Indra Kurzeme - Associate Editor, VICNET 328 Swanston Street, Melbourne,VIC 3000, Australia Phone +61 3 9669 9709 Fax: +613 9669 9805 Email:indrak@vicnet.net.au 328 Swanston Street, Melbourne,VIC 3000, Australia Phone +61 3 9669 9710 Fax: +613 9669 9805
Jenny Stocks - Manager, Vision, State Library of Victoria.
328 Swanston Street, Melbourne,VIC 3000, Australia Phone +61 3 9669 9710 Fax: +613 9669 9805
Email:jennys@slv.vic.gov.au
VICNET: Victoria's Network [HREF 1] is rapidly establishing itself as a world class community networking venture. As of June 1996 it has established more than 50 public access workstations in Public Libraries [HREF 2] and other public locations around Victoria, and has assisted with the establishment of regional nodes and local Web sites. One major goal of the project is to have at least one public access terminal in every significant library branch and in every mobile library service across Victoria by the end of 1997. VICNET has assisted numerous community organisations and neighbourhood houses to establish Internet connections, to establish web pages, and to begin training their client base in the use of the Internet as both an information access and publishing medium. We have been actively facilitating community publishing and have been building and maintaining an extremely rich, varied and fast growing web site. A discussion of the establishment and ambitions for the VICNET project [HREF 3] can be seen in a paper submitted to the previous AusWeb conference, and its progress tracked via the archive of newsletters, articles and working papers [HREF 4] maintained on the VICNET web site.
VICNET has been gathering feedback and observing users and non-users
navigate their way through the web at a variety of public venues
and demonstrations. Thousands of Victorians have had their first
exposure to the Net courtesy of VICNET stands at gatherings such
as the Melbourne Show, the Comedy Festival, and the Alternative
Farm Fair. VICNET has put in considerable time talking to many
groups and organisations- some of whom are less than enthusiastic
about the net and what they think it offers. Our site has numerous
opportunities for users to provide feedback, from a "Guestbook"
on the home page to "mailto:" invitations requesting
comments interspersed throughout the site. Of course, we look
at our log file too, and meditate about the significance of its
contents. From all these sources, we can gain some of impressions
of the behaviour and make up of our current users.
VICNET has been the subject of two formal studies over the last year. In the first study, 100 users of public access workstations in one of the first Public Libraries to provide VICNET terminals were surveyed, and structured observations made of usage. In the second study, two hundred and seventy three people responded to a series of online surveys mounted on the VICNET Web site, and provided in-depth information about themselves, what they do and don't like, what they expect and what they do on the web and on VICNET.
An online questionnaire was linked from the VICNET home page and made available to the public for the second or third week of July 1995, September 1995, November 1995 and January 1996. The survey ran between Wednesday at 3.00pm and Wednesday 3.00pm. From the four surveys a total of 273 responses was collected.
There are various problems with a self selecting survey. The sample is by no means a random sample. As Pitkow and Kehoe (1995) [HREF 5] point out in their Third Survey, "When people decide to participate in a survey they select themselves. This decision may reflect some systematic selecting principle (or judgement) that affects the collected data". Sampling via the World Wide Web is a form of non-probabilistic sampling which relies on users seeing announcements of the survey to participate. Segments of the Internet user population may not be aware of the survey and therefore may not participate. As a result, not all segments of the user population are represented in this sample. This reduces the ability of the gathered data to generalise to the entire user population.
Table 1. Survey response rate
| Survey | One | Two | Three | Four | TOTAL |
| Respondents | 96 | 87 | 28 | 62 | 273 |
The poor response rate of Survey Three could be explained by the fact that it was heading into the "silly season" of Christmas 1995.
Female respondents represented less than 20% of the total group - lower than, for example, the last GVU survey but conducive with the general (overwhelmingly male) pattern report in most other surveys of net usage world wide. The trend in the GVU WWW User surveys [HREF 6] has been an increase of between 5 and 15% in the proportion of women completing the survey, to the balance of 29% female 71% male in 1995.
The age of VICNET users varies between the ten to nineteen year olds all the way to a eighty to eighty-nine year old. However the highest number of users fell in the thirty to thirty-nine year olds followed by the forty to forty-nine year olds and the twenty to twenty nine year olds.
