A year later: New resources from the Global Impact Study

It’s been just over a year since the iSchool's Technology and Social Change (TASCHA) research group released the Global Impact Study‘s final report, "Connecting people for development: Why public access ICTs matter." TASCHA has been disseminating the findings, participating in discussions about public access and development, and creating various tools and resources based on the study’s findings and data.

The resources they developed to help answer the question, “Why do public access ICTs matter for development?" are now available to the public. Their goal in releasing the materials is to help make the study’s findings and data more accessible and relevant to the international development, public library, and public access communities. 

The release of the final report and the study’s findings generated new opportunities for this research to contribute to policy and practice discussions. TASCHA partnered with the Association of Progressive Communications (APC) and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA) to produce a briefing paper, Public access: Supporting digital inclusion for all – Maximising the impact of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for inclusive social and economic development, that was presented at two events on the post-2015 development agenda (The Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) in May and the WSIS +10 High-Level Event in June).

TASCHA also co-sponsored an IREXtech Deep Dive discussion with IREX’s Center for Collaborative Technology. The Deep Dive discussion was driven by the question, "Do we still need public access to information and communication technologies in the age of the mobile phone?" Read a summary of the discussion here.

In addition to the above, TASCHA had the opportunity to present the Global Impact Study’s findings at numerous conferences and meetings over the past year. Many of the presentations can be found on TASCHA’s Slideshare page.