UKriders.info has been established by Lasa as a resource and meeting place for UK-based Circuit Riders and other ICT development and support workers in the voluntary sector. Circuit Riders are voluntary sector technology development and support workers, each of whom supports a caseload of organisations the same way a development worker might.
In the UK there are more than 380 subscribers to the UKriders email list who are there because they are interested in circuit riding or are a Circuit Rider themselves. If you are new to the term 'circuit rider' then you might want to take a look at the following pages which gives some information who Circuit Riders are an what they do and about the background to the development of Circuit Riding in the UK.
This site will act as a focus for UK Riders through provision of resources, conference notes, statement of priciples by which we work with organisations and other signatories, training and quality standards, publications suich as case studies, evaluations, guides and reports and for UK Riders to have their own hosted blog.
Acknowledgements
The site was developed initially by Simon Pavitt and is maintained by Lasa and Simon. It uses the Drupal open source CMS.
The following Staff in voluntary sector organisations have various different roles in connection with technology.
This includes:
● IT workers technical staff who are employed by an individual organisation to support their own use technology
● Accidental techies often admin or information workers who end up looking after their organisations technology by default because there is nobody else to do it
● Project managers who are responsible for the provision of services which make use of technology.
Alongside these there is another further category of people who have a role in helping the voluntary sector make better use of ICT. These are people who support other organisations to make the best use of technology – we refer to them as Circuit Riders. Professionals such as ICT Capacity Builders, ICT Development Workers or ICT Project Workers are all covered by the term Circuit Rider.
The following paragraphs, which define the role, have been taken from the Lasa Circuit Riders 2.0 guide which can be downloaded as a pdf file from the Publications page. The Guide also includes information on what Riders do, setting up Circuit Rider projects and case studies.
Rationale
Circuit rider is an umbrella term for ICT professionals working in the voluntary and community sector. Their skills are on a spectrum from strategic through to technical, covering supporting, developing, training and action planning in the process. These individuals may be working from within infrastructure organisations like a CVS, networks such as Age Concern, operating as a social or community enterprise company, or indeed as an independent self-employed consultant who works primarily with the sector. Significantly, circuit riders want to support the organisations they are working with to help them deliver their services in an effective and efficient way, and have the values of the sector at heart.
Circuit Rider defined
Put simply, a circuit rider is a mobile worker who provides ICT support and development to a caseload of small voluntary organisations and who works in collaboration with other circuit riders
Going mobile
Circuit riders aren’t based in the organisations with which they work: they travel from one to another, if necessary taking the resources they need to do their work with them.
Case(load) in point
Like other voluntary sector development workers, circuit riders have an ongoing involvement with the organisations with which they work: they don’t just visit an organisation when there’s a problem but try to encourage its long-term development.
Small is beautiful
Circuit riders generally work with small organisations who cannot justify having their own ICT staff, either because of their size or because they cannot afford them. Some might work with larger organisations if they provide more specialised services or work on short-term projects.
Work together
Circuit riders support and share information with each other. Technology is a very wide, expanding and changing field: no one person can keep up-to-date with every field. Circuit riders are able to share ideas, suggestions and recommendations between each other. As they often work individually this peer support enables learning from similar work in different organisations.
Ethical stance
Much of the significance of circuit riders comes from the ethos which informs their work, their attitude to clients and their aims in working with organisations. This is not always immediately apparent to funders, policy makers or clients when considering technology options. However the strength of circuit riding comes from the variety of people who support voluntary sector use of ICT in different ways and share different strengths. As circuit riders share a similar ethos it enables them to make their voices heard among such stakeholders as funders, policy makers, suppliers and voluntary sector networks
International feel
There are people who identify themselves as circuit riders throughout the world. 'Circuit rider' is a term that is used in the US and the UK. Internationally the terms 'eRider' or 'iRider' are often used. Both terms refer to a similar type of technology worker.
Attitude and aptitude
Unlike some commercial ICT companies, circuit riders traditionally aim to make the organisations they work with become self-reliant in their use of technology. This enables the circuit rider to move on and help other organisations develop their ICT use. Assisting them to set up systems and procedures, training staff and raising their awareness of planning and budgeting helps organisations to be in a position to take charge and develop their use of technology further. However, as circuit riders generally work with small organisations, which will usually not have the necessary range of skills and experience for every situation, they will inevitably need to get outside advice and support at some stage. Also, as they become more in control of their ICT most organisations gain confidence and see potential in new uses for technology. Sometimes what a circuit rider can achieve is to make the organisation self supporting on a specific issue or area of use. In addition, many circuit rider projects struggle with funding and earning enough income from organisations, so they rely on building on-going relationships with their clients. Others are funded to work with as many organisations as possible. Sometimes the difference between commercial ICT support and circuit riders comes down to one of attitude. Circuit riders have a wider aim of seeing voluntary sector organisations develop their use of technology rather than providing purely technical support services.
Sustainability
A traditional view of a circuit rider is that they provide technical support for an organisation’s ongoing use of ICT. In order to make this sustainable they have increasingly got involved in planning, strategy and budgeting for technology. They might also be involved in developing new projects for organisations such as websites or databases, or helping them to commission them from commercial suppliers. In whatever work area they are dealing with, circuit riders aim to help organisations take control of their own use of technology and ensure that systems and processes are sustainable.
Building the