The Digital Villages Research Network

There are four unclaimed prize draws from the survey in Redcar, Carlin How, Saltburn and Skinningrove.

Click here to see if you have won.

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.

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).

On 25 May I visted Redcar (ROC) Real Opportunities Centre to have a chat with Liz Cocks the office manager.  She was more than happy to complete one of our questionnaires.  The centre works with people with disabilities, giving them a voice and a place to meet.

This is our first training session today. We looked at the geographical areas each of us would cover. I will cover Redcar and Dormanstown areas. We will be looking at any community venue in this locality that may or may not have ICT capacity.

Nick Murray

On Friday 3rd April 2009, Paul and Carrie went to Redcar to sign up the project’s third community researcher, Nick Murray. They met at Redcar Mind to discuss the role and talk about the forthcoming research plans. Nick is also the first researcher to join the Redcar node. The team are delighted to have researchers based in four of the six research nodes. Nick will join the other community researchers for the first research methods workshop in late April.

Unfortunately, Paul and Carrie forgot to take a camera with them, but Steve has found an excellent subsitute photo so that we can celebrate the expansion of the research network in pictures.