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Selected Projects
Chicago, Paseo Boricua
- Paseo Boricua Community Library Project
- Community as Intellectual Space Symposium
- Tech Training for Tots
East St. Louis
- Graduate School of Library and Information Science and East St. Louis
- Teen Tech Team
- Katherine Dunham Archives Project
Sao Tome
Urbana-Champaign
- Booker T. Washington After School Program
- 4-H Club Freestyle Program with Urbana Middle School
- Latino Media Initiative
State and National
- Illinois Community Technology Coalition (ILCTC) Grant Project
- Prairienet and the Community Informatics Initiative (CII)
- BeeSpace
- eBlack Illinois
- TOP data archive
- iLabs
State and National
Illinois Community Technology Coalition (ILCTC) Grant Project
In early 2008, Community Informatics Initiative (CII) received $15,000 from ILCTC to complete a survey of community technology centers across Illinois.
- Purpose: To determine the number and location of such sites, and to identify the type of site (youth/senior center, library, non-profit, etc.) and the client base of each site
- Goal: An online database where users can search for free-access computing sites that meet their needs
Prairienet and the Community Informatics Initiative (CII)
Prairienet is a community information network founded in 1993 to improve local information access in Champaign-Urbana (CU) and the East Central Illinois area. It is part of the CII and the University of Illinois Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS).
Prairienet provides a variety of services to the community including:
- Training on web, email, basic html and listservs
- Public access computer labs set up by classes
- Community web collection, calendar, special digital resources and applications
For more information on Prairienet, visit http://www.prairienet.org/
BeeSpace (September 2004 to August 2009)
BeeSpace is a National Science Foundation project that is developing an interactive web environment for functional analysis of bee behavior on a whole-genome scale. Tested in an international community of labs, outreach provides integrated research and education experiences at the graduate and undergrad levels, plus training courses and minority outreach at high school and middle school levels.
Like to learn more? Email Jim Buell jbuell@illinois.edu.
eBlack Illinois
The eBlack Illinois project is a comprehensive digital database of the Black experience in Illinois. The plan is to create a shared dataset with the participation of both academic and community-based organizations. The research teams will gather existing empirical data about the Black community from government and public sources, as well as conduct new primary research. We will combine the data to answer questions about Illinois' Black communities as well as their uses of digital technology.
For information, contact Prof. Abdul Alkalimat at mcworter@illinois.edu
TOP data archive
The TOP archive is made up of both digital and physical records concerning more than 600 community technology projects across the US gathered over the last ten years. It is currently being used by Professor Kate Williams and others to answer questions about community in the digital age. This information is also available to other interested researchers.
From 1994 to 2005, the Telecommunications and Information Infrastructure Assistance Program (TOP) awarded grants to 606 public and non-profit organizations. These grants were aimed at addressing the digital divide, or using IT to address social problems. The data contained in the TOP archive includes legislative deliberations, newspaper records, project abstracts and other documentation. This wealth of information can now be used by researchers to answer important questions such as: how can federally funded (top-down) programs promote change at the community level? How do communities pool their resources to participate in the digital age?
For more information, please contact Prof. Kate Williams at katewill@illinois.edu.
iLabs
iLabs 4 is undergoing testing now and should be available for open use soon.
iLabs is a web-based suite of software tools that can be used to form an interactive Web site, and is free of cost to all users. Users create an iLab by filling out a simple Web form that determines which tools and features they want to include on their Web site.
The iLabs concept grew out of the Inquiry Page, a collaborative endeavor of people interested in inquiry pedagogy and philosophy that was begun by Chip Bruce in 1995.
iLabs development is carried out by an ever-changing and growing group of participants, whose members include university researchers, students, community activists, and educators representing a variety of settings and grade levels. Development work is supported through volunteer work, in-kind institutional commitments and grant funds.
For further information, see http://ilabs.inquiry.uiuc.edu/.
Urbana-Champaign
Booker T. Washington After School Program
The Booker T. Washington After School Program was created in 2006 at the request of families living in the north Champaign Shadow Wood neighborhood. University of Illinois' Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) has partnered with community organizations and university entities including Don Moyer Boys and Girls Club, local boy and girl scout chapters, UI La Casa Cultural Latina, UI Family Resiliency Center and UI Spanish language department to deliver this program.
- Seventy volunteers provide after-school tutoring four days/week to 40 children (K-7).
- Goal: To help at-risk youth excel academically, connect families to resources in the community, and create new action research and service-learning opportunities.
To learn more about this project visit: http://courseweb.lis.uiuc.edu/~pmorey/SOAR/SOAR.html.
4-H Club Freestyle Program with Urbana Middle School
Offered through Urbana Middle School's SPLASH after school program, 4-H Club Freestyle teaches the basics of audio podcasting. The program was developed through a partnership between University of Illinois Extension, Champaign County 4-H and Community Informatics Initiative (CII) faculty. By the end of a six-week SPLASH program, participating youth will have created an audio podcast about an issue in their community. In the process they gain experience including:
- Online research skills
- Working collaboratively with other students
- Planning and time management
- Public speaking and presentation delivery
For more information please contact Karyn M. Mendoza, University of Illinois Extension, at kmmen@uiuc.edu.
New Horizons Media Initiative
NHMI consolidates and advances Spanish-language print, broadcast and digital media produced and/or disseminated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, linking media production to the service, research and teaching missions of the University.
