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Copyright © 2002 Last modified: Friday, August 7, 2009 |
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Addressing the Digital Divide
Supplementing/enhancing provision from the markets
Raise awareness about the extent and dimensions of the divide to industry. This would help them to identify specific areas of product development and marketing as sales level out due to saturation.
Give recommendations to software producers to develop products with more non-textual representation in minority languages, and for teaching English as a second language (PAT 15 2000).
Create partnerships to identify areas for product development and incentives for companies to design products specifically for excluded groups (Booz-Allen & Hamilton 2000; PAT 15 2000).
Create further competition in order to provide cheaper services amongst telecommunications, software and resource companies.
Promote the concept of corporate social responsibility within the ICT industry to raise awareness and involvement.
Further develop the market for resale and refurbishment of used ICT hardware.
Reducing costs
Further develop hardware lending and low-cost purchase schemes, particularly in disadvantaged communities such as amongst the elderly and disabled persons.
Co-ordinate, develop and identify a range of low-cost technical solutions to access provision for all types of ICT. This would help to reduce the numbers who perceive ICT as unaffordable.
Continue to facilitate the development of a national infrastructure of low-cost or free access points in under-served communities (Booz-Allen & Hamilton 2000), with future developments being informed by research findings pertaining to existing centres.
Increasing relevance, interest and aspirations
There needs to be continued and active promotion that the 'digital divide' has to be overcome because it undermines the basic rights of every individual.
Collaborate with ISPSS, MelitaCable Plc. and Datastream Ltd. and content providers to develop alternative perspectives to attract non-users and give clearer messages about how they can benefit from on-line activities (WHICH? Online 2000).
Develop a range of incentives to use the Internet, both financial and non-financial (Booz-Allen & Hamilton 2000; Shaddock 1999), and produce content and programmes that are of relevance to people's everyday life and encourage skills acquisition (Digital Divide Network 2000).
The provision offered should reflect the interests and make-up of the community it aims to serve (PAT 15 2000). Attention and initiatives should focus upon helping and encouraging people to package the information they already have, present their own thoughts and knowledge, and find relevant outputs and uses (Cisler 2000).
Coordinate the organization of opportunities, to learn skills with people in similar situations and from similar backgrounds should be offered and promoted (DTI 1999).
Help develop 'taster' courses that link ICT directly to other aspects of life relevant the communities involved.
Encourage 'E-missionaries' such as teachers and students, to train the 'unconnected'.
Increasing access and support
Encourage businesses to pass on their technical and general commercial expertise to community groups during the development of initiatives, including the negotiation of better deals on hardware and software.
Facilitate connectivity across home outreach, childcare provision and women-only groups and service users in order to encourage greater numbers of women to participate, especially where cultural backgrounds restrain women's activities (PAT15 2000)
The provision, extension and development of home-loan laptops should be considered and supported by other forms of support service.
Assist in the development of existing community resources and locations, including schools, in order to help offer further free or inexpensive access and training.
Support the eMalta Commission in arranging 'drop in', and open access facilities geared to those disabled persons with little or no prior ICT experience.
Increasing literacy
Encourage and develop special language facilities in areas where there are relatively high instances of individuals whose first language is not English (PAT 15, 2000), including the deaf.
Source information relative to appropriate software and courses for those with limited literacy (Digital Divide' Network 2000b), and develop initiatives that combine support for beginners in the use of ICT alongside relevant language and literacy support, such as translation and interpretation.
Increasing joined-up approaches
Identify methods for providing better delivery through more rigorous and 'joined-up' thinking about Government policies. Assessment against these criteria might further rationalise and co-ordinate attempts to tackle 'digital divides'.
Re-visit and assess Government achievements based on the recommendations identified in earlier consultation documents, in keeping with technological developments and changes over time. Such documents include ISSP 2002 -2005, , Booz-Allen & Hamilton (2000), PAT 15 (2000) and The Stevenson Report (1996).
Councils and local authorities should have a duty to develop plans illustrating how the resources available in the local communities can be maximized through a joined-up approach. This would also require more comprehensive data gathering and collaboration with local multi-disability groups, which, if handled sensitively, could increase understanding about the needs of different multi-disability groups and help to deliver provide communication and collaboration.
Continue to tackle the 'digital divide' in tandem with wider aspects of inequality.
Involve the private sector in community initiatives to build the social capital necessary for community groups to effectively mobilise ICT (Leach 2000).
Overcoming barriers to community-based access and use
Audit disabled groups to establish their needs and requirements in terms of content, and promote initiatives that involve them in directly creating materials.
Develop better policy and delivery design by identifying clear lines of responsibility for co-ordinating advice and help through a single communication channel to all those who wish to develop community focused initiatives. A more 'joined up' approach would reduce the fragmentation that can create barriers to community participation.
Allow plans and projects to evolve organically from the people they aim to help, but provide support mechanisms to scaffold the development of sustainable community projects.
Identify and work with recognised information leaders within the communities. Undertake social mapping to find key individuals, community needs and interests (Benton Foundation 1998).
Other
There are a number of possible future outputs and publications arising out of the work already undertaken, and data will also be added regularly to the existing evidence base. There is scope for:
developing a 'metric' or measure for tracking the 'divides' and stimulating debate around the issues
developing an ongoing clear and coherent research strategy which focuses on various initiatives, models, aims, objectives, contexts and outcomes, and effectively disseminates the information gathered.
awareness-raising documents as either paper or web-based outputs aimed at practitioners to stimulate discussion and data collection that has practical use
stimulating and collecting views and comments from academics, policy makers and practitioners via web discussion groups and expert seminars, with the intention of producing a collection of data for publication.
seminars and conferences to debate the extent, type and approaches for successfully implementing assistive technology solutions and overcoming the digital divide
publications highlighting best practice and case studies where the digital divide has been effectively tackled.
Copyright © 2002
Foundation for IT Accessibility
Last modified: Friday, August 7, 2009