Community level access

Continuing along the access chain, local communities have two linkages; to infrastructures, such as communications systems; and to educational providers beyond the community, which may use community facilities as venues to deliver programs locally. As well, larger communities with their own educational institutions may serve as a hub for smaller communities.

Some issues related to community access to advanced communications systems have already been noted. The concept of community learning facilities and how they are changing as a result of new learning technologies, is explored below.

Community learning facilities

The idea of a community facility that serves as a venue for a variety of learning programs offered by a number of different educational providers, distant and/or local, is one that has been introduced, with varying degrees of success, in Newfoundland, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario Saskatchewan, and British Columbia. As well, northern communities in the territories are developing learning sites, and various networks of learning sites are being set up in aboriginal communities. How well community facilities are used, and by whom, and to what extent they meet the needs of learners, depends on a complex array of factors ranging from internal community politics to the location of the building where they are housed.

At the community level, there is a possibility that technology needs will increase over time. In the 1980's, when Contact North¹⁵ began, basic equipment for the first learning sites comprised audio conference equipment, fax machines, and a computer for the local site facilitator. Now, most Contact North community learning facilities have conferencing equipment, (audio graphics and/or videoconferencing) and computers that can provide learners with Internet access.

There is also the question of how many sites are enough to meet local needs, and which communities receive which type of service. A case in point: learners in one major prairie city traveled 200 km, once a week in winter conditions to reach the location of a videoconference class being delivered from a third prairie city, because the program was delivered to very few sites. The example raises the question of why the learners' home city of 60,000 people would not have community site access to videoconferencing. (Another question is whether the learners, if asked, might have preferred local access to audio conferencing rather than driving that distance to obtain access to videoconferencing.)

New technologies and community access

With the advent of SchoolNet, the federally initiated program to link all schools and libraries to the Internet by 1998, there is increasing interest in having public access to this system available locally in more and more communities.

Local libraries or local schools may agree to offer access to the public, but there must still be sufficient resources available to provide a reasonable number of well equipped computers and staff (volunteer or paid) to help train learners in using the systems. Another initiative, supported by Industry Canada, is the Community Access Program, in which communities submit applications for up to $30,000 in funding to establish a community access facility that enables residents to use computers with Internet access. However, the emphasis of CAP appears to be more on business related uses of the Internet than on its use for adult learning. As well, CAP's information materials and application process make no mention of access issues for any equity groups.

In either situation, simply having equipment available is just the first step. It may take a concerted effort by learners and facilitators to make sure a community facility provides access to learning and offers the privacy and uninterrupted use of equipment that learners need. As well, learners need to be able to become familiar with the technology. Training in computer use works best when it is adaptable to the needs of the learners, rather than a "one size fits all" approach. Women have reported they feel more comfortable when working with other women, and when having an opportunity to explore for themselves how a system works rather than simply be given directions.

Local Internet access

Another technical aspect of access relevant at the community level is that of Internet service provision. An Internet service provider (ISP) maintains the linking systems (computers, phone lines and software) that serve as the bridge between the individual computer users' modem and tile network of networks that is termed the Internet. Although there are increasing numbers of cooperative, public and private ISP enterprises, access to the Internet is by no means ubiquitous in Canada. Those who have no local ISP have to dial long distance to reach one, which can be very costly.

Although many ISP's are at present small enterprises, there are predictions that they could be amalgamated into much larger corporations, much as local cable companies merged into large companies during the past two decades. The advent of local monopolies in Internet access may have the outcome of increasing costs to the user, thus limiting access.

There is also a question about what type of Internet people will be able to access in the future. Plans are well underway for academic institutions, the original main users of the Internet, to withdraw from this system and set up their own Internet. (dubbed Internet II), possibly leaving behind the increasingly commercialized supermarket of infomercials that bulk up the World Wide Web.¹⁶ It is not possible to determine what this will mean for access to learning opportunities via the Internet, but it seems likely to complicate the situation for learners for some time to come.

Women's Internet communities

One interesting example of using Internet access for non formal learning is that of women's communities established on the Internet. These provide a supportive atmosphere for women new to computers and the Internet, through both local and "virtual" communities, where women are in communication in person and/or by computer.¹⁷ They represent considerable potential for providing women with access to the type of nonformal learning that occurs through interaction and exchange in a supportive environment.