Here’s our first post about the Information Literacy for Digital Engagement project. You can follow this and related work at Community, Knowledge, Connections, and via @Community_Knect.
IL-DEM post 1
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Category Archives: Community Councils
IL-DEM introduction
Here’s our introduction to the Information Literacy for Digital Engagement project. You can follow this and related work at Community, Knowledge, Connections, and via @Community_Knect.
I’m back!
I’m delighted to be back at my desk in Edinburgh Napier University’s Centre for Social Informatics, starting a project called Information Literacy for Democratic Engagement (IL-DEM). This project will be reported via a new research blog, Community, Knowledge, Connections, and via Twitter (@Community_Knect). Watch these spaces!
It’s also worthwhile following my colleagues:
- Peter Cruickshank: Napier page, Blog, Twitter (@Spartakan)
- Hazel Hall: Napier page, Blog, Twitter (@hazelh)
Looking ahead
I’m leaving Napier for 6 months at the end of tomorrow to pursue some personal interests. However, it’s very reassuring to know that I have some work to come back to. I’ll be working with Peter Cruickshank and Hazel Hall, investigating levels of digital and information literacy within Scotland’s Community Council system in a project entitledInformation Literacy for Democratic Engagement (IL-DEM). The award has been granted by the CILIP Information Literacy Group.
Hazel has blogged about the project’s aims and objectives, so it only remains for me to say that I’m looking forward to venturing into a slightly different research focus, while still working on aspects of Scotland’s hyperlocal democracy.
There may be some different research methods too, thus increasing my research skills, although the work will centre on understanding how people learn to use technology away from conventional education. In that sense, the work is likely to of interest to anyone concerned with helping people who struggle to make the best of their personal IT.
So I’ll be working with great colleagues, on interesting and practically useful things. What’s not to like?
Wise words and mega maps
Leah Lockhart, social media advisor and all-round good egg, has been blogging about fears and barriers in public services on LinkedIn. Here are her thoughts on fears people have about being abused online, fears around negotiating online identity, fears digital champions have about inertia generally but especially in hierarchical leadership and finally about fears around BYOD.
Thanks also to ‘Lelil’ for drawing me to Leah’s tale of how to use topical hashtags to draw extra traffic to community council Tweets.
Well worth a read for any CC member (or any other elected member or public servant) involved in digital engagement with their citizens, in my opinion.
Digital engagement workshops report
We’ve published our report on the autumn digiCC workshops – you can find it on the national website for CCs at http://www.communitycouncils.scot/read-the-report-of-the-digital-engagement-workshops.html and in the library belonging to the KnowledgeHub group for CC members at https://khub.net/documents/10440977/0/2015+digiCC+workshops+report. (You’ll need to join the KnowledgeHub and then the CC members group to access that library.) Continue reading
Beat the fear!
Great advice from Leah Lockhart on trolling and negative comments and online identity. (You may need to join the KnowledgeHub to access these.)
No need to be afraid of the online nasties because (i) they’re not that nasty (ii) you can outsmart them!
Fairer Scotland event for CCs: questions answered
The Scottish Government has responded to questions raised by CC members at a fairly recent Fairer Scotland event. Click the thumbnail to download the full PDF.
If you have any queries about the responses, it would be best to contact Kristoffer Boesen or Lynn Sharp of the Improvement Service (IS). In the meantime, I’m very pleased to see mentions of the work by Peter Cruickshank and me, specifically
- The community council location finder that I built under Peter’s management (answer 11)
- the digital engagement workshops (answers 11 and 16) – I’m still working on the report on these events. Watch this space!
Displaying my bias!
I’m often engaged by articles on the Scottish Community Alliance fortnightly ‘briefings’. It’s easy to link to individual articles. However, I’ve not found a way to link to the introductions. So I shamelessly reproduce the introduction to the most recent briefing: it ticks all the boxes on my pro-hyperlocal democracy bias. While some community councils may not be ready to play fuller roles just now, that is no reason to not aspire to do more. As Angus Hardie puts it…
A community of interest around Community Councils
It’s always affirming to learn of fresh research into our field. So I was very excited to receive Katrin Prager‘s and Kirsty Holstead‘s Community Councils in Aberdeenshire: Achievements and Challenges.
Bruce's IT-ish world 