1623 5th St., Suite I, Davis, CA 95616
Tel: 530-750-1170; Fax: 530-757-2938
http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/

Corporation for Public Broadcasting
Civic Networking Grant

CPB Account # 80277/4210

Interim Report
July 1, 1997 to June 30, 1998

www.dcn.davis.ca.us/dcn/projects/cpb96

contact:
Richard Lowenberg
DCN Executive Director
rl@dcn.davis.ca.us

CPB: CIVIC NETWORKING GRANT # 80277/4210			DCN: FINANCIAL REPORT (through 5/31/98)
		CPB $	ExpÕs to date	Match $	Match to date	Total
Networking Equipment
	County Admin. Bldg. to Davis City Hall	8,000		40,000	45,250	48,000
GIS
	Clean up City of Davis base map	2,000	1,365			2,000
	Convert city map to GIS	4,000	3,765			4,000
	Attach parcel # address to city parcels	4,000	3, 975			4,000
	Attach parcel # to unincorpÕd parcels	2,000	1,875			2,000
	Develop additional databases	1,000	1,000	1,200	1,514	2,200
	Script programming for web access	2,500	500			2,500
	Regional tech. integration feasibility anal.	3,000	2,000			3,000
Document Web Server
	Convert Yolo ordinance code to digital form.	9,000	3,000			9,000
	Software	8,000	5,000			8,000
	Consulting and training (DCN & County staff)	500	500	7,000	4,258	7,500
	Regional tech. integration feasibility anal.	2,000	1,000	1,500	500	3,500
GIS/Document Database Web Server Integration
	Collect electronic files			500	200	500
	Create image files for pilot			100		100
	Integrate document database and GIS	1,500	500			1,500
	Script programming for web access	1,300	500			1,300
	Regional tech. integration feasibility anal.	2,000	1,000	1,500	1,000	3,500
Volunteer Management System
	Design and develop volunteer web pages	400	400	1,520	3,745	1,920
	Research existing tools			600	600	600
	Semi-automate volunteer recruit. process	400	400	2,720	3,368	3,120
	Develop on-line web based accÕting system			4,200	1,849	4,200
	Develop workshop and orientation materials	800	500	1,440	1,000	2,240
	Workshops for volunteer based agencies	2,400	2,000	720	1,000	3,120
Miscellaneous
	Develop outreach programs; Deliver demos	5,200	3,512	4,060	10,753	9,260
	Supplies	500	500			500
	Project Management			12,500	7,625	12,500
	Civic Networking Evaluative Study			11,000	4,264	11,000
Capital Expenses
	Sun Server and Lab			50,000	50,000	50,000
	Regional Demo. Center - City of Davis			4,000	3,000	4,000
Personnel
	SunTREC Lab Systems Administrator	8,634	6,800			8,634
	Payroll Benefits	2,029	1,500			2,029
	SunTREC Lab Student Assistants	2,000	1,500			2,000
	Fiscal Agent	2,000	1,500			2,000
Indirect Expenses
	Overhead	4,837	3,500			4,837
Total Project Fees		$80,000	$47,592	$144,560	$139,926	$224,560

Narrative Progress Report

This report, along with all other CPB project reports, documents and information resources are being made available on DCN's project web site. Please refer to this site for in-process as well as completed project information.

1. Development and implementation of services detailed in Workscope.

The Workscope indicates the status of each task per the original timeline. Real life circumstances continue to randomly affect our best laid plans. We are generally behind where we expected and want to be at this point on the projects. Additional partnerships and funding, however, have substantiated the possibilities of doing more than just CPB supported work on our key selected applications. The integrated online public decision-support project ("WaterWorks") is proving to be a large and complex undertaking, the technical and social considerations about which, require more time than was originally assumed. We are more excited about and dedicated to this project than ever, though, and expect it to be a valuable and widely replicable tool.

The next few months remaining to complete the funded projects, will be a busy time; a time of pulling many loose threads together, and weaving a tightly knit web. Remaining funds will be assigned to the appropriate participants to further populate the GIS and document databases; improve, redesign and activate the "WaterWorks" and Volunteer web sites; follow through on partners' involvement in testbed use of these online resources; provide the required series of training and evaluative workshops; and complete the project reporting. We are also pursuing opportunities to help continue development of "WaterWorks" as a generic online toolkit for environmental decision-support.

