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This open access book explores the digital transformation of small and rural towns, in particular, how to measure the evolution and development of digital towns. In addition to access to resources, competition from urban and global markets, and population trends, rural communities present lesser access and use of digital technologies and have lower digital competencies and skills than their urban counterparts. Consequently, they experience less beneficial outcomes from increased digitalisation than urban areas.  This book defines what a digital town is and explores digitalisation from the perspective of the four basic economic sectors in towns - individuals and households, businesses, the public sector, and civil society - and three types of enabling infrastructure - digital connectivity, education, and governance. Particular attention is paid to how digitalisation efforts are measured by intergovernmental and international organisations for each sector and enabling infrastructure. The book concludes with a Digital Town Readiness Framework that offers local communities, policymakers, and scholars an initial set of indicators upon which to develop digital town initiatives, and measure progress. For those ready to embrace the opportunity, this book is a pathfinder on the road to a more equitable and impactful digital society and digital economy.

Digital Towns: Accelerating and Measuring the Digital Transformation of Rural Societies and Economies

Chapter 1 - Defining and rationalising digital towns      

Chapter 1 introduces key concepts in digital society policy and discusses extant literature on the urban-rural digital divide. Based on extant literature on the urban-rural digital divide, it outlines eight rationales for the digital transformation of towns and provides a working definition of a digital town.

Chapter 2 - Measuring digital readiness              

In Chapter 2, literature on existing approaches to measuring digital readiness are presented, compared and contrasted. These include frameworks for measuring digital readiness at a national level (e.g. DESI, the Digital Capital Index, the Digital Evolution Index, and the Digital Ecosystem Development Index) and city level (e.g. CityKeys and the Smart City Index), and town level (e.g. smart village indicators). This chapter will conclude with the high level dimensions necessary for a digital town readiness measurement framework.

Chapter 3 - Connectivity             

Digital connectivity is a critical building block of digital towns and is a key measure in many digital benchmarks. Increased broadband reduces the cost of sending and receiving data. As a result, it can impact a variety of direct economic and societal effects. It can both lower input costs and increase consumption across a number of industries. Consequently, greater broadband can increase competitiveness and economic activity resulting in greater employment as well as reducing the digital divide. This chapter will summarise extant research on the socio-economic impact of connectivity, and identify relevant connectivity measures for use in assessing digital readiness.

Chapter 4 - Digital Citizen          

The Digital Citizen dimension focuses on the competence and usage of digital technologies by citizens in a town. This chapter will summarise the research on the socio-economic impact of citizen digital skills and usage. Relevant measures for use in assessing digital skills and usage will be identified.

Chapter 5 - Digital Education    

It is increasingly accepted that digital technologies and related affordances can directly change the nature of teaching and learning; this is particularly poignant against the backdrop of the COVID19 pandemic. The chapter will explore how the use and sophistication of digital technology in education and the provision of training and education in digital technologies for all levels is measured and the socio-economic impact of such supports.

Chapter 6 - Digital Civil Society               

Digital Civil Society refers to the use and sophistication of digital technologies by voluntary and community sector organisations (VSCOs) in a town. These include charities, sports and social clubs, political parties etc. While there are indices to measure digital social innovation, for example the DSI Index, these indices typically focus specifically on innovation or social entrepreneurship ecosystems rather than the use of digital technology more generally by civil society, and specifically VSCOs, in their day to day activities. VSCOs are rarely included in the mainstream digital indices. Similar to the literature in the commercial domain, extant literature suggests that digital technologies can transform VSCOs' organisational capacity and stakeholder engagement. Like commercial organisations, VSCOs can generate value and exploit the same opportunities digital technologies present including cost savings, process efficiencies, new revenue generation, and improved quality of service. Notwithstanding these benefits, digital adoption by VSCOs has been hindered by digital experience and skills. This chapter explores the literature on the potential impact of digital transformation on VSCOs and proposes measures for assessing and benchmarking digital readiness in this sector.

Chapter 7 - Digital Business      

It is widely accepted that the adoption and use of digital technologies by business can generate business value and improve competitiveness. So-called third platform technologies - cloud computing, Big Data analytics, social media and mobile technologies - can create new revenue generation opportunities through e-commerce, introduce new business models and faster time to market, reduce costs, generate and provide faster time to insight, and enable intelligent infrastructure. This can often be accomplished with lower upfront investment, reduced risk, and improved organisational agility and efficiency. The positive impact of broadband and ICT infrastructure, websites, e-commerce, social media, CRM, and other digital business technologies on small-to-medium sized businesses is well established. However, a digital divide between urban and rural SMEs is also noted in the literature. This chapter explores extant literature on measuring the digitalisation of businesses and identifies measures relating to the use and sophistication of digital technology by businesses.

Chapter 8 - Digital Public Services          

The European Union Digital Economy and Society Index defines digital public services as the use and sophistication of digital technology by government and health services, and the availability of open data. This chapter will review the existing literature on measurement and maturity frameworks for e-government at both a national and local level including e-government projects. Similarly, it will explore digital benchmarks for health services including the use and sophistication of online health services including consultations, e-prescriptions and data exchange. Finally, this chapter will discuss the literature on open data and heralded benefits of open government data and PSI (public sector information) and suggest measures for open data readiness and maturity at a town level.

Chapter 9 - Digital Tourism        

The travel and tourism industry has been at the front line of both digital disruption and transformation. Tourism is a major contributor to rural economies and has long been seen as a counter-measure to the decline of traditional agrarian industries. Digital Tourism is the use and sophistication of digital technology to attract tourists and deliver a distinctive experience. Typically, tourism is not addressed discretely from other industry sectors. However, given the idiosyncrasies of digital disruption to travel and tourism, its emphasis in rural economic development literature and policies, and the opportunities for digitisation both of tourism businesses and destinations, we include digital tourism as a discrete dimension and discuss the literature on the role and impact of tourism in rural towns and measures and indicators for digital tourism readiness.

Chapter 10 - Horizontal Integration       

Reflecting the experience of existing digital town initiatives, we take the position that digital towns require a broad concept of community governance that requires multi-agency working and self-organising networks that cut across organisational and stakeholder boundaries. Here, horizontal integration relates to the degree of coordination across the town on digitisation, both offline and online, including the availability of a platform for citizens to interact, share knowledge, experiences and mutual interests. In this way the sub-dimensions reflect the UK Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions definition of community strategy in that we seek to identify and assess the existence of a governance mechanism, e.g. a Digital Town Working Group, a shared digital vision and documented strategy for the town and its inclusion in municipal and regional plans, and arrangements for monitoring progress of the plan against targets.

Chapter 11 - Bringing it all together: An Integrated Measurement Framework and Workflow for Digital Towns               

Chapter 11 brings together the previous chapters in to one framework and  presents a five phase process for implementing a digital town initiative including project initiation and dimensional weightings, current state baselining, planning, improvement programme implementation, and evaluation.