged with Community Informatics in a way that is capable of providing sustainable benefits to communities in developing countries. This chapter describes a university-based research initiative that builds on community partnerships that have been fostered in an action research project aimed at deriving tangible benefits for a remote rural community from the use of ICTs.

Cybercamp

There is an ever-growing need for technology training for the many stakeholders (teachers and students) in our schools. There is an abyss created by technology, which is a medium that is moving forward rapidly within an institution that is bound by tradition. In this chapter, the reader is introduced to a program called Cybercamp, a means to bridge the abyss by having the producers and consumers of education build a bridge together. A partnership between the University of Cincinnati and numerous community organizations is presented, which provides for universal empowerment through technology training.

Success Factors for Industry-University Collaboration Through IS Industry Boards

This chapter examines the success factors for industry-university collaboration through IS industry boards. Based on an in-depth case of industry-academic collaboration in Mexico, the chapter addresses the following research questions: What are the critical success factors for achieving good outcomes from an IS industry board? What factors impede the achievement of good outcomes from such a board in a developing nation? What factors are distinctive and serve to differentiate IS industry boards of developing nations from those of advanced ones? In the case study, the IS industry board enhanced the IS academic program’s curriculum, the university’s computer labs, the student internship program, and faculty training. This case demonstrates that the critical success factors for the IS industry board were top management support, the department chair’s interpersonal skills, board member selection, proper board management, and appropriate university policies regarding industry-university collaboration. The experiences of developing and advanced nations for such boards are mostly similar, but differ due to lack of tenure track careers for IS faculty in the developing nation under study.

A Stage Model for Academic-Corporate Partnerships

A strong partnership with the business community can serve as a critical factor for an information systems program in higher education. The purpose of this chapter will be to draw on 10 years of experience to discuss our insights and lessons learned with regard to the Corporate Partnership Program for Information Systems at Oregon State University. The chapter begins with an overview of a “Stages of Partnership Growth” model that provides a framework for understanding and managing the evolutionary stages of growth for the academic-corporate partnership. The model will be illustrated by examining the evolution of the information systems program at Oregon State University. An advisory council comprised of representatives from the business community has played a key role in the development of the information systems program at Oregon State University. Suggestions regarding the creation and maintenance of an advisory council are discussed.