Social Norms
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Social Norms
After nearly 28 years, The Communication Initiative (The CI) Global is entering a new chapter. Following a period of transition, the global website has been transferred to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, where it will be administered by the Social and Behaviour Change Communication Division. Wits' commitment to social change and justice makes it a trusted steward for The CI's legacy and future.
 
Co-founder Victoria Martin is pleased to see this work continue under Wits' leadership. Victoria knows that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction.
 
We honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades. Meanwhile, La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA) continues independently at cila.comminitcila.com and is linked with The CI Global site.
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Technical Internet Mentoring

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Sponsored by the British Columbia Institute of Technology (BCIT), the Technical Internet Mentoring (TIM) project aims to develop new practices in the use of educational technologies. The TIM Project is a proposed internet-based web page providing technical data and mentoring for both students and practitioners in the field of drinking water engineering, chemistry and microbiology; the goal is to enable students and volunteer mentors to discuss issues related to the production and presence of clean drinking water. A 3-phase project, TIM will be accessible over the internet to: technical students at BCIT (Phase I); students of technical institutes worldwide (Phase II); and, as the web page becomes increasingly sophisticated, drinking water technologists in developing regions (Phase III). As of 2006, TIM was in its first phase - having been launched by Professor Peter Nix in his BCIT classroom.
Communication Strategies
The TIM project is an internet-based education-focused community of practice that is designed to be a cost-free way to respond to the "bottom-up" needs of people struggling to obtain clean drinking water (as opposed to the need, as organisers describe it, of development-based organisations to control the internet). On the TIM website, students are expected to be able to access:
  • A research section providing users with the ability to search a database of key words, which reflect the nature of their drinking water question/problem (e.g., turbidity, coliform bacteria, chlorination), find a mentor, and/or pose a question(s). (Other tools include links to related websites, an index of links to technical data, access to open source journals, and RSS feeds.)
  • Mentors - who may be retired professionals/teachers and whose information could be stored in a database - would then scan these queries and choose to reply to one or more specific questions. In this way, the volunteer mentors control the type and number of contacts they make with students. As of August 2006, Professor Nix was exploring the possibility that the site would be run solely by volunteers who could operate without any restrictions -TIM could become a blog-type web page using open source software and evolve according to the needs of the practictioners.
  • An idea exchange/project support section would offer threaded discussions and online distance education.
TIM aims to provide 3 components of learning and development through its mentoring capabilities:
  1. almost universal access to knowledge for students or practitioners;
  2. technical information via a "bottom up" process to ensure relevance; and
  3. education that is person-to-person, with its consequent unlimited potential for innovation and growth.
After its pilot phase, which was carried out in the classroom at BCIT (and which also involved the building of links to two universities in Cambodia with the hope of undertaking a second pilot project in 2006), BCIT hopes to be able to sponsor TIM to provide technical mentoring for students throughout the world. The plan for implementation is:
  1. Phase I (2005-2006):
    1. design a "mentoring" web page for BCIT students in environmental microbiology course as a pilot programme;
    2. test and evaluate its technical aspects (e.g., web page design);
    3. evaluate conceptual aspects (e.g., security, accessibility, liability).
  2. Phase II: (2006 and on):
    1. modify the web page from feedback in Phase I;
    2. incorporate a database of mentors (e.g., lecturers, retired professionals);
    3. invite other technical colleges worldwide to participate in this BCIT-sponsored internet mentoring system for technical colleges/institutes.
    4. Assess the potential of TIM to act as a universal "not-for-profit" tool to support drinking water practitioners as well as students throughout the world and thereby aid in this technical area of world development.
  3. Phase III: (2007 and on) - develop and promote TIM as a BCIT-sponsored international mentoring service - perhaps linked with other international educational/development services.
    1. Perhaps expand the range of technical mentoring services outside the field of drinking water (any technical field could be included).
    2. Encourage students to stay with the service throughout their professional lives (i.e., students become mentors).
Development Issues
Clean Water, Environment, Natural Resource Management.
Key Points
According to the developer, TIM could provide a practical, problem-solving, accessible teaching tool for students in any setting (i.e., classroom, fieldwork, home). Ultimately, it might provide a valued development tool for countries/regions that need help in solving small technical problems. Students or practitioners could stay in contact with TIM during their entire careers to: 1) maintain and develop their own professional expertise; and, 2) donate their skills by mentoring to people in their community of practice in the developing world in a fast, interactive manner, avoiding the bureaucratic costs and delays of formal development projects. Such a site would be administered by a not-for-profit NGO (preferably linked to an existing NGO) to support the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) of universal access to safe drinking water quality throughout the world.
Sources

Emails from Peter Nix to The Communication Initiative, November 7 2005 and August 10 2006.