Previous status reports
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January - March '04
Difficult winter weather forced postponement or cancellations of several meetings in various counties participating in this project. Nevertheless, we are excited about the progress of project related activities in all counties during the first quarter of 2004. Craig, Cumberland, Louisa and King & Queen counties held public workshops where they introduced businesses and community organizations to the steps of establishing a Web presence utilizing the Virtual Business Incubator or the Community Connections services. So far we have had a total of 23 business and 13 community organizations that have had no prior Web presence sign up for these services and are encouraged by the efforts of the Technology Leadership Team (TLT) in each county to increase these numbers. Statistics on the servers that host the community network sites indicate that the Village Malls (where businesses list themselves) are by far the most widely viewed pages on all our sites leading us to believe that some seeds of economic development have been sown as a result of the support this project has received in various communities. In addition to promoting the site, we also worked on ensuring the sustainability of this effort by training members from the community who would be responsible for the electronic villages created in each county once the grant funding came to an end. We were especially pleased with the efforts in Craig County this quarter. They launched the Craig Electronic Village and had several project related activities to inform the residents, businesses and community organizations of the resources available to them through this project. It is also heartening to see the emergence of volunteers in Craig who are determined to help businesses and community organization establish a Web presence and are organizing training sessions to accomplish this goal.
P. Gibson, community initiatives specialist with Virginia Cooperative Extension (VCE) completed her evaluation of the Take Charge (or alternative consensus building and issues identification process in all but one of participating counties. Gibson used focus group-type sessions involving the Technology Leadership Team (TLT) members and the local Virginia Cooperative Extension agent to conduct her assessments and evaluation. Results from these evaluations will be included in the final reports to counties that will be submitted at the end of the second quarter of 2004. J. Nichols concluded the bulk of his technology assessments the output of which will be used to develop technology master plans for each county.
Though we fully expected to have the Technology Master Plan for each county completed by the end of the first quarter, we didn’t meet that dead line. Adverse weather conditions and scheduling difficulties made it difficult for J. Nichols to gather assessment date in time to compile the reports by the end of the first quarter. This was the only significant delay we experienced during the last reporting period. Completion dates for Community Readiness Workshops, Benchmark Assessments, Assessment Research, Public Web site, Sustainability Strategies, Final Reports and Ongoing TLT meetings have been moved to correspond with the end date of the project (June 2004). This wasn’t done to indicate delays on those tasks – they were done because they are ongoing activities which will continue till the end of funding cycle.
Expenses for this quarter were mainly incurred due to travel by project team staff to meetings and other events within the county. There were also some minor expenses related to accessing materials needed for conducting assessments, postage for mailing assessment forms to members of the community, and printing of reference manuals for Web site administrators who underwent transition training.
The end of this (Q1 2004) quarter also marked the end of Project Coordinator J Shetrone's time as a full time Blacksburg Electronic Village (BEV) employee on this project. The position was terminated due to the end of TOP funding for the BEV Project Coordinator position. Though she continues to work on project related tasks as a temporary Virginia Cooperative Extension employee, we're not sure how long she will continue to serve in this capacity as she is actively seeking a permanent position in the area. We wish to formally acknowledge her efforts on this project and the assistance she has provided to participating counties in meeting their objectives.
October - December '03
Despite the expected slow down experienced due to the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays during this quarter, we made quite a bit of progress in all counties participating in this effort.
Content was added to community network sites in Cumberland and Craig Counties. Training on BEV in a Box services were held in Accomack, Craig and Dickenson Counties. Informational sessions about the Virtual Business Incubator and Community Connections packages were held in Accomack, Craig, Cumberland, Dickenson and Louisa counties. Though turn over in personnel slowed progress in Louisa County, it was among the first counties to offer the Virtual Business Incubator Services and Community Connections packages to businesses and community organizations during this quarter. Dickenson County launched its wireless network (DCWIN) on Oct 13 and though this was not an activity conducted directly through this project, it did publicize the role of technology as an enabler in community and economic development activities. Progress was made on the Eastern Shore where members of the TLT in Accomack and Northampton Counties decided not to duplicate efforts and adopted the Eastern Shore Virginia Portal as their community network site. This issue has represented a significant stumbling block to our efforts on the Shore in the past and we are pleased that this has been resolved so we can move forward with the project. King and Queen County launched another technology based project to provide resources for school aged kids via the Web as a direct result of being involved in this project.
