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Paper Title: The Role of University Outreach in Assisting Small Business Adoption of Environmental Management Systems (T8) |
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Several
international and regional organizations have developed environmental
management systems (EMSs). The ISO 14000 family of standards is the most
comprehensive and broadly applicable. Other EMSs include the Sustainable
Forestry Initiative, focussed on forestry organizations in the USA and
the eco-management and audit scheme adopted by the European Union. |
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Adoption
of EMSs by business enterprises improves environmental stewardship and
compliance with existing environmental regulations. Adoption of EMSs may
reduce costs for reasons such as more efficient input use or conversion
of waste into saleable product. Adoption may provide market advantages
for reasons such as greater market access or higher prices as the result
of market preferences for products from producers using EMSs. Implementation
of EMSs varies among industries. Industries such as agriculture that are
geographically disbursed and characterized by relatively small size tend
to have lower adoption rates as the result of factors that include lack
of access to information and high fixed costs relative to enterprise size. |
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This
paper uses U.S. agricultural producers as a model to demonstrate the potential
role for university outreach in adoption of EMSs. Existing university
information technology can overcome limitations imposed by geography and
small enterprise size. |
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Paper Title: Cross-cutting Rifts in the Digital Divide: The Effects of Gender, Socio Economic Status and Rural versus Urban Location (T9) |
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This
paper looks at the effects of the shift to a more information based society,
particularly implications for the digital divide, examining how access
to and facility with Information Technology (IT) are stratified by gender,
socio-economic status and rural-urban location. The focus is on youth,
the age group at the cutting edge of the digital revolution, using data
from recent nationally representative studies in Canada. The Youth in
Transition Survey and Programme for International Student Assessment involve
school-based surveys with detailed information about intensity and type
of IT use and student attitudes to, comfort with and self-perceived competence
in IT. The school-based sampling permits an assessment of both individual-
and school-level effects. The Second International Technology in Education
Survey has data from school principals and the person in the school most
"informed about computer facilities” providing details about
school IT facilities. Results from these surveys show that the heavy public
investment in IT compensates for lack of home access for rural youth,
but less so for those from lower socio-economic groups. The persistent
gender difference in types and intensity of use of IT is also examined,
with a focus on how these differences vary by socio-economic status and
locale. |
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Paper Title: Advancing the Indigenous Digital Equity Agenda (IDEA): A Critical Assessmentof the Canadian Model (T5) |
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"We
missed the Industrial Revolution. We will not miss the Information Technology
Revolution. Our citizens, and especially our youth, are ready to take
full advantage of this revolution and the possibilities offered."
[Assembly of First Nations, 2001] |
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"We
will ensure that high speed broadband access is available to Canadian
from coast to coast." [Minister of Industry Canada, Allan Rock, 12
Feb. 2002 at the launch of the Innovation Strategy] |
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It
is now well-accepted that the transition to the knowledge economy and
the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) have opened
up economic opportunities and have expanded the growth potential of communities
around the world. While access to the Internet is a prerequisite to participation
in the knowledge economy and to allow organizations to realize their goals
for economic and social development, it is not sufficient if the skills
to utilize this information are absent or are poorly developed. That is,
access to technology per se without the capacity to utilize it effectively
is of little value. ICT strategies facilitate capacity-building within
organizations and empower people with the means of participating in the
new economy and achieving their social and economic objectives. It is
within this context that our paper assesses current developments that
seek to close the gap that exists between the country's First Nations
peoples and the rest of the population. Among the initiatives that we
examine are national (eg. the Broadband for Rural and Northern Development
Pilot Program, the Government of Canada's Innovation Strategy) and regional
(eg. the Kuh-ke-nah Network of Smart First Nations) which are underway.
Canada seeks to be the most wired nation by 2005. Our paper assesses the
degree to which the federal government's initiatives meet the democratic
imperative to ensure that new information and communication technologies
are used in ways that facilitate the inclusion of Aboriginal Peoples into
the New Economy and to avoid the possibility that this group would be
further excluded from mainstream of Canadian society. |
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There
is a growing recognition that First Nations communities need to participate
in the knowledge economy-on their own terms-to ensure their competitiveness,
to support new administrative frameworks, and to realize their socio-cultural,
and economic policy objectives. |
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Scholarly
attention on the digital divide tends focus on the gap between North and
South. In developed countries such as Canada, the United States, and Australia,
scant attention has been paid to the digital divide that threatens to
further isolate Aboriginal peoples. Digital inclusion depends upon community-driven
ICT development strategies that address the need to advance learning and
knowledge requirements that are essential to participation in the new
economy. Of interest to other countries, Canada has adopted distinctive
approaches designed to "enable Aboriginal people to participate in
the knowledge and information technology economy."[2001: i] Whether
or not these initiatives are meeting their objectives is the subject of
our paper. Whether or not the Canadian model can be applied in other geo-political
contexts is also explored. |
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Paper Title: The Digital Divide in New York City's Public Schools (T16) |
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New
York City’s public school system provides a microcosm of the global
digital divide. Despite the City’s rhetorical commitment to embracing
technology within the curriculum, few schools have managed to meet this
commitment successfully. While even the poorest schools have been “wired,”
and many teachers are interested in integrating computing into their teaching,
a number of infrastructural hurdles remain, ranging from inadequate staffing
and maintenance of teaching facilities to inappropriate use of security
and “filtering” technology. We suggest that “wiring”
schools (providing necessary hardware) often only entrenches the digital
divide by allowing policymakers to offer evidence of cutting-edge technology
at the same time they cripple schools’ ability to maintain these
resources. |
