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[File] Digital education at the start of the 2022 school year: an overview of current projects and new initiatives
ForewordAs every year, the back-to-school circular of the Minister of National Education describes the priorities and new features that will come into effect in September. With regard to digital education, the circular states that each school or institution must "update the educational continuity plans developed and implemented since 2020" . It announces, in this regard, that a " permanent and sovereign solution of virtual classrooms accessible to all teachers will now be guaranteed throughout the year". "Faced with the challenge for our students to understand the digital world, and in particular to know how to analyze, sort, and distinguish between information that everyone can now be the sender as well as the receiver ", the circular provides for strengthening the effort in media and information education: "All teachers, especially those in charge of documentation, who are the pivotal point in secondary education, must sensitize and train students in this necessary distance, the first quality of an informed citizen. In this spirit, an experiment will be implemented in the sixth grade as of next fall via a digital awareness certificate.The health crisis and the implementation of educational continuity have made it necessary to set up a "basic digital foundation for schools, colleges and high schools". Within the framework of a "partners' committee" associating representatives of associations representing local authorities and the State "in the respect of the competences of each one", three guidelines for basic digital equipment in schools, colleges and high schools were discussed and then made public.This fall, we have a first evaluation of the program " Digital educational territories (TNE), launched in 2020, which should allow for large-scale testing of the implementation of educational continuity.As part of the " Numérique Inclusif, Numérique Éducatif" program launched in June 2021, 80 selected projects support the fight against digital and educational divides.As part of France 2030 (which takes over from the stimulus plan), a considerable investment effort (594 million euros) is devoted to the "Education and Digital" acceleration strategy.
Contents
State and local authorities agree on digital equipment bases for schools, colleges and high schools
Digital education and inclusion: 80 projects to "reshuffle the deck
What lessons can be learned from the "digital education territories" experiment?
France 2030's education and digital strategy
Towards a generalization of media and information literacy in schools
The General Assembly on Digital Education, one year later, what is the interim assessment?
"What do we know today about the place and use of digital in schools?"
State and local authorities agree on digital equipment bases for schools, colleges and high schools Despite significant combined financial efforts, the deployment of the digital education public service has been very disparate and uneven across the country. " To remedy the persistent inequalities in access to the public digital service," the Cour des Comptes in its July 2019 report To remedy the persistent inequalities in access to digital public services," the Cour des Comptes recommended "providing schools, colleges and high schools with a basic digital foundation.The health crisis and the implementation of educational continuity have made it necessary to set up a "basic digital base for schools, colleges and high schools".Within the framework of a "partners' committee" associating representatives of associations representing local authorities and the State, "while respecting the competences of each", three guidelines for basic digital equipment in schools, middle schools and high schools were discussed and then made public.These guidelines detail, for each type of establishment (school, college and high school) a basic foundation:
basic classroom equipment: a group viewing system and a classroom workstation;
mobile equipment that can be shared for each school pack of touchscreen tablets (middle and high schools);
equipment allowing the hybridization of courses in schools (high schools);
equipment for "specific" classrooms (middle and high schools);
the equipment of the establishment (documentation and information center, multimedia room, space for a media studio, duty room, teachers' room, "free" Internet access points for students (middle and high schools);
support and training for teachers and educational teams in the use of new materials;
the computer network ;
access to the internet.
These guidelines " are intended to help local authorities make their investments according to the level of equipment expected in their schools, colleges and high schools. They are not intended to be prescriptive, but rather to serve as a reference that can be adapted to the educational projects of the schools and the realities of the field. It is understood that the State, in its own areas of competence, will ensure, in particular, the training of teachers in the pedagogical uses of, and through, digital technology.
Digital education and inclusion: 80 projects to "reshuffle the educational deckThe call for projects "Numérique Inclusif, Numérique Éducatif" (Inclusive Digital, Educational Digital) was launched by the Banque des Territoires in June 2021 to support projects to fight against these two divides: digital and educational. After two selection rounds, one in the fall of 2021 and the second in the spring of 2022, the 80 selected projects now cover the entire country.80 selected projectsTwo-thirds of the selected projects are led by associations, and a quarter by EdTech companies and local authorities. When the SSE structures are not themselves carriers of these projects, they are most of the time partners.40% of the target audiences are students, including 20% of disadvantaged youth. Parents and education professionals represent 19% and 16% of the target audiences respectively.In addition to providing financial support for these projects, the Banque des Territoires is also setting up a system of close support for the winners, which aims to assist the projects in their transition to a larger scale.Three convictions at the origin of the call for projectsThe Banque des Territoires emphasizes three beliefs that underlie this scheme.
The first is that " the solutions already exist and, above all, that they come from the territories. France stands out because of the heterogeneity of its territory, and therefore the plurality of its challenges. It is often useless, or even counterproductive, to model a solution on a territory.
The second is that "the players in the ecosystem are already working together. (...) . The players want to pool and create synergies, to have a better visibility of what exists so as not to reinvent but rather to act in a complementary manner. The call for projects was also intended to bring the players together and have them talk to each other - whether it be to carry out projects together or to share their good practices.
The third is that " without working on the issues of inclusion, it is not possible to build effective and sustainable educational solutions.
What lessons can be learned from the experimentation of the "educational digital territories" for pedagogical continuity?The program " Educational digital territories" program (TNE), launched in 2020 by the Ministry of National Education and the General Secretariat for Investment (SGPI) and implemented by the Banque des Territoires with partner local authorities, in association with the Réseau Canopé and the GIP Trousse à Projets, was intended to allow for large-scale testing of the implementation of educational continuity, the need for which had been revealed by the COVID-19 health crisis.The TNE evaluation report draws the first lessons from the experiments conducted in the departments of Aisne and Val-d'Oise during the 2020-2021 school year.Read more
France 2030's education and digital strategyFrance 2030 is in line with the France Recovery Plan. This 30 billion euro investment plan is designed to make up for France's lag in certain historical sectors. It also aims to create new industrial and technological sectors.Endowed with 594 million euros as part of France 2030, the "Education and Digital" acceleration strategy must meet two imperatives:
strengthen the skills and competencies needed to prepare for lifelong learning
foster the development of a high-performance French digital education ecosystem
It has several objectives:
Increasing the efficiency of our education system by strengthening guidance tools, skills portfolios, labelled educational resources, assistance in personalising courses, and actions to reduce digital divides, strengthening the "Education and Digital" acceleration strategy.
Transforming and strengthening the EdTech economy: "EdTech (Educational technology) represents a dynamic economic sector with a strong competitive edge in which major countries are investing massively (...) The health crisis has confirmed the need for many players to scale up to meet future demand.
Provide a framework that preserves sovereignty and the ability to influence: "Beyond the immediate economic impact for French EdTech, the use of foreign digital solutions is synonymous with data capture. The protection of personal data and the sovereignty of our national education system are essential issues that must be preserved with sustainable and secure solutions.
Actions launchedA "Priority Equipment and Research Program" (PEPR) for "Education and Digital Technology" with a budget of €77 million over 10 years will make it possible to create an educational data warehouse (Education Data Hub) capable of contributing to the data-driven management of schools and academies, as well as to the fine-tuning of teaching based on learning records and EdTech for existing and future resourcesDemonstrators that will test, accelerate and identify best practices to accelerate the use of digital in education:
Territorial digital demonstrators" have been deployed for three years in schools (12 Educational Digital Territories) and in higher education (17 demonstrators covering 70 French higher education establishments)
Demonstrators common to both school and higher education, such as Avenir(s) with a budget of €30 million, piloted by the ONISEP and the Savoie-Mont-Blanc University
Educational solutions based on digital tools through Educational Challenges and Innovation Partnerships in Artificial Intelligence, or support for the deployment of E-FRAN projects.
Initial and ongoing training in digital technology for teachers and staff who are accompanying the educational transformation with innovative training courses as part of the Skills and Professions of the Future call.
Towards a generalization of media and information literacy in schoolsInscribed in the July 8, 2013 orientation and programming law, included in the Common Base of Knowledge and Skills and Culture in 2015, media and information literacy (MIE) has officially entered as such in the new National Education programs, after having long camped in its margins.In a analysis notethe Conseil national d'évaluation du système scolaire (Cnesco) observed, however, that the educational institution does not seem to " fully support young people in a changing information universe marked by strong debates around social networks and the infoxes that are propagated there. Thus, media education, as an object of study, is only addressed in half of the middle and high schools. This seems to be limited, most often, to education through the media (using information supports such as newspaper articles or television documentaries), even if, at school, students largely consider that moral and civic education courses (EMC) allow them to better understand current events.The Ministry of National Education, Youth and Sports announces new initiatives to strengthen and generalize media and information literacy.Read more
The General Assembly on Digital Education, one year later, what is the interim assessment?The Ministry of Education organized on November 4 and 5, 2020 the "Etats Généraux du Numérique pour l'éducation" (EGNé).These Estates General had been prepared in three stages:
Development of feedback (from lockdown to end of regular school year);
Organization of an online consultation (from mid-June to mid-September);
States General in the territories (mid-September to mid-October).
The digital education strategy defined at the end of the Etats généraux was based on three pillars: training, equipping and tools.Read more
[Feature] "What do we know today about the place and use of digital in schools?"The Department of Evaluation, Forecasting and Performance (DEPP) of the Ministry of National Education, Youth and Sports has undertaken to take stock of "what is known today about the place and use of digital technology in schools ".This summary is based on a decade of studies, on recent publications by the DEPP and on evaluations of several schemes set up to develop the role of digital technology in education (D'COL, the Collèges connectés, and more recently the Plan numérique).Read more
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Common calls: from energy efficiency to digital twins, a new lever for public policies?
Data, Innovation, Commons, Environment
[Feature] What data for ecological planning?
Data, Innovation, Commons, Environment
[Feature] The associative world and digital technology: progress, difficulties and new challenges
Data, Inclusion, Citizenship, Commons
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See all articlesCommon calls: from energy efficiency to digital twins, a new lever for public policies?
Support for the emergence and development of digital commons is making its way into public policy.In 2021, the French Agency for Ecological Transition (ADEME) has proposed a new way for the public player to participate in financing the development and maintenance of commons: the Appel à communs.The call for commons procedure aims to support the creation of commons, i.e. resources (data, software, hardware) shared and fed by a community that develops governance and rules (notably licensing) to manage and protect them.This type of intervention differs from traditional calls for projects in that its primary aim is not to generate new projects, but rather to maximize the networking effect between existing projects.The Commons Day, held on July 4, 2024, provided an opportunity to take stock of the "Territorial Sobriety and Resilience" call for commons launched in 2023.The IGN, Cerema and Inria have in turn launched a call for joint projects to design a "digital twin" of France and its territories.
