Session 20: Accountability for Results: Mapping Information for the Design, Management and Measurement of Change
Monday, April 8

When we began our discussion of Family Centered Community Building (FCCB), we emphasized how families and communities are complex systems and previewed how community-building strategies are likely to be more successful if they are more "holistic", accounting for this complexity.

Through out the course we have also highlighted important successful examples of FCCB initiatives and how they have employed different kinds of system-changing methodologies. Bringing our course to a close, we will summarize some of the essential lessons that we have learned about Family Centered Community Building and review examples of innovative strategies that are likely to be important ingredients of future successful FCCB approaches.

Emerging uses of information technologies (especially Geographic Information Systems-GIS) enable us to envision additions to the modern FCCB toolbox. Such tools provide new opportunities for 1) assembling and integrating different layers of community information, and 2) increasing transparency and accountability among public, private, and non-profit organizations in ways that support FCCB.

The power of new technologies can be harnessed not just for e-business and e-government, but for e-community. Examining promising local innovations opens a window into the future, providing a wide range of models that can be adapted to local needs. However, challenges remain with regard to ensuring all American communities access to the hardware, the online connectivity and the content that they need to realize IT's potential for community building. The presentation and discussion of IT and Community Monitoring and Mapping should help the students reflect on how new internet-based systems could support the initiatives discussed in the prior sessions.

As a starting point, the class will focus on the case of the Neighborhood Knowledge Los Angeles (NKLA) project-describing how a community-based approach to information collection evolved into a cutting edge internet mapping system that reshaped public policy towards slum housing conditions in this city. NKLA (http://nkla.ucla.edu) is increasingly used for designing and targeting local interventions, monitoring housing conditions, and evaluating progress towards ensuring all residents with decent and safe dwelling units. As a shared information system, NKLA was used by organizations in ways not originally anticipated in its design and has led to important spin-off projects, including a new information portal for persons with disabilities, Living Independently in Los Angeles (http://lila.ucla.edu). From such cases, we will explore how internet tools are being used in other areas, such as promoting community policing, tribal land management, and new economic opportunities in inner city and rural communities.

Major Themes to Be Covered

1. Improving local linkages and social networks are critical to successful community building, IT systems can be used for purposes other than just e-commerce, supporting ongoing local communication and information sharing, e.g. community-based asset mapping. The objective here is not just communication but creating new partnerships.
   
   
2. A major challenge to community building is the sense that public and private institutions are largely unaccountable to local objectives. IT systems can be designed to promote transparency and ensure better services (e.g. government programs, e-voting) and access to critical resources (e.g. mortgage lending).
   
   
3. The promise of IT is still unfulfilled for large segments of the American population, the "digital divide" occurs through 1) inadequate access to internet-connected hardware, and 2) insufficient online content that deals with the real needs of American communities, especially those at the lower income levels.

Students Will Learn

1. How new public-private-community partnerships get formed to build and disseminate community information systems.
   
   
2. The five primary ways that communities can use IT to achieve their community building objectives.
   
   
3. The new opportunities for communities to create their own data sets so that they can drive and shape the new information systems.
   
   
4. Three examples where IT applied to community issues have resulted in changes in public policy.
   
   
5. What are the primary impediments to making IT a shared resource, which can be shared by all communities, and how they might be overcome. (One primary threat is the privatization of public data, which limits access to those who can afford.)

Suggested Readings: