Ann
Peterson Bishop,
Bertram (Chip) C. Bruce
Graduate School of Library and Information Science, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA
Introduction
Studies of human-computer interaction have often focused on settings and practices that are relatively fixed and well-defined, such as a college-level course, a workgroup in a company, or a museum exploration. These studies have contributed much to our understanding of the potential and the problems of incorporating computers into collaborative practice. However, such well-defined situations represent but a small portion of realities that are relevant to the field of community informatics, which aims to understand how information and communication technologies (ICTs) are employed to help communities--from rural to urban--achieve their goals.
In any community, there are multiple forms of interaction with people playing different roles in different groups that in turn have complex relationships to one another. For example, a neighborhood may have within it opportunities for groups to form and take action on formal and informal learning opportunities, economic development projects, arts festivals, and community health programs. These activities occur in a complex web of relations, with new technologies only adding to the range of possibilities for how activity systems interpenetrate. Our interest here is in how collaborative practices in complex settings such as this occur, and how they are shaped by and shape the use of ICTs.
In this paper, we discuss community interactions and how people learn and work together in Chicago’s Paseo Boricua neighborhood. We then describe a suite of software tools we are developing, called iLabs, that people use to create a wide variety of web-based “community inquiry laboratories.” Because community inquiry underlies our approach to system development, we include users as active designers who bring their experiences to bear in designing new iLab tools. In the case of Paseo Boricua, neighborhood youth and activists partnered with university-based design team members to create a web-based catalog tool for iLabs. Questions we explore in this paper are the following: 1) What role does human-computer interaction have in the overall collaborative practices of Paseo Boricua? 2) How does the work with Paseo Boricua inform the development of ICTs for collaboration? 3) How does community inquiry theory help us to understand these processes and practices?
Theory of Community Inquiry
Community members, particularly those living in marginalized communities, are often conceived as passively bearing the burdens of illness, malnutrition, addiction, crime, illiteracy, and other social ills. Remedies to these ills are likewise conceived as actions for well-meaning outsiders to perform, such as to provide counseling, deliver food or medicine, collect information, or manage development. As a result, even when remedies succeed, their benefits are often short-lived, because the community has made little progress toward developing a capacity for problem-solving.
If individuals, or communities, are to understand and create solutions for problems in complex systems, they need to have opportunities to engage with challenging problems, to learn through participative investigations, to have supportive, situated experiences, to articulate their ideas to others, and to make use of a variety of resources in multiple media. These notions, which we encapsulate here as inquiry-based learning, have been well-established through community work, such as that exemplified by Jane Addams at Hull House (1909, 1910, 1930), in research on learning in individuals (Bruce & Davidson, 1996; Minstrell & Van Zee, 2000; Shavelson & Towne, 2002), and in communities (Bishop, Bazzell, Mehra, & Smith, 2001; Bruce & Easley, 2000), and in pragmatist theory (Dewey, 1929, 1933, 1938, 1966; Dewey & Bentley, 1949).
Inquiry-based learning, in which people construct knowledge based on the questions that arise in their lived experience, assumes that all learning begins with the learner: What people know and what they want to learn are not just constraints on what can be taught; they are the very foundation for learning. For this reason, Dewey's (1956) description of the four primary interests of the learner are still a propos: inquiry, or investigation--to expand one’s understanding of the world; communication--the desire to enter into social relationships; construction--the joy in creating things; and expression or reflection--the drive to articulate experience. Dewey saw these as the natural resources, or uninvested capital, out of which grows active learning and participation in society. This is true for the child, the adult, or the community as a whole.
Inquiry-based learning is an attitude toward work and life, consisting of eager, alert observations; a constant questioning of old procedure in light of new observations, and a use of grounded experience as well as of books. It also implies a relish, emotional drive, and a genuine participation in creative phases of work, as well as a sense that joy and beauty are legitimate possessions of all human beings, young and old (Mitchell, 1934).
A key implication of the theory of inquiry is that the development of engaged citizens requires not only tolerance, but respect for diversity. Each person’s interests, abilities, ideas, goals, and unique cultural identity should be recognized. This derives from the essential understanding that knowledge grows out of ordinary experience, and thus no community can afford to discard the knowledge of any of its members. It also implies the need to develop a “critical, socially engaged intelligence, which enables individuals to understand and participate effectively in the affairs of their community in a collaborative effort to achieve a common good” (John Dewey Project on Progressive Education, 2002). Thus, inquiry-based learning, usually conceived as an individual process, is also a community process, one we might highlight as community inquiry, although the adjective is in the final analysis, redundant.
