Colleagues,

The following research questions and hypotheses are neither grouped nor organised in a particular fashion. This page is open for brainstorming for the next short while, during that time feel free to add to either category and to edit previous questions and hypothesis. Order will be added to this process prior to the Seattle meeting.

 

 

Research questions

• What are the observable social and economic impacts of public access to ICT?
• What is the magnitude of these impacts and how can we measure them?
• What is the relationship between costs and benefits of providing public access to ICT?

 

Are special benefits accrued by the users of public access? What does the public part contribute in particular to ICT access?

 

Are intermediaries an integral component of publc access? Are insitutions an integral component of publc access?

 

What are the drivers of shared use (scarcity, social factors, etc.)? Who are the users of public access?

 

Why does failure happen? How are "failures" of public access sites teachable moments?

 

Why do people stop using public access? (Are [some/most/many] failures actually transitions?)

 

Does collective use of ICTs (public access) encourage collectivity outside of the use environment? Collective action?

 

When does sharing have a better impact (such as enhanced learning outcomes)?

 

How can we capture the effects of and distinguish between long term benefits and immediate benefits?

 

How do people use and benefit from mobile phones -- either as a substitute or complment -- to public access venues? What is gained or lost? 

 

 

Hypotheses

(Click here for a more detailed list of Hypotheses)

 

Public access to ICTs results in measurable benefits.

 

The utility of public access goes down as private access increases.

 

Public access is a transitory phase between non and private access.

 

There are advantages to providing access in locations that are connected with an institution.

 

Public access is better than private access in certain contexts (social construction of public access).

 

Public access has additional impacts than access per se.

 

In rural and remote areas, public access is a contributor to livelihood improvements when integrated with additional services that enhance human, social, and physical capital (ie no silver bullet on its own).

 

 

Exogneous factors

Cost of public access - free versus paid access.

Censorship (including self-censorship)

 

Taxonomies of:

Access points (telecentres, etc.)

Intermediaries

Users

 

Categories of Research Questions

 

	yes/no	By how much
Is public access better than nothing?
Could we do it better?
Could we do something else?