September 1997 — Features

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The Boulder Valley Internet Project: Lessons Learned

As a result, a decentralized diffusion system is closely geared to local needs. A solution that works for one particular school may not be suitable for another, even within the same school district.

Though horizontal diffusion networks are effective within an individual school, they are far less effective among dispersed schools, even at the same grade level. One of the initial objectives of the project -- to have three networked middle schools collaborate on several shared curriculum units -- was not achieved, partly due to lack of full connectivity, and partly due to the site-based nature of the district.

Another important aspect of the project was that the attributes of the innovation, as perceived by the end users, changed radically during the five-year implementation phase of the project. In the Rogers model, there are five attributes of an innovation. These are perceived by members of the social system in the process of adopting it, and determine its rate of adoption:

  • Five Attributes to an Innovation
    1. Relative advantage:  Is the innovation seen as better than what it replaces?
    2. Observability: Can others see how the innovation works and observe its consequences?
    3. Compatibility: How consistent is the innovation with the values, past experience, and needs of potential adopters?
    4. Complexity: Is the innovation easy to understand, use, and maintain?
    5. Trialability: Can the innovation be tried out on a limited basis?

 
Unlike the type of innovation conceptualized by Rogers and the diffusion scholars, the Internet was a rapidly evolving technology. At the inception of the project, the system was very complex. Innovators and early adopters had to learn a plethora of Internet tools including gopher, archie, veronica, telnet, ftp, various types of e-mail, and the like. One of the early adopters reflected on her experience with the project:

  • "The main thing with the project is when it was first started, where the technology was then, and where it is now. If I had to start getting back with all those, you know, ftpís and so on! I mean, I love the Web. That is what I live on!"
    •

    In contrast, by the time the second wave of adopters was trained by their near-peers, the complexity of the system had been vastly reduced through the introduction of graphical browsers such as Netscape Navigator. An innovation that required several training sessions and many hours of hands-on individual exploration by new users could now be mastered by young students in less than an hour.