e-communities Project 

The Skye & Raasay e-communities project was a pilot project aimed at identifying ways of helping the community sector of the Highlands & Islands to develop their knowledge, skills and use of information and communication technologies (ICT) - helping community groups and organisations to become more efficient and effective. 

 The project ran from autumn 2007 - spring 2008 and focused on three areas:

• Improved communication and the exchange of information
• Freeing up of valuable resources, such as time, cost and environmental impacts
• Stimulating and celebrating new and better ways of working, innovation and best practice

 The Isles of Skye and Raasay were selected as an area to champion the pilot project, which was led by Highlands & Islands Enterprise, in partnership with SLCVO. Over 110 community group representatives took part in the e-communities survey and/or one to one consultations held during late 2007. The results of these findings are available in a report which can be downloaded from the HIE website. Copies of the summary report are available from SLCVO.  

The research also helped inform a special e-day event held at Sabhal Mor Ostaig on the 7-8th March 2008. Over 70 community group representatives attended the event on either the Friday or Saturday (and some chose to attend both days!). The e-day event offered the opportunity for attendess to discover a variety of low cost or free ICT solutions such as Spanglefish websites, blogging, using Google Groups to communicate with members, videoconferencing and ways of generating income from a website. Nearly 30 attendees were also able to attend workshops exploring ways of making funding applications for ICT projects.

More information is available on the HIE website - including workshop material and support.

 e-Communities blog