Communities Online has achieved in a
short time a national and international role in promoting the use of
new technologies for community benefit. It has a Web site, mailing
lists, widespread support among practitioners, and further funding to
play a leading part in the UK Government's IT Partnership
Initiative.
This report describes the development process, the lessons learned,
the benefits achieved for its sponsors BT Community Affairs, and
partners, and the potential for the future. It is a draft for
discussion, in the first instance, by the Communities Online Board
and BT.
The project which is now UK Communities Online started through two linked strands:
In the event we found that the most
productive route into this field was through the first of those
strands - local community networking. There wasn't a big enough
market to support a paid-for community regeneration network early in
1996, and we didn't have the budget or facilities we expected to
demonstrate the potential. On the other hand local community networks
became the focus of great interest during 1996 - not least within BT
Labs.
The process of developing the two strands began in spring 1995 when
David Wilcox ran a workshop on Community Networking at the Urban
Forum annual meeting. Contacts made there led to a conference called
Communities Online at BT Centre in October 1995 run jointly by Urban
Forum and Partnerships for Tomorrow (P4T).
David Wilcox had formed P4T with Michael Mulquin and Richard Stubbs
following a visit he made to a US conference on community networking
'The Ties That Bind' in Cupertino in May 1995, with funding provided
by the Morino
Institute.
Following the successful October 1995 conference BT Community Affairs
invited a development proposal from Partnerships for Tomorrow. This
proposal was finally agreed in March 1996 and formed the basis for
developments which led to Communities Online.
The proposals of March 1996 envisaged
developing a closed electronic community regeneration network using
FirstClass
conferencing software linked to a 'shop window' Web site. We had
demonstrated a FirstClass system at the October 1995 conference, and
maintained it on pHreak, a server run by Intermedia Associates as a
low cost facility for enthusiasts.
Initially we - and BT - hoped that it would be possible to
accommodate both conferencing and publishing on Internet servers
provided by BT Labs. As explained below in the technology section,
that was not feasible, and we instead had the option of developing on
the BT WebWorld servers without any conferencing facilities.
The lack of any means to develop interactive facilities for the
community regeneration network made this path less attractive.
Practitioners wanted to be able to publish their own material,
transfer files and develop conferences to support their existing
human networking activities. We did not have the budgets needed to
upgrade the pHreak system. In the event - as discussed below - it was
probably fortunate that we did not go down the FirstClass route,
although the functional requirements still hold for any system.
At the same time as we faced these technical difficulties interest
was growing in the possibilities of local community networking, and
BT Labs had created a team to research the field. We met Colin Millar
and Doug Williams in April 1996 through an introduction from BT
Community Affairs, and also a personal contact of David Wilcox, Dave
Greenop, who was developing BT strategy.
David and Doug attended a US community networking conference in Taos,
New Mexico, in May 1996 - the successor to the Cupertino conference
the year before. For several months beforehand David had been
involved in email conferencing about the scope for an International
Association for Community Networking. IACN was launched at Taos, with
David one of the core team charged with development work.
In June 1996 BT Labs hosted a meeting at BT Centre to bring together
contacts made so far, promote IACN in the UK, and to make a link with
developments at Sheffield University, where Dave Miller and
colleagues in the South Yorkshire Community Network were organising
the first conference for UK networkers and creating a Web site about
community networking.
That June meeting decided to create Communities Online as a UK branch
of IACN. Those attending had heard from Nick Trent, of the Department
of Trade and Industry, about Government plans for a major promotional
campaign, provisionally known as 'IT for All'. The meeting was
attended by Steve Cull, as a representative of BT Community
Affairs.
Colin Millar and Doug Williams made a presentation to the Sheffield
conference and David Wilcox and Richard Stubbs reported on plans for
Communities Online. Dave Miller created an 'IACN' mailing list and
invited participants to join. There was overwhelming support for
Communities Online.
With strong practitioner support for
Communities Online and the prospect of Government backing, a further
meeting hosted by BT Labs on July decided to set up a charitable
company, launch a Web site, and collaborate with 'IT for All'.
Doug Williams and David Wilcox started development of the Web site,
which was in operation on a BT server by August. Meanwhile Richard
Stubbs was investigating the feasibility of complementary
conferencing facilities, and also working voluntarily with UK
Citizens Online Democracy. UK COD had assembled an impressive range
of technical talent and sponsors to create a system of linked mailing
lists and Web pages to promote electronic debate in the run up to the
General Election. Irving Rappaport joined the Communities Online core
group to share ideas.
In September 1996 a third meeting hosted by BT Labs brought together
people interested in developing the Communities Online Web site.
Nick Trent confirmed £10,000 of DTI funding for an introductory
booklet linked to the 'IT for All' initiative, and BT Labs later
offered a further contribution of £5000. Together this made it
possible to plan linked Web and publication to the target audiences
of Communities Online.