The 2021 and 2023 "Sobriety and resilience of territories" joint calls for proposalsIn March 2021, ADEME launched an unprecedented Call for Commons, the aim of which was to bring together willing players to strengthen the resilience of territories by producing open resources. Eligible projects had to meet four criteria:they are developed under open licenses;they integrate communities of users and contributors;they are documented on a wiki;they meet at least one of the challenges of the call for proposals.The call for communes in 2021 resulted in the selection of 20 communes, which shared 1 million euros in funding. This experimental mode of intervention has been the subject offeedback.IGN and ANCT have joined ADEME in 2023 for the second wave of the "Sobriety and Resilience" call for commons.Of the 83 commons projects submitted, 29 have been selected. Six of them will be supported by IGN.Six projects supported by IGNIGN will oversee the monitoring of the following six projects via its Fabrique des Géocommuns:Participatory mapping of climate refuges This project, led by the Tribu consultancy firm in partnership with Toulouse Métropole and the LISST and LMCD research laboratories, aims to develop a methodological kit for the construction of a long-term participatory mapping tool for climate refuge areas in cities, for use by local authorities and residents. The aim is also to identify, characterize and evaluate these public spaces, both indoors and outdoors, by and for residents; and to trace the paths of coolness that can guide people's journeys to climatic refuges in periods of high heat.Common Core The aim of this project is to produce, collectively, a set of new forest management methods and bodies that will enable the diversity of stakeholders to be involved in a more systemic way: local communities, associations and militant collectives, local governments and public players, private owners... Designed, tested, documented and enriched with new feedback and ideas, these systems will be available on an online platform. Several circles of players will make up the project's immediate and wider community, and will be mobilized to contribute to, enrich or share its lessons.AequilibraE AequilibraE: this tool is used to estimate travel patterns in a given area, based on current or projected situations described using socio-economic data and taking into account the various transport infrastructures. This common tool could be used in the future Digital Twin of the region.Analysis and simulation of mobility at the individual level EQASIM: This project is based on two Open Source software packages: EQASIM, a software package for detailed estimation of individual travel (mobility needs), and STARLING, a software package for simulation of mobility behavior and shared mobility services.Priority facilities for intermediate vehicles To help identify priority facilities, the project aims to develop a methodology and a web mapping tool to characterize, or at least highlight, priority development areas, based on existing data, either in Open Data or available within the technical departments of each local authority, and on the mobilization of the OpenStreetMap community to produce new data.The atlas of economic spaces for transition The "transition economic spaces atlas" is a digital atlas that maps the "transition economic spaces", the real estate stock dedicated to players of ecological and societal interest that our association seeks to promote and develop. Through quantitative surveys carried out among transition players and via databases, the atlas is aimed at local authorities, public and private real estate decision-makers, and the general public, to give visibility to these spaces and steer their massification.
IGN, Cerema and Inria call for joint projects to create France's digital twin"This ambitious project presupposes the federating of local and thematic initiatives already undertaken by public and private players alike. The call for joint initiatives that opens today is aimed at local authorities, administrations, research laboratories, associations and companies wishing to join the project, in order to scale up their solutions to the national level or integrate their needs. By listing the players in the ecosystem, it will help to better structure collective action around this initiative.Local authorities are invited to propose a use case or present feedback on their local digital twin.The future digital twin of France and its territories focuses on several themes:Monitor and anticipate the effects of climate change on the region, using simulation and forecasting models;Simplify decision-making, by offering a systemic analysis tool that integrates environmental, economic and regulatory factors;Facilitate the co-construction of development projects, by enabling all stakeholders, from central administrations to the general public, to "speak the same language";Contribute to the structuring and development of the digital twins ecosystem in France and Europe, at all levels, from both a community and economic perspective.A set of tools and data :Data, in particular a 3D model to which business data can be connected;Visualization (including immersive navigation) and query services, data enrichment and cross-referencing services;Simulators for a thematic and systemic approach;A science park to stimulate the research ecosystem.The needs expressed by pilot users will be given priority, and they will benefit from the services offered by the twin from the test phases onwards.
Educational inequalities: what role does digital technology play in creating inequalities in success, and how can they be reduced?
The issue of educational digital inequalities is at the heart of the latest issue of Revue en Education (REE). The articles in this issue combine complementary approaches to the experience of teachers with that of students and their parents. The authors draw in particular on the work of the e-FRAN IDÉE research program (Digital Interactions for Education and Teaching), which considers the transformation of educational digital uses, particularly in schools, from the perspective of reducing inequalities.Agnès Grimault-Leprince (1), Sophie Joffredo-Le Brun (2) and Pascal Plantard (3), coordinators of this issue of REE, set out in their introduction to identify " areas for the development of digital teaching and training practices that can help reduce educational inequalities ".This dossier explores three notions that are " central to the understanding of digital society issues in education": technology appropriation, cooperation and empowerment:When it comes to the conditions under which teachersappropriate digital resources, "differences in appropriation can only be understood by crossing different scales of observation: that of the individual, with the importance of "digital cultural capital"; that of the professional environment, more or less active; and finally that of the territory and its political dynamics".The notion of cooperation is also central to understanding the use of technology in education. " In this dossier, we have chosen to focus particularly on the conditions for "working together": commitment to a common goal, attention to communication skills, maintaining horizontality through interaction, understanding the potential and pitfalls of working together, and deliberate use of appropriate knowledge and skills.The decision to focus on the issue ofempowerment stems from the importance of this notion in the discourse on schools, and in particular from the debate concerning the contribution of digital devices to the construction of student autonomy. " The multiplication of resources available online (texts, videos, software) is at the root of beliefs about school learning that they could encourage, outside the intervention of teachers". However, to make the most of digital resources and means, users need specific skills and forms of autonomy, which do not develop spontaneously. " It is then the dispositions built up outside school, mainly within the family, that enable pupils to achieve the expected learning outcomes". In the end, " the use of ICTE in schools, centered on self-training practices (self-correction, self-direction, self-regulation and self-control), encourages the growth of social inequalities in success ".The articles in this issue combine multi-disciplinary approaches to digital uses in school learning (see table of contents below).(1) Centre de recherches sur l'éducation, les apprentissages et la didactique- CREAD, Université Rennes-2.(2) Laboratoire interdisciplinaire de recherche sur les questions vives en formation et en éducation-LIRFE, Université Catholique de l'Ouest.(3) CREAD-Gis Marsouin, Université Rennes-2.
ContentsAgnès Grimault-Leprince, Sophie Joffredo-Le Brun and Pascal Plantard: EditorialDidier Perret and Pascal Plantard: Digital cultural capital of teachers and learner territories. Analyses of the resources and paths of digital appropriation by teachers in cooperative third places.Isabelle Danic, Thierry Lefort and Laurent Mell: At the root of digital inequalities, secondary school teachers' relationship with digital technologies: withdrawal, appropriation or sharing?Simon Collin: The role of educational technology design in digital social inequalities of useAgnès Grimault-Leprince, Lila Le Trividic Harrache and Laurent Mell: Digital home uses and school success. The role of family socializationSuzane El Hage, Jean-Marie Boilevin, Ghislaine Gueudet and Marie-Pierre Lebaud: Supporting the choice of resources for digital uses that promote student autonomy: comparing an analytical grid in two disciplines.Andrea Tucker, Cédric Fluckiger and Thierry Gidel: Learning to work together: influences of the digital workspace on collaborative engagementGhislaine Gueudet, Sophie Joffredo-Le Brun, Antoine Le Bouil, Carole Le Hénaff, Gwenaëlle Riou-Azou and Sabrina Srey: Numérique et autonomisation des élèves : quelle formation initiale des enseignants ?Ana Isabel Sacristán, Marisol Santacruz Rodríguez, Maria de Lourdes Miranda Quintero, Homero Enríquez Ramírez and Sandra Evely Parada Rico: Inequalities in access, training and use of digital technologies for school mathematics in two Latin American countries: Colombia and Mexico.
Digital decarbonation: new professions, but what kind of training?
The Observatoire des métiers du numérique, de l'ingénierie, du conseil et de l'évènement (OPIIEC) has set out to identify the skills, employment and training needs of companies in the digital sector, in light of their obligations to reduce their environmental footprint.Companies in the digital and engineering sectors see the ambitions and obligation to reduce their environmental footprint " as simply another technological evolution on top of those they have already overcome... The sector is also used to constant innovation, and therefore considers itself perfectly capable of integrating this new paradigm"."The environmental criterion is already gaining ground in recruitment, both on the employer's side and the candidate's, particularly among young graduates ", notes OPIEEC. "To date, the training on offer lacks maturity and clarity: it is not yet equipped to meet the challenges of tomorrow, despite the real abundance of solutions available to companies".New professions ..."While the ecological transition has not revolutionized core businesses, new areas of expertise seem to be developing in response to the challenges of digital sobriety".A number of "new" professions are emerging within larger organizations.Responsible Digital Manager: he/she provides expertise and acts as an interface between the IT Department, the CSR Department and the General Management. He/she creates value through the responsible design of digital products and services.Sustainable Development Director: he/she oversees an organization's sustainable development impacts, activities and aspirations. " The job is becoming increasingly important to companies as they steer strategies linked to sustainable development and sobriety issues in general. These people supervise project managers, heads of responsible departments and work full-time on these issues".Carbon auditor: he/she takes "exhaustive photographs" of all the GHG emissions of a particular organization, event or project. He/she facilitates decision-making in terms of actions to be taken to reduce carbon impact.Responsible Digital Trainer: provides expertise and support to Green IT managers. He/she is responsible for raising awareness and training internal teams."These new professions tend to be reserved for larger companies," says OPIEEC. " In smaller companies, these functions are often integrated into general management, or even technical management".... and new skills for core businessesWhile business function mapping is only slightly affected, "all business functions will have to comply with the requirements to reduce the impact of digital technology: management, sales and marketing functions, technical/product departments, but also all types of other support functions".The study identifies a series of key skills directly linked to reducing the environmental footprint of digital technology.In terms of hardware, this means knowing how to use input peripherals (mouse, trackpad, tablet, microphone, Ethernet cable, etc.), mastering processing peripherals (processor, microprocessor, CPU, motherboard, etc.), storage peripherals, understanding output peripherals (screens, network output devices, different ports, etc.), understanding how to power devices, and mastering man-machine interactions.When it comes to software, it's important to master software eco-design via various tools, the user interface (UX Design), automation and the continuous integration environment.Finally, when it comes to network and cloud computing, this means mastering architecture in all its forms (functional, solution, application, data, software, integration, technical), mastering cloud computing architectures (private, hybrid, public) and virtualization.A training offer that is insufficient in number, unclear and, according to the majority of players, ill-adapted."Some engineering schools and universities offer modules on the subject ", such as ESAIP in Angers and the University of La Rochelle. " But the subject is unfortunately only touched on in the majority of training courses".This brief initial training offer does not cover the entire spectrum of the theme.In particular, OPIEEC points to" The absence of a training course totally dedicated to the theme"."Training that skims the surface of eco-design (Life Cycle Assessment - LCA) and doesn't go into digital optimization in depth"."Business and engineering schools insufficiently involved"."Students are sometimes forced to self-train on their own initiative to acquire a base of knowledge".As far as continuing education is concerned, OPIEEC observes " a profusion of offerings", and even " a Far West effect ", as it is " so difficult to find one's way around". This is due to the multiplicity of players positioning themselves to offer training on this theme: digital service companies (ESN), consultancies, training organizations and associations. Complementary training modules are often " too generic".An action plan?The OPIIEC study concludes with an action plan:Define and clarify the concept of the digital environmental footprint;Raise awareness among all players in the ecosystem;Densify and increase the reliability of technical training;Adapt the mapping of professions.
