I have personally really enjoyed collaborating on developing the questions we are going to ask and thinking in depth about the different things people do with ICTs and the meanings they have for us in our daily lives. I’m really grateful too for all the hard work put in by the researchers on this.

We are starting soon with the pilot interviews with research network members and then we can look forward to starting work in the research areas.

Click here to see if you have won.

CH129

To claim your prize, please contact Paul Davies at 01287 626432 / 07597908306

or email: post@digital.village.org.uk 

Many thanks to all of those who took part in the survey. We appreciate your help.

Great news in Moorsholm – Terry has delivered all 150 surveys to households in the village and in Stanghow. We are very grateful to those who have returned completed surveys and are looking forward to finding out how people are using computers and the internet.

The prize draw for Moorsholm takes place soon – Friday 27th November. Keep a look out for the winning number…

Skelton and Redcar researchers will receive their surveys this week and we look forward to starting there. Meanwhile, Carlin How and Skinningrove are making good progress and we look forward to the results from these villages.

We hope everything goes well for our researchers when they start distribution (including the weather!) and we are really looking forward to collecting our findings.

Thanks everyone for being supportive in this busy fieldwork stage.

Phase 1, which included developing a community research network and mapping local ICT provision, has been a success. The community researchers and the DVN team have accessed a wide range of local services to find out what ICT provision is on offer. We are currently working on the analysis of this data and will report our findings in the autumn.

Our digital map of ICT provision across Redcar and Cleveland is under development with support from Prof Mike Lockyer from the School of Computing and Maths at Teesside University.

Some of the community mapping will continue into the second phase and we are currently broadening our network of community researchers. Adverts have gone out in the local press and we look forward to meeting potential researchers in the coming weeks. New researchers will join the existing network and start on phase 2 activities. They will receive initial training on the DVN project, ethics and safety and digital media for social research before going on to assist with the survey.

Our existing community researchers have evaluated their initial training sessions and we are pleased to report that the workshops have been a success.

The household survey will begin in October 2009. Community researchers have taken part in workshops 4 and 5 and are currently preparing their survey distribution strategies. The survey will take place in Moorsholm, Redcar, Skinningrove, Carlin How and Saltburn. It aims to generate information on computer and internet use within these communities. We aim to answer questions such as, ‘How many people currently have broadband access in the home?’, ‘How often do people use the internet at home?’ and ‘What are people using the internet for?’.

We would like to thank everyone who has taken part so far in phase 1 of the research and community researchers for helping us to successfully deliver the first part of the project. We look forward to starting phase 2 in the autumn (2009).

Things are moving fast on the project and the Carlin How team have come up with a strategy for distributing the survey around the village.

Roger, Amanda and Marion developed a tailor-made approach for this research node including an Ethics and Safety plan, an information and awareness raising strategy for local residents, and a street-by-street distribution guide (see pictures below). We plan to start the survey in early October and look forward to getting some interesting results.

Last week the Carlin How group took part in the first of two linked workshops – ‘designing a community survey’. They then filled in the questionnaire themselves to spot any glitches and give their views on the content of the questionnaire. This week’s workshop – ‘distributing a community survey’ – is dedicated to developing community-based strategies for distributing the questionnaire. Meanwhile, the first cohort of researchers will start their workshops this week.

We would like to thank everyone who has taken part in the community survey so far and also the community researchers for doing a great job working with our participants. We are also currently working on developing our digital map which will be ready to view in the autumn.

The group also used the workshop space to plan the community mapping in Carlin How and Brotton. The researchers are about to start visiting service providers and organisations in their mapping zone.

The group also talked about the recent job losses in Carlin How and how this impacts on the local community. Stories about the impact of the recession on local livelihoods can be found in the Gazette.

The Carlin How group are starting their own research soon by mapping local organisations and access to ICTs in the village. This will provide us with more information about village needs. Meanwhile, researchers from cohort 1 are continuing to collect their datasheets in neighbouring areas.