UK COD offered us the use of mailing list facilities for a technical
group and the editorial group. In September Richard Stubbs also
negotiated use of a top range server with Computer Access, which will
provide a test bed for a wide range of applications not available on
the BT WebWorld server.
The aim is to use the BT server as a 'shop window' with the Computer
Access server providing conferencing, databases and a place for the
technical team to experiment.
In October 1996 we are planning:
The sustainability of Communities Online will depend upon:
The project has been an exercise in trying to get started - rather than formal research. However, it is possible to make some observations which may have wider relevance. Some are expanded later - they are offered here for discussion.
We started the process with the dual
interests mentioned above - the scope for developing local electronic
networks, drawing on US experience, and the scope for networking
communities of interest or organisations in the non profit
sector.
We (David Wilcox, Richard Stubbs and Michael Mulquin) focused on
community regeneration practitioners as a community of interest
initially because:
We gained support for the proposals
from a range of partner organisations in the community and voluntary
sectors, and a range of practitioners at the October 1995 conference.
Individuals in these organisations, together with our technical
partners Intermedia Associates, contributed substantially to
proposals for the Community Regeneration Network (CRN) put to BT
Community Affairs in December 1995.
The proposals were relatively modest - to develop CRN using a
FirstClass bulletin board system already demonstrated at the October
1995 conference, and continuing in operation subsequently. All
concerned strongly favoured a system which would allow users to
publish their own content easily, to exchange files and messages. We
were concerned with communication, not simply information.
In the event we were unable to deliver that system.
Our original proposal to BT would
have enabled us to use a FirstClass server provided by Intermedia
Associates, who had allowed us to use their system pHreak for
demonstration purposes. To run CRN we needed a dedicated server.
However, BT could not meet our full budget proposals, and instead
offered us server space at BT Labs, where initially we hoped we would
have FirstClass conferencing facilities as well as a Web site. In
discussion with the Labs it became clear that this would not be
feasible - it would be too difficult to arrange the necessary
security clearances and off-site management of servers.
Instead BT were able to offer space on servers being piloted for the
public BT Web World service due for launch in October 1996. We
started operating on these servers in August 1996.
While the BT Web World offer was welcome, it did mean that we could
only provide information - we could not offer potential CRN members
the conferencing and communication facilities they required. The
technology was suitable for publishing, not for networking.
We later addressed these problems by developing mailing lists, and
negotiating space on a top range server to be operated by Computer
Access from November 1996.
In retrospect it was probably fortunate that we did not follow the
FirstClass route. During the early months of 1996 the popularity of
the Web continuity to grow, and despite the advantages of systems
like FirstClass, users were clearly anticipating that conferencing
would soon be available on the Web. By August the pHreak FirstClass
system had closed.
In spring 1996 we found that we were caught between the decline of
bulletin board systems like FirstClass and still-awaited development
of easy to use Web conferencing systems and mailing lists.
Practitioners wanted a combination of:
Technically this was possible, but only on offer in part-packages or less-than-easy to use systems. Service providers like GreenNet and Poptel could provide much of the package, but the conferencing systems were text based and available only to subscribers to GreenNet or Poptel. BT could offer connections and Web publishing, but no conferencing.
Throughout the process it became
clear that the drive for change and development would come from
largely from enthusiastic individuals, rather than the commitment of
organisations - or put another way, organisations needed internal
champions if they were to become involved.
This was the case for large as well as small bodies. While
organisations would assent to the principle of networking, follow
through was impossible unless a key person was using the
technology.
We had continuing support from all our partner organisations, but
active involvement was impossible unless someone was online, for two
reasons:
In our experience few non-profit organisations in the field are fully integrating electronic publishing and networking into their operations. At the same, enthusiasts within these organisations are making contact with each other through email, crossing boundaries, and finding information sources outside normal organisational channels. This will start to throw up 'have and have not' communication issues for organisations in two ways:
These are merely observations - not
hard findings. However, we do suggest that in such a fast moving
field they are worth consideration.
We also noted that there is a potential gap between head office
enthusiasms for 'getting on the Web' by essentially publishing a few
brochures, and the day to day needs of practitioners in conferencing
and file transfer.
One of our aims is to create demonstrations of what is possible so
that the enthusiasts have some live and relevant examples to show to
the uncertain. This peer group learning is more likely to be relevant
than presentations of 'off the shelf' packages.
As we develop the Web site and IT Partnership Initiative publication, I think it is fair to say we have achieved - or will shortly achieve - the following:
Over the next three months Communities Online will concentrate
on:
We suggest a meeting with BT and other partners to discuss this draft report and consider:
David
Wilcox
Editor, Communities Online
October 8 1996