Purpose: The main objective of this survey is to gather
data about the current state of state-funded community
networks (CNs) in Indiana. The survey will be used to
develop an inventory of the resources and services made
available through the CNs and to collect management information,
including statements of local goals, planning, and methods
of evaluation. Information will be collected about the successes,
challenges, and failures faced by CNs in the last year.
This information will also enable the researchers to assess
the cooperative strategies currently used by existing CNs,
critically examine the means by which potential users and
content providers can be made aware of the value of
community networking, and focus on the public education
and public library components of community networking.
Your cooperation is essential in this study. We hope that
you will take the time to fill out and use the enclosed
envelope to return this survey; you may also fax the
survey to 812.855.6166 if this is more convenient. The data
collected in this survey will be aggregated for reporting
purposes, so individual responses will be anonymous and
will remain confidential.
We would appreciate the return of the completed survey
by Friday, October 4, 1997.
Questions regarding this survey should be addressed to:
Dr. Howard Rosenbaum
<hrosenba@indiana.edu>
Main Library 011
School of Library and Information Science
10th and Jordan
Indiana University
Bloomington, Indiana 47405-1801
821.855.3250 (Voice)
812.855.6166 (Fax)
A. The Community Network Board of Directors:
1. How many Board members do you have? ____
a. What sectors of the community are represented
on the board?
| __ K-12
| __ Private citizen
| __ Public library
|
| __ Local business
| __ Local government
| __ Local university/college
|
| __ Other
(please describe):
|
b. How are candidates recruited for the Board?
c. How many Board meetings were held last year? _____
How many did you attend? _____
2. Which of the following best describes the Board's
decision making process?
| __ Robert's Rules of Order
| __ Consensus building
|
| __ Majority voting
| __ Other (please describe):
|
3.In your opinion, what are the three most important
decisions the Board made in the last year?
B. The CN and the community
4.How satisfied are you with the current relationship
between the CN and the community (Circle one)?
| Very unsatisfied
| MoveMoveMoveMove!!!
Neutral
| Very satisfied
|
a. Briefly describe the relationship between the CN and the
community
b. How does the CN strengthen the "sense of community"?
c. What has the community done to support the CN?
d. What are the measures that you look for to indicate
the impact the CN is having on the community?
5.How many users do you have?
| Individual _____
| K-12 (teachers, staff) _____
| Business _____
|
| Public library (librarians) _____
| Govt/non-profits _____
|
|
| Total number (if you can't
break them out into categories) _____
|
a. Briefly describe your typical individual users
b. Why are they using the system?
c. How many users do you gain from month to month? ____
d. How many users do you lose from month to month? ____
1. Why do they leave the CN?
e. How do you communicate with your users (Check all that apply)?
| __ Email
| __ Newsletter
| __ Web page announcements
|
| __ Local media
| __ Bill insert
| __ Other (please specify)
|
f. Which of the following describe your typical
communications with your users (Check all that apply)?
__ Feedback about current and proposed content
__ Soliciting information about what the resources and
services they want
__ Feedback about how they think the CN is doing
__ Information about power outages, downtime and
maintenance
__ Other (please describe):
6. Who develops content for the CN? (Check all
that apply)
| __ Board Members
| __ Subcontractors
|
| __ CN members
| __ Non-members
|
a. Have you funded content development? Yes ___ No ___
1. If yes, briefly describe the process (competitive
grants...)
2. What limitations did funders place on you
(in the AI money for example) in the type of content
that you could pay to have developed?
7. Do you have any paying advertisers or
sponsors on your site? Yes ___ No ___
If no, skip to Question 8
a. How did you set your rates?
b. What are your rates for different sized
businesses?
c. What are your rates for profit/non-profit
organizations?
d. What are your rates for companies in your
area vs. outside of the area?
e. Do you have any restrictions about who may
advertise on or sponsor your CN? Yes ___ No ___
1. If yes, who may not advertise or provide sponsorship?
f. Do you have any restrictions about advertising
or sponsorship content? Yes ___ No ___
1. If yes, what are they?
2. Do you provide statistics to the businesses
about users or about usage, such as the number
of hits on their page each month? Yes ___ No ___
g. Have any businesses stopped running their
advertising or sponsorship? Yes ___ No ___
1. If yes, why?
8. How are you promoting and marketing the CN?
(Check all that apply)?
| __Word of mouth
| __ Press releases
| __ Newspaper advertising
|
| __ Radio advertising
| __ Organizational newsletters
| __ Direct mail
|
| __ Appearance at public
events (fairs, festivals, demos)
| __ Other (please describe):
|
a. In your opinion, how successful are these efforts (Circle one)?
| Very unsuccessful
| MoveMoveMoveMove!!!
