Community 2.0: a collaborative university-community network to inform and educate caregivers in home-based healthcare in South Africa Retha de la Harpe Faculty of Informatics and Design Cape Peninsula University of Technology Cape Town, South Africa Izak van Zyl Faculty of Informatics and Design Cape Peninsula University of Technology Cape Town, South Africa Abstract—Caregivers providing a care service to under-resourced communities do not have sufficient access to information and training. A mobile application was developed to enable caregivers to become active producers of their own information, which is in turn translated into mobile edutainment content. This facilitates informal, on-demand learning. Said mobile application is part of a larger collaborative project between universities and communities. An ethnographic study was conducted to determine caregivers’ information needs, and participatory design methods were used to develop a prototype solution. The collaboration between the respective university and community members resulted in an active network. This relationship is marked by mutually beneficial partnerships, and distinct stakeholder roles. The experiences and insights gained during this project have framed the proposed collaborative university-community network Keywords: University-Community Collaboration; community engagement; mobile applications; home-based healthcare; informal learning; on-demand information. I. INTRODUCTION This paper responds to the theme of “partners for development”: ICT actors and actions, and a model with University and community members as the ICT actors and community engagement as the action. The project presented in this paper deals with socio-economic issues such as poverty and uses mobile technology for development (M4D) to educate community members in home-based healthcare. Many communities in South Africa are subjected to socio- economic conditions that result in isolation and a lower quality of life. Many individuals are illiterate or semi-literate and do not have proper understandings about their circumstances. Efforts in developed countries are often people-centered and although directed at individuals, i.e. citizen centric, they seem not to fully consider the position of this person in a larger community (examples are smart homes in Europe). In poorer communities, the position of the individual is never separate from the community to which the person belongs, e.g. caregivers operating in groups and visiting patients/clients where family members, friends or neighbors are often present during the visit. The condition of the individual, health or poverty related, becomes a collective problem where others in the community take up the responsibility of caring for those in need. This became evident when we conducted an ethnographic study on home-based healthcare [1]. Ad-hoc ICT solutions are often proposed without addressing specific aspects that will influence their successful adoption. The following aspects are generally not sufficiently considered: the complex nature and challenges within the surrounding environment, the need for sustainability; local contextual factors; the educational needs of training ICT practitioners and citizens as the users of the ICT solutions; etc. These aspects cannot be addressed without the involvement of different stakeholders. Communities have to deal with issues to survive and do not have the means and resources to address their own problems. Universities can provide valuable insights that can be used to address complex socio-economic problems. This leads to the purpose of this paper, namely to conceptualise the relationship between universities and communities around community engagement. This notion is based on a specific case where we designed and developed a practical application that is also described in this paper. The goal of this paper is to explore the current situation of community engagement by universities by considering how a specific project evolved. The ‘case project’ described in this paper considers how different stakeholders can be aligned in a collaborative university-community network around ubiquitous on-demand learning of caregivers. An ethnographic study was used to establish the information and education needs of caregivers in a specific under-resourced community. A participatory design approach was used with the active involvement of caregivers to design an initial prototype solution using mobile technology. The proposed solution will allow caregivers to collectively and actively participate as simultaneous producers and consumers of information, relating to their own experiences, and to contribute to a joint repository of information and educational material in their own “idiom”. This should result in a learning community and ideally break down isolation. The stakeholders required for this solution will be aligned in a network with the university and community as central or primary nodes. This network