The Commons Model Canvas: a new tool dedicated to the economic dimension of the digital commons
Since the first edition of Numérique en Commun[s] (NEC) in 2018, the Digital Society Program - and in particular the Digital Society Laboratory - and inno³ have been collaborating to produce resources and tools dedicated to the appropriation of the commons in an open and collaborative approach :The " Tutorial to the Digital Commons ", initiated at NEC 2018 and completed for NEC 2019;The " Le Commun numérique et sa ressource " tool sheet, the result of a collaboration between Praticable, the Société Numérique program, Fréquence École and inno³ carried out during NEC 2020 ;The " Panorama of the digital commons ", initiated in support of the NEC 2021 workshops;The " Canvas for the Governance of the Digital Commons ", produced as part of NEC 2022;and the most recent, a Canvas dedicated to the economic dimension of the commons, detailed below, produced in support of NEC 2023.
What is the Commons Model Canvas?The Commons Model Canvas is both a method and a guide for digital commons project leaders, to help them think through the specific aspects of the commons: defining governance, dealing with economic issues, organizing the framework for collaboration, and so on.In the course of our work on the appropriate legal structures for structuring the digital commons, the question of the economic models for these commons regularly came up as the main concern of project leaders. The Commons Model Canvas completes the Canvas for the governance of the digital commons, published in 2022, by materializing the concepts attached to the digital commons dimension. Its aim is to enable the definition of an economic model for the commons, and a related business model for the parties involved in its maintenance and development.
Indeed, the problem of the economic model of the commons, and the business models that can be envisaged for the stakeholders, has been raised among commoners for years. In particular, inno³ has been able to support several projects in defining their business model, either directly at the request of these projects, or on behalf of institutional players wishing to provide support for specific projects (Ademe's Call for Commoners, ANCT's Call for Expressions of Interest "Tooling digital inclusion players", or IGN's Geoplatform project). Many projects have fed into our experience: iTowns, La Rochelle Territoire Zéro Carbone, LaCollecte.tech, Soliguide, XSalto (now Alpilink), etc.
What makes up the Commons Model Canvas?Available in paper or digital versions, it is a set of self-contained resources that can be assembled to facilitate a variety of situations, from individual reflections to team workshops.This tool, initiated at NEC 2022 with the Commons Governance Framework, enables digital commons projects to better understand and articulate the complexity of the economic stakes of commons projects in relation to their business models and the stakeholders involved.To facilitate the workshops, we have produced a "kit" consisting of :A user's guide containing a range of resources, tips and examples. A number of resources for further exploration of the issues raised, to make it easier to put them into action.A series of 3 cards to help you grasp and materialize all the issues (economic and governance, indicated by pictograms) underlying the digital commons. These cards are double-sided, to mirror the issues raised by each stakeholder (front) and those of the community (back).Sheet 1 - "Presentation and Mission" (green): provides an overview of each stakeholder.Sheet 2 - "Convergence of actions" (blue): describes the contribution of each stakeholder, the resources they mobilize, and the rules of governance established within the community.Sheet 3 - "Projecting onto a common model" (red): allows you to take a step back and project towards predetermined timeframes (6 months, 2 years or 5 years) by articulating scenarios on a multi-dimensional action plan.A set of two canvases that can be completed independently of each other and according to the needs of the workshop:A " framework for the governance of digital commons" to summarize the rules of governance, the structure and representation of the project community, articulated by actions and indicators.A " canvas of the economic stakes of digital commons" to synthesize the business models of each stakeholder in a digital commons, in order to map out what each puts in and what each receives.The Commons Model Canvas may be supplemented in the future, depending on the needs of project developers.This kit drew on all inno³'s expertise (legal, design), a bibliography of grey literature and the organization of focus group discussions. Our approach also drew on a more global design approach at inno³ through game design.
You can access all the following resources:The "Governance of the digital commons" canvas and the "Economic challenges of the digital commons" canvas make up the Commons Model Canvas,Cards to help you complete the canvas,Documentation in booklet form to help you run the workshop,An outline and ODP format sheets to facilitate completion in an online workshop,Source files for all content in SVG format.
How to run a workshop using the Commons Model Canvas?This kit is initially designed to be used in a face-to-face workshop format, with a plurality of profiles gravitating around an identified digital commons project, and a printed version of the booklet. However, we are making available documentation enabling it to be carried out remotely in ODP format.When running a workshop, we recommend using the following outline:Stage 1 - Immersion: This stage introduces the various digital commons projects and forms the groups.Step 2 - Exploration: This step enables you to fill in all the double-sided sheets included in the kit.Each card has a specific color for easy recognition.They contain questions with annotation fields to be completed as the discussion progresses (it is advisable to complete the cards in order).The cards can be completed individually or collectively, depending on the needs of everyone around the table during the workshop. The community section of the cards can be completed by all project stakeholders.Stage 3 - Convergence: The summary of actions and the elements completed on the cards will be entered on the two templates provided. The answers entered on the forms will feed the canvas. It is therefore advisable to fill in the forms before completing the canvas.The governance framework focuses on the governance elements of a digital commons project.The business model canvas enables you to map out your business model, in a way that complements those of other community stakeholders, in order to build an economic model that is sustainable for the community and viable for stakeholders.The recommended workshop time will depend on a number of factors, such as the number of participants, the objectives set and the context. In any case, you should generally allow between 2 and 3 hours to complete all the materials (worksheets and canvas).
Mobilizing the Commons Model Canvas at NEC 2023For this latest edition of Numérique en Commun[s], inno³ led a workshop entitled "Take charge of (and challenge) inno³'s digital commons support kit". The aim was to introduce and enable participants to take charge of the Commons Model Canvas, a tool designed to help digital commons holders understand and manipulate the necessary concepts, and to project themselves onto a sustainable common economic model.
The large number of participants in this workshop shows the importance of the need for common carriers, whether private or public, to have specific tools to support them in structuring and developing their project.The participants were divided into four groups, each devoted to an existing commons developed by one of the members. This common was used as a case study to ensure that the framework would be easily understood and used by the players for whom it was intended.The workshop showed that the Commons Model Canvas addresses most of the issues raised by the participants, in a format that is particularly well-suited to the task, making it easy to learn and complete collectively. However, a number of irritants were raised: information to be requested; vocabulary to be adapted; design to be reworked from time to time; and so on.This feedback is invaluable, because the Commons Model Canvas, like all the resources resulting from the collaboration between the Digital Society Laboratory and inno³, is intended to be the fruit of collective work. This is why you can now download the Canvas in its version shared with NEC, under a CC-By-SA 4.0 license, so that you can make use of it and make any modifications you wish.
How to contribute to the kit ?The "Common Model Canvas" Kit is shared under a free CC-by-SA 4.0 license. This means you can adapt it to the specific features of your project, making it the most relevant tool possible.If you'd like to be involved in future developments, or simply to be kept informed, please contact us at commonsmodelcanvas@inno3.fr.Don't hesitate to let us know about your experiments and re-appropriations at the same address.You can also access and contribute to all our content via our Gitlab. If you complete one of the two frameworks and/or the associated sheets, don't hesitate to share this content with us via the Gitlab so that it can be added to the "Examples" folder.
The unprecedented crisis in social work: what role can digital technology play?
Bringing social professions out of the crisis of meaning and attractivenessThe White Paper on Social Work (314 pages), submitted to the French government by the Haut Conseil du Travail Social (HCTS) on December 5, 2023, takes stock of an unprecedented crisis in social work: serious recruitment difficulties, staff turnover, disaffection with training among the younger generation. "This deterioration is a warning of the state of emergency affecting the sector. It is also leading to a decline in the quality of support and services provided to the public.The first chapter deals with working conditions and the attractiveness of organizations. The second deals with the professional practices and approaches needed to meet today's social challenges. The third deals with the challenges of initial and continuing training. Finally, the fourth chapter looks ahead to the conditions that will make our professions attractive in the face of ecological, demographic and digital transitions. The HCTS makes 14 recommendations along these lines (below).While 90% of the 1.3 million social workers are women, the authors of the White Paper have chosen to refer to them in the feminine plural.
Digital, between potential and loss of legibilityWhile digital technology is "a working tool with many potentialities ", the dematerialization of administrative procedures contributes to this loss of meaning and attractiveness, by generating "sometimes uncontrolled processes, a source of additional workload".Following on from the HCTS's work on digital transformations in professional practices in the social professions (Why and how social workers are seizing digital tools in 2018), the White Paper looks at digital from three angles:The difficulties of supporting people in a context of dematerialization ;The growing importance of reporting activities for social workers;The foreseeable upheavals in the social professions linked to the development of Artificial Intelligence.
"To the administrative millefeuille is added a millefeuille of digital tools, each developing its own logic".As the White Paper points out, the proliferation of service platforms and the need to go through them can distance vulnerable people from access to their rights: "social workers play a relay role in developing the digital autonomy of the people they serve. To do this, they need to be able to link up with the network of local players who can help them acquire these skills or access other services".If "the new professionals are comfortable with the computerization of their practice... the replacement of physical offices in organizations by "self-service" areas, where interaction with an agent becomes ad hoc, raises the question of how to manage the illegitimacy of the public".Following in the footsteps of the Défenseur des droits, the HCTS advocates maintaining physical counters alongside digital services. "People experiencing difficulties with the dematerialization of administrative procedures need to be supported and accompanied. They need a relationship that is above all human, understanding and non-judgmental. Training courses for digital helpers, who are invited to work with social action professionals, also include the relational dimension of assistance and the assessment of requests".Dematerialization also exposes professionals to all kinds of difficulties, such as the need to "navigate between different services, in support of the people they accompany (...). In many situations, they no longer have any contacts outside digital platforms (...). Communication methods can become a time-wasting factor, to the detriment of supporting the person's life project"."For a number of professionals, the dematerialization of procedures is synonymous with a loss of legibility, to such an extent that helping the public to decipher administrative procedures has become a mission in its own right. (...) For each situation, it is now necessary to spend a considerable amount of time understanding the elements of the file with the operators concerned, and trying to resolve the difficulties that block the system (identifiers, e-mail addresses, absence of a contact person...). Professionals don't always know how to navigate the often unintuitive platforms. The administrative complexity added to the computer logic leads people in difficulty to multiply their requests for appointments.While digital technology, as a working tool, offers many potential benefits (a source of valuable information on the people we support, the ability to access more reliable resources than in the past, sharing spaces to enhance and capitalize on innovative practices, mutual support forums), its acceleration is also leading to a proliferation of evaluation and monitoring tools. "To the administrative millefeuille we have added a millefeuille of digital tools, each developing its own logic".In this respect, the White Paper regrets " the absence of a single application subject to national standards to manage such processes, leaving a proliferation of diverse systems that do not always consider the consequences of their implementation".The White Paper stresses the importance of adapting ongoing training to the difficulties faced by professionals. It also points to the difficulty faced by facility managers "in identifying the capacity of software to meet needs (...) It would be useful to designate referents within facilities to facilitate the translation of digital tools into the reality of activity".