A. Task One: Geographic Information System, Document Database and Web Server Integration.

A great deal of work has been done on this component of the project. Working meetings with many experts and stakeholders, and in-house technical/conceptual development have led us to a more focused objective than was originally conceived. This project component is now called "WaterWorks": a watershed decision-support toolkit. This online pilot project has fostered an on-the-ground partnership building initiative among ever more government agencies and community organizations, to share data and agree on common standards and end user serving policies. Although still premature, it has resulted to date, in the web-based integration of GIS, document database systems, hydrological simulation tools, discussions, a thesaurus, glossary and calendar, and other information resource links. Technically and in design, "WaterWorks" is still more of an information resource, than a decision-support system. Incorporating the toolkit into a tele-mediated decision-support process is the more difficult challenge, which we expect to implement during the Summer months.

Following is integrated programming contractor, Steve Edberg's outline for his completed project/process development during this reporting period.

1. Define needs & current resources:
   1. Review existing watershed documents
   2. Review existing watershed decision-making processes
2. Survey existing on-line/computer-based resources
   1. Existing watershed-related web sites (Eg; CERES, WITS, ICE)
   2. Watershed analysis tools (WEAP)
   3. GIS-Decision support tools (Eg; ArGIS)
   4. Web-based search tools: Harvest; Isite/Isearch (http://www.cnidr.org); Glimpse/WebGlimpse
   5. Other search tools: Verity SEARCH'97 (very flexible searching, full-text indexing, document conversion tools: also very expensive; MIT Media Laboratory: Millennium Project commercialized as the (very expensive) Perspecta system (www.perspecta.com)
   6. Mapping tools: ESRI; Alexandria Digital Library
3. Review metadata standards:
   1. US MARC (Z39.2) Bibliographic data used by GILS, Melvyl, other search tools
   2. FGDC geospatial metadata
   3. XML/SGML structured documents
4. Define front-end design:
   1. Four basic components: Document library; Analysis simulation tools; User on-line forum; Connection to experts in subject areas
   2. Allow flexibility - user defined issues
   3. Create unified search tools that work across local & distributed documents & GIS map layers
5. Define back-end design objectives
   1. Utilize standards: MARC/FGDC metadata; SQL query language
   2. Make sufficiently general for use with any community issues
   3. Minimize expense - avoid expensive back-end software packages where possible
   4. Portable software - implement on any web server/operating system
   5. Minimize reliance on high-end/browser-specific features
      (eg; Dynamic HTML, Cascading Style Sheets, JavaScript) or plug ins
      (eg; VRML, ShockWave, custom WaterWorks plug ins) where possible.
      Add these features as an enhancement to basic system.
6. Search for appropriate tools:
   1. PHP 3.0 (http://www.php.net/): Web scripting tool, available free to non-profits/ edu./gov.
   2. mSQL database (http://www.Hughes.com.au/): Small SQL database
   3. Other larger database systems are available at no charge: (eg; MySQL, PostGreSQL) but have not yet been ported to WindowsNT development platform
   4. ArcView Internet Map Server: Interface to ArcView GIS. (Not inexpensive, but there is no low/no cost solutions.
   5. Other ESRI solution is MapObjects Map Server, which is Windows-specific
7. Develop!

ESRI, Inc. recently became a project partner, donating multi-site licensed GIS software and training to DCN, through its Conservation Support Program. Donation of Internet Map Server, will allow us to finally port Davis' base map and other GIS data to the web. This support also furthers DCN's ability to become a regional public access clearinghouse for online GIS applications , with a primary focus on the mapping of geographic and social states and processes in a civic networking environment.

B. Task Two: Implementation of a Volunteer Recruitment and Management System for use by the Davis Community.

The Volunteer Management project is proceeding well on most fronts, although the "Toolkit" database development component currently requires some reconsideration. We have been working with the primary volunteer agencies in this county. They include Yolo Connections, and sub-agencies, Mentor Connection, Volunteer Connection, Community Connection, and Yolo Unite. Annie Zeidman, DCN's new Administrator has taken the lead with Vicki Suter, on the assigned tasks.

