Promoting People Potential for Digital Village Development in Mahasarakham

The objectives of this research were: 1) to develop a model of promoting the potential of people in the digital field towards the development of digital villages (PDG) in Mahasarakham, Thailand; 2) to develop a course of promoting PDG in Mahasarakham; 3) to promote PDG in Mahasarakham; 4) to monitor and evaluate the development of digital villages in Mahasarakham. The sample consisted of 1) 300 volunteer digital ambassadors classified into: 1.1) 65 people, 1.2) 130 youths and 105 students of the Faculty of Information Technology, Rajabhat Mahasarakham University; 2) 1,300 people from 13 communities in Mahasarakham, 100 people per community. The research results indicated that 1) the model consisted of 4 steps: 1.1) the procedure for determining the steps for promoting the potential of the people in the digital field; 1.2) curriculum development process for enhancing people's potential in digital field; 1.3) the process of promoting the potential of people in the digital field; and 1.4) the follow up process for evaluation of digital village development. 2) A 6 hour digital public potential promotion course consisting of 9 topics; 2.1) Rights and responsibilities in the digital age; 2.2) Digital access; 2.3) Communication in the digital age; 2.4) Security in the digital age; 2.5) Media and information literacy; 2.6) Practices in a digital society; 2.7) Good health in the digital age; 2.8) digital commerce; 2.9) Digital Law. 3) The results of the potential development of people in the digital field were as follows: 3.1) 300 “Volunteer Digital Ambassadors” had 63.79% level of knowledge, understanding and skills and overall satisfaction at the highest level (x̅ = 4.52 and SD = 0.51) and 3.2) 1,300 people had the knowledge, understanding and skills of 64.87% and had the highest overall average satisfaction (x̅ = 4.51 and SD. = 0.53). 4) The results of the digital village development monitoring were as follows: 4.1) The results of the preparation of the evaluation criteria consist of 7 points as follows: 4.1.1) Community knowledge and skills from capacity development training accounted for more than 60%; 4.1.2) The number of people 60 percent or more have a Smartphone; 4.1.3) The number of people 60% or more uses LINE program at least 1 hour per day; 4.1.4) The number of people 60% or more used Facebook program at least 1 hour per day; 4.1.5) The number of people 20 percent or more used Facebook or Line program as a tool to help run their own business or community enterprise groups; 4.1.6) 20% of the population or more were using online trading programs such as LAZADA or Shopee; 4.1.7) The community had a community group line for use in constructive communication within the group; 4.2) The evaluation results of digital village development in Mahasarakham Province found that all 13 communities had the evaluation results of digital villages according to the specified criteria