From reporting to data-driven management"Social workers are finding that they are spending more and more time responding to numerical orders and filling in indicators. These activities are seen as time-consuming and meaningless. However, it is imperative that public policy management be based on robust data that can be rapidly mobilized.The White Paper recognizes the importance of data sharing (reinforcing the "tell us once" principle ), with the aim of achieving interoperability between systems enabling unique identification and sharing of personal data in compliance with the RGPD, developing the ability of organizations to directly query these aggregated databases, and extending the automated allocation of certain rights to beneficiaries (see the Labo Administration proactive dossier: what are the issues, risks and prospects?)."However," adds the White Paper, " it remains necessary to remain cautious in the face of the risk of overestimating the capabilities of digital tools for business management. This tends to overemphasize numerical analyses and ignore contextual approaches".
Preventing upheavals linked to the development of Artificial IntelligenceRapid developments in artificial intelligence are raising questions about the evolution of professional practices. While it can help social services to identify potential beneficiaries or make decisions to reach out to them, based on the collection of relevant case management data, "there is a lack of reliable data to provide a legal and ethical framework for the use of artificial intelligence in decision-making with and for vulnerable groups"."Datamining and deep learning (the massive, automated use of data to extract information about behavior) are allies in the provision of services and the fight against non-use, provided they are integrated into a strict legislative framework and the ethical and deontological foundations supported by professionals".The White Paper recommends a study anticipating the use of artificial intelligence in this sector. The aim is to adopt "a proactive attitude on this subject, in order to avoid the negative impacts of digital development in social work practices and for the people supported".
Recommendations of the Haut Conseil du Travail SocialEnhancing salariesInitiate dialogue on the subject of management ratiosRe-examining funding methods for social and medico-social structuresAffirming the fundamentals of social work adapted to today's challengesDeveloping the governance of skills and professionsLong-term recruitmentChanging work organizations through different types of managementSupporting career pathsConsolidating the career paths of students and traineesDistinguishing between access to the law and social supportImplement a global communications strategy for business linesHarnessing the full potential of the digital transitionInvesting in the ecological transitionStrengthening the place of social work in public debate
Recherche Data Gouv: towards better sharing of scientific research data
A commitment to sharing and opennessIn July 2022, the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research (MESR) inaugurated the Recherche Data Gouv portal , an ecosystem for sharing and opening up scientific research data. To support researchers in this process, Recherche Data Gouv is deploying an ecosystem of services to help prepare and disseminate research data throughout France, as well as a system for publishing and reporting research data. The recherche.data.gouv.fr portal will be the research data version of data.gouv.fr."When 50% of research work is publicly funded, data must be shared at the very least, and opened up at the very best," says Isabelle Blanc, ministerial administrator of data, algorithms and source codes at MESR, who heads up the Research Data Gouv ecosystem.One year after its launch, themulti-disciplinary Data Gouv Research Warehouse was hosting over 2,000 datasets, corresponding to 36,000 data files, either fully open or shared with restricted access when required by the nature of the data. Some 288,500 files had been downloaded since July 8, 2022.
CNRS Research Data: an example of the Research Data Gouv data warehouseWith the CNRS Research Data warehouse, opening in June 2023, CNRS enables scientists to publish their data from CNRS-supported research. It offers a generic main collection, and laboratories can request to create specific collections.A commitment to open up all data is also one of the criteria used by French and European funding agencies to assess projects, and most publishers now require that the data linked to a publication be accessible.The priority: supporting scientists"Opening up data is more complex than opening up publications: research teams are required to carry out additional scientific work as far upstream as possible, when designing their project, and this cannot be entrusted to third parties," explains Isabelle Blanc. This means being able to describe the instruments, conditions and protocols used to produce and collect the data.Indeed, according to a survey by the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research, between 2018 and 2020, 80% of research communities lacked either support or infrastructure.Support has become a central element of the system, taking priority over the development of a technical solution. In 2023, 19 data workshops mobilized more than 350 people from 80 establishments.CNRS is a partner in numerous data workshops, which are the entry point for scientists. It also contributes to the deployment of national resource centers, such as OPIDoR - a portal set up by Inist-CNRS, a pioneer in the development of data management plans - and DoRANum, which offers resources and training to support the scientific community in data management and sharing.By 2025, the HAL open archive developed by CNRS should also offer a service for directly depositing the dataset associated with a publication and making it accessible from Recherche Data Gouv.Recherche Data Gouv aims for European recognitionThe Research Data Gouv steering committee is preparing several applications for 2024 to bring the national platform closer to the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) project.
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See all folders[Dossier] What the dematerialization of administrative procedures is doing to social work
ForewordIn 2020, Pierre Mazet and François Sorin, following a survey of 200 professionals in the field of social work, pointed to the " disturbances imported into the professionalism of social workers by the demand for digital assistance (...) and by the obligation of connectivity imposed on public service users by dematerialization. (...) " They thus find themselves forced to take charge of a new dimension, one that is de facto unavoidable if they are to be able to carry out their missions of access and support towards rights, but one that has not, more often than not, been the subject of any clear definition on the part of their institution".The Livre Blanc du Travail Social (White Paper on Social Work ) describes an unprecedented crisis in social work, with serious recruitment difficulties, staff turnover and a lack of interest in training among the younger generation. Digital technology is no stranger to this loss of meaning and attractiveness, generating "sometimes uncontrolled processes, a source of additional workload".The relationships, articulations and complementarity between the professions of social mediation and those of digital mediation are at the heart of the reflections in a dossier in Sociographe magazine, as well as in the contributions of the members of a collective called Lost in mediation.The task of social work professionals, originally focused on problem-solving and decision-making involving precise professional knowledge, now involves providing a service largely centred on technical support.Steve Jacob and Seima Souissi conclude this dossier with a review of the international literature.
The unprecedented crisis in social work: what role can digital technology play?The White Paper on Social Work (314 pages), submitted to the French government by the Haut Conseil du Travail Social (HCTS) on December 5, 2023, takes stock of an unprecedented crisis in social work: serious recruitment difficulties, staff turnover, disaffection with training among the younger generation. "This deterioration is a warning of the state of emergency affecting the sector. It is also leading to a decline in the quality of support and services provided to the public.While digital technology is "a working tool with many potentialities ", the dematerialization of administrative procedures contributes to this loss of meaning and attractiveness, by generating "sometimes uncontrolled processes, a source of additional workload".Following on from the HCTS's work on digital transformations in professional practices in the social professions (Why and how social workers are seizing digital tools in 2018), the White Paper looks at digital from three angles:The difficulties of supporting people in a context of dematerialization ;The growing importance of reporting activities for social workers;The foreseeable upheavals in the social professions linked to the development of Artificial Intelligence.Following in the footsteps of the Défenseur des droits, the HCTS advocates maintaining physical counters alongside digital services. "People experiencing difficulties with the dematerialization of administrative procedures need to be supported and accompanied. They need a relationship that is above all human, understanding and non-judgmental. Training courses for digital helpers, who are invited to work with social action professionals, also include the relational dimension of assistance and the assessment of requests".Read more: Unprecedented crisis in social work: what role can digital technology play?
What digital technology is doing to the social support relationshipUnder the title " Numérique et travail social" (" Digital and social work"), the magazine Sociographe, which specializes in social work research, devotes a dossier to developments in the socio-educational support relationship, which is increasingly articulated "with the most common as well as the most sophisticated digital tools, with numerous innovations in the various fields of social work: dematerialized support platforms, digital safes, professional use of social networks, assistance robots..."."In his introduction, Alexis Mombelet, sociologist and trainer at the Institut Régional du Travail Social (IRTS), explains: "New ways of entering into relationships, new forms of social support and educational mediation that need to be understood and questioned.François Sorin, associate researcher at CREAD (Université Rennes 2), looks back at the definition of digital technology in its material dimension, but also as a culture that conjures up imaginations that intermingle and oppose the value of access ("digital technology would be the answer to all our problems") and deep concerns (" digital technology would invariably lead us to the dissolution of social interactions "). Support practices in, with and about the digital world cannot be reduced to the use of "the digital tool" without risking the invisibility of the logics and issues at stake.Based on a review of the literature, three Canadian authorss, Ariane Sisavath, a professional social worker in social pediatrics, and Josée and Mélanie Bourque, professors in the Department of Social Work at the Université de Québec, take stock of the use of NICTs in the health and social services system, and raise three issues for both clients and professionals: the digital divide, the confidentiality of information gathered, and " professional autonomy in the face of decision-support systems that are gradually taking over social action".Vincent Meyer, professor of information and communication sciences at the Université Côte d'Azur, takes a close look at the new logics of care that are taking shape, to the point of asking "whether algorithms are going to replace social workers". Having "lifted the veil " on the " digital accommodations" that professionals and users are making on a daily basis, connected willy-nilly, the author sets out a series of milestones to guide professionals "to engage in a controversy on digital inclusion versus the social acceptability of technologies for their audiences and in their practices".In his contribution, Didier Dubasque, former president of the Association nationale des assistants de service social (ANAS), returns to the question of access to rights "which now involves the use of digital platforms, synonymous with empowerment for some, but also with loss of autonomy for a significant proportion of the French population, who are far from the appropriate tools and knowledge". While this new form of exclusion is leading government departments to try and find solutions, such as the France Service centers, "these cannot meet all the demands. The new professions created by these structures in no way detract from the need for social workers to adapt to these tools, while continuing to give meaning to their actions"."Social support, historically a face-to-face relationship, is tending to develop into a remote practice. What role does digital technology play in this phenomenon: cause, means or hindrance? Vanessa Andriet, a social service assistant, talks about her remote support practice in the healthcare field. In the absence of face-to-face contact, she points out "what makes it possible to establish a relationship with the other person by telephone and videoconference, so that remote social support is meaningful for everyone".Specialized educator Nicolas Plantegenet and François Melou, PhD in psychology, examine the growing role of digital technology in the support provided to educators working in children's social care homes (MECS): the use of social networks, the blurring of the boundary between private and professional life. The risk of " endless connection " and the hybridization of their practices require professionals to reflect on "extending the domain of their ethic of responsibility"."From a social work perspective, the practices of Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft (GAFAM) appear irreconcilable with the ethical practice of our sector. The GAFAMs, often described as the world's most influential brands, have shaped our times by inventing products and lifestyles. Their business model is based on the exploitation of personal data, analyzing all our online activities to predict and influence our behavior". Morgane Quilliou-Rioual, independent trainer on digital practices in social work and specialized educator, draws on this dual experience to question respect for the "digital security" of the people she accompanies, particularly in relation to GAFAM."We hear every day about cyberattacks, the attention economy and GAFAM. Isn't it time for our sectors to take a closer look at these issues? Digital technology and its tools are part of our working environment. We use them without questioning their uses and the consequences for the people we support. Morgane Quilliou-Rioual, an independent trainer on digital practices in social work and a specialized educator, draws on this dual experience to question respect for the "digital security" of supported people in connection with the General Data Protection Regulation (RGPD) and GAFAM in particular."It's not a question of giving in to technocratic injunctions and digital sirens, of disrupting to prove our professionalism, our technicality, our modernity. Nor is it a question of responding to a public desire to put ourselves at the service of the digitization of the world, to alleviate illiteracy, to train people in digital tools, to educate them in their proper use. Digital tools are welcome, but they are only tools that we need to adapt to our needs. Today, it seems that the opposite is true. We have to constantly update ourselves, just like our computer systems. It's a never-ending race. Gauthier Steyer, a specialized educator at the Aide Sociale à l'Enfance in La Réunion, talks about his day-to-day work, and the many situations in which the use of digital tools gets in the way of a helping relationship. " We could start by setting an example, by giving up our screens, our apps and our software, and focusing all our attention on our fellow human beings.A day center is a place where homeless people can find themselves on the front line of the digital inequalities from which the vast majority of those they serve suffer. In a study focusing on the homeless, François Melou, PhD in psychology, Camille Pinsault, a student at ITS, and Frederic Gontrand, director of a day center, draw up an unvarnished assessment of digital technology as an "aggravating factor of exclusion". "The most vulnerable are once again the biggest losers as we enter the digital age, with e-excluded people seeing social inequalities widen"."The social work ecosystem is being industrialized ", says Jonathan Louli, social worker, sociologist, anthropologist and social work trainer. In his contribution, he examines how digital uses contribute to this industrialization: instrumentalization of sectors, formatting of practices, proletarianization of workers.Léo Lebrun, trainer at IRTS PACA, concludes this dossier by pointing out the "Kafkaesque malaise induced by a world without contact and the coldness of computer procedures". "We may be overlooking how the digitization of society makes the world unbearable from the point of view of subjectivity".
