April 1 - June 30, 1997

Achievements and Milestones

The fourth in a series of monthly half-hour live online chats with the Town Manager of Blacksburg was held on April 15 from 7:30-8:00 pm. Several participants `spoke' with theTown Manager, Mr. Ron Secrist, about concerns, ideas, and questions. Archives of the chats are available at http://www.bev.net/chat.

BEV contributed as a sponsor and participant in Richard Civille's "Virtual CivicNet Conference" in June.

The Montgomery Floyd Regional Library (MFRL) trained 98 library patrons and 20 staff in April and May classes.

MFRL redesigned all library Web pages (including alphabetical and catagorical community organizations pages).

MFRL Manager of Network Services, Steven Helm, gave presentation to Virginia Public Library Directors Association; 90 attendees (May 2).

MFRL presented community networking demonstrations for six library groups at MFRL.

Montgomery County government staff participated in computer training in April and May, as follows:

DOS Class (4 hours) 11 people completed on April 14, 1997 11 people completed on May 28, 1997

Windows Class (7.5 hours) 16 people completed on April 21, 1997 10 people completed on May 28, 1997

Radford Information Network (RIN) Steering Committee met, with BEV representative attending, on April 9, May 16 and June 11.

Andrew Cohill, Director of BEV, worked on the design and content of a free community network class to be offered 8/9 in conjunction with the Virginia Manufacturing Technology Center in Wytheville, VA.

A. Cohill assisted in the design and development of community network assessment instruments for use by other community networks.

A. Cohill completed a draft report on desktop videoconferencing in the public schools. This will be part of the BEV/TIIAP final report.

Andrea Kavanaugh, Director of Research, attended International Communications Association conference to exchange information about BEV and discuss communications research (May 23-25).

A. Kavanaugh and Roger Ehrich met with University of Virginia ethnographer, Mary Bushnell, of the School of Education, to seek advice on portions of the school-home communication evaluation.

A. Kavanaugh and Scott Patterson continued to supervise data collection by TIIAP-supported undergraduate assistants (Joe Foley and Mike Mostellar) concerning social capital and community involvement measures.

A. Kavanaugh and S. Patterson, assisted by graduate research assistant, Armando Borja, initiated the analysis of telephone survey data on area-wide Internet users and non-users.

Cortney Martin, Assistant Director of BEV, met with Prof. Roger Holmes,Vice Chancellor and Pres of U. of Newcastle, Australia, to discuss Community Networking (April).

C. Martin met with Mr. Tooru Ono, a businessman and proponent of the Internet from Japan, to discuss community networking (April).

C. Martin moved Town Web site to the Blacksburg Electronic Village web server (May).

C. Martin helped Craig County Technology Task Force work out a plan to create a County Web site. Held 1/2 day of training for members of Task Force (June).

Luke Ward, BEV Network Technology Manager, and Monta Elkins, TIIAP-supported Programmer/Analyst, conducted several consultations with Montgomery County Public Schools technical personnel on IP address assignment, resolving router problems, etc.

L. Ward and M. Elkins resolved various technical problems with BEV web servers used to support grant activities.

Kiva Rogers Ryan, Health Information Coordinator for BEV, continued the managament and development of Cardiac HealthWeb, a community health site designed to promote cardiovascular health in the New River Valley. Average hits per day 622; over 600 questions submitted to "Ask the Cardiologist" database between April and June.

K. Rogers-Ryan undertook the first stage of develpment of the BEV HealthWeb, the goal of which is to facilitate local health care provider and health care consumer utilization of the information and services available and to provide a central online directory of community resources and health care providers. (May and June)

K. Rogers-Ryan initiated planning for Community Diabetes Information site. (June)

Revisions to Finance Reports according to instructions from Budget Officer were prepared and sent to OEAM, as requested.

Request for Advance was submitted to OEAM.

Financial Status Report and Financial Transactions Report for this quarter were submitted to OEAM.

Evaluation Data Collected - this quarter

Federico Casalegno, doctoral candidate of the Sorbonne, A. Kavanaugh, and S. Parson (TIIAP supported faculty) conducted follow-up interviews of BEV Seniors as part of larger BEV Seniors evaluation effort.

A. Kavanaugh and Roger Ehrich (TIIAP supported faculty) prepared the protocol for interviews with 20 students and their families using Internet intensively in school and from home.

Evaluation tasks completed with assistance from A. Borja (TIIAP supported Research Assistant):

• 527 mail surveys were sent to Blacksburg and area businesses.
• 538 Montgomery County - Salem & Radford phone survey data being analyzed and interpreted. A findings report was prepared for the sample population at large and for the town of Radford in particular.
• 76 survey responses to a local school board mailing list (Dr. James Klagge) have been analyzed. A report was prepared.

Publications

Report completed by A. Kavanaugh, S. Parson and A. Borja summarizing results of online survey administered to members of electronic mailing list owned by elected School Board member, James Klagge. Report was circulated to Klagge mailing list (please see attachment).

Preliminary report by A. Kavanaugh, S. Patterson and A. Borja on Radford community and Internet use, based on telephone survey data collected 11/96.

"Wired Blacksburg Sends a Message," by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, staff writer, The Washington Post , Friday May 16, 1997 (pp. A1, A17).

"Community: It Takes an Electronic Village" by Jason Chervokas & Tom Watson, New York Times , CyberTimes section, May 2, 1997 http://www.nytimes.com/library/cyber/nation/050297nation.html

"A Web Grows in Blacksburg," by Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Connect-Time , an online magazine also carried by select newspapers nation-wide; 15 million readers (available online at http://www.connect-time.com)

BEV Newsletters for April, May and June (posted online).

Bill Gates mentioned BEV (particularly a project connecting BEV senior citizens with second graders via email within Blacksburg) in keynote address to the National Education and Computing Conference (NECC) in Seattle (June).

Budgetary Highlights

BEV, Inc. sent a check in the amount of $538.78 (for interest earned above the $250 limit) to TIIAP.

Bills paid this quarter totalled $33,104.63. Outstanding bills totalled $ 25,549.90 (Request for Reimbursement has been submitted.)