Though we're pleased with the various initiatives undertaken by Technology Leadership Team members in all counties, it is truly heartening to see the support this project has received in Cumberland County last quarter due to efforts of the Technology Leadership Team led by V. Petty, retired VCE agent who was elected to the Board of Supervisors in the November elections.
Thanks to the efforts of B. Holden, VCE agent in Northampton County and others, workshops on entrepreneurship were offered on the Eastern Shore to train small business owners and getting them ready to use the Virtual Business Incubator and other services available to small business owners.
J. Nichols, IT Manager at Virginia Tech spent a lot of his time getting to know members and identify resources in all counties in order to proceed with the development of the technology master plans. He also made several revisions to the assessment instrument and technology master plan structure that he is developing for this project. Unfortunately, we couldn't complete the technology assessments in all counties by the end of the year as originally envisioned. The timeline has been modified to reflect this delay.
A point of concern for us during the quarter was that the project did not seem to be making inroads and getting widespread acceptance by the general population that we were hoping to see in the various counties. Despite the best efforts of VCE agents in various counties, attendance at some technology leadership team meetings was sparse. Agents also reported some difficulties in sustaining interest in the project during this quarter. Part of this can be attributed to the slow down due to the holidays. However, in order to address this issue, P. Gibson, Research Associate with Virginia Cooperative Extension (VCE), assumed the role of campus liaison and was briefed on the community network services deployed in each county. She will assist in identifying resources as needed to move the project forward. She will also be responsible for gathering evaluation data related to the impact of the project in communities.
The project received favorable publicity when M. Mathai, Project Director was invited to speak at the Virginia Family and Consumer Sciences regional meeting at the Hotel Roanoke, on October 29 and described the experiences of the project team thus far on the project.
Expenses in this quarter were mainly incurred by project staff traveling to various localities to conduct training or informational workshops. Travel expenses were also incurred by J. Haycox Special Projects Coordinator from the Eastern Shore traveled to Blacksburg met with various members of the project team and underwent training related to the project.
July - September '03
We have continued to make progress over this quarter despite the fact that volunteer community groups are less likely to meet during the summer months when many folks are on vacation and not available. We continue to be assisted by two retired Virginia Cooperative Extension (VCE) agents who are providing direction for the program in their counties (Craig and Cumberland). All participating counties have decided on the basic framework -- color scheme and navigation bar of their community network Web sites. Some counties have completed the process of gathering and displaying content for their site while others are still working on this process. We lost two VCE agents who were involved in this project during this quarter so turnovers still continue to plague this project. Despite that we have managed to meet the revised deadlines for this project by adding R. Roberts of the Blacksburg Electronic Village as a part time member to the project team. He has assisted by conducting training sessions in all counties and has worked with the TLT in Craig County to develop their Community Network Web site.
Dickenson County, where efforts started much later than other counties, has caught up with the rest of the counties mainly due to the effort of the technology leadership team and the VCE agent, P. Deel. This indicates to us that when a group of individuals see the vision and dedicate themselves to working together to fulfilling that vision, they can acommplish a lot.
A cause for concern for us is that efforts in the two counties in the Eastern Shore (Accomack and Northampton) are lagging those of other counties. A signifcant reason for this could be that another project i.e. the Eastern Shore portal duplicated some of the efforts of this one. This may have resulted in a lack of interest on the part of Shore residents for participating in this project. We're working with the agents from the two counties to find ways to resolve and remedy this situation.
We launched the technology assessment and master plan phase of this project. It's led by John Nichols, Information Technology Manager for Communication Network Services, at Virginia Tech who has a strong interest in community development and how communication infrastructure can support both economic development and community participation.
