Progress 08/15/08 to 08/14/10
Outputs
OUTPUTS: The overall goal of the project, which became known as CommunityTies.Us (also its URL), was to develop a community-based intervention to increase the community attachment to stem the "bright flight" of talented rural youth by showing youth that there are future roles for them in the information economy in their home communities. During this two-year project formal instruction in web design was delivered to 54 students in three rural high schools in Michigan who received college credit. The students created community web pages and implemented promotional activities targeted to the general student populations in four participating high schools in Grand Traverse, Marquette, Otsego and Oscoda Counties in Michigan. The general school populations were invited to participate in social networking web sites that connected rural youth with small business entrepreneurs from their home counties at http://communityties.us. Community development forums, contacts with community partner organizations, and a variety of online promotions involving Facebook, Twitter and Google were used to recruit local entrepreneurs and other adult community members to participate in the project. College and high school student were hired in each community to make phone and in-person contacts with local entrepreneurs and to promote the project in local schools. Internships for rural high school and college students were promoted and awarded through the website to promote participation. A total of 491 rural high school students from the participating high schools joined the web site, where they posted profiles describing their aspirational future career, internship interests, volunteer activity preferences, what they liked about living in their community, the community activities that they participated in, and what they could help to improve their community. The students were joined by 243 adult community partners drawn from the local business community who provided virtual job shadows that gave youth insight into the daily activities involved in their professions. Participating businesses also listed themselves in a community directory on the website. The CommunityTies web sites received a total of 15,471 visits over the course of the project. Web sites were developed by project staff to facilitate online interactions for the purpose of organizing two industry clusters to promote economic development, one for a professional association of rural information technology professionals in Northern Michigan and the other for a new tourism promotion organization serving the Au Sable River Valley. Information about the project was disseminated through 26 media appearances in local newspaper, radio and television outlets. Presentations about the project were made at the National Communication Association meeting in 2009 and the International Communication Association meeting in 2010. The online course was continued in one of the high schools after the termination of the project. The two industry cluster web sites were also being used on a continuing basis as of this writing. PARTICIPANTS: Participants Dr. Robert LaRose Project director Dr. Charles Steinfield Co-Principal Investigator Dr. Pamela Whitten Co-Principal Investigator Dr. Cliff Lampe Co-Principal Investigator Wanda Repke Project Manager Rebecca Roth Research Assistant Han Ei Chew Research Assistant Jillian Winn Web course instructor Brandon Black Web master Partners Michigan Small Business & Technology Development Center (MSBTDC) Michigan State University Extension (MSUE), Grand Traverse County Lake Superior Community Partnership (LSCP) Northern Michigan University Center for Economic and Entrepreneurship Education The E Loft Oscoda County Chamber of Commerce Economic Development Alliance for Oscoda County Michigan State University ExtensionTreetops Resort Otsego Memorial Hospital - Community Education Michigan State University Extension, Otsego County Contacts are too numerous to list here. Refer to the final technical report. Professional development was provided to 92 attendees at community development forums. 12 high school and college students were trained as community organizers. TARGET AUDIENCES: The target audiences were high schools and small business entrepreneurs in Grand Traverse, Marquette, Otsego and Oscoda counties in Michigan. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: The role of community organizers was not defined in the original proposal. These were local high school and college youth who were hired to undertake promotional activities in their high schools and among local business communities. The community development forums were designed to fulfill this function but failed to reach a critical mass of participants due in part to a pervasive mood of economic despair that had struck the target communities by spring of 2009 when the events took place. Also, it snowed.
Impacts
The outcomes of the project were evaluated through the use of a pre-post, quasi-experimental design involving three separate populations: small business entrepreneurs, high school students enrolled in web classes, and students from the general student bodies at the participating schools. A total of 857 small business entrepreneurs, 445 high school students and 54 web class students participated in the evaluation. Independent samples were drawn for the pretest and the posttest for the small business and general student body surveys. Multi-item measures keyed to project objectives were developed and administered through mail surveys to samples of entrepreneurs and mailed to the homes of members of the general student bodies of the participating high schools using the tailored design method. Pre-post surveys were distributed in class to those enrolled in the web design classes. Among the web class students there was a significant pre-post increase in networking efficacy, or their ability to obtain social support through the Internet. This effect was strongest in the two smallest schools. In the high school where the web classes were best integrated into the curriculum and routines of the school there were small gains in community participation, the formation of social ties with other members of the local community, and community attachment. At the posttest, 24 percent of the students in the general student bodies of the participating schools reported exposure to project activities. There were significant pre-post gains in networking efficacy, but again only in the smallest of the participating schools where 60 percent of the students reported exposure. However, comparing those reporting exposure to the project with those unexposed, students surveyed from the general student body at that same high school reported a decrease in community attachment. There were consistent, but statistically non-significant, gains in perceived information technology skills such as making personal web pages, among those exposed to the intervention in all four communities. At posttest, 8 percent of the small business entrepreneurs who completed mail surveys reported exposure to activities sponsored by the project, with stories in local newspapers the most frequently cited source of information. There were no overall significant changes between pretest and posttest, although there were consistent but statistically insignificant upturns in perceived cooperation among firms in the same industry and in beliefs about the importance of information technology in each of the three small business communities surveyed. Comparing the small business entrepreneurs who were exposed to CommunityTies activities with those who were not, there were very slight, but positive differences in business success, perceptions of cooperation within industries, and beliefs in the importance of information technology for business success that were consistent in all three communities. The full results of the evaluation may be found in the technical report posted at http://www.msu.edu/~larose/communityties.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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Progress 08/15/08 to 08/14/09
