Community Portraits is an online programme, designed

• to enable participants to explore their own communities and to share their views with others;
• to enable participants to find out about other communities and make comparisons;
• to provide an opportunity for participants to work with others from different backgrounds;
• to produce Web-pages presenting their communities..

The module is designed on the principle that community arises from communication and uses online collaboration as a means to explore the formation and maintenance of a sense of community identity.

The module is run by the University of Stirling and lasts a nominal 12 weeks.

The first run of the programme involved professional workers in the health and social care fields working and living in the Highlands of Scotland, Lapland, central Sweden and around Stuttgart in Germany. A brief outline of the module is given in the appendix and an evaluation is contained in a report prepared for the EC by the course tutor, Liz Timms (1999b: http://www.schema.stir.ac.uk/Deliverables/D4.1.pdf). Participants in the module commented that the course appeared to fulfil its objectives, leading to a broadening of perspectives, “even some new ideas and information”. Participants also commented on the acquisition of new communi-cation skills and appreciated the way in which collaboration on-line led to the development of a learning community. Negative comments were mostly directed at problems with the technology, but also noted the need to establish roles and responsibilities within workgroups as quickly as possible. There is a potential conflict between the provision of too much information and a prescriptive work schedule and encouraging groups to develop their own approach. It was also observed that the experience of shared technical problems – notably involving a synchronous chat button which was very temperamental – actually helped the participants to bond. The experience of tackling a common irritation helped the development of trust.

The second iteration was with groups of lone parents and retired people in a stigmatized suburb of Stockholm (see Appendix C). It had been intended to pair the Stockholm group with a number of people living in a disadvantaged area in Glasgow, but the Scottish group were unable to maintain their online presence and the Swedish group were left to develop their Portraits by themselves. As when the participants were professional care workers, the experience seems to have been successful in terms of community-building, leading to collaboration among individuals who had no previous knowledge of each other. Through sharing experiences and collaborating online the participants were able to develop an improved image of their community and to promote this publicly. At the same time the progress of the group was hindered by inter-personal difficulties which would probably not have been so influential if interaction had been wholly online.

The most recent outings of Community Portraits have involved students concerned with the approaches of three Scottish universities to disability issues. A brief description of the module is appended (see also http://www.psychology.stir.ac.uk/staff/alaing/index.php). The course tutor, Adele Laing is carrying out an ethnographic study of disabling practices in Scottish Higher Education. She points out that her research has suggested a consider-able gap between the policies and procedures theat universities present concerning disability and the reality of student experience. Community Portraits provides a mechanism for enabling the student perspective to be heard and for the students concerned to develop an ongoing community which will help to promote changes in institutional policies.