[LINK] web information architecture - what are the issues you see?

Janet Hawtin lucychili at gmail.com
Thu Aug 16 11:05:38 AEST 2007


On 8/15/07, Tom Worthington <Tom.Worthington at tomw.net.au> wrote:

> As an example I propose we provide government, education and housing,
> in a "box" for remote indigenous communities
> <http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/2007/07/putting-australian-government-online.html>.
> With a modest expansion and integration of the online services
> already available, most of the government, education services and day
> to day community communication needs could be provided by a web based service.

I think it is great that there is attention being paid to Aboriginal
communities and their needs. I do not know enough about Tom's proposal
to be able to comment on that directly.

Yes government does need to look at what the intersection between
traditional approaches to services and software are and what might be
important in a situation where people are becoming more reliant on
access to infrastructure through software. Especially in disadvantaged
communities with variable incomes and no access to local alternative
sources and people. If this is pay to play access to a subscription to
software then that has some social implications. If it means there are
less face to face services available then that also has implications.

I think particularly in remote communities we do need to be looking at
the implications of infrastructure and service choices from the local
end of the process.
What do those choices mean for local people in terms of skills,
access, leadership, control,
voice, local value, privacy and rights to participation and access to
services etc.

I feel we deliver many ideas from a very vendor centric perspective
and need to be a bit more interested in starting from a conversation
or engagement in ideas around what makes value in communities and what
makes value elsewhere. Not that one or other should 'win' but that
especially in provision of essential access to social infrastructure
there should be some fundamental considerations which would at least
match the consideration we give to public information in other
communities, and probably should be more thorough given the impact of
remoteness, literacy, poverty, language..

Questions about legally safe/technically reliable interoperability of
data formats are also  likely to be more important as these
technologies become more embedded in our access to society.

Janet



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