The Concept of Community Computing

Since 1985, Case Western Reserve University has been experimenting with free, open-access, community computer systems as a new communications and information medium.

In effect, these systems represent a new application in computing. A multi-user computer is established at a central location in a given area and the machine is connected to the telephone system through a series of devices called modems. Running on the machine is a computer program that provides its users with everything from electronic mail services to information about health care, education, technology, government, recreation, or just about anything else the host operators would like to place on the machine.

Anyone in the community with access to a home, office, or school computer and a modem can contact the system any time, 24 hours a day. They simply dial a central phone number, make connection, and a series of menus appears on the screen which allows them to select the information or communication services they would like. All of it is free and all of it can easily be accomplished by a first-time user.

The key to the economics of operating a community computer system is the fact that the system is literally run by the community itself. Everything that appears on one of these machines is there because there are individuals or organizations in the community who are prepared to contribute their time, effort, and expertise to place it there and operate it over time. This, of course, is in contrast to the commercial services which have very high personnel and information-acquisition costs and must pass those costs on to the consumer.

Couple this volunteerism with the rapidly-dropping costs of computing power, the use of inexpensive transmission technology, and the fact that the necessary software to operate these systems is available for low cost--and public access computing becomes an economically-viable entity.

Case Reserve's Involvement in Community Computing

The University's involvement in the development of community computer systems has its origins in an experiment conducted in the School of Medicine in the fall of 1984. Dr. Tom Grundner of the Department of Family Medicine, set up a single phone line, computerized, "Bulletin Board" system called "St. Silicon's Hospital and Information Dispensary" to test the efficacy of using this medium as a means of delivering general health information to the public. The heart of the system was an interactive area where lay people could call in using their home, school, or business computers, leave medically-related questions, and have them answered by a physician within 24 hours. The experiment proved so successful that it attracted the attention of the Information Systems Division of AT&T and the Ohio Bell Telephone Company, who supported a larger project to expand and develop this interactive concept.

Based on these donations, Dr. Grundner began work on a full-scale "community computer system" on an AT&T 3B2/400 computer with 10 incoming phone lines. This pilot project was designed to serve as a community information resource in areas as diverse as law, medicine, education, arts, sciences, and government--including free electronic mail services for the citizens of northeast Ohio. On July 16, 1986, this system, called the Cleveland Free-Net was opened by Ohio Governor Richard Celeste and Cleveland Mayor George Voinovich and the project was officially underway.

During its prototype stage, the Cleveland Free-Net gathered over 7000 registered users from throughout the Cleveland metropolitan area and handled between 500-600 calls per day on 10 incoming phone lines. In 1989, however, it moved out of prototype in a big way.

A new system was designed around six IBM-RT (Model 135) computers which would be linked together so that, from the user's standpoint, they would appear as one big machine. This new system would provide the Cleveland Free-Net with 96 megabytes of RAM (96 million characters of Random Access Memory), 2.3 gigabytes of hard disk storage (2.3 billion characters of hard disk), and would be capable of supporting up to 360 simultaneous users.

In August of 1989 the Cleveland supersystem opened with 32 phone lines on its way to a projected 96 lines by the end of the year. In August also, the Free-Net was connected to the CWRUNET fiber-optic campus network. This merger of a community computer system with a campus network is yet another first and provides an entirely new model for campus network development.

By the end of 1992 the Cleveland Free-Net had grown to over 36,000 active accounts handling over 11,000 logins a day.

Development of the Concept

As a result of the experience we have gained in working with and developing these systems, several conclusions regarding community computing can be drawn.

First, it is clear that these community computers represent the leading edge of what can only be described as a new telecommunications medium. Telecomputing is not radio, not television, not print, but has characteristics of all three plus some additional ones of its own. This fact alone will inevitably lead to developments and uses that we cannot now even begin to imagine.

Second, experience in northeast Ohio indicates that a critical mass of people now exist who are prepared to utilize this new medium. As more and more modem-equipped microcomputers penetrate the home and especially the work environment, the utility of public-access computerized information services goes up. We have no doubt that this consumer interest and ability to utilize this technology exists at least as much in other parts of the country as it does in northeast Ohio.

Third, there is a certain sense of inevitability to the development of community computing. Simply stated, given the directions now being taken by the computer and communications industry, we find ourselves unable to imagine a 21st century in which we do NOT have community computer systems, just as this century has its public libraries. Moreover, we believe that the community computer, as a resource, will have at least as much impact on the next century as the public library has had on ours.

