Jan Spyridakis - US grants

This project will advance understanding of how information technology is perceived, used, and reconfigured in diverse cultures in Central Asia. By conducting an empirical investigation into the cultural factors that affect information technology adoption, and articulating which of these elements are most significant in determining the success rate of IT initiatives, the research will provide a blueprint that can be used by programs delivering IT-related programs in disparate settings. The research will focus on Central Asia because of that region's unique combination of infrastructure and literacy combined with relatively low exposure to Western culture and early stages of Internet adoption. The project will draw on qualitative and quantitative methods, using survey instruments, statistical analysis, coded interview data, and ethnographic observation. Surveys will be developed based on previous research, and they will be distributed at Internet access sites in Central Asia. Interviews will also be conducted in Central Asia. The survey and interview data will be analyzed in an effort to correlate usage habits with local cultural factors. As information technology becomes increasingly important, effective implementation becomes even more critical. This project will make a significant contribution to understanding how culture affects technology adoption, thus advancing broad-based approaches to bridging the digital divide.

This project explores how the Internet influences cultures and societies by examining how information technology affects life in Central Asia. Researching Central Asia allows the project to examine novice users' adoption patterns. In addition, the strength of personal information networks in Central Asia provides insight into how diverse communities adapt IT for their needs. The project advances understanding of how context affects the manner in which IT influences society. The project is a cross-domain longitudinal study with two primary components: (1) a five-year, cross-domain panel survey of users and nonusers that examines how the Internet is affecting existing cultural and social patterns; and (2) a qualitative longitudinal study that investigates how professionals in the education and health domains react to the growing presence of IT. The project asks such questions as: To what extent does the availability of Internet resources replace community-based information sources? How do people from different economic and geographic strata gain access to the Internet? Do potential users avoid getting online, or do users circumscribe their online activities because of government regulations or cultural prohibitions? This research will also allow diverse US communities to understand and overcome impediments to IT implementation.

From 2007 to 2009, the University of Washington?s ADVANCE Center for Institutional Change (UW ADVANCE) promoted the advancement of women and other underrepresented faculty in STEM departments across the nation by annually creating and delivering in-person Leadership Excellence for Academic Diversity (LEAD) workshops. The success of this initiative has prompted many more institutions in the U.S. to request LEAD workshops; however, it is not financially feasible, sustainable, or desirable for UW ADVANCE to continue to curate and offer in-person LEAD workshops. To meet the national demand for LEAD workshops, UW ADVANCE will create LEAD-it-Yourself! (LiY!), an online open source toolkit of planning and instructional materials to enable institutions to run their own local or regional LEAD-inspired workshops. LiY! will contribute to ADVANCE goals by disseminating LEAD planning and instructional materials to STEM departments across the nation. The online open source LiY! toolkit will provide UW ADVANCE leadership development content and best practices, customizable event planning guides, content guides (e.g., speakers suggestions, workshop topic ideas, leadership briefs with key tips and best practices, and sample presentations), and communication and evaluation templates that each institution can use as models. LiY!?s sustainability will be ensured by a leadership community that uses the online toolkit to engage in ongoing sharing, commenting, adapting, and rating of content and through an extensive iterative evaluation process.

The goal of the LiY! project is to disseminate UW ADVANCE LEAD content to a widely dispersed community of leaders in higher education so as to support independently-run academic diversity leadership development workshops across the country. We will create a website to host the online open source LEAD planning and instructional materials, and we will evaluate both the materials and the website in diverse institutional contexts. We will engage a diverse group of seven institutions in iterative evaluations to ensure that (1) the LiY! toolkit enables institutions to independently run fully customizable and successful leadership development workshops; and (2) the LiY! website supports usable and sustainable open source content dissemination. Pilot institutions will receive small amounts of seed funding for participating in the iterative evaluations.

LiY! will empower department chairs and faculty across the nation with rigorously evaluated and customizable materials for promoting the advancement of women and other underrepresented faculty in STEM. LiY! will encourage a community of leadership among geographically dispersed institutions through online dissemination and sharing.