I think this may be of interest to this group.
regs
Mike Gurstein
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WiNS '97 Final Report
Executive Summary
1. Overview
In the spring of 1996, the Nova Scotia Community Access Committee (NSCAC)
approved a proposal, developed and submitted by C\CEN, to provide much
needed summer staffing for 21 Community Access sites (sites initiated via
Industry Canada's Community Access Program [CAP]) and other public access
sites. This project took the name Wire Nova Scotia (WiNS). A secondary
function was to assist a variety of community groups as well as junior
high labs and libraries in their efforts to develop and submit CAP
applications that would be acceptable to the Nova Scotia Community Access
Committee. There currently exist 56 CAP sites in Nova Scotia, representing
a 166% increase over the previous year. In April of 1997, C\CEN was asked
by the NSCAC to manage and administer WiNS '97. The primary and secondary
functions of the program remained the same as in the previous year.
However, with the additional CAP sites and additional workers the program
became a much more ambitious undertaking.
In addition to providing staffing, WiNS assists Community Access sites and
summer youth workers in Nova Scotia to reach their potential through
coordinated training and communication resources, including on-line
technical support. WiNS also handles administrative details such as
payroll. The program is open to any Community Access site, not just CAP
sites. WiNS also helps CAP sites network with each other to share
resources. The WiNS pilot was so successful that Industry Canada adopted
it as a model for the other provinces and territories.
Details of work assignments are determined by the needs of the individual
sites. These could include:
* promoting the Community Access site to the community at large and
marketing its services.
* providing training on Internet and related services to representatives
of community organizations, business people and individual citizens.
* providing technical support to the Community Access site.
* outreach to neighboring communities to promote the Community Access
concept and encourage others to develop proposals for the CAP program.
Experience has proven that human resource management is a critical
component to a successful project. Limited financial resources and a large
geographical area require that traditional methods be adapted to
adequately monitor, administer and manage such a large group. Using a
storehouse of available knowledge and skills, C\CEN was able to institute
a form of "Virtual Management." Using Web Board technology, e-mail and
electronic mailing lists, the project is managed "on-line", with a formal
reporting structure implemented and a variety of support functions
available to assist the fieldworkers in their responsibilities. Five
regional coordinators and one community network developer were placed
across the province. These staff used the virtual management process to
coordinate supervision of field workers in their region, as well as com
munications and cooperation between the regions and with technical and
administrative support from C\CEN.
Despite a late start due to funding delays, the summer WiNS '97 project
has been a great success. The infusion of extra staff into both
established and nascent CAP sites gave them the boost they needed to get
up and running or to provide extended services to the community. Many
sites would probably not be open yet were it not for the energy and skills
of the summer workers. WiNS has also enabled CAPs to have more resources
for community outreach, PR, and training.
WiNS '97 adopted various innovations such as remote management via the
World Wide Web, examining the impact of the development of regional
networks (similar to the SENCEN model) with an experiment staffing the
regional community access workgroup in the Annapolis Valley, and promoting
the development of Community Networks.
WiNS has the potential to stimulate local economic development across
rural Nova Scotia not only by assisting CAPs with their staffing needs,
but by using the regional offices to support the development of regional
networks. It would be very useful for the NSCAC, the Technology and
Science Secretariat or other appropriate provincial body to take a lead
role in identifying the policies and directions for creating regional
collaborations between CAP sites, RDAs, schools, libraries, colleges,
businesses, etc. Most individual CAPs are not sustainable in the long term
in isolation, but as part of an enterprise network, they have a strong
future.
In addition to supporting existing CAP sites, WiNS coordinators were
active in encouraging and assisting local communities in developing CAP
proposals for the next round of funding.
2. Statistics
WiNS employed a total of 80 people (67 fieldworkers, 5 regional
coordinators, 1 community network developer, and 7 administrative and
technical support staff) at a total cost of approximately $500,000. Thus,
each job cost an average of $6,250, including salaries.
