them and the notion of "effective use" is a bridge between CI research (research and analysis of the constituent elements of effective use), CI policy (developing enabling structures and programmes supportive of "effective use") and practice (implementing applications and services in support of local communities). Another way to understand CI is Clement and Shade's "access rainbow" (Clement and Shade 2000). Clement and Shade have contended that accomplishing insignificant specialized connectedness to the Internet is no assurance that an individual or group will prevail with regards to appropriating new ICTs in ways that advance their improvement, independence, or empowerment. It is an approach which has multi-layered socio-specialized model for universal access to ICTs. It is displayed as seven layers, starting with the fundamental technical components of connectedness and moving upward through layers that inexorably push the essential social framework of access. The seven layers are: 7. Governance 6. Literacy / Social facilitation 5. Service / Access providers 4. Content / Services 3. Software tools 2. Devices 1. Carriage Even though all elements are important, the most important one is the content /service layer in the middle, since this is where the actual utility is most direct. The upper layers focus on social dimensions and the lower layers focus on technical aspects. Many practitioners would dispute any necessary connection to university research, regarding academic theorising and interventions as constraining or irrelevant to grassroots activity which should be beyond the control of traditional institutions, or simply irrelevant to practical local goals. Some of the commonalities and differences may be in fact be due to national and cultural differences. For example, the capacity of many North American (and particularly US) universities to engage in service learning as part of progressive charters in communities large and small is part of a long-standing tradition absent elsewhere. The tradition of service learning is almost entirely absent in the UK, Australia, or New Zealand, (and of limited significance in Canada) where the State has traditionally played a much stronger role in the delivery of community services and information. In some countries such as the UK, there is a tradition of locally based grassroots community technology, for example in Manchester, or in Hebden Bridge. In Italy and the Netherlands, there also appears to have been a strong connection between the development of local civic networks based around a tradition of civic oppositionism, connected into the work of progressive academics.