The effect of sharing local community information on the Internet: A case of mountainous area in Japan

Local communities in mountainous area in Japan are losing their young people and most of their workforce to the large cities, leaving only the elderly. People in local communities in mountainous area have emphasized the importance of sharing their local information within and beyond their communities in order to sustain their communities. However, their ways of sharing information are limited to traditional means of dissemination of information such as local newspapers or community meetings. Therefore, the objective of our research was to find the best way to share local information and knowledge by local citizens in mountainous area. Based on related work, we built the online information sharing tool for local area. We also developed a learning course with this tool. We implemented this learning course and then surveyed local citizens as learners by monitoring them, administering a questionnaire, and interviewing them in the town of Toei in Aichi, Japan. Based on our survey, we found the best way to share local information and knowledge by local citizens in mountainous area from two points of view as follows; one was to determine the best function on the tool to participate in the virtual site by local citizens. Another was to determine the best way to implement the learning course for local citizens.