Summary totals on the types of clients assisted by the youth hired with
CAP funds:
(i) businesses (including agricultural) 76
(ii) community groups and non-profits 62
(iii) schools 30
(iv) government agencies 36
(v) individual residents 1258
(vi) other 502 (Tourists, local
exhibition booths)
Summary totals for all types of clients served including businesses:
(i) number of people who visited the CAP sites
2352
(ii) Internet training sessions held 312
(iii) individuals who received training 873
(iv) home pages developed as the result of contact with CAP sites 57
Other activities:
(i) businesses contacted 3043
(ii) business people who took part in Internet training sessions
53
(iii) new home pages developed by businesses as the result
21
(iv) web sites registered with Canadian Company Capabilities / Strategis
7
3. Issues
a. Start-up issues
- WiNS '97 experienced considerable stress at start-up due to the lateness
of finalizing the funding arrangements. For legal reasons, we are unable
to advertise for any of the WiNS positions until funding is in place.
Given the time constraints of the summer employment time line, we were
forced to move very quickly to get the program up and running on time.
Some consequences of this were:
- Inadequate time to orient regional coordinators to their job
- Not possible for coordinators to participate in the fieldworker hiring
process
- Insufficient time to require a well thought out work plan from the CAPs
prior to assigning a worker
- Insufficient time to advertise adequately the field positions. By the
time the information was circulated, many highly qualified youth had
already found other options, and we lost the chance to draw from the
widest possible pool.
- In a few cases, CAPs ended up with a worker who was not appropriate to
their needs, due to the lack of time for proper selection processes.
- Increased stress at the C\CEN office
- Many of the problems that occurred during the summer could be traced
directly to the above consequences. A more simple funding formula would
expedite the start-up process. Funding needs to be IN PLACE at least two
months prior to start-up.
b. Site Supervision
- The single most important predictor of the level of success of a site
was the quality of site supervision and the involvement of the local CAP
committee.
- Where the committee was active and the supervisor was involved on a day
to day basis, the sites flourished.
- In cases where the WiNS worker was looked to as a replacement for
volunteers who were taking time off in the summer, and often left
unsupervised for extended periods of time, the program suffered. There
needs to be more education of the local CAP committees and the site
supervisors as to the conditions under which it is feasible to place a
WiNS worker at the site.
- The development of a work plan, participation of site supervisors in the
WiNS training sessions, and the requirement that supervisors sign off on
WiNS weekly reports and timesheets are all factors that would make a
difference in this matter.
- A complicating factor is the lack of clarity as to the relationship
between WiNS and the local CAPs, in terms of who has the onus and the
authority to direct, discipline, and, if necessary dismiss a worker. WiNS
workers received requests from Industry Canada, from WiNS and from the
local CAP and as a result sometimes had difficulty prioritizing their
tasks. These relationships needed to be clearly spelled out for future
projects.
- Another key factor was the degree of involvement of the local CAP
committee in the ongoing strategizing and operation of the CAP. In some
cases, the committees had not met much since the proposal had been
accepted, and were not involved in directing the CAP. The local committees
are the connection to the variety of organizations and businesses that
make the basis of a successful community project. Since these committees
are not accountable in any clear manner to anyone once the grant is
received, it is difficult to know how to proceed in such situations. This
issue is clearly beyond the purview of WiNS and needs to be addressed by
the provincial and national CAP coordinating bodies.
c. Remote Management
The coordination of the program using remote management via the Internet
worked well. The web-based, password-protected Intranet enabled workers
and staff to keep in touch with one another, track activities in other
regions, collaborate on group projects, and create an automatic archive of
all reports and discussion for future analysis. The on-line technical
support service was particularly useful, as it allowed not only for rapid
response from the technical staff at C\CEN, but created an open forum w
here WiNS participants could answer one another's technical questions and
learn from watching the solutions unfold. The Web Board allowed us to
manage the information flow such that, for example, fieldworkers reports
were accessible only to themselves, their regional coordinator and the
WiNS coordinator, but regional discussion conferences were accessible to
all staff. The WiNS Staff conference was accessible only by coordinators,
creating a secure forum where confidential issues (such as personnel
problems, etc.) could be discussed. One challenge with the system is that
it required more training than we had anticipated, and we may switch to a
more user-friendly interface for future projects. Overall, the system
enabled us to save considerable amounts of money on travel and phone
costs, and it leaves an archive of all correspondence and worker logs,
enabling future programs to learn from previous experience.