A cornerstone of community inquiry is that it aims to respond to human needs by democratic and equitable processes. A successful "community of inquiry" is not one in which everyone is the same, but instead one that accommodates plurality. As Clark argues (1994, p. 74), a learning community requires maintaining equitable relations among the participants. The challenge that a community of inquiry addresses is how to maintain a focus without denying individual experiences, perceptions, and values.
Recent years have seen an increase in interest in the concept of community and how it intersects with the design and evaluation of ICTs. We see the work we are doing with iLabs in Paseo Boricua as one way to create tools to explore that intersection, affording us a place to experiment with ideas, as well as a site for action.
Inquiry Laboratories, or simply iLabs, is a suite of open source tools that supports communication, collaboration, and content management (http://ilabs.inquiry.uiuc.edu). iLab software has been used to create hundreds of websites around the world that have been used in a variety of circumstances, including classroom teaching, research, and community action (Bishop, et al., 2004).
A “community inquiry laboratory” is a place where members of a community come together to develop shared capacity and work on common problems. "Community" emphasizes support for collaborative activity and for creating knowledge that is connected to people's values, history, and lived experiences. "Inquiry" points to support for open-ended, democratic, participatory engagement. "Laboratory" indicates a space and resources to bring theory and action together in an experimental and critical manner. A community inquiry lab is most importantly a concept, not a technology in the narrow sense.
A community iLab is a web-based location, where users can find resources to support community learning; share, discuss and build upon each others' work; use tools created by others; explore new ways to assess work and learning; engage in dialogue with others about approaches to community problem-solving; and participate in the institutions that affect their lives. By means of a community iLab, community members can actively engage with questions that are meaningful to them. Tools for inquiry and dialogue allow them to connect resources with specific problems in areas of health, economic development, education, or other domains.
A key concept throughout is that the processes of creating, using, and critiquing a community iLab and the resources within it should exemplify the open-ended aspects of inquiry and social participation that the software itself is encouraging. The users are not merely recipients, but are creators of the technology as they incorporate it into their own practice. All users belong and contribute to the iLab collaborative through the creation of content in their own iLabs, suggestions for and changes to the interface and the design of new functionality, as well as through their questions and evaluations, often simply by discussion within the inquiry community of the software’s usefulness, and reports of what works and what does not in the context of their own settings of use (Bruce & Easley, 2000). We have referred to this process of software development as “design through us” or “participatory inquiry.”
Paseo Boricua is a mile-long section of Division Street in Chicago's Humboldt Park area. Paseo Boricua represents a vibrant neighborhood that is characterized by strong, multigenerational, multi-institutional community activism. It represents the development of an autonomous cultural, political, and economic space for Puerto Rican and Latino/Latina residents that came into being as a response to encroaching gentrification and displacement in nearby sections of the city (Flores-González, 2001).
In Humboldt Park, according to U.S. Census data, about 70% of residents are of Latino origin and 31% of families are living below the federally defined poverty level, compared with about 11% of families in the surrounding Cook County. Promoting an ethic of self-reliance based on social responsibility, the Puerto Rican Cultural Center (http://www.prcc-chgo.org) has served as an institutional anchor in Paseo Boricua for thirty years, galvanizing neighborhood residents around issues such as poverty, gang violence, AIDS, destruction of cultural identity, lack of educational resources, and racism. Rinaldi (2002) characterizes the PRCC as a “bastion of support for Puerto Rican independence and barrio autonomy” in which “Nationalist ideology permeates [its] practices of cultural resistance and community building.” In our experience partnering with the PRCC, we have found that work extends beyond a strict focus on Puerto Rican independence or a unilateral push to address local issues facing Puerto Rican residents. The PRCC is at root inclusive, welcoming collaboration with a wide range of individuals and organizations who share their mission of fighting for human rights, improving the quality of life for all local residents, and encouraging people to think critically about their reality.
Organizations affiliated with the PRCC include the Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos High School (PACHS), an alternative school that pursues a critical pedagogy while providing a safe place for youth (for one perspective on the unique qualities of the PACHS, see Antrop-González, 2003); the Centro Infantil pre-school; the Family Learning Center, which grants high school diplomas to young women while providing daycare for their children; Vida/SIDA (an AIDS/HIV education center); Batey Urbano Café Teatro, which provides Latino youth with an outlet for expression and community action; the Division Street Business Development Association, a community-based economic development nonprofit; and the National Boricua Human Rights Network. Paseo Boricua is a complex community that is unique in its history and setting, yet manifests the multiple kinds of activities one sees in urban neighborhoods today.
