Text 4 Advantages of Using Community Informatics

Community informatics can be a powerful tool to help build up a community’s social or cultural side, but unfortunately many communities aren’t even aware that community informatics technology exists. By taking the time to research the options that are available through community informatics, a community can experience significant growth and develop a wide range of personal, social, and even academic connections while allowing the members of the community to interface in ways that were previously unavailable. Below are some of the advantages of using community informatics to help develop a private, educational, or professional community so that it can better achieve its potential.

Private Community Benefits

A number of communities around the world have begun to develop a system of community informatics within themselves which is completely devoid of outside scientific or academic influence, allowing the community as a whole to reap the benefits of the social and communications networking that results from the system. The benefits of these community informatics networks can vary depending upon the technology that is used to establish them, and may range from a feeling of closeness and ease of communication among members of the community to reduced-cost high speed internet access and small business development that is completely controlled by the members of the community itself. These private networks can go a long way toward fighting the high cost of entertainment, internet access, and even telephone service that is provided by large corporate providers, as they often present a low-cost alternative for members of the community which in turn puts money back into the community so as to stimulate economic growth.

Academic Benefits

In addition to private community networks which can take advantage of community informatics technology, a number of universities and academic research facilities can stimulate the community that they are a part of through the development and use of these networks. By using an advanced community informatics network, universities and researchers can provide the local community at large with access to libraries, information, and opportunities that it would not have access to otherwise. These universities and researchers can also gain insight into a wide variety of scientific fields through the development and maintenance of a community informatics network, including computer and telecommunications technology, economics, sociology, and even anthropology as they examine the usage and functionality of the network that they develop. This can also assist the academic body with giving back to its local community and helping to integrate it into the economy and social landscape of the city or other area where it is located.

Research and Technology Benefits

As community informatics becomes more popular, a number of opportunities are being developed in the fields of research and technology. In addition to academic research functions as mentioned above, telecommunications and internet technology research can occur in order to determine how these communities are using the resources which are available to them and in what directions technological growth should occur in order to make the experience more useful to the community at large. Hardware and software developers can create products which are more user-friendly and which enable easier networking with a community informatics system, while telecommunications companies can develop new technologies which enable easier synchronization with individuals, researchers, or businesses within the local community or in other parts of the world. This allows the services that technology provides to continue expanding along with the needs of the user, and in the end makes the user have much more influence over future technological and communications developments than ever before.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14