Sheena Erete

Empowered Participation: How Citizens Use Technology in Local Governance

The partnership between local residents and city officials to inform policy and decision-making about government resources, or participatory governance, has been extensively studied. In addition to numerous ethnographic studies about how citizens engage in-person, there has been increased focus in HCI to understand the impact of technology on citizen participation in local governance. Building upon those studies, this paper provides unique insight from a 3-year longitudinal study on the use of online tools that were organically adapted by citizens to engage in local governance in three diverse Chicago neighborhoods. Though the responsiveness of government officials varied across communities, our results suggest that citizens use technology to heighten the visibility of their concerns, to support mechanisms of government accountability, and to provide various options for resident participation in local governance. We argue that while communities may be effective in their use of ICTs, technology may not increase their political power.

Engaging Around Neighborhood Issues: How Online Communication Affects Offline Behavior

This paper describes how online conversations about crime amongst local residents impact offline behavior. We conducted a three-year study in five middle to low-income geographically-bound communities (defined as police beats), where we observed community meetings for two years, interviewed 45 residents, and performed qualitative content analysis on over 7,000 online messages on community-based email lists and web forums. Interviewees reported that community-based online communication influenced how they 1) protect themselves and their property to avoid victimization and 2) participate and engage in local in-person civic engagement initiatives. This paper provides insights into the relationship between online and offline behavior and implications for designing community-based ICTs that effectively address local issues.

The new political voice of young Americans: Online engagement and civic development among first- year college students

We present findings from the first wave of a longitudinal study of civic and political engagement among undergraduate students at a mid-sized university in the Midwestern United States. We find that high school experiences of civic learning are a significant predictor of three of our four measures of civic and political engagement, namely, the likelihood of contacting a public official, participating in a protest, and engaging in collective problem-solving. Online political engagement appears to partially mediate the relationship between high school civic learning and offline political engagement. In terms of the specific aspects of high school civic learning that may be most salient to adolescents, the classroom experience of ‘meeting people who make society better’ emerges as the strongest predictor of students’ civic engagement. These findings suggest that citizenship norms among young adults may be shifting to new forums of engagement rather than simply eroding, as some current literature suggests.

Storytelling with Data: Examining the Use of Data by Non-Profit Organizations

Despite the growing promotion of the “open data” movement, the collection, cleaning, management, interpretation, and dissemination of open data is laborious and cost intensive, particularly for non-profits with limited resources. In this paper, we describe how non-profit organizations (NPOs) use open data, building on prior literature that focuses on understanding challenges that NPOs face. Based on 15 interviews of staff from 10 NPOs, our results suggest that NPOs use data to develop narratives to build a case for support from grantors and other stakeholders. We then present empirical results based on the usage of a data portal we created, which suggests that technologies should be designed to not only make data accessible, but also to facilitate communication and support relationships between expert data analysts and NPOs.

Digital Youth Divas: Exploring Narrative-Driven Curriculum to Spark Middle School Girls' Interest in Computational Activities.

Women use technology to mediate numerous aspects of their professional and personal lives. Yet, few design and create these technologies given that women, especially women of color, are grossly underrepresented in computer science and engineering courses. Decisions about participation in STEM are frequently made prior to high school, and these decisions are impacted by prior experience, interest, and sense of fit with community. Digital Youth Divas is an out-of-school program that uses narrative stories to launch the creation of digital artifacts and support non-dominant middle school girls’ STEM interests and identities through virtual and real-world community. In this article, we discuss the framework of the Digital Youth Divas environment, including our approach to blending narratives into project-based design challenges through on- and offline mechanisms. Results from our pilot year, including the co-design process with the middle school participants, suggest that our narrative-centered, blended learning program design sparks non-dominant girls’ interests in STEM activities and disciplinary identification, and has the potential to mediate girls’ sense of STEM agency, identities, and interests.