Expenses during this quarter were for travel to counties by the coordinator, Area Specialist, the Project Director and other members of the project team.
April - June '03
This quarter, VCE Agents, M. Adcock of Craig County and P. Deel of Dickenson County completed the process of recruiting members for their respective Technology Leadership Teams (TLT). Craig County will use the outcomes of their Comprehensive Planning process which has outcomes similar to the Take Charge process to generate content for their Community Network Web site. TLT members from Dickenson County were recruited from a group of citizens who went through a visioning process that also had outcomes similar to the Take Charge process. These outcomes will be used to generate content for the Web site for Dickenson County’s Community Network. As a result of these activities in Craig and Dickenson, three project milestones were reached this quarter 1) Recruiting TLT 2) Training the TLT 3) Conducting Take Charge
This quarter two other counties made significant progress in the development of their Community Networks. Both King and Queen County and Louisa County deployed their Community Network Web site that includes information about their counties as well as the People, Business and Organization Directories. These sites can be found at http://www.kqinfotrail.net and http://www.louisaelectronicvillage.net.
Activities pertaining to Technology Assessment and Master Plan activities have been delayed because it took longer than expected to identify the right people to head this effort. At the end of the this quarter, J. Nichols who was part of the team at Virginia Tech that developed a report for the Tobacco Commission titled “Strategic Technology Infrastructure for Regional Competitiveness in the Network Economy" joined the project team and will lend his leadership and expertise to these activities. He has started work on developing questionnaires to be used by TLT members for conducting assessments.
Most of the expenses incurred during this quarter pertained to travel by project team members to conduct training and meet with various technology leadership teams involved in this effort.
Since it went "live" on June 10, the Community Network in King and Queen has generated a lot of interest and publicity both within that county and outside. Using a self-listing process, a number of businesses listed themselves in the King and Queen Info Trail Business listings allowing residents of that county to identify and support local businesses. King and Queen County also conducted an AgriTourism workshop that was very well attended by residents of King and Queen and neighboring counties. Evaluation survey results described that the conference had met the needs of the attendees and that additional community readiness workshops would be well received. The efforts of the Technology Leadership Team in King and Queen County (led by A. Uzel, the Extension Agent), serve as an excellent model for other counties interested in utilizing technology for economic development and increasing community awareness within its residents as well as promoting the County to the outside world.
January - March '03
This quarter Technology Leadership Teams (TLT) in three counties i.e. Accomack, King and Queen, and Northampton completed the Take Charge process and have started working with the Project Coordinator, Jaime Shetrone on developing content for their Community Web site. Project staff have evaluated the Louisa county comprehensive plan process and found it to be equivalent in process and outcomes to the Take Charge process. As a result of this, Louisa county TLT members have started work on their community network devlopment. The Cumberland county TLT members completed two out of the three Take Charge sessions. Since the VCE Area specialist is based in Richmond, it was decided that project activities would be initiated in the the five counties in the eastern/central part of the state (Accomack, Cumberland, King and Queen, Louisa and Northampton would) after which the focus would to the counties in the Western part of the state. Mathew Mathai, Project Director and Eleanor Schlenker VCE Project Lead met with various members of the Virginia Tech eCorridors who are working on the development of regional technology corridors. Mike Lambur who is heading the Evaluation team sent project team members an outline of the Technology Master plan and also put in place a mechanism that will allow us to monitor the numbers of people attending community meetings in each of the counties. We're using a Web based form that will be used to email the numbers to Mike. This form can be found on resources section of the project Web site at http://top.bev.net/resources.php.
Delays were experienced primarily because the efforts of recruiting TLT members, training them and facilitating the Take Charge process (three per county) in four counties fully consumed the resources of the project team members. We expect that the lessons learnt in these five will serve us well in the other counties. Since Grayson and Carroll counties have already been through the Take Charge process, this leaves only two counties Craig and Dickenson who we expect will catch up with the efforts of the other counties by the middle of the summer.