d. Annapolis Valley Community Access Workgroup
The Workgroup brought together the following partners:
* Annapolis Valley Regional School Board
* Access Nova Scotia
* Hants Regional Development Authority
* Kings Community Economic Development Agency
* Western Valley Regional Development Authority
* Organizers of a new community network in Annapolis/Digby Counties
* Acadia Centre for Small Business
The experiment of assigning 5 workers with varied specializations to the
Workgroup, rather than to individual CAPs, enabled these workers to serve
22 public access sites across the region, and initiate region-wide
projects, not being limited to a specific CAP's territory. The Workgroup
partnered with local businesses, with Acadia University and other
resources to enable an even greater impact. Region-wide advertising via
flyers and radio, a mail-out to 2,000 businesses, and a presence at the
Lawrencetown Exhibition all helped to heighten awareness of Community
Access issues. For the future, a more formal structure would provide for
more frequent meetings and strategizing by the Workgroup. It is
recommended that similar initiatives be encouraged in other regions of the
province. Funding for training workshops across the province as to how to
foster a Community Enterprise Network would help expedite this process.
The five extra workers added a great deal to the overall effectiveness and
efficiency of Valley Community Access. The publicity done by the PR worker
is created a lot of exposure for the program in this region. Brochures,
posters, radio airtime, and newspaper ads all worked together to put
community access into the forefront of people's minds in the valley. Her
work also allowed other WiNS workers to concentrate on providing the
essential services of community access. The other four extra workers made
use of and promoted other access sites such as schools and libraries,
allowing these facilities to take on new roles and responsibilities for
their communities. In the past, these sites have had a difficult time in
dealing with access issues due to a lack of staff training and time. The
Valley Workgroup is helping them to make the transition to public access
sites. Another interesting aspect to the Workgroup's activities was the
use of laptops for one-on-one sessions with business people. These
portable computers (from Acadia Advantage and Beacon Communications)
enabled business owners to get hands on exposure to information technology
right in their place of work, making it much more convenient for them.
e. Community Network Development:
Another experiment this year was hiring a Community Net Development
coordinator, and assigning two WiNS workers to assist with this project.
The project achieved a number of successes assisting the province's
Community Nets and installing Chebucto Suite, or CSuite, software and
providing training for its use. For example:
* Cobequid Community Net is a Community Access Project site in Truro and
the host of a WiNS worker, Michael Goit. With the assistance of the
Community Net Development Project, Michael organized a demonstration of
Cobequid Community Net to a room full of potential volunteers. The
successful demonstration resulted in the recruitment of enough interested
individuals to do the essential volunteer tasks necessary to sustain the
momentum of this local initiative.
* Two WiNS workers have been developing and testing training modules that
provide CSuite administrators with the necessary information to manage a
successful Community Net using CSuite software. CSuite is designed to
simplify the advanced technical requirements that are typically needed to
operate a Community Net but that many rural communities do not have. These
valuable training resources, developed through the WiNS project, will be
extremely useful to CSuite administrators in explaining how to use CSuite
software to manage a successful, sustainable Community Net.
f. Support for the WiNS concept
The WiNS concept has received accolades from local communities, provincial
and federal governments, and overseas organizations who see this project
as a model that can help them in their quest for economic development and
community access. In particular, there has been interest expressed from
organizations in South Africa and Great Britain re collaboration on future
projects.
This support was reflected in the attention given to the official launch
of WiNS '97, held on July 25th at UCCB. Despite problems with space
availability and the vagaries of politician's schedules, we managed to
hold a very successful launch. Speakers included the Senate Government
Leader, Senator Al Graham; the Premier of Nova Scotia, Hon. Russell
MacLellan; the Chair of the NSCAC, Ms. Marion Pape; the President of UCCB,
Dr. Jacqueline Scott; the Director of C\CEN, Dr. Michael Gurstein, and Dr.
Bruce Dienes as Coordinator of WiNS. Prior to the formal speeches, the
audience was given a virtual tour of the WiNS web site and an explanation
of the remote management concepts and tools used.
