Broadband and community resilience: Measuring impact Fiona Heesen Pioneering Communities Seminar, April 24, 2013

Outline  Background  Resilience  Community broadband and resilience  Impact  Evaluating broadband

Background PresentFuture Rural resilience Digital services EconomicsGeography Rural Planning Community led broadband research Past

Resilience  What is resilience?  The ability for a community, group or individual to adapt to change Fig 1: Transitional ruptures, readjustment and recovery From Wilson, 2012, p. 57

Community broadband  Two key stages to community-led broadband 1.Designing and developing the network 2.Implementation of technology  Relationship with resilience? 1.Use of Internet 2.Process-based capacity building

What is ‘impact’ and how do we measure it?  Impact can be broadly defined as:  ‘the demonstrable contribution that a process or innovation makes to society and the economy’  Measuring?  Understanding impact metrics

Evaluation I  Understanding ‘real’ impact  Process  Developing your outcome areas  Taking control of your research agenda and your story

Evaluation II Community Scale SocialEconomic Individual Scale SocialEconomic

Research Process Background Context Setting Using secondar y data, set the context for each case study (rural context, socio- economic classes etc) Pre-connectivity Interviews Users Identify a range of adoption types (early, late, non-adopters) and focusing on three themes (organisational structure, rural life, and internet behaviour) identify a baseline of the community, its expectations of both the organisation and the inclusion of superfast broadband infrastructure Governance Identify skills needed, used, gained throughout the pre-connectivity process as a broadband initiative Post-connectivity Interviews Users Through the lens of multiple adoption types, analyse the potential resilience attributed to the inclusion of superfast broadband Governance Identify characteristics from the process of implementing superfast services that influence resilience of that community Users Identify a community’s expectations of both the organisation and the inclusion of superfast broadband infrastructure Governance Identify skills needed, used, gained throughout the pre-connectivity process as a broadband initiative Pre-connectivity Interviews Post-connectivity Interviews Users Analyse the potential resilience attributed to the inclusion of superfast broadband Governance Identify characteristics from the process of implementing superfast services that influence resilience of that community Background Context Setting Using secondary data, understand context (may involve surveys and so on) Heesen, F. 2013

Community Broadband Scotland  Evaluating the CBS programme  Importance of playmakers

Questions?