Community Informatics is an emerging field that includes the use of information and communication technologies to help communities understand and address social, cultural, and economic development issues. It is multidisciplinary and brings together the theory of academic researchers with the practical application of practitioners. Community informatics focuses not only on providing communities with access to the technology and information but also on building community capacity to use them effectively.

The focus of our work in community informatics is in the development and use of community information systems (CIS).

How does community informatics work in the community?
As an example, through two major grants from the US Department of Commerce and one from the US Department of Education, we built a Web-based system that allows users to map neighborhood-level indicators about poverty, crime, educational attainment, housing conditions, and much more; provided several Indianapolis neighborhoods computer labs to enable them to access the data; trained them on how to use it; and helped them develop the skills and knowledge to use the data to communicate resource needs and to create positive, neighborhood-driven change in their communities, such as new employee training programs, better health resources, and increased community-buy in. We also developed the capability to upload GPS data into the on-line mapping system and associate photographs and descriptions to the points. Students at a community school used GPS technology to map the assets in the neighborhood and develop an inventory for use by the neighborhood during its health assessment project.