4. Recommendations:
a) Funding from ALL sources for the WiNS '98 summer program needs to be in
place by March 1st, 1998. This will enable time to recruit youth workers
(many of whom are setting their summer work plans by this time), develop
training and support programs, hire and train regional staff, develop and
implement a public relations plan, and give time for the local CAP
committees and site supervisors to prepare adequately for the summer
staffing opportunity.
b) Reporting guidelines for ALL funders should be clear, simple to
complete, and in place at least one month prior to program start so that
they can be included in printed materials being readied for training and
for policy/procedure manuals. The experience last summer of receiving new
reporting requests at various times during the program was disruptive and
confusing to field staff and resulted in less reliable data.
c) WiNS needs at least six regions to operate effectively. The Central
Nova region should be divided into a Strait-East Nova region and a
Cumberland-Colchester-Pictou region comprising CAPs from Amherst to New
Glasgow.
d) The experiment of assigning WiNS staff to a regional hub (Annapolis
Valley Community Access Workgroup), rather than only directly to CAP sites
worked very well and should be expanded next year. Five fieldworkers were
able to support 22 public access sites and provide coordination for PR,
business training, and other cooperative endeavours between sites.
e) If funding can be obtained, it would be useful to continue the work of
Community Network Development. It may be helpful for the CND to become
familiar with alternatives to Chebucto Suite software for smaller
communities (such as the Yarmouth Community Network package).
f) Funding permitting, it would be advantageous to support an
Accessibility Coordinator, who would coordinate placing WiNS workers with
initiatives that provide access to minorities and disadvantaged groups.
g) Initial training for regional coordinators should be held at C\CEN to
give opportunity for the new staff to meet with C\CEN technical support
and administrative staff. Experience shows that virtual relationships work
more effectively if there is initial face-to-face contact. This initial
training should be for at least two days.
h) Regional coordinators would benefit from being provided with laptops
and cell phones so that they can remain productive while travelling
amongst the CAP sites.
i) There should be at least one representative of CAP committees in the
region on the hiring committee for the regional coordinators.
j) Regional Coordinators should be paid at least $15/hour and for 40 hours
a week rather than for 35 hours. It is a very demanding job!
k) There should be a WiNS representative on each hiring committee for WiNS
field placements. This can help prevent conflicts of interest in hiring,
and can be a source of expertise with regard to the desirable
qualifications of a WiNS worker for the specific needs of the individual
CAP.
l) In hiring fieldworkers, skills in business, public relations, and
management are equally as important as computer and programming skills.
This should be more clear in the job postings.
m) Public awareness of the CAP program and the availability of community
access to the Internet would be well served by national and provincial ad
campaigns. CAP should be a household word across the country.
n) CAP sites should be required to submit a work plan for the WiNS worker,
and clearly state the type and frequency of supervision, prior to being
granted a WiNS placement. There needs to be more explanation to the local
CAP committees of the role of the local supervisor.
o) Local CAP committees, composed of volunteers, find it hard to sustain
the level of output needed to maintain the operation and growth of the
sites. Working as separate entities, it is likely that many CAP
initiatives will fail. One simple and powerful solution is for CAPs to
band together regionally to form Community Enterprise Networks which can
serve to pool expertise and resources, coordinate markets, create
standards, and lever contracts from government and corporate clients. A
detailed analysis of the potential of this model follows in part 5 below.
p) Many CAPs are struggling to stay open and there is risk of volunteer
burnout. In the interim while CAPs are forming networks and developing
business opportunities, it would be very helpful to incubate the process
by providing a year of staffing to enable the CAPs to get on their feet,
and focus on strategizing rather than mere survival.
5. Implications of WiNS / CAP for Local Economic Development:
By enabling the Internet access sites to continue to operate and to
develop sustainability, WiNS will be helping to create an environment in
which opportunities for local economic development abound. In order to
take maximum advantage of the full range of these opportunities, the sites
need to coordinate their activities with other sites in their region and
across the province. As part of the WiNS initiative, C\CEN could be
actively involved in supporting the creation and development of Community
Enterprise Networks, using the successful Strait East Nova Community
Enterprise Network (SENCEN) as a model. Once these networks were in place
and standards agreed to, the access sites could offer a coordinated
distribution network for government information, distance education,
business services, telework, etc. Such a coordinated network would enable
many jobs now limited to urban areas to be decentralized to rural areas,
and would enable a higher quality of delivery of services at lower cost
than present distribution systems. Kick-starting these networks by
providing staffing to the constituent sites will help enable the networks
to start up and become sustainable.
