Regions: Gwich'in Settlement Area, North Slave Region
Tags: social sciences, technology
| Principal Investigator: | Fontaine, Trish (1) |
| Licence Number: | 16140 |
| Organization: | University of Alberta |
| Licensed Year(s): |
2017
|
| Issued: | Jul 12, 2017 |
| Project Team: | Trish Fontaine |
Objective(s): To study how and why digital connectivity is important to members of community organizations in the north.
Project Description: The Principal Investigator (PI) will interview participants of the digital panel forum and members of community organizations in the north to get a sense of how and why digital connectivity is important. The PI would like to make available the results such as what next steps are needed, what part of the process went well what did not and how communities can now benefit from this infrastructure. With Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications CRTC funds becoming available the PI would like to help support northern initiatives in getting and using that funding to benefits the communities. The PI will be conducted semi-structured interviews with individuals for up to an hour. I will record the interview so I can write down the content after to do analysis on the information and create themes around all the interviews. The data both the audio files and the written record will be kept in a secure location, for computer files they will be password protected and any paper documents will be kept in a locked cabinet. Personal information will be deleted after transcription and according to the consent form. For the initial phase the PI will be doing preliminary work on getting background on digital connectivity issues in the North and on communities that may be interested in future work. The PI would like to make any products produced available and to potentially create a list of projects to work on or concerns communities have. Understanding how the new fibre line can be used to benefit communities for self-determination, possible economic opportunities as well as for social connections and preserving culture and language and youth initiatives. The PI will be writing a report on the panel discussion Bridging the Gap and will make that available. The report will also be publicly available and if any group would like the PI would be very happy to present the information or talk about next steps, in person is always best but the PI is able to use University of Alberta video-conferencing rooms to remotely present as well. The fieldwork for this study will be conducted from July 13, 2017 to August 31, 2017.
