Recent Research

The RPI/Troy COPC has developed a working group made up of faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, YWCA residents, staff, and administrators who see significant potential for information technology to be developed as a useful tool for women's empowerment in a particular social context, the YWCA of Troy-Cohoes. We define "empowerment" as enhanced self-definition, increased awareness of individual situations as they are embedded in larger social processes, and a greater sense of agency in navigating everyday life. We have named our research agenda "community informatics" as a way to call attention to the dual importance of community and technology in this micropolitical approach to:

Imagining and building a technology useful for women's empowerment. (Which tools?)

Capitalizing on RPI's strategic investment in IT to serve the self-defined needs of community members, often unaddressed by research agendas in IT. (Which needs?)

Developing practical and conceptually rigorous research in participatory simulation and culturally-situated design tools. (Which methods?)

Creating sustainable and non-extractive links between RPI, community residents, and organizations in partnership. (How do we work together?)

Our goals with this particular project are to: maximize human potential, provide multiple-pathway decision-making tools, and provide links between Troy residents (specifically, the 90 plus resident women and their children at the YWCA) and internal and external resources available to them.

More research:
Popular Technology Education
Social Network Building and Social Change
Women, Simulation and Social Change Workshops
WYMSM Software Design Team

Public Resources:            o v e r v i e w    |    r e s e a r c h    |    p r e s s k i t    |    p a r t n e r s    |    l i n k s

Password Protected:       d o c u m e n t a t i o n   |    g r o u p  n o t e s   |    r e p o r t i n g   |    s c h e d u l i n g