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In
this paper we will discuss the contours of the digital divide in New York
City’s high schools. We will share stories about the state of affairs
in the schools, discuss a survey of the technological fluency of students
in several schools, and report on steps being taken to close the digital
divide in a collaboration between the New York City Department of Education
and a community-based organization, the Brooklyn College Community Partnership
for Research and Learning. Based on the Brooklyn College campus, the new
school will be supported by the college’s computing infrastructure,
providing wide and deep access to educational computing resources. |
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Paper Title: Benchmarking/Evaluating Local Government Web Sites (T 7) |
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The
information society contains numerous normative statements about the values
and pitfalls of high technology in the daily lives of institutions, governments
and individuals. The purpose of this paper is to develop a set of measures
to both benchmark and evaluate municipal web sites. The theoretical framework
for the set of measures is contained in a series of papers by Odendaal
(2002) and Prosperi (2003) and follows from pioneering theoretical work
of Castells (e.g., 2000, 2003) among others. |
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Based
on preliminary results from Prosperi (2003), this research focuses on
the development of a set of easily measurable indicators of municipal
and quasi-municipal (e.g., NGO) web sites that are capable of assessing
conceptual attributes of both e-government and e-governance. The set of
measures will be applied to locally agreed upon “good” and
“bad” web sites in the South Florida region. |
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Paper Title: The New York City Urban Cyberspace Initiative: Advanced Networks in Service of Community Technology Development (T13) |
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| The
New York City Urban Cyberspace Initiative is an initiative whose objective
is to design and build a wireless, broadband network to connect all 136
Community Technology Centers (CTC’s) in the City of New York to
a high bandwidth backbone. |
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There
are more than 136 Community Technology Centers (CTCs) in the five boroughs
of New York City. However, many areas of New York still lack affordable
broadband and Internet services beyond neighborhood CTCs, schools, and
libraries. The City Council believes that expanding access to affordable
broadband services is an essential element of fostering small business
growth, creating jobs and spurring economic development. Towards this
end, the project will: deploy and pilot a wireless broadband network,
providing both fixed and mobile services over the same network using unlicensed
spectrum, providing each CTC with affordable low-cost Internet connectivity;
install in each CTC a low-cost wireless kiosk and wireless electronic
tablets so as to avoid the cost of outfitting these sites with new computers;
provide access to state-of-the art Homeland Security information services
and resources via a portal called Community Technology Central and prototype
a smart card to be distributed to each CTC user for the purpose of tracking
usage and services. |
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Paper Title: Degrees of Separation: Inheriting an Unequal World (T13) |
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| Despite
the tremendous progress in information technology, a significant number
of communities in developed and under developed countries remain disconnected
and suffer from inadequate access to various modes of information acquisition
and application. While technological attainments may be viewed within
their own narrow diffusion patterns, it is clear that a larger view of
uneven development may provide us with a better understanding of how technology
may act as an instrument for further isolation of various communities.
Such a conceptualization may allow us to view the diffusion of digital
technology within a larger framework of access and equity. This suggests
that the emergence of a more equitable distribution of digital technology
may need to be seamlessly incorporated into other urban and social service
delivery systems. |
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Using
the case of Los Angeles, we will first offer a conceptual framework for
creating a typology of various communities by their degrees of separation
or isolation. This methodology uses access to employment, housing, education,
transportation, and the communication network to portray the uneven landscape
of development in this metropolitan area. Against this backdrop, we will
examine the case of an important information technology dissemination
project that focused on the issue of the digital divide in Los Angeles.
Implemented from 1998 to 2001, Neighborhood Knowledge Los Angeles, a project
of the UCLA Advanced Policy Institute, established a data delivery mechanism
to enrich housing and economic development activities in some of the disadvantaged
neighborhoods in Los Angeles. In this paper, we will assess the overall
performance of this project to suggest that the fulfillment of a digital
promise of equity may need to embrace the reality of a global inheritance
of accumulated inequities. |
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Paper Title: Information Society and Access to Health Information Online: Private Road or Public Highway? |
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| In
the last decade, Internet has offered consumers with unparalleled opportunities
to acquire health information. Professionals, policy makers and consumers
claim that Internet has great promise for the future of health care delivery,
in light of the present health care climate of budgetary constraints requiring
elimination and restructuring of existing programs and services, difficulties
in providing health information and services to underserved populations
such as those with disabilities, those in remote and rural areas, and
increased awareness of consumers to make more informed health decisions.
While Internet use has grown at a tremendous rate and it has shown great
promise, questions remain about access to Internet among certain segments
of the population and proclivity to use of this medium in health arena.
The present study examined the Internet use and access to health information
online among age and gender groups using data from nationally representative
Canadian Household Internet Use survey. This survey included a stratified,
probability sample of 33,832 individuals representative of the Canadian
population with respect to age (less than or equal to 34, 35-64, and 65+
years) and gender (men and women). Demographic and Internet use information
was elicited using an interviewer administered questionnaire. Younger
individuals were more likely to access health information online, compared
to elderly. Internet use on a regular basis, access to Internet from multiple
locations other than ones home, and frequent use of Internet (daily) increased
the likelihood of individuals using health information online by 27 to
145%, whereas connecting to the Internet using telephone line and lower
duration of use decreased the likelihood by 15 to 35%. This nation-wide
population-based data gives a clear picture of Internet use and access
to online health information and points to the fact that access to health
information online is a private road rather than a public highway at the
present time. Implications of the findings for health promotion and health
care delivery in the future will be discussed. |
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