"Lost in mediation ": Is digital mediation soluble in social mediation?This was the question posed by Yann Vandeputte, a field player for a dozen years in the voluntary sector, then as a training engineer, to players in the fields of digital mediation, social mediation, social work and sociology. The challenge was "to question digital mediation in relation to other fields, other players who surround it, cross paths with it, spur it on or simply ignore it, out of sheer ignorance or kind condescension". Around this question and the answers proposed by professionals or former practitioners from the associative and institutional world, the Lost in Mediation collective took shape, made up of professionals or former practitioners from the associative and institutional world.In "Allons-nous vers un unique métier de la médiation numérique et sociale? ", Didier Dubasque, who has been involved in social work for over thirty years, observes a form of convergence between these two professions: " Social mediators and, more broadly, social workers are de facto led to devote a considerable amount of time to becoming digital helpers on this or that aspect of a situation with regard to the digital practices of their interlocutors. For example, it's easier for a social worker to explain to a user how to connect to the CAF website and master its intricacies than it is to direct them to a digital mediator, so that they can come back to them to deal with the administrative problem. Redirecting would be nonsense ". However, the two professions are different. "Their missions and points of entry in their relations with users are different and sufficiently specific despite the tasks they have in common (...). The multiplicity of subjects addressed by the use of digital tools justifies this difference between the two professions. Each has its own specificities. But the more recent a profession is, the more it has to prove its efficiency and legitimacy". This is the challenge facing the digital mediator. "It is through the contribution of their skills, and their ability to work in collaboration with other technical and social professions, that they will gain recognition and take their rightful place in view of their usefulness, which no longer needs to be demonstrated.In " Où est donc passée la culture numérique?" (Where has digital culture gone?), Vincent Bernard, coordinator of Bornybuzz numérique, reminds us that digital mediation tends, in principle, towards two objectives: mastery and understanding. "It's a question of both technical and cultural appropriation. This plural approach is also reflected in the notion of digital literacy: "more than just technological know-how, it includes a wide variety of ethical, social and reflective practices that are integrated into work, learning, leisure and daily life ". According to Vincent Bernard, the notion of digital inclusion leads to "a restriction of digital mediation, since it is no longer a question of understanding but only of skills (...): in the end, it's only a question of knowing how to use tools. Digital technology is reduced to its interface dimension, where the user is seen as an operator who must know how to make a request, fill in a field and validate a form". Culture and literacy disappear " in favor of an exclusively operative and technical dimension". " Yet digital technology must not be seen as a black box, and the Internet user/citizen cannot simply be seen as a button-presser. "An in-depth digital culture, acquired through education and experience, supported by a deep reflection on our objectives as individuals and as a society, will not happen ", concludes the author, "without digital mediation professionals trained in this issue".In " Médiation sociale et médiation numérique: solubilité ou symbiose? ", Garlann Nizon, project manager, trainer and consultant in digital inclusion, and Stéphane Gardé, consultant-trainer at La Coop Num, highlight the common ground between these two professions: access to rights. However, they point to the "risk of reducing and limiting digital mediation to access to rights, to the problem of dematerialization or digitization of user relations by public service operators, and the resulting exclusions". And yet, they add, " people are not reduced to their 'rights' and 'duties': they are also built around the 'possible'. So they put forward the prospect of a symbiosis between these two professions: "reciprocally profitable (...) with the idea of reciprocity, the possibilities of collaborations, co-constructions, cooperations (...) Working on complementarities, the common space, requires recognizing the initial specificities and reinforcing them". " Be that as it may," concludes the author, " we will always need mediators, whose roles will of course vary greatly depending on the audience, the services and the territory. These functions cover and will continue to cover a wide range, from simple explanation to training, from adaptation to repair, from assistance to conflict management, from help to service quality".In " La translittératie numérique, objet de la médiation numérique", Corine Escobar, teacher-researcher, Nadia Oulahbib, researcher and clinical analyst of mental health work, and Amélie Turet, researcher associated with the UNESCO "Savoir Devenir" Chair, draw lessons from an experiment in school remobilization: "the merging of different types of mediation (legal, cultural, etc.) can lead to a profound alteration of one mediation in relation to the other. The experiment shows, for example, that a single mediator carrying out several mediations loses himself in his different roles and logics of action, which can degrade an effective and relevant synergy".
Social workers and digital transformation: between potential and threatened professional valuesAs in many other professions, the use of digital technologies is increasing in social work practice. From the use of instant messaging systems to the creation of databases. Even automated decision-making tools. These technologies are helping to transform the profession of social worker.Based on a review of international literature, Steve Jacob and Seima Souissi analyze the recent transformations characterizing social work in the digital age.The authors begin by taking stock of the potential offered by digital tools for social workers. This is followed by a discussion of the transformation of tasks and the technical and communicational skills required to adapt to the new work context. Finally, this state of the art looks at a series of challenges from the point of view of users, but also linked to the acceptance and appropriation of these tools by social workers.Read more : Social workers and digital transformation: between potential and threatened professional values
[Feature] What data for ecological planning?
In December 2023, the General Secretariat for Ecological Planning (SGPE) published a proposed roadmap entitled "Digital and data for ecological planning".Drawn up with the help of more than 300 national and local public-sector employees, this roadmap suggests ways, sector by sector, to make better use of available data and ensure that it is shared for the purposes of steering and analyzing public policies.This dense document (259 pages) identifies and details a total of 147 actions.
" Digital technology must help change the current system, not optimize it even further".In an introduction in the form of a manifesto, the authors of the roadmap address, at length, the raison d'être (the "why?") of this roadmap: " Faced with the major, systemic challenge represented by the ecological transition, and given the urgency with which we must act, digital technology is an indispensable tool for targeting the most effective actions, managing complexity, reducing delays, modeling, anticipating crises, networking and mobilizing (...) Digital technology must help change the current system, not optimize it even further".They go on to explain the method (the "how") of implementing the roadmap: "For a digital project to be a success, it is often necessary for a large number of players to do their part in a coordinated fashion (developing the necessary standards, making the data available, creating the interface, deploying the tool, training users...) ".As part of the "public platform" approach that underpins the roadmap, " the public authorities lay down the basic rules governing the ethics, security and interoperability of digital tools. It also builds the basic infrastructures. These are identity or business databases, which are distributed in open data or shared with a given circle of players via ad hoc infrastructures. These foundations must be robust and pragmatic. Without them, everything else is built on sand".This public platform approach "allows roles to be shared between the public and private sectors. (...) This collaboration takes the form of shared digital bricks, monopolized by the public sector in the relevant geographical area, to which digital services are connected, often in the private, competitive sector".
Eight themes mappedThe work was structured around the eight themes of France Nation Verte's ecological planning. These are: "better mobility", "better housing", "better resource conservation", "better biodiversity conservation", "better production", "better nutrition", "better consumption" and "transversal".To visually represent the roadmap's objectives and projects, the authors used the metaphors of buildings and "bricks" to map each of the eight themes.
Each theme (building) is thus associated with several types of "digital bricks": foundations (rules and infrastructure), "walls" (digital services), roof (observatories). "Each brick rests on those below. Dysfunctions observed on the tip of the iceberg, such as the lack of interoperability of digital services (building walls) or the lack of consistency in observatory data (building roof), are very often due to dysfunctions or the absence of robust foundations".
Each of the 147 areas identified as priorities is the subject of a numbered "action". Each action is documented: business challenges, current situation, sub-actions to be undertaken, initiators (central administrations, operators, territories), a main initiator and an indicative timetable.
And use cases for each themeIn addition, each of the eight themes is associated with use cases that the roadmap is designed to address as a priority:Getting around: "Analyzing and planning mobilityBetter housing: "Energy consumption in housing", "Improving the citizen's approach to renovation".Better preserve resources: "Forecasting water resources and managing crises", "Managing coastline recession".Better preservation of biodiversity: "Taking biodiversity into account in urban planning decisions".Better production: "Efficient deployment of renewable energies".Better nutrition: "Enhancing soil qualityBetter consumption: "Making environmental cost measurement more reliable and harmonized".Cross-functional use cases: "Tooling citizens", "Tooling territories".Each use case explains the business challenges and the current state of digital tools and associated data, as well as the impact indicators."This work on use cases makes it possible to define the priority actions for the theme. Conversely, cartographic work enables us to know everything that exists (...) and to think about the urbanization of bricks in a systemic way: who relies on what? who needs to be interoperable with what?".
Identify missing bricks or bricks to be consolidatedThe main contribution of this roadmap is that it reveals "these underground bricks to initiate, unblock, secure or accelerate their development and integration into all the higher bricks". In this way, it tackles "several sea snakes whose smooth operation is essential if we are to professionalize, industrialize and rapidly scale up to meet the ecological emergency".Key identifiers (such as premises and building identifiers, or agricultural parcel identifiers), business databases (such as real-time public transport information, soil quality, environmental impacts of real food products, or data on the reparability, durability and environmental impact of real products) are among the bricks that are missing or need to be reinforced.
"Move the governance of the digital commons towards more public models, or create them where they don't exist"."All the themes highlighted the need to share data between a restricted circle of private and public players in order to implement their ecological planning policies. The roadmap highlights the importance of data dissemination infrastructures, which enable open data to be distributed securely and within a legal framework, and to be shared or made accessible to a restricted circle of players, when they are not intended to be open."Historically, to meet this need, it has often been external private or associative players who have built the necessary sharing infrastructures. However, the associated governance poses problems of continuity, sovereignty and neutrality. To enable the deployment of these infrastructures and the industrialization of the associated public policies, it is therefore essential to move their governance towards more public models, or to set them up where they do not exist. Private digital players can contribute to building these infrastructures, but as service providers, not on their behalf, without which the criteria (continuity, sovereignty) cannot be guaranteed.