There currently exists an entire generation in our secondary schools and colleges, for example, that have come to know the microcomputer as a routine personal productivity tool. By the turn of the century, these people will be in a work place where microcomputers and computerized information retrieval will be ubiquitous. This, in turn, cannot help but lead to a demand for similar functions in the home, even as the telephone migrated from being primarily a business tool to a home utility. The process, in effect, feeds on itself. Indeed, several sources are predicting that by the year 2000, over 32,000,000 households (40% of all households) will have some kind of in-home computing technology or information service.

But perhaps the best way to illustrate the development of community computing is by analogy to the development of the public library system in our country. In the middle of the last century there was no such thing as the free public library. Eventually the literacy rate increased enough (and the cost of books decreased enough) that the public library became feasible. In this century, we believe we have reached the point where computer "literacy" has increased enough (and the cost of equipment decreased enough) that a similar demand has formed for free, public- access, community computer systems.

A Civic Utility: Potential Impact on the Community

Who, exactly, benefits from community computing? To cite just a few examples:

% The Citizens: First and foremost, these community computer systems open up information services to very large populations that would otherwise not be able to afford it. The cost of utilizing a Free-Net community computer consists of the cost of having standard telephone service in the home or business, plus the price of the equipment needed to get online. This equipment is now well under $200 virtually anywhere, and that is assuming the person purchases new. If a person wishes to attend a few garage sales, flea markets, or computer fairs, it could be considerably less.

% Public and Private Schools: Via community computers, school systems finally have a cost-effective way to teach telecomputing to their students, thereby sending a new generation of information-literate citizens into the work force. In addition, these systems allow students, teachers, parents, and administrators to communicate with each other and have access to information bases of interest and importance.

% Government: Community computers provide citizens with an inexpensive and rapid way to make contact with their elected representatives at the city, county, state, and national levels--contacts which include everything from obtaining information on governmental services to providing access to tax-payer supported, governmentally- produced databases. It should also be pointed out that these communications are not one way. Elected representatives and other officials also have the ability to electronically communicate with their constituents.

% Small- and Medium-sized Businesses: Most major corporations have electronic mail and other computer-driven information services at their disposal. Most small- and medium-sized businesses do not. With a Free- Net system in place, these smaller enterprises are finally able to afford to link their operations together via the free electronic mail services found on these systems and have access to a variety of useful business databases--something that cannot help but improve the business infrastructure of any city.

% The Agricultural Community: Among the segments in our society that were the first to embrace computing were our farmers. The reason was obvious. Farmers are business people too, but they have the disadvantages of, in general, being dispersed over wide geographic areas. A Free-Net system in a central location in a county allows the agricultural community to access common information bases, share solutions to farm- related problems, access up-to-date crop and price information, and make electronic connection with the County Agent and each other--all without ever leaving home.

% The Telecommunications and Videotex Industry: For years the commercial videotex industry has been dividing, sub-dividing, and sub-sub- dividing essentially the same "up-scale" demographic group: $50,000+ yearly household incomes, very well educated, overwhelmingly white, and overwhelmingly male. If the industry is to survive and flourish, however, it is going to have to find a way to penetrate the middle class with its services. Free-Net community computers do exactly that. On the Cleveland system, for example, we draw as many users out of the demographically blue collar areas of the city as we do out of the wealthier sections. Demographic penetration such as this, on a nationwide basis, is vital if the telecomputing and videotex industry is to survive into the 21st century. It is also important to the telephone industry, which has spent millions of dollars on "intelligent gateway" technology, that videotex flourish and that their services be used.

% Community Organizations and Institutions: Each Free-Net is set up using an "Electronic City" motif. That motif was not selected by accident. To one degree or another, virtually every institution in society has an information dissemination function of some kind--a need to tell others about itself and share its knowledge. The Free-Net makes it possible for any and all of them to utilize a new medium to accomplish that goal. From artistic and cultural organizations to medical institutions to hobbyists of all kinds, all can find a place on a community computer.

THE CLEVELAND FREE-NET COMPUTER COMPLEX:

The Cleveland Free-Net is not a single computer. It is a collection of more than a dozen machines all operating in coordination with each other, and all maintained on the campus of Case Western Reserve University by CWRU's Information Network Services group.

At the heart of the system are machines from several different vendors. These machines have been linked together via an ethernet connection so that, from the users standpoint, they appear as one large machine.

Access to the Free-Net is provided via three methods. The first is via asynchronous modem where phone lines are available for community access. More phone lines and modems may be added as community demand increases. The second method is via both the fiber-optic lines and modems of CWRUnet, the university's new campus information network.

The Free-Net is also available to users around the world via the university's connection to the Internet. The Internet is a collection of thousands of computer systems located in almost every part of the world.

[note: all references to which vendors we are using and how many phone lines we have were deleted because things are growing so fast we can't keep this document up to date]