Un article de Guides CRéATIF - Espace de travail collaboratif.

Sommaire 1 «Best practices» booklets for e-inclusion professionnals 1.1 Context & stakes 1.2 Initiative leader 1.3 Goals 1.4 Targets 1.5 Contents 1.6 Collaborative writing 1.7 Partnership for producing and distributing 1.8 Results & impact 1.9 Outlooks 1.10 Originality & potential for duplication

«Best practices» booklets for e-inclusion professionnals

Context & stakes

Among managers and executive staff, more than 90 % use computers frequently, as only 55 % of french population do. (study Marsouin, Measuring computer uses & context of uses, Jocelyne Trémenbert, August 2007).

Internet and digital technologies have taken an all compassing role in our lives regarding education, business, public administration, leisure, culture, etc. and have became powerful tools for creating and exchanging information and services. These tools can be considered as "social goods".

But uses of these tools require new skills and abilities, understanding of communication processes, possibilities of expressing oneself, availability of computer hardware and accesses to networks, all of which are still unevenly available. The rise of digital uses createa growing feeling of exclusion for those who are not part of this changing social organisation.

What is at stake in these changes and the risk of exclusions they bear is not sufficiently taken in account by public policies. Except a few local and regional initiatives, these policies leave on the side track millions of personns, already socially vulnerable.

At the same time, the demand is high for access to public access places with facilitators, whereas public of ran by social organisations. This demand testifies of the need felt for a human accompaniment in developping uses of ICT's.

All over France, dozens of local initiatives show us that helping people using ICT's can develop social ties, creativity, inclusion and self-esteem. Those leaders, entrepreneurs, innovative actors of long-life learning in the digital Era, are frequently isolated and lack support, visibility and recognition of their daily work.

We are facing a double challenge : showing but also sharing good practices to contribute to elaboratethe design of public policies for digital litteracy aiming at the inclusion of disadvantaged and vulnerable groups .

Initiative leader

Créatif, a french non-governemental organisation, federates persons involved in promoting "Access to all" to ICT's. They work for local organisation, regional agencies, local councils, or decentralised administratons, without exlusivity.

Créatif aims at improving digital literacy and social uses of ICT's by promoting best practices exchanges, networking of professionnals, support to projects, monitoring and assessment of uses and promotion of an active participation of concerned population.

Goals

• To foster best practices exchanges and networking between e-inclusion professionals.

• To promote at a national level "best practices" identified at local levels,

• To develop questions and self interrogations of professional practices leading to changes rather than offering "ready to apply" solutions.

Targets

• e-inclusion professionals : persons working in telecentres & public internet access points (PIAP), professionals working with ICT's with specifically vulnerable groups....

• Local partners for e-inclusion projects : social workers, teachers, educators, ...

• Local and regional authorities

Contents

Titles available in the series :

• N°1 - Access for All, how to accompany persons with disability in Public Internet Access Points, Philippe Cazeneuve, 2003, 43 p.

• N°2 - Access for All, how to target, reach and work with vulnerable groups, Philippe Cazeneuve (dir.), 2005, 32 p.

• N°3 - Tools for ICT's public access, How to promote and use free software in telecentres & Public Internet Access Points, Marie-Lise Gauthier (dir.), 2006, 48 p.

• N°4 - How to build successfull partnerships between telecentres & educational institutions, Philippe Cazeneuve (dir.), 2007, 52 p.

• N°5 - e-inclusion in rural areas (available in 2008)

Each title presents interviews (local actors & experts), innovative initiatives, exemples of projects, methodological advices, legal issues, funding programs, educational materials & ressources, ...

Collaborative writing

• Open editorial board

• Online collaborative tools (wiki, CMS SPIP, social bookmarking)
  • Identifying local initiatives
  • Social bookmarking relevant links

• Involving researchers & ICT field actors

Partnership for producing and distributing

The series is co-funded by regional authorities members of "CRéATIF" and by "Caisse des Dépôts", a state-owned financial institution operating a telecenter network, Cyber-base network. Additional partners can join the production team on a specific project, as the "Délégation aux Usages de l'Internet", part of Ministry of Education, for our newest title.

Booklets are sold to local & regional authorities to be distributed for free to e-inclusion workers located in their area. Sales incomes permit to invest in creating new titles.

You can access to the content on-line (html format) or download the entire booklet (pdf format) on "CRéATIF" website.

Results & impact

• Increasing number of contributors on the site: 180 registrered writers, half have published at least an article.

• Increasing website creatif-public.net visitors : from 900 monthly in 2004 to 20.000 visitors monthly in 2007. Consulting our e-inclusion "best practices" handbooks on-line represent 22 % of the traffic, and news about local initiatives on e-inclusion 40%. 600 subscribers to the monthly newsletter.

• Participation in congress, seminars, meetings, training programs about e-inclusion (disabled people & vulnerable groups).

• Contributions to research projects :
  • PSAUME Project(laboratory M@rsouin Brest)
  • Innovative interfaces & digital divide (FING & Région Ile-de-France)

• International activities :
  • Participation to I-Twinnings project to develop exchanges with telecentres network in Peru. Some articles & interviews translated (in french) and published after that project :
    • Poverty, can ICT be an answer ? (Miguel SARAVIA)
    • Podcasts reach Peruvian villages (BBC)
    • A telecentres network in Araucania (interview with Manuel Morales)

• New membership and partnership with regional authorities (Mégalis Bretagne, Région PACA, Région Pays de la Loire ...) : now 10 french regions are involved in our "best practices" sharing and publishing activities about e-inclusion.

Outlooks

• Title N°6 : about "memories, multimedia & social ties " (work will start in 2008).

• Building new partnerships, developping international & multilingual projects.

• Creating multimedia contents (podcasts, videos) for training and e-learning programs towards e-inclusion workers (telecentres administrators & operators, social workers, librarians, ...).

Originality & potential for duplication

• Booklets have a double target : they both contribute to promote innovative initiatives for e-inclusion among local authorities and to disseminate "best practices" among telecentres & Public Internet Access Points (PIAP) administrators & operators .

• Producing and writing in a collaborative way stimulated telecenters & PIAPs networks activities and federate coordination efforts from regional and local network headquarters.

• Pooling & cooperating for training programs toward isolated e-inclusion workers, permit to build answers in an bottom-up way instead of National programs that frequently tend to standardize practices.

• A significant part of visitors of the website come from french-speaking countries around the world, so that isolated telecentres operators can find on-line information to enrich and renovate their practices.

• This initiative is easily transferable & reproductible in others countries and languages.