Open Information Project, Sheffield
Sheffield's Open Information Project
cannot claim to be a community network. Its aim is establish an electronic
information network which will be cheap, easy to use and of direct benefit
to the work of "third sector" - voluntary and social economy -
organisations in Sheffield.
It is thus a network of organisations who work in and for the communities
of Sheffield rather than the communities themselves. This has arisen because
the project is based on perceived needs of such organisations rather than
on a desire to have a community IT project. This emphasis was essential
if the project was to attract the necessary time, money and energy from
a sector in which all these commodities are in inadequate supply. That said,
the choice of IT as a tool to meet these needs to an extent selected the
initial beneficiaries. It was organisations which already had computers
and, in the main those with paid staff, who could both see the potential
of the project and not find the barriers to participation too awesome.
The project has been funded by the European Regional Development Fund and
also received repeated help, both officially and voluntarily from staff,
from the University of Sheffield and from Sheffield Hallam University.
Rationale for the project
The reason why the project has found support lies with the changes the sector
has experienced in recent years. Sources of funds for work in the social
economy and voluntary sectors have multiplied in recent years but their
nature has also changed. They are often less transparent and accountable
in their decision making, more focused on short term output rather than
institutional development and may require the development of new partnerships
- local or transnational - as a condition of funding.
Such demands increase the importance of regular access to information in
two distinct areas. At the same time, by reducing the funding available
for core tasks, they actually lessen organisational capacity to get that
information through traditional means such as attending conferences and
meetings in order to learn and network. Thus organisations active in the
sector need new means of gaining rapid access to information about funding
sources and the ability to share experience and ideas in order to make appropriate
responses.
Secondly, at a time when services are increasingly delivered through a succession
of time limited projects, there is a need for those who deliver services
and for organisations which provide information about services to the public
to have access to the most up to date information available.
Although Sheffield does have a number of high quality paper based directories
and newsletters there are a number of reasons why it was felt appropriate
to develop an electronic network.
- The electronic network can be complementary to paper provision - allowing
existing information providers to develop their own services.
- Technology now allows such a network to be developed with a manageable
amount of extra work for participating organisations and a minimum of ongoing
central costs.
- It is better for organisations in the sector to determine their own
plans for organising and presenting their information electronically than
waiting to be fitted in to someone else's system.
Development of the project
Previous efforts to create electronic information systems in Sheffield suffered
for lack of high level supporters or from being so technically led that
others had difficulty in comprehending let alone following.
Open Information Project, by contrast, grew out of the experience of one
organisation, Sheffield Co-operative Development Group (SCDG), of the difficulty
of keeping up to date with all the potential changes affecting its area
of work. Discussions with other organisations showed that this was a common
feeling and this shared with a belief that there should be technology available
to help us led to the start of this project. The first step was to send
a questionairre to organisations in the sector. Of some forty positive responses:-
- Nearly all thought their organisation would benefit from quicker access
to relevant information and from sharing information with other organisations.
- Over half thought the project would save time and cut costs.
- Over half thought it important to have a say in how this technology
is developed and used locally.
- All bar one had computers, only one had a modem
SCDG appointed its development worker Mike Powell, to work on the project.
His job has been to develop options which have then been discussed at a
series of five seminars, attended on average by representatives from ten
different participating organisations, each of which have guided the next
stage of the project.
Key discussions have included
- The choice of the World Wide Web as the physical base for the project.
This has meant that participation in the project provides organisations
with training and capacity which goes far beyond the limits of our own network
- in particular it opens the potential for participants to network with
national or international levels of their own organisations or areas of
work. It also makes the information posted more accessible to the public.
- The decision to seek FTP access for each participant which both allows
and requires each organisation to take responsibility for its own on-line
information. This choice greatly reduces the central revenue costs for this
network compared to most previous ones.
- The decision to place all OIP information on one directory which will
allow the project to run its own classification and index systems. These
have been selected and developed by David Miller of the Department of Information
Studies of the University of Sheffield with the aim of making the information
put on the network as accessible as possible to non-computer regulars. How
to achieve this aim has been the most discussed subject in the project's
development.
The existence of the project on one directory will make it possible to download
all the information contained to other systems, such as those operated by
the local libraries and possibly cable television, which do not offer external
Internet access. Training sessions introducing the World Wide Web and teaching
basic HTML have also played a vital part in raising awareness and skills.
The present
The project went on line in April. This represents only one stage in its
development. So far only eleven of the project's members have put their
pages up. More are likely to follow very soon but it is expected that it
will take many months for the information posted to gradually build up into
a useful resource. The aim is not just to have a simple list of organisations,
what they do and opening hours as is traditionally provided by public information
services. Members are encouraged to place research and statistics on their
area of work on their pages so that the sector as a whole builds a far more
complete picture of the city and its problems.
It is also taking time to develop the communications potential of the project
which is probably its most important single element. Early ideas to use
Newsgroups or On Line Conferencing Software have proved too ambitious. Busy
organisations taking their first steps into telematic communication are
not going to look for messages in different places. Thus the project is
starting with an internal mailing list which will enable members to post
messages to the members as a whole. It is hoped that once this has built
up, members will see the advantage of moving to more structured communication
on Conferencing on the Web (COW) software, which allows messages to be posted
under named topics.
A third component of the project will involve regular monitoring of network
usage and attempts to develop and use appropriate methodology to evaluate
the impact the network has on the sector.
The most important sign of progress is however in the project itself. Twenty
five organisations participated in the early stages of the project and are
receiving grants to help cover their modem and service provider costs. A
further nine have joined the association of local, not for profit organisations
which the Open Information Project has become. Many others are associate
members or have asked to be kept on the project mailing list and the last
progress meeting was the best attended of all. The lead role taken by SCDG
has been subsumed by a democratically based steering committee. One task
of this committee is to endorse new members and monitor compliance with
the few rules the project has. The other more important role, which is already
beginning, is to guide the further development of the project to maximise
its potential for both the third sector organisations in the region and
for the communities they exist to serve.
The Open Information Project has met all its official targets but it is
far too early to call it a success. The level of participation of its members
does however offer encouragement both for the sustainability of the existing
project and for its further development.
Mike Powell
Open Information Project
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