Like to learn more? cii@illinois.edu
Chicago, Paseo Boricua
Paseo Boricua Community Library Project
The Paseo Boricua Community Library Project encompasses a variety of activities around community librarianship and informatics in the Chicago neighborhood of Paseo Boricua. Students from the Graduate School of Library and Information Science have participated in a number of projects since 2001 through courses held on-site. Some examples include:
- Creating a prototype for a digital archive to house Puerto Rican Cultural Center (PRCC) artifacts and materials
- Working with students of Pedro Albizu Campos High School (PACHS) to create a community resource directory for Paseo Boricua residents
- Conducting research to assist famed Nuyorican poet and playwright, Tato Laviera, in writing an original play based on the local history of the community
- Cataloging PRCC library materials
- Creating a community health program manual
- Conducting a needs assessment for local non-profit organizations
- Developing curriculum for PACHS that aligns with Illinois state technology literacy standards
Like to learn more? cii@illinois.edu.
Community as Intellectual Space Symposium
The Community as Intellectual Space Symposium is an annual conference held in Chicago's Paseo Boricua community that is co-sponsored by the Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) and the Puerto Rican Cultural Center (PRCC). The conference brings together local community organizations and individuals, along with students and scholars from around the country to experience and discuss the ways in which knowledge is created, shared and preserved in communities. Attendees participate in a variety of activities including:
- Panel discussions with researchers and community members from a variety of disciplines
- Live performances
- Art and film exhibitions
- Neighborhood tours
- Puerto Rican People's Parade
The fifth annual Community as Intellectual Space Symposium took place June 12-14, 2008 at the PRCC with the theme "Critical Pedagogy as Community Building..” It was open to students, faculty, visiting scholars and community members.
To see the pictures visit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/community-informatics-initiative/sets/72157619740062499/
Working with the Consuelo Lee Corretjer Day Care Center, a Puerto Rican Cultural Center (PRCC) program in Chicago’s Paseo Boricua neighborhood, GSLIS students have had the opportunity to help develop programs for young children (aged 2 to 5) to learn basic skills that will ease their transition to elementary school. One GSLIS student’s project was to incorporate “SQUEAK,” a free software that teaches children computer skills as well as colors and numbers, into the classroom.
Sao Tome
University engagement in Sao Tome, Africa: http://saotomeproject.prairienet.org
Improving Information Access and Infrastructure in São Tomé and Príncipe
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign is currently developing a partnership with the West African nation of São Tomé that is growing in scope.GSLIS students and faculty have installed computer labs in locations including:
- The National Library
- Regional libraries
- Schools
- Other community centers on the island
East St. Louis
Graduate School of Library and Information Science (GSLIS) and East St. Louis
Several departments at the University of Illinois, including GSLIS, frequently participate in service-learning projects in East St. Louis, IL under a campus-wide community development effort called the East St. Louis Action Research Project (ESLARP). Community Informatics students partner with the Digital East St. Louis (DigitalESL) Collaborative to work on a variety of projects that are often incorporated into GSLIS coursework.
For more information on ESLARP, visit www.eslarp.uiuc.edu/. For more information on DigitalESL, visit www.digitalesl.org/.
Examples of student project work include:
- Students of a 400-level course have installed several public computing sites in East St. Louis where the community receives free Internet access
- Students of archive preservation class travel to the Katherine Dunham Centers for Arts and Humanities in East St. Louis to assist on the Katherine Dunham Archives project
For more information on the Katherine Dunham Centers, visit http://www.eslarp.uiuc.edu
Teen Tech Team is a program aimed at youth aged 14-18 in East St. Louis (ESL), Illinois.
- Provides instruction in basic computer and business skills
- Uses donated computers for hands-on lab work, for later distribution to the community
- Develops skills to meet computer repair and maintenance needs in their neighborhoods
- Students are introduced to educational/job opportunities in technology through university tours and apprenticeship programs.
GSLIS students and researchers collaborate with the Teen Tech Team in recycling computers and teaching computer literacy. Students interested in participating should contact Paul Adams (padams@illinois.edu), director of community networking, Community Informatics Initiative (CII).
Katherine Dunham Archives Project
The Katherine Dunham Centers for Arts and Humanities is home to both a portion of the personal collection of Katherine Dunham, a pioneering African-American choreographer, entertainer, anthropologist and human rights activist and to the institutional collection of one of the most important cultural centers in East St. Louis' history, to which Ms. Dunham dedicated the last 40 years of her life. Community organizations identified a need to archive the documentation of Dunham's work.
Through a partnership with the East St. Louis Action Research Project (ESLARP), GSLIS students have begun the archive preservation process by:
- Creating an inventory of the materials
- Repackaging materials into more secure archival boxes
- Building more secure shelving for materials
- Reviewing unlabeled audio/video materials
- Describing the scope of the collection
This project has been incorporated into the curriculum of an archives class, and this work will continue with LIS581 in Fall 2008. Project coordinators are looking for students with an interest in Africana to begin assessing artifacts at the Dunham Centers. For more information, contact Noah Lenstra (nlenstr2@uiuc.edu) or visit www.eslarp.uiuc.edu to sign-up for volunteer opportunities.
For more information on the Katherine Dunham Centers, visit http://www.eslarp.uiuc.edu
Other questions related to projects?
Please contact Ann Bishop (abishop@illinois.edu).