No Effect
| Very successful
|
9. Please describe the relationship between the
CN and the local schools (in the space below)
a. What types of programs is the CN running with
the schools?
b. How many teachers have been trained how to use
the features of the CN? ___
c. How many students have been trained? ___
10. Please describe the relationship between the
CN and the local public libraries (in the space below)
a. What types of programs is the CN running with
the libraries?
b. How many librarians have been trained how to use
the features of the CN? ___
c. How many library patrons have been trained? ___
11. What other organizations/companies/groups in the
community work with the CN? (Please list)
a. How do these organizations/companies/groups use the CN
12. Do you use volunteers? Yes ___ No __
If yes, please answer (a) to (c); if no, skip to (d)
a. How many? ___
b. What are their main tasks?
c. How do you recruit them?
d. Please explain why you do not use volunteers
C. Your CN (Goals, resources and services, costs)
13.In your opinion, what were the three most important
challenges the CN faced in the last year? (List below)
a. How did you resolve them?
b. In your opinion, what is the CN's biggest challenge
in the next 12 months?
14.In your opinion, what are the three most important
successes accomplished by the CN in the last year
15.In your opinion, what has been the CN's biggest
failure?
a. Why do think this happened?
b. How did you deal with it?
16. In your opinion, what should be the main goal
of the CN for the next year?
17. Please assess the long term financial stability
of the network (Circle one)
| Very Unstable
| Unstable
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| Stable
| Very Stable
|
a. What strategies is the Board pursuing to achieve
sustainability? (List below)
1. In your opinion, what are the three greatest obstacles
that the CN has to overcome to achieve sustainability?
2. What other revenue streams is the CN investigating?
3. What information would you need to help you investigate
sustainability issues?
4. Who have you talked to in the community about
sustainability for the CN?
b. When would you estimate that the network will
achieve self-sufficiency?
c. Who have you approached about grants, matching funds,
donations
1. Was the effort successful? Yes __ No __
18. What are the CN's revenues? Monthly ____
Quarterly ____
a. What are the sources of these revenues?
b. When do your contracts for T1 or modem pool
access need to be renegotiated? _________
1. Do you expect the cost to increase or decrease?
2. Do you have plans to change who manages your
server in the future? Yes __ No __
a. Why?
19.What do you charge for membership?
| Individual
members ________
| Commercial
members________
| Non-profit
members________
|
a. What do you get rebated back from the ISP
per user?
20. Which of the following do you host on your CN
(Check all that apply; if none apply, please skip
to (d))?
| __ Personal webpages for users
| __ Chat rooms/groups
| __ Pages for commercial or
organizational members
|
| __ Threaded discussions
| __ Local USENET newsgroups
| __ Listservs
|
| __ Other USENET
newsgroups
|
a. In your opinion, how satisfied are your users with
these services?
| Very Dissatisfied
| Neutral
| Very satisfied
|
| Personal
pages
| 1
| 2
| 3
| 4
| 5
| 6
| 7
|
| Commercial
Org. Pages
| 1
| 2
| 3
| 4
| 5
| 6
| 7
|
| Local USENET
| 1
| 2
| 3
| 4
| 5
| 6
| 7
|
| Other USENET
| 1
| 2
| 3
| 4
| 5
| 6
| 7
|
| Chat
| 1
| 2
| 3
| 4
| 5
| 6
| 7
|
| Threaded
Discussions
| 1
| 2
| 3
| 4
| 5
| 6
| 7
|
| Listservs
| 1
| 2
| 3
| 4
| 5
| 6
| 7
|
b. Do you mention these services in your
advertising? Yes ___ No ___
c.What are the most heavily used resources/
services/pages of your CN?
| __ Communication
| __ Community/organizational
information
| __ Community calendar
| __ Directory information
| __ Local school information
| __ User home pages
| __ Other (
please describe:)
| | |
d. If you have none of these services, why did you
decide not to host them?
f. What new features/content would you like to see
on the CN?
21. Have there been any discussions about a policy
regarding the issue of censorship? Yes ___ No ___
1. If yes, have you censored any personal or organizational
pages? Yes ___ No ___
2. If yes, have you censored any messages/postings/pages?
Yes ___ No ___
3. Please describe your censorship policy if it is
not available on your web site.
D. ICNA
22. How satisfied are you with ICNA? (Circle one)
| Very unsatisfied
| MoveMoveMoveMove!!!
Neutral
| Very satisfied
|
22. Of ICNA's various activities, which ones do
you support?
23. Of ICNA's various activities, which ones do
you object to?
24. What would you like to see ICNA do for your CN
in the next year?
25. What services would you like the ICNA to offer
as benefits of membership?
E. Personal Information
26. How long have you been a Board member? ___
27. Gender M __ F __ Age ____
28. What is your occupation? _________________________
29. How would you assess your computer experience?
| Novice
| MoveMoveMoveMove
MoveMoveMove!!!Intermediate
| Expert
|
30. How would you assess your internet experience?
| Novice
| MoveMoveMoveMove
MoveMoveMove!!!Intermediate
| Expert
|
| Thank you very much
for participating in this survey
| Use the enclosed envelope
to return the survey to:
Howard Rosenbaum
Mail Library 011
School of Library and Information Science
Bloomington, IN 47405-1801 |
|
You can fax the completed survey
to:
Howard Rosenbaum
812.855.8166 |
|