Enabling access to
participation
Steve Vosloo
Fellow, 21st century learning
Presented at Web4Dev, New York, 11 February 2009
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my point: access to information
2

my point: access to information
access to participation
3
While nobody disputes the criticality for development
of being able to access information, what we should
really be aiming for is providing access to
participation.

4
From 2003-2006 I was the Usability Project Leader on the
Cape Gateway portal, which provided access to
government information and services for the citizens of
the Western Cape, South Africa.
Very successful project; won awards; 3 languages, 3
channels of access; grew from 40,000 to 60,000 pages.
Two problems we encountered: 1) some information,
especially around services and contact details, would
quickly become outdated, and 2) while we pointed
people to the correct place to, e.g. renew their car
license, the actual service they received might not have
been good enough. So their total experience of
government may have started well, but ended badly,
without them receiving proper service.
What to do? Park that question – I'll come back to it.

5
In 2006/07 I spent a year at Stanford University, in
the heart of Silicon Valley. Stanford alumni have
founded Google, Yahoo and Cisco.
For a South African who had been on dial-up at home
it was mind-blowing.
It was here that I really began to understand what
web 2.0 was all about.
Image of Stanford's Hoover Tower by Brian's Tree
http://www.flickr.com/photos/briantree/421094976/sizes/l/
CC-BY-NC-ND-2.0

Web 2.0 ... an “architecture of participation”
(O'Reilly, 2005)
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O'Reilly, T. (2005). Web 2.0: Compact Definition?
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2005/10/web-20-compact-definitio
Image of Tim O'Reilly by gkpsecretariat:
http://flickr.com/photos/globalknowledgepartnership/4634839
CC-BY-NC-2.0

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expression , games,
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(Jenkins e
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In the paper referenced in the slide, as well as in Jenkins' book
Convergence Culture he presents the idea of a participatory culture,
where people want to create and share information, and not just
passively consume it.
“A participatory culture is also one in which members believe their
contributions matter, and feel some degree of social connection with
one another (at the least they care what other people think about what
they have created). A participatory culture is a culture with relatively
low barriers to artistic expression and civic engagement, strong
support for creating and sharing one’s creations ...”
Focus on online social networks, blogs, podcasts, video production, fan
fiction, remixing, MMORPGs, etc. Largely about “widespread
participation in the production and distribution of media.”
Pew study from 2005: one-half of all teens have created media content,
and roughly one third of teens who use the Internet have shared
content they produced. That figure is now much higher. The United
States is a PC-based web society, so the experience is in rich
multimedia
Jenkins, H., Clinton, K., Purushotma, R., Robison, A. J., & Weigel, M.
(2006). Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media
Education for the 21st Century. Retrieved October 31, 2007, from
http://www.digitallearning.macfound.org/atf/cf/%7B7E45C7E0-A3E0-4B89-AC9C-E8
Image of Henry Jenkins by Joi Ito:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/2258124778/sizes/l/. CC-By-2.0

are we a participatory culture?
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As I headed back to South Africa, I asked: “is this
applicable to us, a developing country?”
Our technology landscape is vastly different. Our
cultural context is different. Are we 5 or 10 years
behind the USA in technology as well as our
approach to it?
I was caught up in the allure of Facebook and
YouTube and all things new, shiny and needing
broadband, and struggled to see a participatory
culture in the developing world.
I have spent just over a year looking at projects in SA
and other developing countries, having
conversations with practitioners ... and the answer I
have arrived at is an overwhelming ...
Image of Gugulethu by teachandlearn
http://www.flickr.com/photos/teachandlearn/2845916518/si
CC-BY-NC-SA-2.0

s different ...
but it'
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Yes! The desire to participate and the benefits of
participation are the same.
But it looks different ...
Image of yes by (michelle)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eyefruit/179553810/sizes/l/
CC-BY-NC-SA-2.0

Click to add title
it's mobile
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In the developing world, participation will be largely
through the mobile phone.

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It's mobile
Online access: 1bn (source:
http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10149534-93.html)
Mobile access: 4bn (source:
http://www.thetelecom.co.uk/20081001/un-4bn-mobile-users-by-2009/
)
In South Africa: 72% of 15-24 year olds own a cell phone. Only
17% ever used the Internet. 6% use it (almost) daily. 9% have
Internet access at home. Source: Young South AfricAnS,
BroAdcASt MediA, And hiV/AidS AwAreneSS: Results of a
NatioNal suRvey by the Kaiser Family Foundation & SABC
(MaRch 2007)
Mobile phones and teens in South Africa: the authors call it a
“social revolution.” Oelofse, C., De Jager, A., & Ford, M. The
Digital Profile of a Teenage Cell Phone User. Short paper at the
mLearn 2006 conference. October 2006. Banff, Alberta, Canada.
Image of mobile phone by ICT4D.at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ict4d/3000017623/sizes/l/ CC-BY-
SA-2.0

Click to add title
contributions (not only creations)
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Contributions
Participation is not only about rich media creation,
e.g. Wikipedia ...

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It can also be about contributions. It can be a much
simpler, faster form of contribution, e.g. Ushahidi,
as used by AlJazeera Labs as they document the
war on Gaza through citizen journalism.
http://labs.aljazeera.net/warongaza/
Ushahidi (http://www.ushahidi.com), “which means
“testimony” in Swahili, where we are building a
platform that crowdsources crisis information.
Allowing anyone to submit crisis information
through text messaging using a mobile phone,
email or web form.”