It is extremely heartening to see the level of interest that this project has generated in King and Queen county and the enthusiasm that the team members bring to the process. Alinda Uzel of King and Queen county has worked very hard to ensure that the project was well publicized and sought to involve as many people as possible in the planning and implementation phases of this project.
Louisa county has a TLT that is also fully engaged in the process of developing their community networks. Jim Riddell the VCE agent in Louisa county has been very active in promoting the project in Lousia and involving the county leadership in this process.
Pauline Milborne of Accomack County would like to see more residents of the county participate in this project and has stepped up her efforts to engage citizens of participating communites in Accomack to get involved in the workshops that will be scheduled in the county in the near future.
Though Van Petty of Cumberland county retired as the VCE agent, he sees the value that this project has to transform Cumberland county. He has generously chosen to serve on this project to help facilitate the process in Cumberland even though he will no longer be compensated for his efforts.
The most significant expenses that we had were related to travel and lodging by the VCE Area Specialist, VCE agents, project coordinator and project director.
October - December '02
The implementation plan was completed this quarter. It was submitted to Mr. Donald Druker at the Department of Commerce for approval and was placed on the project's Web site (http://top.bev.net/implementation.php) so that every one concerned with (and interested in) the project would get a clear idea on how we were going to proceed with the implementation. This document has helped tremendously in setting/managing expectations and coordinating the activities of all personnel involved with this project.
Technology Leadership Teams (TLT) were formed in Accomack, Cumberland, King & Queen, Louisa and Northampton. Carroll and Grayson had already gone through the Take Charge process prior to the beginning of this project and have their teams in place as well. Seven of the nine counties therefore are on track in terms of the schedule.
Laptops and LCD projectors needed for the project were ordered and have been received. The plan is to deliver to each laptop so it can be utilized in the Take Charge process. The laptop for King & Queen was delivered to them in time for the first Take Charge session.
Agents from all counties (except Carroll and Grayson who have already been through the Take Charge process and have started using information technologies in their counties) underwent a day long training session held in Richmond last November (2002). Feedback from the training was positive and it also gave us a chance to clarify issues and answer questions from the agents. The training was video taped so that additional personnel associated with the project or agents who want to review the material would have access to the tapes.
A CD ROM containing pertinent demographic and economic data is being prepared for each county. It will be used at the Take Charge sessions to assist the citizens in reviewing the current situation in their county and planning for the future.
There were delays in Craig and Dickenson counties. The downturn in Virginia economy caused the departure of several key personnel in VCE due to early retirement. This resulted in the reassignment of responsibilities for agents and area specialists. Both Craig and Dickenson counties were affected by these changes. We expect the situation to be remedied in the next quarter. This will help us get on track in those counties. Despite the fact that seven of the nine participating counties have their TLTs in place, the overall completion date for the recruitment and training of TLTs has been revised to reflect this situation. This has also caused us to revise the completion dates for community readiness workshops and the local network deployment.
The major expenses this quarter were due to travel and equipment purchase. Travel costs included the area specialists attending TLT meetings, agents and project team lodging and meals for the agent training held in November and project coordinators travel to meet with TLT.
The following equipment was purchased this quarter: One LCD projector (with spare bulb) Eleven laptops, two for VCE area specialists and nine for the use of citizen groups within each of the counties.
July - September '02
This quarter was devoted to planning activities and incorporating feedback that we received from the field into the planning process. Instead of using the phpGW tool for coordinating activities of the TOP Project Management group, we use the TOP Website (http://top.bev.net) created last quarter, to which we added an online calendar this quarter. This site is updated regularly to reflect project activities and updates. We've also set up a protected online discussion forum and listserve to coordinate the activities of the project management group. The project management group engages in monthly conference calls so that group members who are spread out across the state can connect with each other and clarify issues through discussions and dialogues. Though we are close to finalizing the implementation plan for this project, a section on the process for recruiting technology leadership teams needs to be added to the plan (see next paragraph for details) and hence the completion date has been revised to 10/2002.