C. Task Three: Utilization of Regional Technology Demonstration Centers for Education and Outreach Activities.

During this reporting period, DCN has continued to utilize the City of Davis' Computer Training Lab, with a frequency of at least weekly use. The majority of CPB funded project working team meetings have been conducted there, open to the public and invited new partners. The Lab provides 12 networked computers, projection and a white board, for hands-on demonstrations and work sessions. The UC Davis SunTREC Lab has been underutilized during the last six months, after an initial period of regular meetings and trainings there. Recent reassessment of our progress and intentions, with UC Davis Political Science Professor Geoffrey Wandsforde-Smith, have reestablished a schedule of frequent and productive Lab use over the Summer and Fall months, as the "WaterWorks" web site is demonstrated to government staff, officials, and community organization leaders.

Other facilities in the region have been added to DCN's available resources. The May 15th "Agriculture, Environment and Telecommunications Summit", a showcase for the "WaterWorks" project and outreach to the agricultural community, was held at the Heidrick Ag History Museum, in Woodland, the county seat. Over 100 farmers, agricultural agency directors, university researchers, elected officials, visitors from Japan, Turkey, Indonesia and Columbia, and others attended. A key technical demonstration involved the wireless connection and networking of the Heidrick Center, which has only on phone line, via the showcasing of a Solectek spread spectrum radio system. The Yolo County Superintendent of Schools facility provided Internet POP access from two miles away. DCN is working to promote such wireless applications for some of the more remote towns and school districts around Yolo County. Other facilities now used include a new 15 station tele-computing lab at Yuba College in Woodland, plus DCN's newly enlarged offices and conference space.

We are learning that it is easier for us to go to the community, than for the community to come to us. Given that we now have local access to the Internet from even the most remote parts of Yolo County, and computers and projectors are portable, our initial reliance on a couple of dedicated labs, has been augmented with increasingly scheduled outreach presentations to particular communities of interest at their sites.

D. Task Four: Evaluation and Assessment of Project Success.

The project Evaluation Team having determined a criteria for evaluation, has prepared a variety of evaluative survey forms that they distribute at DCN's outreach events. Linnette Young, UC Davis Political Science graduate student, is helping to formulate and improve on these surveys, and is continuing to enter collected information into a project database that will serve as the basis for the eventual project assessment. Large returns were collected at the Spring "Duck Days" presentations and at the May "Agriculture, Environment and Telecommunications Summit". Surveys have additionally been collected from participants at frequently held stakeholder meetings, convened to involve university staff and students, agencies' staff, watershed organizations' members and others in the development of the "WaterWorks" project.

DCN was also selected as a partner/participant in a current TIIAP application by the Association for Community Networking, which if funded, will work with DCN as a community networking evaluation site. This potential application will continue to build on lessons learned through our involvement in the CivNet evaluation process.

2. Exploration of the relationship with local regional and national educational computer networking, broadcasting and other telecommunications services beyond those of the original relationship.

Like many other community networks, DCN is continually building new strategic relationships with other community networks throughout the US and abroad, and with other communities of interest. We receive and respond to ongoing requests for information from communities and organizations that have explored our web site or have otherwise heard of our efforts and early achievements. Such activities are furthered by our founding membership in AFCN, and exchanges with the Benton Fdn., Center for Civic Networking, CTCNet, LOKA Institute, and other like entities.

On June 2nd, DCN once more partnered with DCTV on an Election web site and live simulcast election night coverage. We have thus been recognized for having the most comprehensive and participatory online election presence in California, and working with Yolo County Clerk, Tony Bernhard, are setting examples for other California Counties to learn from.

The Yolo Area Regional Network (YARN), which has in part grown out of our CPB funded initiatives, is continuing to partner with government, school districts and others to build, extend and share telecommunications infrastructure, leveraging in part on current E-Rate opportunities. As part of YARN's Summit series, we held an April 22 Information Technology Partners Summit, the previously mentioned Ag. Summit, and are working with the Yolo County Superintendent of Schools office on a "Schools, Libraries and Telecommunications" Summit, scheduled for Oct. 23, 1998.

DCN Executive Director, Richard Lowenberg is a frequent speaker/presenter at conferences in this area and (inter)nationally, where the CivNet project is always described. Presentations over the past year have included the October '97 "Rural Telecommunications Conference" in Aspen; "Tyrol Worldwide", Innsbruck, Austria, Oct. '97; the March '98 "Telecommunications and the City" Conference in Athens, GA; and "Government Technology Conference", Sacramento, CA, May '98.

