Merging Theory with Practice: Toward an Evaluation Framework for Community Informatics
March 2001, Dara O'Neil



This was a paper presented at the October 2001 Second International Conference of the Association of Internet Researchers. It looks very much like a traditional literature review prepared in the context of preliminary work on a dissertation. For my purposes, it needs to be updated and it has little focus on international experiences with telecenters and related ICT access initiatives but it provides an interesting framework, identifying five key areas of outcomes for community informatics projects: (1) Enhancing strong democracy; (2) Increasing social capital; (3) Empowering individuals; (4) Revitalizing sense of community; and (5) Providing economic development opportunities.

In an international context, (3) and (5) seem to be the primary intended outcomes.