I. Progress made in the development and implementation of services
Activities of the past couple of months have focused primarily on organizational efforts for outreach and research on the best online GIS applications. We view the above activities necessary to successfully carry out the objectives laid out in our Civic Networking Project. No CPB funds have been spent to date because internal organizational guidelines do not allow us to incur project expenses before signing a contract. However we have used some of our in-kind contributions to support our initial activities (see financial report).
A. Develop and implement GIS applets and create related WWW services.
A significant amount of preparatory work is needed before being able to develop GIS applets available online. To successfully achieve this goal several steps were taken.
1. Researched and develop list of companies with the expertise to develop online GIS applications (see attachment A).
2. Drafted and finalized a Request For Qualification (RFQ) to send out to a selected list of companies that develop online GIS applications. Made RFQ available on our web site at http://stlouis.missouri.org/government/rfq.htm
3. Collaborated with Massachusetts Institute of Technology to develop a virtual reality site featuring the St. Louis Metrolink system. This application allows viewers to identify the location of the stations and view the surrounding geography. This new application is still being finalized by MIT students and faculty and can be viewed at http://gis.mit.edu/projects.
B. Train community residents and social service providers to take advantage of the online service providers to take advantage of the online services related to the Project.
We recognize that the largest obstacle we are facing is the ability of conducting effective outreach in our community. Many of our residents have never been exposed to any form of computerized technology, and in their experience telecommunication technology has no impact in their lives. This backdrop has challenged us to identify non-traditional and creative ways to inform and reach the community. A neighborhood "Web Fair" and a tailored training for non-profits represents our initial efforts to reach our objective.
1. Initiated planning for a Neighborhood Web Fair The concept of a "Web Fair" was develop as a way to introduce neighborhood residents to CIN and offer residents an additional tool for community development. The Neighborhood Web Fair will bring together neighborhood residents and volunteer web developers to build a home page for each of the City's seventy-nine neighborhoods on the Internet. An implementation plan is being developed for an intensive neighborhood communication and outreach, Internet presentations at neighborhood sites, and content development assistance. To date we have:
2. Developed an initial Internet training curriculum for non-profit organization . Scheduled a couple of training session for member agencies of the Nutrition Services Network (see attachment B).
3. Identified training and outreach coordinator. Interviewed for the coordinator position and made a contract offer to implement the training and outreach components of the project
C. Provide publicity and promote community awareness of the Project
The followings are our initials attempts to promote our project:
1. Established initial contact with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch to feature The St. Louis Community Information Network and the Civic Networking Project.
2. Outreach and Planning for the "Web Fair" has started generating widespread interest. We expect the planning for the fair to become a powerful tool to promote community awareness of the project. We intend to take full advantage of our emerging relationship with Channel 9 (our local public TV station) to promote this event and future related efforts.
D. Evaluate and assess the success for the Project, as related to its utility to affect local user penetration, and as related to its general effect within the community.
We have made initial contact with David VanBakergam with the Center for Urban Research and Design School of Architecture at Washington University to start planning a comprehensive evaluation effort. At present we are collecting baseline data with regard to the use of our homepage, in addition data is kept of the multiple contacts and outreach efforts made in the community.
II. Exploration of relationship with local, regional and national educational computer networking, broadcasting, and other telecommunications services beyond those of the original partnership
We fully recognize the importance of establishing additional relationships with organization that pursues similar goals of accessible telecommunication services to the community, as a result we have worked toward establishing a CIN council and formilize our relationship with the State of Missouri.via the Missouri Express project.
A. The Civic Network Council of St. Louis
To ensure a community wide resource, the St. Louis CIN convened several major St. Louis Institutions to explore avenues to formalize the relationship among various institutions whose mission is to provide the public with relevant and current information. As a result of this effort, the St. Louis Public Library, St. Louis Public Schools, Harris-Stowe State College, and St. Louis Community College at Forest Park have agreed to form the Civic Network Council of St. Louis with the goal of pursuing community networking as a coordinated effort.
B. The Missouri Express application
St. Louis CIN with the endorsement of the Civic Network Council has been pursuing the State initiated Missouri Express project. The project is a state initiative that intends to assist communities in providing essential information services and telecommunication capabilities to their citizens through collaboration with local community agencies. The goal of the project is to help create local information systems so that a community or group of communities can make government and community-oriented information available to the public in electronic form. A successful application will establish a beneficial relationship between the State Government and the St. Louis CIN.
III. Status of services currently available
A. Homepage
B. Public Access Sites
C. Training & Outreach
IV. Status of demographics of local area with access to services
The St. Louis CIN project has placed a special emphasis on the geography that makes up the St. Louis Enterprise Community (EC). Because the area is one of the city most economically distressed areas (see table 1), consumer penetration is very challenging.
Table 1: DEMOGRAPHIC DATA FOR THE ENTERPRISE COMMUNITY
The only way for residents of the EC to access CIN and the Internet is by using public access computers . Our partner Grace Hill Neighborhood Services which is responsible for the deployment and staffing of our public access computers has not released recent user data, however, they estimate an average of five to ten users access the site each day. These numbers would indicate 3000 to 6000 log-ins per month for the six public access sites. These users closely reflects the demographic data provided in Table 1 since Grace Hill serves exclusively low-income residents.
Other users consists of approximately 15 regular users in City Government and on demand access to additional 150 users within the economic and community development branch of the City.
V. Status of # of users/frequency and nature of utilization
Our plan to enable dial-up access has been dalyed by the impending relocation of the St. Louis Development Corporation offices to a new address. The move is scheduled for the last week of February 1997. Although the move has delayed our ability to install our modem pool, the lag time has enabled CIN to upgrade its modem pool from 15 lines to 48. This upgrade will ensure a respectable us to easily add additonal phone lines to ensure a good modem/dial-up user ratio.
A. Developed 100 day plan to connect City Government Departments
Connected six departments. The remaining departments will be connected starting March 1997, after the St. Louis Development Corporation relocates to new offices and can provide dial-up service to departments not located in the same building. Primary use by the current departments is for research and access to online information developed by various federal departments. Few departments are now developing their own content to place on line.
B. Web space available to users in the non-profit sector.
1. Provided web space access to three neighborhood groups to empower their community to post resources, information, announcements that are relevant and useful to members of their own community.
2. Established web space access for three organizations who are collaborating with CIN in providing relevant content to the mental health, substance abuse, and youth services community.
Although, no additional content has been develop yet by these organizations, we have been working with developing an HTML training to assist individuals of these organizations to format their own content.
VI. Status of host internet server & communication system
A. Connected Cisco Server in Columbia and COM Server in the St. Louis Development Offices.
B. Installed 56 kb line from our COM Server to local hub of Missouri backbone
C. Created gateway between COM server and Novell network, making the Internet accessible department wide
D. Transfer of homepage content from the Washington University server to our server maintained by MORENet in Columbia.
E. Established 5 public access site with Internet access to CIN. Seventeen existing sites will be provided connectivity to the Internet in the next year.
III. Development of initial version of GIS applets
With the assistance of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology we have developed a Virtual Reality (VR) prototype which features St. Louis' Metrolink system, our light rail system. This cutting edge technology enables viewer to have a first hand experience of the light rail system by experiencing the geography surrounding the stations as well as the ride.
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