Empowerment through community crime-prevention technologies

Community + Culture features practitioner perspectives on designing technologies for and with communities. We highlight compelling projects and provocative points of view that speak to both community technology practice and the interaction design field as a whole. Christopher A. Le Dantec

Differences in technology use to support community crime prevention

This paper describes how three Chicago communities that vary by socio-economic status, race, and crime rate appropriate information and communication technologies (ICTs) to aid in grassroots, community-based crime prevention efforts. Using interviews, observations, and online content analysis, we found three major differences in how ICTs were appropriated: 1) the formats of the technologies, 2) the selection of the online leaders, and 3) the type of information shared. We describe how historical relationships between communities and government officials may impact digital organizing.

Supporting Cities, Neighborhoods, and Local Communities with Information and Communication Technologies

Challenges of the local context such as encouraging civic engagement and facilitating collaboration to address local issues have motivated researchers and practitioners to explore the role of technologies in supporting life in cities, neighborhoods, and local communities. The goal of this workshop is to open a discussion on how to design, build and study ICT infrastructures and infrastructuring processes that contributes to this effort. We aim to create a publicly accessible repository of infrastructuring tools and to facilitate the cross-pollination of ideas about technology in local contexts among the researchers, practitioners, and residents interested in this area. At the workshop, participants will collaborate with Vancouvers residents and technology practitioners in order to explore the past, present, and future of research in this space; co- construct an infrastructuring tools repository; discuss key information challenges of local communities; and brainstorm solutions and opportunities to address them. Discussion and ideas generated will be archived online to be available to the larger research community and to local community advocates and activists.

Developing focused recruitment strategies to engage youth in informal opportunities

Despite increasing jobs predicted in the areas of engineering and computer science, there is a well-documented and consistent drop in the number of women in these fields at each level of advancement, and these trends are even more profound for minority women [1]. Decisions about participation are frequently made prior to high school, and have been linked to factors such as prior experience, interest, and sense of fit with community [2]. Out-of-school time has been identified as a potential space for STEM-related programming that breaks free of traditional models [3], and there is evidence of learning and engagement outcomes from such programs serving underrepresented populations [4]. However, programs that happen out of school are often voluntary, presenting very real challenges of recruiting and retention. Inequities have been identified in student participation in out-of-school STEM programming, with males and dominant populations being more likely to access such opportunities (e.g. [5]). To truly broaden participation, we need to not only design quality programs, but also work to develop and understand recruiting strategies that can encourage young people and families who are not already engaged to participate. The specifics of such efforts, even for programs that have been successful in recruiting, are often undocumented [6]. In this poster, we attend specifically to the critical question of how to recruit young women from underrepresented populations who do not see themselves as engineers and computational thinkers to participate in opportunities that could spark interest, broaden social learning networks, and lead to the pursuit of further learning. The Digital Divas program invites inner-city middle school girls interested in fashion and design to develop e-textiles and try out introductory programming during out-of-school time. In this poster we share program recruitment strategies from two Digital Divas implementations, spring and summer, and compare participants in terms of general demographics, identity, and confidence with technology. Both implementations were successful in recruiting minority girls from around Chicago. Summer implementation, which followed a redesign of recruiting methods, evidenced participants who were additionally aligned with the programs target population: girls who signed up for the summer program had less access to computing opportunities at home and school and less incoming engagement and confidence with computer science and engineering than spring participants. This work points to the importance of attending to strategies and materials for recruitment. Summer recruitment materials had less emphasis on technical language, more on design and creation; had more images of girls and their projects, reflecting diversity of participants; highlighted solutions to potential barriers, including low cost, lunch, and nearby public transport; and were strategically shared through online networks. Recommendations for strategies include: (1) close attention to language and imagery to engage families from non-dominant populations; (2) redundant, targeted, channels of distribution, utilizing online networks and local organizations.

Reflections on Design Methods for Underserved Communities

The goal of this workshop is to facilitate a discussion around the ways in which research and design methods can be better tailored to support and engage underserved communities. We aim to create a publicly accessible repository of tools to support research and design efforts with underserved communities and to facilitate critical conversations about appropriate methods and solutions in this space. At the workshop, participants will collaborate with one another to explore their own as well as past, present, and future research and design initiatives with underserved communities; discuss challenges and lessons learned from using methods to facilitate technological development and creation among such populations; and brainstorm methods and solutions to address these challenges. Discussion and ideas generated from this workshop will be archived online and made available to the larger research community.