International Research Policy Symposium World Bank Institute March 04

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Participatory Communication Research Programmes
(PCR)
Evaluation of e-education Interactive Web
Communities
Ross Whitcher Director/ Trustee
CommunitiesOnline

• International Research Policy Symposium
  World Bank Institute
  March 04

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ICT Learning by Doing Involved in the learning
process from bottom up. Empowerment of
individuals and grass roots groups.
Mobilising Education Communities Online
Adding an interactive dimension to web portals
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Teachers and students tell us
X

• they want to be able to interact better with
• other teachers and students
• administrators
• parents and care givers
• other school stake holders
• their whole community( sometimes worldwide)

Yesterdays Communication model - a static web
page
Wherever and whenever the wish
Todays Interaction model -an Interactive Web
Community
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School community online
Interactive Web Community
Fully indexed managed
Cmonline model
Other local web sites, eGroups, and online
presences
All community can participateas individuals or
groups.
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Teachers, students, administrators
Whole of community
Parents, caregivers
School Boards, Part time specialists, sports
coaches, parent teacher organisations, future
students.
The school network extends to the whole community.
Other school communities
Community Organisations (eg City Library, Alumni,
Businesses, those with an interest in the school.)
VALUE NET ( After Brandenberger)
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Interactive Web communities allow people to
Communicate - one-to-one, one-to-many, in groups,
in public or private Connect - find people, make
connections, build networks, form groups Share
knowledge - find information, create local
knowledge, spread news, share info,
seek help Collaborate - work together, discuss,
survey, feed back Manage - delegate,
facilitate, regulate, monitor, report Inform
- publicise, notify, remind Mobilise - start,
lead, grow, and activate
your group or entire community Educate - teach,
learn (individually or in groups)
grass roots level
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Teachers, students,administrators manage their
own knowledge and communications, anywhere,
anytime
Web-based - everything provided online, no
special technology needed Do-it-yourself -
user-driven, easily create your own eCommunity
online No special skills or knowledge
needed Language of choice Any language, (can
easily add other minority languages) Use any web
browser - runs on slow-speed lines and on
older computers. (Broadband is
obviously faster.) Flexible configurable,
extendable, self-managing Research-enabled
allowing full logging and reporting of community
interactions. Community-funded -free to
subscribers.
Bridging the Knowledge Divide
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Interactive Web Communities

• Support physical learning
• communities, their
• structures,
• relationships,
• interactions, and
• languages

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• Project evaluation of e-education online
  communities
• measurement of program outcomes, impact, and
  performance
• maximisation of value, sustainability and
  replicability
• enables project participants to observe their own
  community in action, to reflect, and take
  immediate action themselves to ensure its success
  

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• Analysis of empirical ( Facts), evaluative
  (values) and normative (action).
• more emphasis on evaluation since the programme
  purpose is to evaluate the impact of social
  interventions
• logging and correlating actions of participants
  to allow matching of empirical with evaluative
  research
• participatory approach
• democratic, participatory and empowering -
  appropriate here for an online community project
  

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Why use PCR?

• Mainstream communication research concerned with
  the measurement of effects of top-down
  commmunication
• PCR recognises cultural identity of local
  communities
• democratisation and participation at all levels
• individual, local, regional and national.
• recognises multiplicity of communities, smallness
  of scale, locality, interchange of
  sender-receiver roles
• changes from measuring transmission of
  information to the exchange and search for
  meanings in interaction.
• communicator to receiver- centric

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• Basic principle of participatory research
• process available to online community
  participants
• research questions and investigation focus on the
  immediate benefits to them
• approach assumes participants are better capable
  than experts to capture their immediate
  environment, analysis of it, and subsequent
  response to it
• allows online community participants to view
  their online world in their own terms and act
  upon their perceptions. (Normative action)
• Continuous dialogue and discussion amongst
  research participants at all stages
• Knowledge derivation from actual situations of
  participants, collaborative reflection, use by
  them
• Transformation of research to policy to action

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• Process Study, reflection, action
• cyclical, continuous, local to community,
  accessible
• PCR suitable approach to organic, bottom-up
  initiatives
• established technique of empowering local
  people here the online community participants,
  to conduct development-related research and
  intervention
• characterised by joint ownership of research,
  mutual learning, and action
• PCR process used by the International Development
  Research Council in ICT programme monitoring and
  evaluation
• allows meaningful comparisons of the effects of
  online communities operating in different
  economies and in a variety of different cultures

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• Four Premises
• Stakeholders viewpoints and needs are important
• Evaluation at three levels local ( Online
  community level), regional (agencies implementing
  online communities) and national (Public private
  sector funding contributors)
• Stakeholders will be involved
• Evaluation participatory at all levels,
  continuous feedback and learning participation
  and feedback become part of a learning system.
• Online Community evaluations should be comparable
• Use of common research frames, instruments and
  indicators help stakeholders compare experiences
  of diverse online communities
• Baseline data collected and shared before it is
  too late
• Data collected from many online communities made
  available to all online community projects at
  planning stage.

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• Guide to Evaluation of e-Education Project
• Major research questions
• Key information needs for stakeholder groups
• Steps in developing indicators for evaluation
• Basic parameters for background information on
  this online community
• Indicators of demand for online community
• Indicators of service performance
• Indicators of user behaviour and perceptions
• Online community budgetIndicators of supportive
  policy and regulatory environment
• Characteristics of e-education organisations
• Indicators of educational impacts
• Indicators of impacts on education organisations

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Example of research question development
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• Implementing a research programme online
• research programme set up online as a module of
  every online community
• input easy by selected participants,
  automatically collated, results available at all
  times to all participants
• ensures Research and Policy program incorporated
  into every program - not an optional extra
• Our experience is that online communities are not
  sustainable without this type of continuous
  evaluation.
• Credits
• Methodology and evaluative techniques herein have
  been formulated using as a basis for reference
  the IDRC research assessment of the Acacia
  Inititiative. Report Noor Bathi Bararudin, Dept
  of Media Studies, UM (INFOSOC Malaysia, 2001.)and
  various sources