Rationalizing observatories to monitor and steer ecological planning"The proliferation of public and private observatories makes it difficult to monitor and assess the impact of actions taken". This proliferation of observatories corresponds to the proliferation of objectives and national plans contributing to the ecological transition (transversal or sectoral strategies, roadmaps, multi-year programs, etc.).While the roadmap announces the creation of new observatories (such as the hedge observatory, the industry decarbonization observatory, and the freight transport and logistics observatory), it also provides for the rationalization of existing observatories and their alignment with the ecological planning dashboard, which accompanies the Green Nation Plan.
Anticipating data for adaptation and crisis managementThe roadmap is also an opportunity to reinforce a systemic approach to the use of data to anticipate and manage environmental crises. An interministerial working group has identified around ten major types of crisis linked to climate change and the collapse of biodiversity: floods, landslides, underground cavities and coastline erosion, atmospheric meteorological events, forest fires, drought, heatwaves, deterioration in air quality, health risks, epizootics and vector-borne epidemics, "prospective" crises, and so on.In some cases, data is not available for the entire territory (e.g., all the areas likely to be impacted by the detachment of a glacier), or is not updated as frequently as required. In the case of monitoring the appearance of new invasive exotic species or pests, for example, "current systems require highly advanced qualification of data, which is certainly necessary for their scientific reuse, but often leads to long exposure times, incompatible with close monitoring of the subject"."Generally speaking, sources of information are widely dispersed and rarely fluidly accessible. This leads to the construction of sometimes complex feedback channels, conceived on a case-by-case basis rather than in a systemic logic ", add the authors of the Roadmap. "It is therefore necessary to identify all data sources and to exploit them satisfactorily (...). It is also essential to set up a feedback system that takes into account the cross-referencing between crises, in order to deal with these particularly complex cases".The creation of new systems during a crisis is always a delicate matter: the Centre national de commandement stratégique is therefore working on the design of a national data-based crisis management tool, sized and adapted to all types of crisis.
A "Digital Data Strategy Committee" and thematic committeesTo meet the need for decompartmentalization and political support, a France Nation Verte "Digital and Data Strategic Committee" will be set up. Co-chaired by the SGPE and DINUM, it will regularly bring together the stakeholders in the scheme to allocate funds, coordinate and secure the program as a whole.The structuring of the new financial resources allocated to the site will be consistent with this governance. These resources will not be allocated player by player, but action by action, in order to decompartmentalize projects and therefore data. As with the global financing of ecological planning, these resources will be allocated on a multi-year basis. 120 posts (FTE) will be allocated to the central administrations involved.Because of the scope and scale of the roadmap, structured thematic committees will be set up around the Green France Nation themes.
Towards a territorialization of the "digital and data" roadmapFrance Nation Verte's "digital and data" project involved government departments and representatives of local authorities in the early stages of developing a common roadmap. "Nevertheless, the maps produced are limited to a generic description of regional bricks. They do not take into account the specific characteristics of each region, in order to maintain a certain degree of legibility". Given the complexity of the subject and the number of players involved, a working method was tested with the Breton region in May and June 2023.IGN, Cerema, ADEME, OFB, ANCT and CDC will be making digital and data engineering services available to local authorities.
Next steps
This frieze shows the main actions of the 147 actions in the roadmap.The timetable is indicative: it may change as work progresses in-house.
[Feature] The associative world and digital technology: progress, difficulties and new challenges
ForewordWhether they're working to promote access to employment, protect the environment or combat discrimination and exclusion, associations rely heavily on digital technology: to communicate with association members, interact with volunteers, mobilize the public and raise funds, and take their initiatives to a wider scale.In 2016, 73% of associations surveyed had their own website, and 62% were using social networks. 2018 had seen the launch of a national digital training plan for associations and the launch of the OpenAsso collaborative platform, a tool at the service of associations. (See Associative sector: new initiatives and resources to take better advantage of digital).In 2020, the health crisis marked a turning point for the associative world: 73% of associations were forced to rethink their operations. Remote working and videoconferencing enabled many associations to maintain their activities. Two-thirds of association volunteers had taken up tele-volunteering. (see Le numérique bouscule et transforme le secteur associatif).According to the latest Recherches & Solidarités survey on the place of digital technology in the associative project, the digital transformation of the associative sector is continuing, with difficulties slightly receding, but still present.Although 41% of associations use open-source software, the question of how associations can emancipate themselves from the big platforms and digital giants continues to fuel lively debate within the associative world.The associative world must also rise to the data challenge, with the emergence of functions organized explicitly around data processing and protection: data practices that need to be seen in the context of the long history of experimentation by professionals from the associative or popular education fields.
68% of association members use digital toolsThe 2023 edition of the Digital Barometer introduced a question on the use of digital technology in associative life.In total, 68% of association members use digital tools in this context. When grouping together people who use these tools regularly (every day or at least once a week) as part of their associative activity, Credoc notes that the use of digital tools decreases with age. For example, 73% of 18-24 year-olds use these tools, whereas the figure is three times lower for those aged 70 and over. The same applies to low-income earners (54%). Higher education graduates (49%), executives (54%) and residents of the Paris metropolitan area (53%) also stand out in this respect.
Digital tools and uses for associations: difficulties slightly down but still presentEvery three years, the associative network of experts Recherches & Solidarités draws up a report on the place of digital technology in associative projects. This 4th edition is based on the direct testimonies of 2,776 associative managers.Unequal digital maturity by business sector and sizeA majority of managers (53%) consider that their association is well on the way in its digital practices. The remainder are equally divided between those who feel their association is still a long way off (22%) and those who feel it has enough experience (21%).
Associations whose managers consider them "experienced" are proportionally more numerous in the fields of culture, the environment, education and economic services. Conversely, a higher proportion of leisure associations, those with few or no salaried employees, and those located in rural areas or "Quartiers de la Politique de la Ville" (urban policy districts) are judged by their managers to be "little initiated".Overall, managers' assessment of their organization's maturity has changed very little between 2019 and 2022.The digital tools most used by associationsAs in 2019, two tools come out on top: the website and social networks, external communication tools that meet the primary objective of promoting the association. These two tools are often combined: over 80% of associations have a website and/or are present on social networks.
Videoconferencing tools are now in 3rd place, followed by document sharing and storage tools, which have expanded considerably during the crisis.Tools such as human resources information systems (HRIS) (to manage payroll, vacations and expense accounts: these are only of interest to employing associations, and more often to those of a certain size), project management tools (potentially of interest to a wide range of associations, but requiring a review of organization and initiation), participative financing platforms, CRM-type network relations tools or task automation tools are at the end of the list, present in less than 10% of associations.Associations wishing to use digital technology to manage their activities more effectively," observe the authors of the survey, " would have a strong interest in using project management tools or HRIS tools ..... However, implementing such tools requires a real digital transformation of their organization, which impacts different user profiles, work processes/habits, and therefore an initial investment - in time and money - that is much higher".
Digital tools primarily for external and internal communicationsThe primary objective assigned by associations to their digital tools is to communicate on the actions carried out and publicize the association (this was already the case in 2019), followed by network animation (internal exchanges), management (accounting, member management, monitoring and evaluation of actions...) and collaborative work.
The other objectives (finding volunteers, seeking funding, online AGM and Board of Directors, member services) are shared by less than 30% of associations.A quarter of associations now organize their general meetings and board meetings online.The greater the number of employees, the more digital tasks are carried out by a specialist consultant32% of associations have appointed a dedicated digital "referent", compared with 25% in 2019.23% of associations have a few initiated people dealing with digital issues, compared with 34% in 2019.
In 21% of cases, it's the Board of Directors or the Executive Committee that's in charge. 10% of associations have set up a " shared digital culture", involving the participation of most of the association's active members.Only 5% of associations say they have no one in-house to deal with digital issues."The more employees an association has, the more digital-related issues are handled by a single referent," observe the authors of the survey. " Having a single referent enables them to centralize information and call on specific skills".Associations' difficulties with digital technology are declining24% of associative managers say they have no difficulty at all with digital issues, compared with 16% in 2019. The authors of the survey offer a number of explanations for this: the acceleration of digital practices as a result of the crisis, a wider range of support services in terms of the number of participants, themes and expertise, and an increase in the skills of associative players.Nearly half of all managers have encountered difficulties of a human nature, linked to technical problems (34%), a lack of financial resources (30%) or strategic issues (24%).
Human and financial difficulties have declined since 2019. The authors of the survey see in this evolution the effects of the health crisis:Discover free or low-cost toolsGreater availability within teams to share skills, train volunteers, review organization and missions;A collective awareness of the opportunities offered by digital technology to keep business going during the crisis. " People who have had to take the plunge, by default, are perhaps less reluctant to test new working methods, to invest in the subject, even among the most reluctant".Levers for action to make the most of digital technologyThe survey identifies 11 action levers that could help associations make the most of digital.Nearly half of association managers (47%) would like to know more about existing tools. For some, this may be due to a lack of information about what's on offer in general.The associations seem to have clearly identified skills as a lever for action: upgrading the least experienced team members (45%) comes in second place, not far behind knowledge of tools.Around a third of associations (34%) would like to have the financial means to equip themselves. Shared digital solutions to share costs provide a partial response, with only 19% of managers interested.20% of managers rely on personalized support to define a strategy and action plan.
41% of associations use open-source softwareThe notion of free software " covers strong ethical dimensions, directly linked to the values of the associative sector, by making digital tools a common good" observe the authors of the study devoted to the place of digital technology in associative projects in 2022.According to the survey carried out by Recherches & Solidarités, 41% of associations surveyed say they use open-source software: a proportion that has remained surprisingly stable since 2016. The use of open-source software increases with the level of digital literacy: it concerns 55% of associations whose managers describe them as "experienced", but only 27% of "little initiated" associations.Among associations using open-source software, practical motivations outweigh ethical ones. 15% of respondents would be willing to use it, but only if they had support.Nearly a quarter (24%) see no need for them, or consider that they don't meet their needs. "This figure may reflect a lack of knowledge, or a fear of the associated technical difficulties: self-hosting of solutions, subscription to maintenance contracts or access to community support. Those in the support business can play a real role in supporting and accompanying associations as they reflect on the practical and ethical reasons for using this software, by drawing on the 41% of associations that are convinced and use it, and then guiding them in choosing and implementing this software", comment the authors of the study.The questions raised in the course of the survey illustrate the extent to which the associative world is concerned by this issue. The manager of an international solidarity association wondered "how to incorporate ethical and ecological considerations into the choice of tools and equipment, and more generally, how to integrate these considerations into the overall strategy of our associative project". A point of view shared by the head of an environmental protection association: "from a strategic point of view, the main problem we encounter, as part of a national network, is consistency in our choice of tools, and in particular, the entryism of GAFAM. When you put digital freedoms at the forefront, as we do, it takes a lot of energy to row against the tide". The head of a local development association notes how "difficult and time-consuming it is to identify digital tools that respect certain associative values (in particular, many digital tools are data vacuum cleaners and are subsequently used for profit), French (or even European) tools that promote the notions of eco-design, GreenIT, low/slow-tech, open-source, usable on/off-line".Back in 2007, the Association pour la Promotion et la Recherche en Informatique Libre (April) called for "bridges to be built between free software and the associative world". To this end, it published a guide listing working methods and tools adapted to the needs of associations.