Table 2: Bar chart of breakdown of age groups of VICNET users
The education level of survey respondents was fairly high with a total of 182 users holding a tertiary degree. The information is displayed in Table 3.
Table 3 Bar chart depicting education level of VICNET users
Only 31% of respondents indicated that they were studying, a significantly smaller number than expected considering that over 80% of internet access in Australia is via universities .
One hundred and sixty-two respondents were employed, twelve were retired and twenty-seven were unemployed.
Table 4 Employment status of VICNET users
Two hundred and thirty-three respondents owned a PC. and two hundred
and seven owned a modem.
More than 50% of respondents gained their access from home, presumably via a dial-up account. As dial-up users probably represent around 15%-20% of internet users in Australia at present, it is note-worthy that they are so heavily represented in our survey. This seems to suggest that university users are less likely than dial up home users to be looking for the sort of general information provided by VICNET.
Respondents were asked to identify subject areas on VICNET that they visited frequently. Our computing and government sections stood out (gaining around 10% of first, second and third votes) while there was an even but much lower spread across the remaining areas.
The majority of respondents said they visited VICNET at least once a week , and the overwhelming majority spent 30 minutes or less on our site.
Table5 indicating frequency of time spent on VICNET
| Survey | 0-10
mins | 11-20
mins | 21-30
mins | 31-40
mins | 41-50
mins | 51-60
mins | 60-180 mins | 180+
mins | NA |
| One | 33% | 37% | 12% | 3% | 0% | 9% | 4% | 1% | 5% |
| Two | 42% | 24% | 18% | 1% | 1% | 10% | 2% | 0% | 2% |
| Three | 14% | 25% | 22% | 0% | 4% | 7% | 0% | 0% | 0% |
| Four | 32% | 40% | 11% | 5% | 0% | 9% | 4% | 0% | 2% |
A great deal of the data was concerned with users comments and responses to the VICNET site. The general tenor of this responses was positive - our respondents were generally very supportive of what we are trying to do, very pleased with what they could find on our site. Areas of dissatisfaction had to do chiefly with slow response times,(which, again, was a common beef of the GVU survey [HREF 7] respondents and the sparse graphic style of the site (which in fact, was mentioned as a positive feature by a greater number of respondents.) What people liked was that VICNET's information was local and current, and there were many positive comments about the community access focus.
Those involved with the study were asked what information would they like added to VICNET. The most common request was for information in science and technology, as 29% of people suggested access to a range of materials which spanned from endangered animals to agricultural databases and technical information about computers. The next most common request was for information pertaining to recreation and hobbies, followed by a need for more Australian and local community information.
Thirty per cent of the observed participants found Windows and Netscape either difficult or very difficult to use. Fifty per cent found it simple or very simple to use. There was an almost even spread between those who appeared very comfortable/comfortable with the technology (44%) and those who were either uncomfortable or very uncomfortable with the technology (41%).
During the study, it was also noted that the proportion of people having difficulties remained relatively constant, as the numbers of people using VICNET increased. It appears that the introductory period during which a large proportion of users experienced difficulties with VICNET is longer than the eight week duration of the survey. One needs to consider this trend and plan appropriate strategies in the future to cope with the assistance and training needs of the patrons using the VICNET terminal.
The researcher also concluded that the library branch where the VICNET terminal was situated had no influence on whether the people using VICNET had difficulty.
The most common ages of respondents were in the years 12-15. As the age of the survey participants increased, the frequency of usage of VICNET/Internet decreased. During the study at Rosanna and Diamond Valley Libraries there were no participants who were over 61 years of age.
It appeared that the public library was providing an environment where highly educated, computer literate people could test out VICNET and the Internet. For example; 75% of participants use a personal computer more than three times a week. It is therefore important to encourage those who have limited access to the technology or for the less computer literate.
Fifty six perecent of the people who used the VICNET/Internet access were also regular library users, reporting that they visited the library either once a week or more than once a week. The librarians from Diamond Valley noticed that several people became members of the library so that they could make a booking to use the VICNET terminal.
