Magister Bibliothecologiae - MBibl / This research project looked at the role of public libraries in bridging the digital divide which is both a symptom and a cause of social exclusion. Public libraries offer free information services to ordinary citizens by means a wide range of media, including the Internet. But they offer more than just access as their information literacy programmes educate people in the use of the various media. Across the world there are many initiatives employed by public libraries to help bridge the digital divide. The purpose of the case study of one library district was to investigate if and how libraries in Cape Town were taking on this responsibility. The project had two parts: a survey of one district of the city’s libraries and a closer case study of one selected library in the district. The overall findings from both phases of the study were that Public libraries do help to narrow the Digital Divide by providing free internet access to the public. One of the initiatives the Public libraries that were surveyed including Masiphumelele library employed to help narrow the Digital Divide is SmartCape. Not only did Masiphumelele have SmartCape, but it also offered free computer literacy classes to its users.

The use of social media and other communication technologies have created a new ecology of public messaging. As it is a core task of government to inform its residents about risks, public managers and emergency managers, specifically, must understand this new ecology if they are to effectively communicate with the public. A challenge of this new media environment is the differential access of members of the community to various technologies. Partial proportional odds regression (PPO) provides a strategy that is useful to separate effects of access from effects of use. This article illustrates the use of PPO regression to separate access and use effects based on a survey which followed a series of severe weather events in the spring of 2016. The survey includes an address-based sample of residents in the state of Oklahoma to ask about the use of various communication technologies to share information about the weather system (among other subjects). We find that age and work status are related to access while income, gender, race and exposure to extreme weather are related to use of various communication media. This information provides emergency managers with a stronger foundation for developing a portfolio of information options for their communities.

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This dissertation explores the persistent gap between rural and urban areas in the percentage of households that access the Internet at home (a discrepancy commonly known as the "digital divide"). The theoretical framework underlying a household's Internet adoption decision is examined, with emphasis on the roles that household characteristics, network externalities, and digital communication technology (DCT) infrastructure potentially play. This framework is transferred into a statistical model of household Internet access, where non-linear decomposition techniques are employed to estimate the contributions of these variables to the digital divide in a given year. Differences in Internet access rates between years are also analyzed to understand the importance of temporal resistance to the continuing digital divide. The increasing prevalence of "high-speed" or broadband access is also taken into account by modeling a decision process where households that choose to have Internet access must decide between dial-up and high-speed access. This nested process is also decomposed in order to estimate the contributions of household characteristics, network externalities, DCT infrastructure, and temporal resistance to the high-speed digital divide. The results suggest that public policies designed to alleviate digital divides in both general and high-speed access should focus more on the broader income and education inequities between rural and urban areas. The results also imply that the current policy environment of encouraging DCT infrastructure investment in rural areas may not be the most effective way to close the digital divide in both general and high-speed Internet access. / Ph. D.

Research suggests that high stakes testing impacts teachers' decisions regarding curriculum and instruction, which, in turn, impacts student learning. Because Virginia administered SOL tests for Computer/Technology, then discontinued them, a study was possible comparing teachers' perceptions and actual student achievement of those taught while the high-stakes tests were in place and those taught after the tests were discontinued. A survey was administered to all elementary and middle school classroom teachers in a midsize urban Virginia school division to determine their perceptions of the effects of high-stakes testing. Cross tabulations were performed based upon: school level; on whether the teacher had taught prior to, or only after, the SOL tests were implemented; and whether the teacher perceived he/she was teaching a high or low percentage of lower socio-economic status (SES) students. In addition to the survey, the 2002 versions of the Virginia Computer/Technology Standards of Learning (C/T SOL) assessments were administered to all 2005 fifth and eighth grade students within the same school division. Statistical comparisons of the means of raw scores from the 2002 fifth (n = 625) and eighth (n = 641) grade groups and the 2005 fifth (n = 583) and eighth (n = 522) grade groups were conducted. Comparisons were also conducted on scores from each test between groups of students who qualified for free and reduced price lunches and those that did not qualify. Finally, statistical comparisons were made between the scaled scores of students who were eighth graders in 2005 (n = 397) and their scaled scores as fifth graders when tested in 2002. The study found a majority of teachers felt high-stakes testing creates pressure and changes the focus of instruction to tested areas at the expense of other activities and non-tested content. When the means of the scores of students who took the C/T SOL tests in 2002 were compared to those from 2005, the scores for the students taught under the high-stakes testing pressure were significantly better than those tested in 2005. Further, this gap in student achievement was more pronounced for lower SES students, suggesting a widening of the "digital divide." 74b769a6-e0db-4582-ac4d-7a2ab1e0118c,"Research surrounding older adults, social support, and emotional well-being are richly researched topics. However, literature is devoid of qualitative studies and research focusing specifically on community centers and older adults' social networks, which are integral for understanding the growing needs of older adults in today's society. Guided by the theoretical frameworks of phenomenology, activity theory, and ecological theory, four in-in-depth interviews were conducted and then coded for themes. The central themes highlighted family connection, connection with others, resiliency, helping others, type of activity, restoring self, community connection, exploration, convenience, and life stages. Suggestions for future research and possible impacts for clinical practice are discussed. / Ed. D.

Thesis (M.A.)--Eastern Illinois University, 2010. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 72-79).

Indie studios, which used to have a challenging time creating and releasing games, are on the rise. In the past, these studios have had a hard time getting their hands on useable tools. Indie developers at the time had to work with basic tools in order to create games less technologically advanced. This created a gap between triple-A and indie studios that, at the time, was widely disregarded. This stands as the lens for our study. We begin by conducting a prestudy that looks at the statistics behind games on steam. After this we form our interview questions and conducted both standardized open-ended interviews as well as surveys. The data collected suggest that there is a correlation between the availability of ease-of-use tools and content created. In our discussion we bring forth ideas about how this may help reduce the knowledge gap, and nurture the online innovation democracy.