NeTS: Medium: Collaborative Research: TribalNet: Expanding Internet Accessibility and Participation on Native American Reservations

部落社区代表了美国互联网接入的最后前沿，在部落保留地，只有不到10%的印第安人可以使用快速（宽带）互联网接入。缺乏宽带接入是由一系列挑战造成的，包括偏远的地形、资金不足和复杂的电信政策。然而，印第安人需要可靠的途径来参与和贡献互联网内容，以加强他们的社区。这个项目研究的技术将增加保留土地上的互联网可用性。此外，它将开发向保留地居民传播互联网内容的新方法，在连接有限的时期根据相关性优先考虑内容。将纳入人种学方法和对居住在保留地的印第安人的访谈，以确保拟议解决方案的可用性和实用性。通过在南加州部落社区进行的解决方案试验，这项工作有可能惠及2700多个家庭和60个社区锚定机构。在这三所参与机构中，这些项目将在课程中纳入证明计算机科学对人道主义有积极影响的研究成果，以增加计算机科学对女性和少数群体的吸引力。这项研究的目标是在解决部落保留地缺乏互联网接入的问题上取得关键进展，增加能够参与、创造和传播互联网和在线社交网络内容的印第安人保留地居民的数量。该项目将通过四个相关要素实现这一目标：(1)开发一种适合由蜂窝、无线ISP和空白网络组成的多网络设置的架构，这些网络的覆盖范围、成本和网络速度各不相同；(2)开发部落内容分发网络，包括蜂窝、无线ISP和整个保留地的空白空间塔的计算和存储，向最终用户发送和接收内容；(3)利用民族志方法对TDV社区内的互联网使用和组织网络技术使用能力进行有限的实证研究，为内容优先级和分发机制提供信息。还将进行面谈，并根据需要进行原型设计活动，以确保系统界面支持社区成员的使用和管理；(4)收集和分析TDV网络多年的流量价值，建立内容相关性和消费模型，以优先考虑网络中的内容分发。

Tribal communities represent the final frontiers of Internet access in the U.S., with fast (broadband) Internet access available to fewer than 10% of Native Americans on tribal reservation lands. The lack of broadband access is caused by a collection of challenges, including remote terrain, inadequate funding, and complex telecommunication policies. Yet Native Americans need reliable avenues for participation and contribution to Internet content to strengthen their communities. This project investigates technologies that will increase Internet availability on reservation lands. Further, it will develop new methodologies of disseminating Internet content to reservation residents, prioritizing content by relevance during periods of limited connectivity. Ethnographic methods and interviews of Native Americans residing on the reservations will be incorporated to ensure usability and utility of the proposed solutions. Through the trial of the solutions within Southern California tribal communities, the work has the potential to reach over 2,700 homes and 60 community anchor institutions. Within the three participating institutions, the PIs will include in courses results from the research that demonstrate the positive humanitarian impact of computer science in order to increase the appeal of computer science to female and minority groups. The goal of the research is to make critical inroads to addressing the lack of Internet access on tribal reservations, to increase the number of Native American reservation residents who are able to engage with, create, and disseminate Internet and on-line social network content. This project will achieve this goal through four related elements: (1) develop an architecture suitable for a multi-network setting comprised of cellular, wireless ISP and whitespace networks, where coverage, cost and network speed varies; (2) develop a tribal content distribution network, consisting of computation and storage at cellular, wireless ISP and white space towers across the reservation, that delivers content to and receives content from end users; (3) conduct a limited empirical study of Internet use and organizational network technology use capacity within the TDV community using ethnographic methods to inform the content prioritization and distribution mechanisms. Interviews will also be conducted and engaged in prototyping activities as needed to ensure that the system interfaces support use and administration by members of the community; (4) collect and analyze multiple years' worth of traffic from the TDV network to develop models of content relevance and consumption to prioritize content distribution in the network.