An initiative to help associations adopt a more ethical digital approach"Many associations are thinking of leaving the services of the web giants for ethical, free and decentralized alternatives, more in line with their values. But they don't always have the knowledge to embark on this transition alone" ...This observation led two associations, Animafac, a network of over 4,000 student associations, and Framasoft, the originator of numerous free digital projects, to launch an initiative called Émancip'Asso "to promote the digital emancipation of the associative world, by enabling associations to find support in their digital transition process".The emancipasso.org website offersA directory of service providers trained in the challenges of the associative worldA self-help community that meets on a forum to exchange best practices, tips and tricks.Useful resources for associations and service providers, fed by the community.
Associations face the challenge of digital dataThe Cahiers de l'action, published by the Institut national de la jeunesse et de l'éducation populaire (INJEP), devotes a special report to the place and uses of data within the associative world: it focuses " on the challenges linked to digital data, by not reducing them to technical problems, but by placing them in a global perspective of digital development in society, and in particular in the associative world".A first series of contributions shows the evolution of the "digital question" in associations, understood as a fact that has come to impact associative projects, by questioning the ways in which citizens are involved in collective projects (membership, volunteering, contribution logics).A second series of contributions sheds light on the evolution of professional practices through the affirmation of professions and functions organized explicitly around data.Read more: Associations face the challenge of digital data
How to build and develop the production and use of data by citizensJacques-François Marchandise draws on his practical experience and the reflections developed within the Fondation Internet nouvelle génération (FING) to trace the progress made by a number of associations in taking on board the notions of data acculturation, or "data culture".The challenges of data protection and control changed in the context of the 2010s: " Very quickly, we understood that individual control was linked to much more collective issues in terms of health, the environment and education". At the same time, the opening up of public data became an important issue for local authorities and the State, as well as for associations, who from the early 2010s were in a position to demand access to and reuse of data.To illustrate his point, the author recalls the emblematic (and already long-standing) case of a citizens' initiative in 2011 aimed at establishing transparency in water pricing: it collected the anonymized bills of 9,000 users to calculate the real price of water.Jacques-François Marchandise points to a number of difficulties. "Although there is a lot of data available, not everyone can access or use it. We don't know that it exists or where it is; it's often poorly described, stored in unusable formats, and we don't know what to do with it: we've never learned how to handle data sets.The case of environmental data speaks for itself : "the production of public and private data is already long-standing and rich, with many institutional, scientific and professional bodies sharing a large number of them, and these same players often observe that the uses to which these data are put in society are rather modest, and have relatively few consequences in ecological terms". Biodiversity is one of the fields in which a great deal of data already comes from associations. The Tela Botanica associative network, for example, has been linking a large number of French-speaking professional and amateur botanists for over twenty years, and has contributed to the learning of the PlantNet algorithm, an application developed by major research institutes."The author concludes: "Associations can be much more than they are today, social spaces for the construction of our collective mastery of data. "If we are entitled to expect essential data to be made legible by those who produce it, it will often be necessary for associations to become translators themselves, or to enter into co-production with data producers, a path that has been facilitated by collaborative cartographies such as OpenStreetMap". This path of co-production is followed today, for example, by the Institut national de l'information géographique et forestière (IGN) in its "Géocommuns" approach.
Two-thirds of French people involved in associationsAccording to Insee, there are 1.3 million active associations in France, and over 16 million volunteers.According to a recent survey by the Institut National de la Jeunesse et de l'Éducation Populaire (Injep), in 2021, two-thirds of people aged 16 and over said they had been involved as volunteers, members or donors in an association in the last twelve months.Volunteering, the gift of time often spontaneously associated with the associative sector, is the most common form of participation, but not the only one: it concerns a quarter of the population. More generally, four out of ten people have participated in an association as a volunteer, activist, volunteer or member.Half the population has made at least one donation in the last twelve months, often for annual sums of less than €50 (for four-fifths of donors). Seniors (aged 65 and over), who have more free time, are more likely to be volunteers, while younger people (aged 16-24) are more likely to be members, notably because they are more likely to be members of a sports club.Family heritage - having a family member or close friend involved in an association during adolescence - remains a determining factor. Gender, age, level of income or qualifications, or family configuration have a lesser effect.Photo credits: Free-Photos / Pixabay - Pixabay License
Report
See all articlesLa société numérique française : définir et mesurer l’éloignement numérique
Avant-proposEn 2021, le Programme Société Numérique de l’Agence nationale de la cohésion des territoires (ANCT), a lancé une consultation pour la production d’un rapport sur l’état de l’art de la société numérique française. C’est dans ce cadre que le Centre de Recherche pour l’Étude et l’Observation des Conditions de Vie (CRÉDOC) et le Centre de recherche sur l’éducation, les apprentissages et la didactique de l'Université de Rennes (CREAD) associé au GIS M@rsouin, se sont vu confier la production de ce rapport. Pour cette première édition, l’ANCT a choisi d’orienter les travaux autour de la définition de l’éloignement du numérique, de l’analyse comparative de ses différentes mesures, et de l’identification des principaux facteurs associés.Le présent article vise à faire une synthèse de ces travaux.Pour citer le rapport :ANCT, CREDOC, Université Rennes 2 CREAD-M@rsouin, La société numérique française : définir et mesurer l’éloignement numérique, 2023.
Un nécessaire changement de paradigme pour définir l’éloignement numériqueLes approches historiquesInitialement, dès les années 1990, l’éloignement numérique est défini par le prisme de l’accès aux technologies (approche technocentrée), donnant lieu au concept de « fracture numérique », à une époque où cet accès était encore l’apanage de personnes diplômées, urbaines et ayant de hauts revenus (Pasquier, 2022). Ensuite, au début des années 2000, une approche par les compétences fut popularisée, donnant lieu au concept de « littératie numérique », et qui témoigne de l’attention croissante portée à la question des usages des technologies numériques. En effet, il s’agit d’expliquer les inégalités numériques entre individus par un différentiel d’appropriation et d’usages induit par un niveau de compétences différent (Erstad 2010).Si ces angles d’approche peuvent être utiles pour donner un aperçu de la diffusion des technologies et compétences numériques dans la société, ils ne constituent qu'une manière partielle d'analyser le phénomène de l’éloignement du numérique. Cela est d’autant plus vrai dans une société française qui connaît ces dernières années une diffusion massive de l’accès à Internet THD ainsi que des équipements et usages numériques au sein de la population (Crédoc, 2022). Par ailleurs, le fait d’avoir accès aux outils numériques et de disposer des compétences nécessaires pour les utiliser correctement, constituent des conditions nécessaires mais non suffisantes pour améliorer concrètement la vie quotidienne d'un individu ou d’un groupe. Or, pour que les technologies numériques fassent l’objet d’une appropriation, il faut que l’utilisateur potentiel perçoive une « signification d’usage » positive, c’est-à-dire un sentiment d’utilité ou d’identité (Pitaud et Deschamps, 2021).Ainsi, une nouvelle génération de travaux s’est ensuite intéressée aux capacités différenciées des individus à tirer bénéfice de ces usages, en interrogeant les liens existants entre compétences numériques, usages d’Internet et bénéfices concrets.Le concept de capabilité numérique, ou comment sortir d’une vision dichotomique des inégalités numériquesDepuis une dizaine d’années, une nouvelle génération de travaux s’est centrée sur l’étude des possibilités inégales des individus à transformer les opportunités (culturelles, économiques, sociales, politiques, etc.) offertes par les technologies numériques, en bénéfices effectifs (Ragnedda, 2017 ; Robinson et al., 2020a, 2020b). De cette manière, ces travaux ont permis de renverser l’angle d’approche traditionnel, centré sur le manque (d’accès, de compétences), pour s’intéresser à l’apport des technologies pour les individus. C’est sur cette base qu’à émerger le concept de « capabilité numérique ». Les capabilités constituent l’ensemble des actions qu’un individu a le pouvoir de mettre en œuvre et l’ensemble des états qu’il peut effectivement atteindre pour accroître son bien-être et favoriser son pouvoir d’agir (Bacqué, 2013). Ce concept permet ainsi de définir l’éloignement du numérique au-delà d’une vision dichotomique des inégalités numériques (usagers/non-usagers ; internautes/non-internautes). Car, si l’usage des technologies numériques est a priori de nature à améliorer le bien-être des individus, tous les individus ne sont pas en situation de tirer les mêmes profits des technologies numériques. En effet, différents travaux ont souligné que la nature capacitante ou non-capacitante des technologies numériques est en réalité grandement conditionnée par les conditions d’existence des individus (van Deursen et Helsper, 2015 ; van Deursen et van Dijk, 2014).Le concept de capabilité numérique permet désormais de penser de manière intéressante la définition de l’éloignement numérique à partir des capacités des individus à utiliser le numérique pour accroître leur bien-être et favoriser leur pouvoir d’agir. Dès lors, comment expliquer ces capacités différenciées ? Et ainsi, qui en France peut être considéré comme éloigné du numérique de nos jours ?Quels sont les publics les plus éloignés du numérique aujourd’hui en France et comment l’expliquer ?Le facteur âge : sortir des idées reçuesL’âge est une variable souvent mobilisée pour caractériser l’éloignement du numérique, les personnes âgées sont généralement perçues comme les plus en difficultés à l’égard des technologies numériques, tandis que, à l’inverse, les jeunes sont souvent considérés comme experts. Cependant, l’âge n’est en rien un facteur explicatif de l’éloignement numérique, tout au plus il s’agit d’un facteur descriptif.Un effet générationnel chez les séniorsLes plus de 60 ans ont été nombreux à se connecter ces dernières années (Anderson et Kumar, 2019), un groupe se détache toutefois chez les séniors : celui des plus de 70 ans, qui apparaît nettement moins connecté que le reste de la population. Ainsi, en 2022, 37 % des personnes âgées de plus de 70 ans ne sont pas internautes, contre seulement 4 % parmi les personnes âgées de 60 à 69 ans (8 % sur l’ensemble de la population, selon le Baromètre du numérique 2022). En outre, les personnes âgées de 55 à 64 ans en 2012 étaient internautes dans 71 % des cas alors que les personnes de cette même tranche d’âge en 2022 étaient, elles, 97 % à être internautes. Autrement dit, les « jeunes retraités » de nos jours sont davantage connectés que ceux 10 ans auparavant. Ces éléments chiffrés mettent exergue un effet générationnel et plusieurs raisons expliquent cet état de fait. Tout d’abord, les séniors ont découvert Internet tardivement dans leur vie (Pasquier, 2022) : 70 % d’entre eux se sont connectées pour la première fois à l’âge de 70 ans (Crédoc, 2019). Certains d’entre eux ont donc travaillé dans des secteurs professionnels ne nécessitant pas de faire usage du numérique (Facchini, 2021). L’utilisation des technologies numériques s’est en effet fortement accrue au cours des