3. Status of services currently available.

DCN currently provides about 1400 subscribers with dialup Internet services, through its contracted ISP, CWNet. We additionally provide ISDN and other wired and wireless network connectivity, with contracted networking partner, OmSoft, Inc., in our developing role as a community communications center. We are regularly reevaluating our financial structuring and public-private partnership arrangements, as we attempt to model a replicable and appropriate form for community network and ISP economic partnerships.

DCN has a Sponsored Project program that over the last two years has helped numerous organizations with courtesy accounts, web help, and other means to be active in and help substantiate the community network and to make themselves more effective participants in the information society.

Training (every Tuesday evening, and as scheduled), public access sites, volunteer committee activities and frequent outreach events, help to round out DCN's community networking offerings. The DCN web site is increasingly rich in depth and value of content, almost entirely created by local individuals and the all-volunteer Web Team. The Web Team meets weekly and is available to assist in a profound variety of ways with community serving content development.

Over the course of our working on the CivNet Grant, these services have been specially offered to regional volunteer agencies and non-profit organizations, and to similar groups dedicatedly working on watershed, environmental, and agricultural issues. DCN's role in the community has been greatly reinforced and extended through the many working interactions that are thus resulting.

4. Status of population demographics for local area currently having access to services.

DCN's regional access demographics are growing slightly, and becoming increasingly diverse. The results of our evaluations will better tell the story in a few months. As previously stated, our outreach efforts are extending service to the agricultural community, and with other providers, Internet services are now locally accessible everywhere in Yolo County. Assisting regional migrant farm worker camps with Internet access and training has also led us to start developing bilingual English-Spanish web pages. A new survey being conducted with the Resources Conservation Service, indicates that over 28% of regional farmers use the Internet; approximately 80% have computers. More accurate statistics will be available in the final report.

5. Status of the number of users, and the frequency and nature of utilization.

This item will be better answered again in the final report.

6. Status of the host Internet server and communications systems.

Great strides have been taken and are still in progress with telecommunications infrastructure at DCN. A new Sun server has been purchased, is being configured and is about to be brought online, replacing our older system, which will be assigned to lower level online tasks. Two NT servers have also been purchased recently; one to be a web/database server, the other to be our networked GIS server. The latter was made possible with USGS matching funding of the "WaterWorks" project.

We are working with the County of Yolo, City of Davis, and UC Davis on various security requirements of our newly expanding and shared network, a process that has slowed down some aspects of the implementation scheduled for this grant. We have also installed new hubs, routers and other network systems that will assure greater overall system and services reliability and integrity.

7. Creation of the electronic base map.

The base map of Davis now resides on the new NT server at DCN, and will soon be available via the City of Davis, DCN, and Waterworks web sites. The map, as proposed, is complete with attached parcels. Our efforts were slowed by the offer of software donation from ESRI, and the wait until recently for it to arrive. New DCN Administrator, Annie Zeidman, with a masters degree in geography, is taking ESRI training, and is taking responsibility for DCN's GIS and community mapping efforts in coordination with our other assigned partners.

8. Development of the Toolkit, the Toolkit Workshops, and the online versions of the training curricula and workshop outlines.

Parts of this set of tasks are on track. There is a project web site, with training curricula and workshop outlines posted. The work is being reevaluated and shaped through the regularly scheduled/held meetings and workshops which are in progress. A lesson learned, however, is that the approach originally decided upon for the Toolkit, will need to be changed. Many of the volunteer organizations we are working with, have undergone critical personnel and organizational changes, as have many other of our partners. We are learning that the toolkit must be greatly simplified and reorganized to meet much more basic needs of these groups. A major Volunteer Workshop, with attendees from over 30 different organizations, was held on May 1st. A summary of it and other volunteer activities is posted on our project web site.

We are in the process of redetermining the design/structure of the Toolkit, and are about to implement a revised task schedule, allowing us to meet our requirements and overall project deadlines.

9. Status of the weekly series of local training activities as well as demonstrations of the project.

This part of the project is fairly on track. Being busily over-committed and inundated by crisis of the moment community interventions, has sporadically interfered with maintaining as regular a schedule of training or demonstrations as originally proposed. Working with other groups schedules has also affected our best laid plans. For the most part though, DCN staff and volunteers have continued to provide the outreach that was originally scheduled. End user needs and requests continue to shift our attention from hoped for applications development and use, to repeated more basic information, training and assistance. All part of community networking in a real place, with real people, with one's sleeves rolled up. Our final reporting will include attachment of numerous newspaper articles and other documentation of efforts and achievements.

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