Outputs
OUTPUTS: Three community development forums were delivered in participating communities, reaching over 100 participants. Pretest mail surveys were completed with 200 high school students and 300 small businesses. An additional 320 surveys were completed by university students to assess their needs for internships in participating rural communities. 15 stories disseminating information about the project appeared in local media outlets. Twenty community organizers were hired from among high school and college students in local communities to disseminate project-related information resulting in approximately 1500 personal and telephone contacts with potential community partners. Four online classes were delivered to 70 high school students resulting in the creation of three community web sites by local youth. 130 web pages were created for local businesses. Four social networking websites were created by project staff in local communities that currently have 482 registered users. The master gateway website may be found at http://communityties.us. American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (ARRA) proposals for the development of community computing centers and sustainable broadband adoption in the State of Michigan were prepared that incorporated the key concepts of the present grant and extended them state-wide through a collaboration with the State of Michigan's Department of Information Technology. PARTICIPANTS: Individuals:Robert LaRose, PI, overall project management, survey research. Charles Steinfield, co-PI, senior project consultant for SME activities. Pamela Whitten, co-PI, Senior project consultant. Cliff Lampe, co-PI, senior Web and online consultant. Jillian Winn, Online class instructor and web designer. Wanda Repke, Project manager. Han Ei Chew, survey research assistant. Rebecca Roth, Assistant project manager and public relations specialist. Partner organizations and collaborators include Northern Michigan University, MSU Extension, Center for Rural Entrepreneurship, Connectech, Great Lakes Center for Youth Development, Traverse City Area Public Schools, Ishpeming Public Schools, Gaylord Public Schools, Fairview Area Schools, Traverse City Young Professionals, Michigan Small Business and Technology Development Center, Northern Initiatives, Great Lakes Entrepreneurs Quest, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Traverse City United Way. Training or professional development was delivered to 70 high school students participating in online classes, to 100 attendees at community forums, and to 20 community organizers employed by the project. Personal or phone contacts have been made with approximately 1500 local entrepreneurs. TARGET AUDIENCES: The primary target audiences are rural youth enrolled in high schools and colleges and rural entrepreneurs located in the Marquette, Grand Traverse, Oscoda, and Otsego counties in Michigan. The relationship of target audiences to efforts is specified above in the impacts section. PROJECT MODIFICATIONS: A series of community forums were planned to spark community-wide interest in the online activities that are the centerpiece of this project. These were held last spring but produced disappointing turnouts which we attributed to a combination of bad weather and a bad economy (two of our counties are consistently among the top 10 in unemployment in the entire country). To stimulate the participation of entrepreneurs and students we have hired youth from local high schools and colleges to make direct contacts with entrepreneurs and fellow students and this is beginning to produce the desired results. We are also using online advertising to attract participants to our websites. Also, our plans to organize business clusters online have been frustrated by Great Recession. One potentially promising cluster, in timber and wood products, is literally going out of business in Northern Michigan. So, we are re-grouping to emphasize service and recreational industries over resource extraction and manufacturing. Finally, we will supplement the pre-post surveys with through follow-up surveys among youth and entrepreneurs who actively participate in our online network activities.
Impacts
The overall impact of the project will be assessed after a posttest of local high school students and entrepreneurs in participating rural communities is completed next spring. The contributions to date of the resources and activities to project outcomes and impacts are as follows: For youth, 1.Increase community attachment: Has been achieved by attendance at community forums, developing community web pages and participating in social networking sites. 2. Enhance ICT efficacy: by delivering ICT courses in local high schools and training for community organizers. 3. Awareness of local entrepreneurial careers: through attendance at community forums, online social networking with local entrepreneurs and direct contacts by community organizers. 4. Expand local social circles online: through participation in online social networking. 4. Increase community participation: via the design of community websites by youth and participation in online forums 5. Increase contacts with entrepreneurs: through online social networking and contacts between community organizers and entrepreneurs 6.Internship and job placement: through an online exchange of internship and job openings offered by entrepreneurs and desired by youth. For small and medium enterprises, 1. Expand local business connections: through participation in community forums and online social networking 2. Expand geographic scope: through the creation of web pages for local businesses that did not have them previously 3. Increase community participation: through contributions to online forums 4.Create openings for youth: through an online job and internship listing exchange 5.Strengthen norms for cooperation: through press coverage of our project in local media and participation in online forums 6.Increase cooperative activities: through social networking participation 7.Increase collective efficacy: through local media coverage, the enthusiasm of community organizers who make personal contacts, and online discussion. 7.Increase reliance on ICT: by introducing entrepreneurs to the benefits of having an online presence.
Publications
- No publications reported this period
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