Virginia Public Access

The Open Media Globe
Submitted by virginiatv on Wed, 08/05/2009 - 10:03
Contact Information
Individual Applicant Name: 
terry hartikka
About the Center
1. Does your organization currently have a public computer center?: 
Yes
2. What is the goal of your public computer center? If it currently is not set up do you have organizational capacity for one?: 
Our goal is to provide the public with access to video editing equipment, training, and the ability to make locally produced video available to the public via television and the internet.
3. What percentage of content submitted to your station is posted online?: 
15
4. Will your organization's public computer center be available to all members of the general public or a specific population?: 
It is open to all members of the general public in the areas that we serve as a public access station.
5. Do you charge membership dues or other fees to the population you are proposing to serve?: 
No
6. What is the disabilities status for members in your area? Check all that apply.: 
Blindness, Deafness or a severe vision or hearing impairment.
A condition that substantially limits one or more basic physical activities such as walking, climbing stairs, reaching, lifting or carrying.
A physical, mental or emotional condition lasting 6 months or more.
Center Capacity
7. For the following questions regarding your center's capacity, are the values current or proposed?: 
Current
Public computer center name and type.: 
Virginia Public Access Studios
How many broadband-related equipment units (e.g. computers, wireless devices) have you/do you intend to purchase overall?: 
3
Center's Broadband Connection Speed (MBps): 
20
Number of Persons served per 120-hour business week?: 
10
Number of Persons served per 48-hour weekend?: 
2
Center Demographic Information
8. What is the estimated population size of your service area?: 
25000
9. What is your service area identifier?: 
cities of virginia, mountain iron, biwabik, aurora, hoyt lakes, gilbert, eveleth - 8th District
10. What age distribution(s) will your center serve?: 
5 to 19 years
20 to 29 years
29 to 39 years
40 to 49 years
50 to 59 years
60 to 69 years
70 and above
11. What ethnicity(s) will your center serve?: 
Hispanic
Non-Hispanic White
Non-Hispanic Black
Non-Hispanic American Indian
12. What gender(s) will your center serve?: 
Male
Female
13. What is the median household income for the population your center will serve?: 
Less than $9,000
$10,000 - $14,999
$15,000 - $24,999
$25,000 - $34,999
$35,000 - $44,999
$50,000 - $74,999
$75,000 - $99,999
14. What education levels will your center serve?: 
Middle - Grade 6 to Grade 8
Secondary - Grade 8 to Grade 12
College
Masters
Doctorate/Post-Doctorate
15. What is the unemployment rate for your service area?: 
9
16. What describes the language preference of your service area?: 
English - Primary
17. Please describe your center's outreach strategy and how can you reach communities lacking broadband access. : 
Beyond the three access channels we serve with programming and internet presence including community bulletin board, we are seeking funding to hire a community media coordinator to facilitate connections in the business, educational, media and private community sectors. We are by definition a rural area where we serve 7 communities including their city councils. Through developing good working relationships with these counsels we continue to promote communication with them to expand opportunities for their cities to utilize our services such as community education training, recruiting of vidiographers for their many activities, and providing internet access for their meetings and activities. Local news articles and ads are also on tap to invite others to participate in what we do.
18. If you provide a computer checkout or giveaway program, how many users do you expect to provide equipment or computers?: 
We may provide laptop computers for checkout in the future with numbers depending upon the need to produce programming outside of the studio. To date we have three individuals who process programming off site. We have schools, and city offices who now use our server directly from their sites. As the need and awareness grows for people to access the web and the television community bulletin board directly through our unique system we will provide whatever they need to get the job done.
19. How will you measure the program's impact in reaching disconnected communities and increase broadband adoption?: 
Our practical approach to this must be in terms of who is actually using our service, who is receiving training, who is becoming connected with the opportunities that we offer such as equipment use both in and out of the studio.
20. Please describe your primary training and educational programs, including curricula, student certification programs, etc.: 
We provide in house training for videography in a class room, hands on setting, as well as personal training one on one in the video editing studio. Most of our ongoing training to date has been "on the job" with our production crew. As trainees demonstrate the ability to properly handle, safeguard, and effectively utilize various phases of production they are recognized as directors, and can check out or come in to use what we have. Our community is very politically charged, and as such it has behooved us to provide people with information on many issues. Various service organizations also have vital information that they would like made available such as fire and rescue, hospital, and utility services. Our community college also has a need to improve their visibility and has indicated a desire for educational and hands on resources. Our high schools also have a significant void in media technology, and we continue to search for ways to inspire and give them access to communication services. Further, there is an alarming growth in chemical and other dependencies that we see needs to be addressed. Local journalism and news has also been an area of need here that we feel our services could provide. Lessons learned from prior programs, (meaning training, etc?) has showed the need to provide a continueing interest to those who have initially taken training. It seems a national trend (and certainly locally) that those using public access services as volunteers or for perceived needs/interests is declining. Vision needs improvement. Most who use our services are staff or those our staff serves in filming their interests. My personal philosophy is becoming more that public access to communication venues need not be limited by requiring participants to have a technological capacity or interest. We who are on that end of it need to provide opportunities for public access to every level of society.
20a. How many hours of training do you/expect to provide per person on average through training programs(s)?: 
30
20b. How many full-time instructors/facilitators do you/will you employ for broadband and digital literacy training purposes?: 
1 mostly field trained adults having worked with us 1 year
Other Information
21. Is there evidence that less than 40% of your service population has broadband web access?: 
No
22. How will your center provide a $10,000 match of funds?: 
We have two options here. We have a cable commission appropriation through the city, who has been very favorable towards our operation. We also have a fund that will have that amount of money in it by the end of the year from station use fees that other communities pay us for serving them.
23. Does your center currently have an online component or plans for an online component?: 
Yes
24. How do you plan to maintain a public computer center?: 
We have two part time staff at this point and we will need to hire someone as a studio/computer manager. At this point our need is also to include a community media coordinator to that job portfolio in order to not only maintain but to expand our organization's scope.
25. How do you plan maintain a website for your station or for the public computer center?: 
We've already spoken in commission about establishing a job description for someone who would maintain a web site beyond what is already automatically generated. At this point the only maintenance required is to link our on demand streaming to our content delivery network provider.
26. Are you interested in enabling your community to directly schedule any portion of your programming schedule?: 
No
27. Are you interested in sharing content with other public access TV stations?: 
Yes
28. How many total new home subscribers (households) to broadband do you expect to generate over the entirety of the program?: 
100
29. How many total new business and/or institutional subscribers to broadband do you expect to generate?: 
10