DeepThought

Cyberspace Research

Apologies for the delay since my last post but I have started a new job at the Cyberspace Research Unit at UCLAN and life has been a bit hectic – CRU are in the final stages of developing a site at InternetSafetyZone in their capacity as the UK node of the 'Safer Internet Plan', (developed in partnership with the European Commission and the Public Awareness sub group of the Home Secretary's Internet Task Force on Child Protection).

"One of the main messages of this site is the importance of communication and cooperation between parents and children in ensuring and enhancing a family's cyber wellness. It is possible to create open lines of communication with children and young people and to discuss a variety of seemingly challenging Internet related topics, whilst maintaining mutual respect for one another's perspectives.

The issue of Cyber wellness is an interesting one:

"Cyberwellness is a holistic term which encompasses not only concerns around safety and security online, but also considers people's psychological and emotional well being, along with stage of development with specific regard to the range of issues that may affect children and young people in their use of new mobile and internet technologies.

For children and young people this helping them to realise that when they use the internet and mobile technologies, they are sending, receiving and communicating in a public space. Cyberwellness is about learning the skills to use and communicate with these technologies properly, keeping safe and secure, learning how to publish, disclose and interpret sources of information online and how to respect other users.

My task, as an anthropologist, is to develop a qualitative strategy for evaluating the usability of the project’s website in addition to a more quantitative evaluation. So far I am catching up by reading all the project documentation – a happy task!!

posted by Denise Carter @ 8:30 AM