The PRCC currently has significant computing technology, with labs that serve its high school, pre-school, and information center. It boasts a state-of-the-art science lab, and houses important collections of information resources, such as the archives of thousands of articles from local newspapers and of the Boricua Human Rights Network, thousands of books devoted to third world issues, and hundreds of Puerto Rican art works, cultural and political posters. However, high school-age youth affiliated with the PRCC have had limited educational experiences that emphasize IT applications relevant to community issues and action.
Community activities within Paseo Boricua are not only various and multi-form, but dynamic in that the participants, modes of interaction, and use of technology continuously shift. Our university-based research team has worked with Paseo Boricua over the last three years, exploring the creation of both communities of inquiry whose participants are drawn from all walks of life, and communityware to support collaborative inquiry. We believe that the story of Paseo Boricua is worth examining more closely, both because it provides an expanded view of what needs to be considered when we talk about human-computer interaction in the context of community informatics, and because it provides insights into system design as an inquiry process.
Lastra (2004) explores the utility of community events for identifying strong and weak voices in a community and for penetrating the social network at points appropriate for productive community informatics work. We also recognize the pragmatic and analytic import of neighborhood events. Community interactions organized through the PRCC and its affiliated organizations over the past year include: fiestas, parades, protest marches, mural restoration and dedication, a film festival of movies created by young Puerto Rican film makers in Chicago and Puerto Rico, a neighborhood survey of residents’ concerns and aspirations for a participatory democracy project, a community forum on a proposed health education program, an obesity survey and body mass index collected from over 500 people attending a festival, production of a. bilingual community newspaper, and a community lecture series conducted in collaboration with a local university.
Any single event typically involves a range of individuals and organizations and a number of different modes of interaction. We can see this with a snapshot of one event: “Noche del Grito,” described on the PRCC website (http://www.prcc-chgo.org/grito_de_lares.htm) as a “learning event for young and old” that brought people together to discuss both the 1868 insurrection that launched Puerto Rico’s struggle to become an independent nation and the uprising for Mexican independence. Noche des Gritos was co-sponsored by the Café Batey Teatro Urbano and the National Boricua Human Rights Network. It included history presentations along with poetry and prose readings and a question and answer period focusing on the political prisoners from Paseo Boricua who are currently incarcerated in U.S. prisons. At the close of the evening, organizers passed out the latest issue of the National Human Rights Network newsletter, and bookmarks with biographies and addresses of the political prisoners printed on the back. The description of Noche des Gritos on the PRCC website also provides insights into how ICTs were used to support the event. The presentations included digital slides, the newsletter is newly available on the web, and a website link is provided for people who want to write to the political prisoners.
As these examples illustrate, events and activities in Paseo Boricua, and the community interactions they entail, bear some semblance to work and communication in university settings (such as classes, research projects, meetings, and presentations), but also have unique qualities. We turn now to the story of our involvement with Paseo Boricua, which required a melding of the university and neighborhood structures for mobilizing social capital and other resources. Our collaboration focused on the establishment of a fully accessible community library and a "Street Academy" course in community librarianship and technology for neighborhood youth (Bishop & Molina, 2004).
In January 2003, the first author and another faculty member from Library and Information Science (LIS), met with Alejandro Molina (long-time neighborhood activist and volunteer manager of ICT at the PRCC) to map out goals for creating a community of learners who could collaborate to mobilize neighborhood information and cultural resources and connect to civic engagement activities. We also wanted to address the digital divide, as well as enrich LIS faculty and students with the experiences and knowledge of Paseo Boricua residents. We began conducting volunteer work days where neighborhood residents came together to catalog the collections in the PRCC’s Andrés Figueroa Cordero Community Library and Information Center, which included 4,000 volumes about the third world, children's books, posters, sculptures, art, and an archives of newsletters, flyers, letters, and pamphlets.
Then, in Fall 2003, the directors of the Albizu Campos High School and the Family Learning Center asked us to develop a “Street Academy" course in community librarianship for their students in which youth could learn library, computer, and written expression skills linked to activities that would serve the neighborhood. Molina and the first author agreed to act as the primary instructors, with assistance from neighborhood activists Mayra Hernández, Laura Ruth Johnson, and Robin Daverso. Faculty and students from several universities in Chicago, as well as other local activists, and librarians from Chicago Public Library pledged their involvement; and so the Paseo Boricua Community Librarianship course was born.
