New Technical Communication Research Group announcement TC 596/TC 496: Collecting and Visualizing Difficult to Access Data The purpose of this research group is to familiarize students with the processes and practical complexities involved in obtaining electronic data, both domestically and abroad, and to learn skills for visualization of social and economic data. While conducting online research, data that may initially seem public and easily obtainable may actually pose significant problems in locating. Some data, for example, may be accessible only through private corporations, hard to access portions in sites of international agencies (the UN website, for example, can be very difficult to navigate for specific data), or through contacting governments agencies directly. There is a significant challenge not just in collecting the data, but in visualizing and providing them in a format that other researchers can easily use. As part of the research group, students will put to practice skills and techniques in collecting electronic data by assisting in a project titled Investigating the Social and Economic Impact of Public Access to Information and Communication Technology (IPAI), a five-year, $7.2 million research project sponsored by Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The project is managed by telecentre.org in partnership with the Center for Information & Society at the University of Washington Information School. Over the last decade, governments, international development agencies, foundations, and corporations have made significant investments to increase public access to information and communication technology (ICT), particularly in developing countries. As these investments continue to grow, questions are being raised about their social and economic impact, particularly: * What are the observable social and economic impacts of public access to ICT? * What is the magnitude of these impacts and how can we measure them? * What is the relationship between costs and benefits of providing public access to ICT? The project will answer these questions using longitudinal and comparative research approaches. It will examine the impact of a range of shared, public access to ICT models, such as the provision of ICT in libraries and telecentres, as well as other models and innovations that will emerge over the next five years. The research will examine both positive and negative impacts on populations' well-being in the areas of employment and income, education, civic engagement, democracy and governmental transparency, culture and language preservation, and health, among others. To this end, it is vitally important to know what data are currently available so research is not duplicated needlessly and data can be provided in a format useful to the study. As the research focuses on developing countries, locating much of this data may be tricky. Such data may include the number of Internet caf�s in a country or the Internet literacy rate of populations. In addition, obtaining data that can help to put socio-economic indicators in perspective are also vital and equally difficult to obtain. Such data may include shape files for maps. Throughout the research group students will learn skills for obtaining difficult to locate data, gain practice in recognizing reliable data, have the chance to collaborate with researchers in a multi-country research project, and be given the opportunity to work with and analyze the data they collect. It is expected that students' work will directly contribute to and be incorporated into the IPAI project. The result will be an enhanced understanding of the kinds of issues researchers face when collecting data and how this translates into better presentation and visualization designs for displaying data and making them open and accessible. Students will be expected to carefully document on a wiki their progress throughout the project. In addition, other work will include an informal paper at the end of the quarter that summarizes the successes and failures of research processes, positive outcomes and dead-ends encountered when visiting websites and contacting sources, and any other observations. (Understanding difficulties is just as important as understanding best practices so students are encouraged to be as open and detailed as possible when discussing their progress.) In addition, students will be able to design a project that involves visualization or formatting the data they collect. If students desire, they will have the opportunity to create additional outputs that may include research reports, publications, or conference presentations. The research group will be taken as CR/NC. Students will have the option of signing up for between 2 and 5 credits. Meeting times are tba, but the group will meet at least once a week. The course is open to graduate students (TC 596) and advanced undergraduate students (TC 496) in any discipline. The research group will have an instructional team. TC instructor of record will be Beth Kolko (bkolko@u.washington.edu), and course instructors will be Araba Sey, Chris Rothschild, and Willem Scholten. For more information please contact Beth Kolko.