The recruitment of the Technology Leadership Teams has been more challenging than originally envisioned. As mentioned earlier, we are currently working on adding a section to the implementation plan that will provide VCE agents guidelines for the recruitment process. We expect that in some communities this will allow us to be more effective in the recruitment process. In those communities that we are not as successful as we'd like, we'd at least have a clearly documented process that we can submit to the Dept. of Commerce.
One of the projectors has been ordered. The other projectors and laptops will be ordered in October. Milestone revised to reflect this change.
Though we had originally scheduled the agent training for the last week of September one of the trainers was involved in a car accident a few days prior to the training and we have decided to reschedule the training for October. Milestone revised to reflect this change.
Though there haven't been any significant deliverables this quarter, a lot of effort has gone into the planning process to ensure a successful implementation phase. We expect the results of these efforts to bear fruit in the next quarter and the ones to follow.
Other than salaries, we had the following expenditures: Take Charge Manuals: $270.00 - 15 copies distributed to some members of the project team and VCE agents in the nine counties)
Travel: $287.26 - This was for a trip Andrew Cohill (who was project director at that time) took in December 2001 to Washington DC to accept the grant award.
April - June '02
During this reporting period we completed the following activities:
- Ordered and received the two servers that will host the community networks
- Had a planning and coordination meeting to introduce Mathew Mathai who was replacing Andrew Cohill as the Program Director, to the VCE staff - Andrew provided transition training to Mathew to enable him to take over as Project Director
- Hired a new Project Coordinator Jaime Dunton to replace Tabitha Combs who left the organization in May.
- Trained Jaime on responsibilities that pertained to her role in this project
- The principal personnel on the BEV and the VCE team met to go over the project plan and revised the time line to accomodate the delay in the project
- Set up the project web site at top.bev.net to provide information to the various entities involved in this project
There were significant changes in personnel related to the project. Mathew Mathai replaced Andrew Cohill as the Project Director. Jaime Dunton replaced Tabitha Combs as Project Coordinator. Virginia Cooperative Extension has lost some of its personnel due to budget cuts and is reorganizing internally. This has delayed the following tasks:
- Using a Web based tool (phpGW) give all staff associated with the project (anywhere in the state) convenient access to project work assignments, milestones, shared calendar and shared address book.
- Order laptops and LCD projectors for community work
- Identify local citizens for the Technology Leadership teams. Though some counties have already done so, not all counties have finished this task.
- Conduct local citizen team training
- Community Readiness Workshops
- Technology Assessments
- Local community network deployment
January - March '02
Preliminary planning continued. Successfully held two training meeting for local extension agents in Blacksburg. Key topic of discussion at this meeting was roles and activities of the extension agents. Some agents were mildly concerned about their ability to handle technical questions from the communities, but we pointed out that the area specialists and the BEV group would be able to provide support in depth in this area.
Our original plan to roll out BEV in a Box was to work with each community sequentially, but after working out logistics and a timeline, we decided this was unmanageable--it would simply take too long. Our plan now is to roll out BEV in a Box in all nine communities simultaneously in early fall, and begin training on services (email, mailing lists, etc) immediately. We will also put up all the community Web sites at the same time, and work with the local Web site committees after the site becomes operational (rather than before). We actually believe this is going to work much better. In the past we have found that the community Web site committees have great difficulty committing to a design and moving forward. With the approach we are planning now, we will provide a fully functioning site immediately, and will work with them to customize it. This will also help with outreach to the wider community, as there will be a fully functional site ready for access much sooner--showing progress to the community.
October - December '01
The significant activity during the late fall and early winter was unfortunately paperwork. It took a very long time (more than two months) to get the proper accounting codes and paperwork routines established with the university sub-contract.
The two new staff for the project could not be hired until the university accounting codes were in place.
The codes were set up the third week of February, and one person had already been interviewed, so she was able to start immediately. Extension has begun advertising for their position, and expects to fill it before the end of March.
Some planning work was done for a training conference which will be held on March 19th and 20th. This conference will begin orienting field extension agents about their role in the effort (which is pivotal).
After this conference, agents will begin working directly in their respective communities to begin selection of the citizen leadership teams.
