Community Inquiry Labs (iLabs)
Community iLabs Collaborative
Champaign, United States of America
Ann Peterson Bishop
abishop@uiuc.edu
Chip Bruce
chip@uiuc.edu
M. Cameron Jones
mjones2@uiuc.edu
Description
The community iLabs collaborative is a group of people from all walks of life who have developed a suite of open source software tools that are free for anyone's use. The iLab software suite is under continual development, with new applications (which we call tools or bricks) being added and other improvements always underway (see the iLabs homepage at http://www.inquiry.uiuc.edu/ilabs).
iLabs could be classified under the heading of content management and collaboration software. Currently available in the suite of iLab tools are, for example, a blog, calendar, syllabus, bulletin board, document center (for uploading and managing files), and a generator for online "inquiry units." Under development are a photo gallery and a catalog.
We base our work on the philosophy of American pragmatists John Dewey and Jane Addams, who sought to integrate in a democratic and participatory way: learning with everyday life; experience with reflection; and the diverse perspectives of people with different backgrounds and histories. iLab collaborative participants include university faculty, students, and staff; k-12 teachers, and community activists. The catalog tool, for example, results from a collaboration whose primary participants are iLab student programmers at the University of Illinois and youth and neighborhood volunteers at the Puerto Rican Cultural Center in Chicago (see the PRCC website at http:www.prcc-chgo.org).
We would like to make a push in the coming year to further develop, document and promote iLabs as a kind of "community network in a box" application that any community could use to jumpstart an interactive website that could launch community networking enterprise. What makes iLabs a bit easier to get started with than similar systems like drupal, is that you do not have to have your own server or download and install software. You create your iLab website by simply filling out a webform.
To accomplish this, we need students who could work with some community groups to try out iLabs and then contribute what they are learning through their use to help us make whatever enhancements seem most appropriate and desirable. Students could develop the software tools, improve and expand documentation to make it better suited and easier to understand for community groups, and design and implement a strategy to make the availability of iLabs for community networking better known. For example, iLabs are known to the Association for Community Networking and some individual community networks like Prairienet (http://www.prairienet.org). But we have not yet developed the ideal "splash page" and documentation that could be posted on AFCN and Prairienet to help users/members of such CN organizations more easily take up and use iLabs for their own purposes.Expectations
To make a customized and customizable version of iLab software readily and freely available to community organizations. To contribute to our understanding of how to create communityware in an inclusive, equitable and enjoyable manner.
What proposer can provide for Evergreen
The opportunity to experience and contribute to a community of learning and action that combines civic engagement and software development.
Reasons to collaborate
1) Because they seem to be a creative, energetic, and smart group of folks who share our commitment to the "core values" and are supported by faculty and an institution that encourage them to experiment with new things and take some risks.
2) Because we want to further test our model for distributed cooperative development of communityware software and improve our ability to engage in service-learning.
3) Because the collaborative efforts there tend to include strong components of action, reflection, diffusion, publication.