Cro
wd­
s
the ourcin
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ld
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Contributions in an economic development sense.
Txteagle (http://txteagle.com): “There are over 1.5
billion literate, mobile phone subscribers in the
developing world, many living on less than $3 a
day. Corporations pay people to accomplish
millions of simple text-based tasks. txteagle
enables these tasks to be completed via text
message by ordinary people around the globe.”
See also: Crowd-Sourcing the World: A startup hopes
to tap into the expertise of developing nations via
cell phones. By Kate Greene
http://www.technologyreview.com/business/21983/?a=f

Click to add title
involvement: light and lo­tech
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SMS can be used to topple
governments and tip elections
(Rheingold, 2005)
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Involvement
US-style participation often involves blogs, videos,
letters, etc.
In developing countries, participatory campaigns
involve forwarding an SMS to self-organise for
mass action (often in person).
See examples by Howard Rheingold (2005):
http://www.thefeaturearchives.com/topic/Culture/Political_T
SETI is actually a developed country example of
enabling minimal effort participation It elicits a
sense of involvement, of being part of a project, a
quest.
Image of Howard Rheingold by Joi Ito:
http://flickr.com/photos/joi/2121483378/sizes/l/in/photostream
CC-By-2.0

Click to add title
connectedness: small and lo­tech
18

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Connectedness
In the US, connectedness is through Facebook. The
thinking is big.
But of course, connectedness can also be about
small.
In rural Mexico it is through project Zumbido. Groups
of only ten people providing HIV/AIDS support for
each other through SMS and voice. See
http://event.stockholmchallenge.se/project/2008/Health/Pro

Click to add title
conversation: light and lo­tech
20

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Conversations
YouTube videos that are “in response to” other
videos are a “conversation.”
Example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tx5KDyvlG3Q

dr.math: What grade are you in? what are you covering in math?
Spark plug: 7
dr.math: grade 7?
Spark plug: yes
dr.math: are u doing \"pre algebra\" stuff like What is the value of X if x + 3 = 10?
Spark plug: yes
dr.math: ok, so what is the value of x if x + 3 = 10?
Spark plug: 7
dr.math: ok. how about (15 x 2 ) + x = 35
Spark plug: 5
dr.math: (I am going to use * for multiply so not to confuse it with x, ok?)
Spark plug: ok
dr.math: (2 * x) + 8 = 18
Spark plug: 5
dr.math: very good. can you explain to me how you figured that out?
Spark plug: 18 ­ 8 is 10 so 2* what is 10 and the answer is 5
dr.math: Excellent.
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This is conversation SA­style between a university tutor and grade 7
learner, happening via mobile instant messaging.
Dr Math is a maths tutoring service to school learners that uses MXit, a
South African mobile instant messaging service.
2­8pm, Sunday­Thursday, with some 20 tutors.
1 tutor can handle about 100 kids an hour.
3,200 learners have used service (from grade 3 up)
Tutoring mostly done in English, but some Afrikaans cases are occurring
Learners contact Dr Math from their homes, while on buses, taxis and on
the sports field. Even from the bath!
LATEST: Text­adventure game (interactive fiction)
See:
http://innovatingeducation.wordpress.com/conference­notes/schools­ict­conference­
Text for the image: Butgereit, L. (2007). Math on MXit: Using MXit as a
Medium for Mathematics Education. Presented at Meraka INNOVATE
Conference for Educators, CSIR, Pretoria, 18­20 April 2007.
http://researchspace.csir.co.za/dspace/handle/10204/1614

so why participatory? inclusion
ownership
empowerment
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A “participatory” approach is not new to development,
e.g. participatory community development,
participatory design of projects, etc. It is an
inclusive, bottom-up approach that is valuable for
all of the old reasons.
More empowered conception of citizenship (Jenkins
et al., 2006)

not new, but different ... cheaper
easier
faster
more visible
potential for more
people
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But in a web 2.0 world, it is different ...
Both the development of systems that enable
participation and also the act of participating are
now:
cheaper
•
easier
•
faster
•
more visible
•
potential for more people
•

which leads to ... greater access to
information
better data
peer­to­peer learning
across time and
space (Jenkins et al.,
2006)
more self­organisation
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And brings with it new benefits in addition to the old
benefits of participation.

The barriers to self­organisation have collapsed
(Shirky, 2008)
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Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing
Without Organizations by Clay Shirky, 2008
Image of Clay Shirky by Joi Ito:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/joi/1397946225/sizes/l/
CC-By-2.0

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Let's get back to Cape Gateway.
I should've asked: access to information for who? For the
citizens, or for government? Both of course.
I should've enabled citizen participation. They could let us
know about incorrect information and comment or rate
every service.
I should've realised that we were no longer the
gatekeepers to information.

are we enabling access easy enough?
to participation? safe enough?
affordable enough?
meaningful enough?
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My conclusion:
Participation is good
●
It is very much a developing country thing
●
It just looks different
●
We need to ask ourselves: are we enabling access to
participation?

Thank you
Email
steve.vosloo@shuttleworthfoundation.org
Twitter
www.twitter.com/stevevosloo
Blog
innovatingeducation.wordpress.com
Slides
www.slideshare.net/stevevosloo
www.shuttleworthfoundation.org