Description - Intro
From BuildTheOpenMesh
The CWRU "University Circle Innovation Zone" is a research effort to run fiber optic into the 104 home and apartments on Hessler St. (which is directly adjacent to the CWRU campus.) An Alpha house demo room and bureau will be set up as a first step in this project.
The Beta Block is the second phase of the project when the fiber optic is provisioned and offered to the residents of Hessler St. The Beta Block course will study the resident's usage and behavior patterns of this connectivity and attempt to answer the question: "what do you DO with gigabit connectivity?" eg. what are the benefits and solutions made possible with broadband?
The Beta Block course will focus on the delivery of software experiences to the residents of Hessler St. which they'll receive via the fiber optic gigabit networking provided by CWRU.
This connectivity will provide a series of browser based experiences in addition to free Internet access. Free dashboard software will act as a 'gateway' to public safety cams, smart grid energy monitoring and several kinds of local health services. In addition the dashboard software will provide social networking, blogging, media sharing, Facebook connectivity and also gateway to various forms of television programming and VoIP telephone services.
The fiber optic wiring run into each apartment and home will be 'provisioned' and accounts set up so that each resident of Hessler St. will have their own account. The free ‘dashboard’ interface will act as a 'start page' for one's account.
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3 Levels of Interface
The residents of Hessler St. will be offered three distinct levels of control and user interface, each appropriate to a different class of end-user. These three levels will be personified by three different 'start pages', each of which is available from the end-user's initial 'splash page' entrance to the system.
The start pages will serve as the 'dashboard' to one's set of applications, services and content. In addition to the 'core external services' the 'dashboard' interface that will provide Hessler St. residents access to a myriad of on-line content and news and a social networking and communication platform which will be utilized to connect the residents to each other and the rest of the world. This dashboard will be available in these three distinct forms:
The Simple interface will feature a News Page and Tabs linking to each of the external services. The Simple interface will not feature any customization, tools or fancy interfaces and be designed to be purely utilitarian in function.
The Regular interface will allow users to customize their News Page, add links or 'feeds' to their environment and include a number of tools; such as blogging, media sharing and social networking. The Regular interface will feature themes which can easily be switched and provide average users an appropriate level of control, flexibility and personalization, without getting too overwhelming.
The Advanced interface will feature a fully customizable, dashboard environment where many aspects of the interface, content and services are completely malleable. The Advanced interface provides an integrated environment, that aggregates people, content and services with a highly customizable interface. The overall functionality of the Advanced interface is appropriate for advanced or experienced users.
The Course - IIME 371, 471
A course will be taught at CWRU (IIME371, 471) which will act as an interdisciplinary hub for the wide range of interests, agendi and issues which are made possible by providing free fiber optic connectivity to urban residents. The Course will study the usage patterns and behavior of the residents of Hessler St. who will be enabled by fiber optic connectivity provided to them by CWRU.
The Course will provide and coordinate web services and social networking via free dashboard software that will be offered to all participants in the program and produce compelling content relevant to Cleveland and Hessler St. in particular.
The professor of record for The Course will be Dr. Gary Wnek, but in fact 'consultant' Marc Canter will be teaching the class.
Dashboard software
The dashboard software will include built-in blogging and media sharing and feature social networking functionality such as personal pages, groups, messages, activity streams and Facebook Connect. The dashboard will enable users to setup their own RSS feeds, follow their favorite 'feeds' and personalize their news page. The dashboard environment will provide users an interface level appropriate to who they are - their ability level, content interests and services they wish to utilize.
Communication tools and multimedia software will also be provided to all residents and the project will encourage residents to express themselves through writing (blogging), media sharing (video, audio or images) or citizen journalism (real-time reporting.)
The course will coordinate and gateway to a number of external partner’s software offerings from Time-Warner Cable, UH, the Cleveland Clinic, MetroHealth, the local police and OneCommunity. new software modules and web services which will be created and plugged into the free ‘dashboard’ software provided by the project.
The course will work closely with local residents by forming a ‘Residents Council’ to facilitate community liaison efforts.
Hessler St. Content
Hessler St. is known for its yearly Arts and Music Festival, held in mid-May which features a 60’s ‘hippie’ theme and is celebrating its 41st year this year.
A documentary – entitled The History of Hessler St. – will be produced combining interviews and historical footage with documentation of this project and our future plans. The source footage of the documentary will be made available to multiple editors, each of whom will create their own edit of the documentary.
This notion of shared resources is part of the theme and spirit of the project and Hessler St itself.
Relevant web links, news feeds and media channels will also be built-into this dashboard software, along with on-going user generated editorial content. A key aspect of any dashboard is to provide timely, relevant content which is fits the context of the residents of Hessler St.
Other kinds of unique content will be produced as part of the project and several kinds of interactive, viral marketing campaigns and contests will be launched.
Inter-disciplinary effort
The Beta Block project is the culmination of five years of effort to create a ‘connected communities’ project, starting on the CWRU campus and surrounding University Circle community and eventually extending out to the surrounding neighborhoods on the east side of Cleveland and nearby townships.
The connected communities effort (currently called the "University Circle Innovation Zone") will not only bring high speed Internet connectivity to the local communities surrounding CWRU, but also serve as a delivery platform for new kinds of health, safety, energy monitoring and entertainment services.
The first steps of this effort will be an 'alpha' deployment on the second floor of the Arabica coffee shop. This will be refereed to as the 'Alpha House' location.
The 'beta' stage of the effort begins in February with the installation of fiber optic cabling into the 104 apartments and homes on Hessler St. directly adjacent to CWRU’s main campus (off of Ford St.) That connectivity will then be tested, provisioned and connected to 'set-top boxes' placed inside the homes of each resident on Hessler St.
The Beta Block project represents the combined efforts of hardware and software development teams, web and live support services, documentary teams and several educational studies all leading towards a series of compelling experiences for the residents of 104 apartments and homes on Hessler St. in Cleveland.
This project will be operated by the CWRU IT department. The Course taught (IIME 371, 471) will produce content and manage the ‘built-in’ dashboard software which will act as start pages and 'local' content and services. Students will act as community liaison and system administrators, as the course will train these students in the real-world skills necessary for running a social network and related content services.
Students will be taught to operate the systems admin screens, CMS, create new themes and new page layouts and in general - "be in charge" of the system.
The course will coordinate and work closely with CWRU’s IT department to provide a seamless experience to Hessler St. residents. Content will be produced, custom user interfaces offered, procedures and processes documented, web services gateway-ed to and embedded analytics monitored to keep track of all user behavior and activities via the fiber optic connections.
The course will be an inter-disciplinary effort, bringing together technical, creative, business, cognitive psychology and community activists to leverage this opportunity of having a ‘target group’ of users utilizing super high-speed Internet connectivity.
Parallel software development, documentation and learning efforts will culminate with a wide range of deliverables, all shared with the community at the annual Hessler St Fair – mid-May 2010.
