Community Technology Centres: a Proposed Framework for Sustainability

The effectiveness of Community Technology Centres (CTCs) in meeting many of the challenges presented by the digital divide invites a closer scrutiny of factors that contribute to their sustainability. The success of CTCs appears to be related to the way in which these initiatives are able to respond to the multifaceted nature of the digital divide problem. However, more systematic approaches are required to enable the identification of common factors that contribute to sustainability in different contexts. The paper responds to this challenge by initially reviewing recent contributions on the digital divide debate. From a more refined understanding of what constitutes the digital divide the paper extends Kling’s [6] twopart portrayal of the digital divide into a framework that captures both technical and social factors that contribute to sustainability of CTCs. The purpose of this proposed framework is to enable further research into the sustainability of CTCs for indigenous people of Australia. Introduction Community Technology Centres (CTCs) have been effective in meeting some of the challenges presented by the problem of the digital divide [11]. However, the digital divide problem remains a frustratingly persistent problem suggesting that further work is required in better understanding the role of CTCs in overcoming the digital divide. Initial investigations suggest that the term “digital divide” is problematic in fully defining the multifaceted nature of the problem concerning information poverty [2] [4] [11] [16]. The time now appears ripe to better formalise our understanding of the digital divide and more particularly the role CTCs play in overcoming the digital divide. This paper responds to this challenge by proposing a socio-technical framework that seeks to better define the factors that contribute to the sustainability of CTCs. As reflected in the problematic nature of the digital divide, this task is complicated by the multiplicity of situations in which CTCs reside. The paper argues that there is no single answer to this problem. Sustainability should be considered as a multifaceted concept that needs to account