Access denied? : Cultural capital and digital access

Introduction

Every third Indian has access to the internet through her phone. The number of mobile internet users in India today is much higher than what was the total population of India in its first census of 1951[1]. So, what are the Indian historians doing about it? The answer probably can be found if we approach the elephant of Digital Humanities in our room. A good beginning would be to recognise that Digital Humanities is a branch of knowledge with which historians can share some synergies.

Digital Humanities (DH) is a field that tries to understand the interactions between the Science of human behaviour and the Technology of digital nature. Its definition is still evolving, but here are a few descriptions[2]. Digital humanities is an umbrella term that covers a wide variety of digital work in the humanities: development of multimedia pedagogies and scholarship, designing & building tools, human computer interaction, designing & building archives, etc. DH is interdisciplinary; by necessity it breaks down boundaries between disciplines. It is an academic field self-reflexively looking at the application of digital technology to humanities fields of enquiry.

Approach

In this paper we are proposing that an alliance between History and DH can be approached in two ways. First, meaningfully engaging our computational abilities with the historical research we may be engaged in. For historians, this may involve digitisation of archives, digitally recording the living traditions, 3-D printing and imaging of rare artifacts or virtual mapping of heritage sites, possibilities are endless. In fact, many of these have already become a part of a day in the life of any person with a Smartphone. As regards the second approach, historians can boast of being the experts, as they already have the domain knowledge to understand the impact of novel and what are called as «disruptive» technologies on human interactions. In this second approach, the historians’ expertise can be used to understand, analyse and explain the effects of digital technology on various aspects of our lives – ranging from increasing obesity and divorce rates to decreasing leisure time and attention spans. Thus, the interaction between History and Digital Humanities has two sides to it. The first and the more visible side uses computational techniques at every stage of historical research and its dissemination. Second and more unexplored side is using the historical research method to understand the changes brought about by the digital realities in the society we study. It is this second approach which is employed in this paper to understand the effects of free Wi-Fi connectivity on the students’ perceptions about their academic achievements.

Background

The National Convention on Digital Initiatives for Higher Education was a convention attended by more than 700 Vice-Chancellors of Indian Universities. At this convention held on 9th July 2017, a platform for digital learning was launched by the President of India while the Cabinet Minister and the Minister of State for Human Resource Development were the guests of honour. An Action Plan called 17 by 17 – 17 points to be achieved by the end of 2017 – was adopted at the convention. It included points such as digitisation of libraries and campus processes and monitoring of the current usage of digital resources and the like[3]. Though availability of high speed internet access was not mentioned in the action plan, on 15 January 2018, the Ministry of HRD issued a letter to all the Vice-Chancellors of Indian Universities that stated that «Digital Campus presupposes existence of high speed internet access and Wi-Fi facility that would help all the students/ faculty to access the same from their laptop/ mobile». It further advised the universities to take up a larger national effort involving both private and public players and asked them to make Wi-Fi connectivity available in all higher education institutions by 15th August 2018[4].

20 years before these developments, in 1997, Savitribai Phule Pune University[5] (SPPU) founded its Centre for Network Computing (CNC) for maintenance of a Campus-wide Network for the use of the University- including students, teachers and the administration[6]. Since 2014, Optical Fibre Based Wi-Fi access is available free of cost for all bonafide students, teachers and the staff of SPPU throughout its 400 Acre campus of the University including study areas, hostels, canteens and gardens. As SPPU campus has a fairly established system of free Wi-Fi for all, which has been fully functional since 2014, a study of the effects of this digital initiative, it is hoped, might offer some insights for the Indian Universities that are now taking up the Digital Initiative at the behest of the Ministry of HRD.