Examples of possible activities include:
* Support for local business: Community access sites could become business
incubation centres. Small businesses in rural areas could rent usage time
at these sites, enabling them to access business software, laser printing,
and the Internet without the sometimes prohibitive expense of purchasing
dedicated equipment. As each new business expanded and became stable, it
would eventually invest in its own equipment, but it would have been able
to try a venture with less initial capital and risk. Some centres may
expand to offer fax or photocopying or other needed business services that
are readily available in metropolitan regions, but often not in more
isolated parts of the province.
* Creation of new markets for IT-based business services: For example, the
Strait East Nova Community Enterprise Network (SENCEN) has recently
negotiated with the Royal Bank to provide training and access at SENCEN
sites to the Royal Bank's online banking service. This allows the bank to
expand its market from the small percentage of Nova Scotians who have
personal Internet access to the much larger client base that can use
community access sites. Moreover, the revenue from the arrangement helps
provide employment at the sites (trainers) and contributes to the
long-term sustainability of the site. A similar pilot project is underway
in New Brunswick with Mbanx.
* Delivery of government information and services: Just as the Post Office
has outsourced some of its services to local businesses, community access
sites could become points of presence for government information and
services, again providing employment and revenue at the sites. C\CEN has
recently been given a contract by Industry Canada to digitize information
a web site for Occupational Health and Safety information. We are
collaborating with the Whitney Pier Information Technology Access Project
in this endeavour. The management and maintenance of such a site could
easily be handled by a community access site. Other ongoing projects
involve developing local wellness and health information web pages,
piloting access sites as tourist information centres (where travelers can
access their e-mail and plan their next stops and activities via the
Internet), and developing an electronic democracy forum in support of the
upcoming Nova Scotia provincial election. This web and e-mail based forum
will permit wide access to, and discussion of, the relevant issues and
will have special features and resources to encourage high school students
to learn about the democratic process. Community access sites would
provide training for citizens to learn how to use the Internet tools to
get more involved in the election. A spin-off would be that more Nova
Scotians would be exposed to Internet communications technology and could
use their new skills for other purposes. A key advantage of using CAPs to
deliver services is that they can offer facilitated access to
Internet-based government resources, assisting citizens who do not yet
have Internet skills to find the information they need. The personnel at
the sites could also be trained to provide such items as licenses,
permits, etc.
* Training and Educational Opportunities: Community Access sites could
collaborate with Universities, Colleges and School Boards to provide a
delivery network for distance education. This would provide greater
accessibility to educational opportunities without disrupting people's
work schedules or living arrangements. There is potential to create a
network for "just-in-time" training of workers as new opportunities arise.
Community Access sites can provide opportunities for training and
experience to help give rural Nova Scotians the skill sets they need to
move into the many vacant jobs in the Canadian high-tech industry. A
skilled work pool will attract such companies to this province. Another
opportunity is to set up virtual mentoring relationships, pairing youth
with experts in their field of interest. Such a pilot is underway in New
Mexico with at-risk youth in detention centres.
* Telework: The network will create opportunities for government
departments or businesses to employ rural workers and rent a terminal at a
CAP site during business hours for them to carry out their duties. Such
work would not be limited to IT specialists, but could include data entry,
word processing, remote management, etc. This could allow for
decentralization of government departments without having physically to
move departments out of the capital. A pilot telework project is underway
at the L'Ardoise CAP site.
6. Conclusion
WiNS is much more than a summer youth employment initiative. It has the
potential to be a key element in stimulating economic growth throughout
rural Nova Scotia. The program is very successful, and with more advance
preparation time can have a major impact next year.
Detailed information about the day-to-day operation of WiNS is available
in the full reports from the coordinator and from the regional
coordinators
--
Bruce Dienes, Ph..D. Phone: 902-539-4060
[EMAIL PROTECTED] FAX: 902-539-2053
Wire Nova Scotia (WiNS) Project Coordinator
Centre for Community and Enterprise Networking
University College of Cape Breton
