The Digital Villages Research Network

Whilst some were building bonfires (the Skinningrove bonfire looks amazing!), there was plotting of a different kind in Redcar yesterday. Nick, Martin and Carrie were making plans for the distribution of the survey which begins today in Dormanstown. Martin has joined Nick and Pauline in the Redcar area to assist with the survey. Questionnaires have been numbered and put in envelopes ready to go.

Back in Middlesbrough today, Lynne and Steve picked up the Skelton questionnaires and will be starting in a week’s time.

Good luck everyone!

The network continues to grow with new researchers Martin Jefferson and Cheryl Sanderson joining the project. Yesterday, Martin, Cheryl, John & Colin joined Paul and me in Redcar for an introduction to the project and an overview of research ethics.

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.

Lynne, Steve, Roger, Paul and myself met up today in Redcar for the ethics workshop and plans for the survey in Skelton. We have had positive feedback on the ethics workshops in the past and this workshop was another good session in which we discussed approaches to informed consent, confidentiality and anonymity. Lynne and Steve made plans for distributing the survey with the help of Carlin How’s expertise and will be starting soon. It’s great to have a new research node on board and we are looking forward to starting work in the area.

The surveys went out to Terry in Moorsholm, the Carlin How researchers and to Barry in Skinningrove yesterday.

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.

Our new community researchers, Pauline, Steve, Lynne, John and David joined Carrie and Paul for their first introductory research workshop today in Redcar. The group were joined by community researchers Roger and Nick who joined the project earlier this year. Another new researcher, Colin, was unable to attend but we’ll be meeting next week to catch up.

Here we are in full swing (from left to right John, Pauline, Steve, Lynne, Roger, Nick and Carrie’s boots)

Pauline (below pictured with Nick and Carrie) will be joining Nick in the Redcar node to begin the survey in early November.

It was great to start work with our third group of researchers, who come from different towns and villages across East Cleveland. We look forward to moving into the survey stage and to broadening our research and the network of researchers.

We went to the Toad Hall Arms in Moorsholm today for a research workshop on the community survey. Moorsholm and Redcar researchers, Terry and Nick, planned their community strategies for distributing and collecting the questionnaires in each place. It is really interesting to see how the different urban and rural areas will require strategies which are similar in some respects and different in others, as the pictures show. As an example, personal safety is more of an issue in urban areas where researchers are less familiar with some of the streets. Each community will have their own particular approaches which reflect the local population and geographical and social landscape.

We are pleased to report that the DVN project is now moving into its second phase of research – the computer and internet survey.

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).

Yesterday we had an excellent workshop with the Carlin How researchers at Carlin How Community Centre.

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.

Following the community mapping exercise, the research is now moving into the second stage – the community survey. Workshops are now taking place in Carlin How and Saltburn and the team is busy piloting the questionnaire.

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 Carlin How researchers met with Paul and Carrie yesterday for the workshop on digital media. ICT connectivity was not available so the group discussed ways of using the research blog and will follow this up with blogging activities with Steve at the school over the summer.

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.