As the course progressed over the year at the PRCC, we moved from classroom-style learning to an apprenticeship model. Students formulated their own goals for the project, beginning with their major aim to earn their high school diplomas. They also wanted to gain skills to use in the workplace, such as collaboration, presentation, and technology skills, and cataloging and other information management skills. Students were also motivated by their desire to create a comfortable learning place in the PRCC for Paseo Boricua residents and visitors. Students began working toward opening the doors of the PRCC's Community Information and Technology Center to the public, preparing to become the library’s first volunteer staff members. They developed policies, including a mission statement, collection development policy, and job descriptions. Students from Paseo Boricua also learned a little about other library management skills in the process of seeking funding and preparing publicity, and planned programs that would contribute to the community. All the PRCC’s activities are aimed at integrating the message and participants of one program with another. In this vein, students planned for a family reading night to involve parents from the PRCC childcare, where the participants tend to be older, with those from the Family Learning Center, high school, and AIDS programs, where the parents are younger. A books-to-prisoners project brought together the expertise of local activists with the experience of LIS student Adam Davis to develop procedures for sending books to prisons for the loved ones of local families.
Paseo Boricua Community Librarianship participants also became creators of digital tools and resources. We began by using the existing iLab software to make a course website. We used the iLab webpage generator to create various documents needed to organize and conduct our work, such as a cataloging manual, library mission statement, and schedule of activities related to the library’s grand opening. The iLab’s document center was used to upload and share this material. Early in the Paseo Boricua library project, participants identified the need for a simple web-based library catalog to hold records of the book, poster, and archive collections. LIS students researched the availability of such tools, but nothing wholly suitable was found. At the same time, scientists and engineers in the Center for Advanced Materials for the Purification of Water with Systems (CAMPWS)--sponsored on the authors’ campus by the National Science Foundation and supporting the development of iLab software for the CAMPWS digital collaboratory--were also looking for a tool to catalog project resources. So, as part of the Paseo Boricua Community Librarianship course, students helped design a simple, open-source catalog software package for their own needs. When it is complete, it will become freely available to the CAMPWS group, as well as to anyone else who wants to organize their community's resources and make them accessible through the web. When face-to-face interactions were needed, the first author served as the primary liaison in this collaborative design effort, ferrying ideas and feedback between the LIS student coding the catalog application (who also spend one day working in the PRCC library) and Paseo Boricua residents.
ICTs supported activities in the Community Librarianship course in other ways, as well. We began creation of a digital web gallery for PRCC posters, for example. Word processing was used to make letters and posters to solicit donations from local merchants and advertise library events. Email helped us keep in touch throughout the year. And several of the students--Jalissa Santiago, Elba Rivera, Jesenia Morales, Deshawn Samuels, and Lasette Rodriguez--learned how to create Power Point slides, which they used to support the presentation they gave as part of a continuing education workshop on libraries and civic engagement that was held in Spring 2004.
Discussion and Conclusions
We feel that the iLab’s “design through use” process came together with activism in Paseo Boricua in fruitful ways. Our collaborative inquiry helped us investigate community interaction in many ways, come to a better understanding of “community” as a unit of analysis in multiple endeavors, and experiment with modes of open and mutual learning as a primary process for a range of disparate activities. University researchers learned how people in one neighborhood organize and successfully mobilize resources; and neighborhood residents learned how those who are university-based develop ICTs. We were able to explore the means and limits associated with how the iLab collaborative brings together different social forms, and how these different forms contribute to software development. Our task was more complicated than devising a strategy to develop a specific tool for a specific user group in a specific setting. The iLab collaborative in play in Paseo Boricua has some elements of a community’s shared place, interests, and feeling of fellowship, but, as in any community, diversity, contended goals and values, and different schedules and work practices were also evident.
Thus, the inquiry-based design approach helps us to understand the collaborative practices of different communities. The iLab software embodies this understanding in several ways: community iLab creators select which modules (e.g., web page generator, document center, bulletin board) they wish to instantiate. Privacy and access are flexible and remain under the control of individual iLab creators. User groups can create and use an iLab as a complete web environment for communication and collaboration, as we did with the Paseo Boricua Community Librarianship website, or they can incorporate a single or several iLab tools into an existing framework, for example, as the PRCC has done in placing a link to their iLab library catalog within their organizational website.
In conclusion, we feel we are gaining valuable insights about the variety of collaborative practices that can be applied to software design within and across communities. As iLabs have been incorporated into our collaborative practices with Paseo Boricua, we have been able to observe first-hand how the tools are employed, which ones are useful in different activities, and how the tools change over time. This ongoing inquiry into the interaction among community work, technology, and theory contributes to our understanding of HCI within the emerging field of community informatics.
Acknowledgements
We wish to thank the National Science Foundation, whose support helped create the iLab software and the Paseo Boricua Community Librarianship course. We are grateful for the creativity and hard work of all members of the iLab collaborative (including university student programmers and neighborhood activists and students in Chicago) who contributed their time and considerable energy to the development of community informatics in Paseo Boricua.
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