dix dernières années, tandis que les plus de 70 ans ont, en règle générale, quitté le marché du travail avant cette généralisation. En outre, la classe d’âge des 70 ans et plus aujourd’hui est celle qui compte le plus grand nombre de personnes sans aucun diplôme, n’ayant pas connu la massification scolaire dans leur jeunesse. Sans remettre en question l’existence de difficultés spécifiques liées à l’âge, cette analyse par années de naissance vient donc les nuancer. Il est possible qu’à l’avenir l’âge soit un facteur d’éloignement de moins en moins marqué, sous l’effet du remplacement progressif des générations ayant découvert les outils numériques tardivement.Le mythe des natifs du numériqueEn dépit d’une utilisation d’Internet plus intensive que leurs ainés, l’usage du numérique chez les jeunes ne garantit pas une utilisation experte de ces technologies (Cordier 2020). Ce constat vient heurter l’idée selon laquelle il existerait des « natifs du numérique », ou « digital natives », qui véhicule l’idée que les jeunes - nés dans une société numérique, à la différence des générations plus âgées - maîtriseraient de facto les technologies numériques, leurs codes et les usages liés. Un grand nombre de travaux montrent pourtant que les compétences et pratiques numériques des jeunes sont différenciées, hétérogènes, et surtout inégalitaires, dans la mesure où elles sont dépendantes de contextes sociaux fort différents (Hargittai et Hinnant, 2008 ; Livingstone, Bober et Helsper, 2005). Ainsi, de nombreux jeunes, en particulier issus de milieux modestes, rencontrent des difficultés dans leurs usages du numérique, par exemple pour effectuer des recherches d’emploi en ligne ou pour réaliser des démarches administratives, pour des raisons diverses allant du coût du matériel informatique à un manque de confiance dans la capacité à apprendre sur les outils en ligne et à s’y former (Deydier, 2018). Devenu un lieu commun diffusé par des discours médiatiques comme un « concept-slogan » (Lardellier, 2017), l’idée des « natifs du numérique » constitue un mythe (Plantard, 2015a). Malheureusement, celui-ci imprègne toujours les imaginaires collectifs, dont ceux des jeunes eux-mêmes : une partie d’entre eux intègrent en effet l’idée qu’ils sont censés être des experts du numérique, provoquant un sentiment de culpabilité chez une partie de ceux qui se sentent peu à l’aise avec les outils numériques (Cordier, 2015).Le milieu social et le niveau de diplôme, des facteurs clefs de compréhensionEn réalité, l’identification des personnes éloignées du numérique ne peut pas se faire sans prendre en compte les facteurs sociaux et culturels. La catégorie socio-économique constitue une variable des inégalités numériques qui tend à montrer que les personnes issues de milieux modestes sont davantage caractérisées par un éloignement du numérique. Dit autrement, en lien avec le concept de capabilité numérique (cf. supra) les personnes issues de milieux favorisés sont davantage susceptibles de tirer des profits concrets de leurs usages des technologies numériques.Plus précisément encore pour expliquer l’éloignement numérique, d’autres travaux récents montrent une correspondance nette entre un faible niveau d’appropriation des technologies numériques et un niveau de capital culturel peu abondant chez les individus. Depuis les années 2000, dans le cadre de la massification de l’accès aux études supérieures, on assiste à l’apparition d’un public, notamment issus de milieux modestes, qui dispose d’un niveau de certification universitaire sans pour autant parvenir à trouver un emploi qui corresponde à cette certification. La conséquence est l’émergence, au sein des catégories modestes, de publics partageant le même milieu social mais se distinguant d’un point de vue du niveau de diplôme (et donc de l’accumulation de capital culturel). Dans ce cadre, des travaux ont mis en évidence l’existence d’importantes différences d’appropriation des outils numériques et de pratiques au sein même des milieux modestes, entre les individus diplômés et les individus peu ou pas diplômés, ces derniers étant davantage marqué par un éloignement numérique. Ces travaux démontrent le rôle central joué par le capital culturel des individus en termes d’inégalités numériques. Les résultats du Baromètre du numérique (2022) soutiennent ces analyses : les personnes non diplômées sont nettement moins souvent internautes que les personnes disposant d’un diplôme au moins équivalent au Bac. La part de non-internautes parmi les premières s’élève ainsi à près de 40%, et moins de 10% parmi les secondes (et même 2% pour les diplômés du supérieur). En résumé, si l’interrelation entre les différents facteurs évoqués invite à considérer ces derniers comme bien souvent interdépendants, le niveau de diplôme (plus largement le capital culturel) apparaît comme un facteur prépondérant pour identifier et expliquer l’éloignement numérique au sein de la population française.Des pratiques numériques socialement situéesOutre le fait que les individus qui occupent des positions sociales les plus avantageuses dans la société bénéficient généralement d’un accès de meilleure qualité aux ressources numériques, ils disposent également d’un répertoire de pratiques plus diversifié (cf. contextes scolaire, professionnel, etc) que les individus issus de milieux modestes, lesquels sont plus susceptibles d'utiliser des ressources numériques davantage pour le divertissement. D’ailleurs, la place de l’écrit constitue un facteur déterminant des pratiques différenciées qui sont faites des technologies numériques. En effet, les milieux modestes, en particulier les individus non-diplômés, en sont distants et dévalorisent cette forme d’échange au profit de l’interaction en face-à-face, allant même jusqu’à adopter des pratiques permettant de contourner l’utilisation de l’écrit. Dès lors, on comprend que la numérisation des démarches administrative expose ces familles modestes à des pratiques du numérique qui se révèlent être complexes pour elles, pouvant aggraver le phénomène de non-recours au droit dans ces milieux si aucune alternative est proposée au canal numérique.Un tiers des français seraient éloignés du numérique de nos joursComment quantifier l’éloignement numérique ?Trois systèmes d’enquête se sont attelés à la quantification de l’éloignement du numérique en France : l’enquête relative à l’usage des technologies de l’information et de la communication auprès des ménages de l’Insee, les enquêtes Capacity puis Capuni portées par le GIS M@rsouin, et le Baromètre du numérique commandité par l'Autorité de régulation des communications électroniques, des postes et de la distribution de la presse (Arcep), le Conseil général de l'économie (CGE) et, depuis plus récemment, l’Autorité de régulation de la communication audiovisuelle et numérique (Arcom). Conçues de manière indépendante, ces trois enquêtes reposent sur des partis-pris méthodologiques parfois divergents et proposent des mesures de l’éloignement numérique différentes. Toutefois, trois grandes catégories d’indicateur se dégagent de ces enquêtes pour mesurer l’éloignement numérique : par les équipements (l’éloignement physique au numérique), les usages et les compétences. Chacune comporte un certain nombre de limite. Concernant l’approche par les équipements, l’analyse des enquêtes les plus récentes met en évidence l’omniprésence des équipements, y compris la connexion internet, dans la société française. Cette large diffusion limite l’intérêt de focaliser la question de l’éloignement du numérique sous ce prisme (même si les difficultés d’accès à l’équipement constituent à l’évidence des freins aux pratiques numériques). L’approche par les usages, quant à elle, se heurte à la rapide évolution des possibilités d’usage sous l’effet de la diffusion de nouvelles technologies, comme en témoignent par exemple l’adoption des messageries instantanées sur téléphone mobile ou des appels avec vidéo au cours des dernières années. Enfin, l’approche par les compétences s’inscrit classiquement dans une logique restrictive de l’éloignement numérique, associée à des nomenclatures bien définies qui manque parfois de nuance.Une approche alternative, à même de dépasser ces limites, consisterait à interroger des variables subjectives. Par exemple, le sentiment de compétence déclaré des individus conduirait à dessiner les contours d’une vision beaucoup plus large de la quantification de l’éloignement numérique.Proposition d’actualisation du nombre d’éloignés du numériqueAfin de rendre compte de la diversité des situations et des pratiques, une mise en perspective en deux étapes de la quantification de l’éloignement numérique peut être considérée :En termes d’usages, ne pas être internaute constitue la première mesure d’éloignement du numérique. La dernière édition du Baromètre du numérique (2022) permet d’actualiser cette mesure : 8,8 % de la population de 18 ans et plus est aujourd’hui non-internaute en France (soit 4,5 millions de personnes).Ensuite, il est proposé de retenir un indicateur basé sur l’aisance ressentie dans la réalisation de tâches numériques pour construire un ou plusieurs groupes d’internautes plus ou moins éloignés du numérique. Cette mesure subjective permet de décrire les difficultés de certaines populations pourtant utilisatrices des outils numériques. En 2022, d’après les données du Baromètre du numérique, la part des personnes internautes ne se sentant pas compétentes dans l’utilisation d’Internet s’élève à 22,9 % (soit 11,5 millions de personnes).Selon cette approche large de l’éloignement numérique, ce sont donc 31,5% des 18 ans et plus résidant en France métropolitaine qui sont éloignées du numérique aujourd’hui (soit 16 millions de personnes).L’éloignement numérique, un phénomène socialComme nous venons de le voir, s’il existe plusieurs définitions de l’éloignement du numérique, qui sont autant de dimensions différentes du phénomène, il convient toutefois de se départir de toute vision binaire inclus-exclus, qui présente le défaut majeur d’invisibiliser la diversité des situations et des pratiques. A ce titre, le concept des capabilités numériques (cf. supra) est éclairant, puisqu’il permet de mettre la focale sur la capacité des individus à pouvoir tirer profits des technologies numériques. Par ailleurs, cette vision, plus à même de prendre en compte les contextes dans lesquels les différentes formes d’éloignement du numérique prennent place, permet de reposer l’enjeu de l’inclusion numérique sur sa base sociale, puisque la nature capacitante ou non-capacitante des technologies numériques est en réalité grandement conditionnée par les conditions d’existence des individus. Il convient en particulier de mieux prendre en compte les capitaux culturels (particulièrement le niveau de diplôme) et numériques des individus, dont l’analyse montre qu’ils sont centraux tant dans le rapport aux technologies que dans le développement de pratiques numériques différenciées. Partant de ce constat, il convient également et de relativiser la pertinence d’une évaluation trop générale du nombre d’éloignés du numérique. En effet, à la quête d’un chiffre précis d’éloignés qui parait dénué de sens, il serait préférable de représenter le phénomène sous la forme d’un halo permettant de considérer les individus comme plus ou moins éloignés du numérique, en fonction des attentes et besoins subjectifs qu’ils formulent.Ainsi, l’éloignement numérique ne peut plus être considéré comme un simple enjeu technique ou quantitatif : il s’agit d’abord d’un phénomène social. La prise en compte de ce phénomène dans sa complexité et son hétérogénéité ouvre des perspectives importantes pour la construction de politiques d’inclusion numérique différenciées en fonction des publics et des territoires.
NEC Review
Emblematic gatherings born in 2018, the Numérique en Commun[s] (NEC) events are the reflection of a national and local dynamic, in which a large community of grassroots players unite around the construction of a digital general interest. In addition to embodying an instrument for raising awareness and disseminating a genuine culture of digital public interest, the NECs are also formidable levers for the evolution of public policies. We believe it is essential to document and share this dynamic, in order to think more broadly about the challenges posed by the growing presence of digital technology in our society. That's why we decided to collectively produce "La revue NEC". NEC magazine, which is free and open-access, aims to question all ways of seeing and thinking about the digital public interest, its effects and its opportunities. Each issue of the magazine is intended to contribute to a movement to describe, compose and disseminate a more inclusive, ethical and sustainable digital world. Through the exploration of different themes, NEC magazine presents this journey towards a French and European digital society of general interest.
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