At Rosanna nearly twice as many people with post-secondary qualifications
participated in the VICNET survey, compared to the percentage
of the population with post-secondary qualifications as described
by the census data for Banyule. At Diamond Valley there were approximately
10% more people with post-secondary qualifications using VICNET
than in the general Nillumbik population.
During the two month period from 29th March to 22nd May 1995, it appeared that a large majority of survey participants were highly computer literate, as 85 per cent had access to a personal computer before coming to the library. Seventy-five per cent of participants used a personal computer more than three times a week. Those with post-secondary qualifications amounted to 60% of the surveyed sample. This was a much larger proportion than in the general population, as described by the census data for Banyule and Nillumbik.
Sixty-one per cent of the survey participants were male, and the remaining 39% female. Some studies in the literature confirm that males and females communicate differently on the Internet and have different ways of using computers. It is important that in the longer term the library encourages females to become more involved with the Internet by explaining its benefits and possibly conducting special classes for women.
The sample used in this survey established that there was no statistically significant difference between the rates at which males and females experienced difficulties using VICNET; nor was there any statistically significant difference in their need for training. Due to the relatively small sample used in this study; it would be useful to explore these variables further with larger samples. It would also be interesting to observe if these trends would continue over a longer period of time or whether the demographics of the user population changed over time.
There were no participants over sixty-one years; although during the pilot study at Peninsula Regional Library at least 50% of those attending structured VICNET information sessions were over 61 years of age. Elderly people are also involved with SeniorNet through Ipswich Global Info-Links. It seems that successful acceptance of information technology for the elderly may involve offering them structured "hands-on" experience with the technology.
However, despite these results the observation sessions showed that fifty per cent of people were either accepting or unperturbed by the slowness of the machine. There was an even spread between those who were comfortable or very uncomfortable with the technology.
Fifty-seven per cent of respondents indicated that they required some assistance with the VICNET terminal and seventy-three per cent of these people received help from a library staff member.
The most popular subject areas suggested to be added to VICNET were:
Molz's study of Civic-Nets revealed that people tended to use the civic networks in "demographic waves." She found that the majority of the first users were male, white, younger, relatively well-educated, middle class, and owned their own personal computer and modem. Next came white, middle-class, older personal computer and modem owners. However the user population became more varied, and more representative of the general population as time went on (Molz 1993). Some longitudinal studies are needed to discern whether we are seeing this "wave" pattern repeated in the Victorian context. It may be that the provision of public access is one of the forces which actually encourages this process of diversification.
The data has re-inforced our belief in the key role of Public Access, especially in Public Libraries, as a means of expanding the range of the Internet user population beyond its present relatively narrow confines. From the online survey, it seems that our content provision is attracting the new dial-in home users, but that these new users are not broadly representative of the general community. The typical VICNET user is male, under fourty, professionally employed, and a computer owner. The case study data indicates that Public Access can significantly improve the gender balance, although the pattern of professional, educated, and computer owner seems to persist. The case study data also highlights the difficulties which new uses encounter on first experience with the Internet, and the need for training, assistance and proactive sessions targetting specific sectors of the community. From our perspective, this has highlighted the importance of pro-active, targetted programs and training courses which encourage the participation of a wide range of groups with different demographic characteristics, and especially those who have limited access to - or exposure to - computers. We need to get programs running at the local community level, Internet for seniors, Internet for people with disabilities, Internet for women, Internet for various other than English language groups. In terms of content provision, our efforts in the publication of local and public interest information have been endorsed by both studies.
In terms of content, we have got a clearer idea of areas which people would like to see more of, and of the need for better organisation and better search interfaces to what we are providing. We recognise that people have some quite strange perceptions of what we are and what we are trying to do, and that they often had only stumbled over our site by accident - all of which points to the need for better marketing and advertising.
Overall, the experience of VICNET has been extremely positive. Feedback is widely supportive, reports from the public access locations indicate that the facility is well used, many individuals, community groups and organisations have taken the step to become involved as both users and content providers. Demand on our server, and demand for our services, continues to grow exponentially. The studies indicate that there is still much to be done, but we are reassured that we are well placed to fulfill a significant role in the unfolding of an equitable, widely based, network environment in Victoria.
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