Methodology

While a comprehensive study of students representing all faculties of higher education would be a more desirable option, limited availability of sample, time and resources has prompted the choice of social science students at the Savitribai Phule Pune University as the universe of respondents for the present study. This choice is based on the fact that in India, the maximum number of students at the graduate and the post graduate level are enrolled in Social Sciences as per the AISHE 2015-16[7]. Also, 94 % of the students taking higher education in India are enrolled in state universities[8] such as SPPU. The sample of respondents in this study therefore, can be considered as representative of a number of groups, such as students of 367 State Universities, Indian students taking post-graduate education, first generation of students enjoying free Wi-Fi and youth in developing countries.

The study is based on the findings of a questionnaire based survey conducted in February 2018 using a Convenient Sample of 217 social science students of SPPU in an attempt to understand how access to free Wi-Fi impacts them.

Objectives

Some of the objectives of this study are as follows –

1. To evaluate the impact of Wi-Fi Access on the Social Science Students of SPPU.

2. To assess if the students perceive any correlation between Free Wi-Fi Access and Learning Outcomes.

3. To assess the extent to which students use the Wi-Fi connectivity for accessing subscribed e-journals.

4. To assess the factors affecting the effective academic use of free wi-fi by the students.

5. To suggest possible policy measures for effective utilisation of wi-fi network and other resources.

The research project began in September 2017 and a structured questionnaire was administered to a total of 217 students from 9 departments that constitute the social sciences at SPPU.

Hypotheses

The study was undertaken to verify if the following hypotheses can be proved.

1. Students feel that they have benefitted academically from the free Wi-Fi access on SPPU campus.

2. The difficulties in getting access to the Wi Fi network are correlated with the caste, gender and language of instruction of the students.

3. Majority of students do not use academic publications that can be accessed free of cost through the University Wi-Fi.

4. The non-use of academic publications is also correlated with the caste, gender, availability of resources and language of instruction of the students.

5. While Digital technology touches and improves the academic performance of the students across all strata, the difference in their achievements is correlated with non-academic and non-technological factors such as caste, location, language and gender.

Discussion

Here are some relevant markers of the respondents’ profile. With 102 females, 1 transgender and 114 males, the Gender Parity Index (GPI) of the respondents stands at 0.89.[9] 91 % students are Indian and most of the remaining students are from other Asian and African countries. 65 % of the total students belong to the First year and 35 % belong to the Second year of post-graduation. 83% of them are between 20 to 25 years of age, though few students are older, between 25and 50 years of age. 65 % of the respondents have completed their schooling with Marathi as the medium of instruction. At the University, however, 66 % have chosen English as their medium of education. Of the 84 % respondents who have chosen to disclose their religion, 77 % are Hindu, 8.2% are Christian, 6.5 % are Muslims and 5 % are Buddhists. The category-wise composition of the respondents is as follows. General – 36.9%, Other Backward Castes – 22.1 %, Not Answered 12.9%, Scheduled Castes – 10.6%, Scheduled Tribes- 10.6%, Nomadic Tribes – 6% and De-notified Tribes - 0.9%. These details are furnished so as to indicate the caste, religious and social profile markers of the students.

As for the digital profile of the respondents, 99 % have answered that they do have access to the internet, and only 14.6 % have begun using the internet recently, i.e. since joining the university. Mobile revolution is obvious and visible in this sample as 92.6 % respondents have their own smartphones and use them for accessing the internet. However, the number of laptop owners is also not insignificant at 44.7 %. While smartphones are owned by practically everybody, laptops being an expensive resource are owned by the respondents with various kinds of advantages. For example, only 18.1 % Marathi medium students have their own laptops as against 58 % English medium students. 58.8 % Open category students own laptops as against 0 DT, 13 % SC and close to 31 % each of NT and OBC students. A gender based review of laptop owners surprisingly shows that a bigger percentage of owners – 55.7% - are girls as against the boys -44.3 %. This can be explained by the social reality that of the girls that own laptops 50% belong to the open category and a further 24.1 % have not disclosed their castes. 89% of these girls have chosen English as the medium of instruction and 63% of these laptop owning girls come from cities and metros.