ICT Actors and Actions Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
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WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries 11 th International Conference Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011 1
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Transcript of ICT Actors and Actions Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference
Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
1
WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
PROGRAMME OVERVIEW
Rooms: Megha lounge; Conference HQ plus the site for Sunday discussionsMalhar; All plenary sessions and left-hand parallel sessionsMalashree: Right-hand parallel sessions Marva hall; IPID and poster sessions on May 25th
Sunday 22nd
15:00 22:00 Arrivals, registration
17:00 - 19:00 Pre-conference discussions:
The landscape of ICT4D and the potential for the 9.4 group
19:00 22:00 Reception
Monday 23rd
08:00-09:00 Registration, coffee09:00-09:30 Welcome by the conference chair09:30-10:30 Keynote 1:
Mr. Mahabir Pun, Nepal Wireless Network Project10:30-11:00 Coffee, fruit11:00-12:30 M1A: ICT4D Research M1B: ICT4D Actors - 112:30-13:30 Lunch
13:30-15:00 M2A: ICT4D Theories M2B: ICT4D Actors - 215:00-15:15 Break15:15-16:45 M3A: Impact assessment M3B: ICT4D Actors - 316:45-17:00 Break17:00-18:30 M4A: National ICT M4B: eHealth - 120:00-22:00 Dinner
Tuesday, 24th
09:00-10:30 Keynote 2:
Professor Geoff Walsham, University of Cambridge:informatics research: from early beginnings to future
10:30-11:00 Coffee, fruit11:00-12:30 T1A: ICT4D Context T1B: eHealth 2 - Macro level12:30-13:30 Lunch
13:30-1500 T2A: eGovernment T2B: mHealth 15:00-15:15 Break15:15-16:45 T3A: M4D T3B: eHealth - 316:45-17:00 Break17:00-18:30 Panel 1:
Chair: Professor Sundeep Sahay, University of Oslo19:30-23:30 Conference dinner, show
Wednesday, 25th
08:30-10:00 Panel 2
Chair: Jacques Steyn, Head of School of IT, Monash Univ.
Poster/Demo Session
10:00-10:30 Break10:30-12:00 Panel 3: Publishing ICT4D.
Chair: Robert Davison, Editor-in-Chief, EJISDC.
Poster/Demo Session
12:00-13:30 W1A: Public Internet Access W1B: Open Source SW
PhD seminar
(IPID)13:30-14:30 Lunch
14:30-16:00 Business Meeting
2
WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Table of contents
Messages and Organizers
The Programme Co-
Organization team and Sponsors
Programme Committee and Reviewers
Practical information and important telephone numbers
Programme
Key notes
Pre-conference panel
Position articles
Panel descriptions
Abstracts
Paper abstracts
3
Namaste!
In a stunning reversal of the old Chinese curse, we are blessed to be living in interesting times. Revolutions and changes are occurring at this very moment all over the world mostly outside the so-called developed sphere, with ICT playing a crucial if not an enabling role. What better time than now for the biennial gathering of scholars and practitioners whose quest is finding ways in which ICT can lead developing countries to a better life?
It is against this backdrop that I warmly welcome you to the 11th International IFIP WG9.4 Conference jointly hosted by the University of Agder, Norway and Tribhuvan University, Nepal. It is hard to imagine a more apt setting than the host country to reflect the conference theme Partners of Development ICT Actors and Action. Despite its trials and tribulations, Nepal has generated innovative applications
live in the shadows of some of the highest mountain peaks of the world.
Few epitomize the conference theme more than our two keynote speakers. A Magasaysay Award winner, Mahabir Pun is an activist, an actor and an entrepreneur who singlehandedly founded the Nepal Wireless Network Project and has brought the outside world to a remote mountainous region.Geoff Walsham needs no introduction in our community. After several decades of actively studying and working in the field, he is retiring this year. The keynote will be a worthy celebration of this distinguished scholar (hopefully not his swansong though).
The Program committee headed by the dynamic duo of Hari and Bjørn, has crafted an exciting program for which they deserve hearty congratulations. In addition to the usual staples of papers and panels, the conference features demos and projects of successful ICT4D initiatives in Nepal, and a forum for graduate students from around the world organized by their own organization IPID. I am very pleased that we have been able to offer bursaries to a number of students to attend the conference and thank IDRC, Canada, the University of Agder and IFIP TC9 for their generous support.
I do hope that it will not be all work for you and that you will take the opportunity to explore this spectacular country (think the Himalayas!) especially since with a variety of special tourist industry. Subarna, our Tribhuvan University colleague, who as co-chair of the conference is in charge of local arrangements, will eagerly showcase his country. So will the local organization co-chair Devendra, who straddles the developed and the developing world. Both deserve a rousing round of applause and dhanyabad. Of the many who have worked hard to put together this conference, special thanks go to Øyvind (tusen takk), the conference on-site coordinator for his tireless efforts and particularly for his amazing patience. I am grateful to Unni who as conference administrator, ably ran the engine smoothly and kept the bureaucrats and the bean counters at bay (utmerket Unni). Finally, Julian superbly balanced the demands of an academic and running the conference web site as the webmaster (cheers mate).
Enjoy the conference and the hospitality of the friendly and ever smiling people of Nepal. May your spirits soar to the towering heights of the majestic mountains that surround us!
Maung
Prof. Maung K. Sein, University of Agder, Norway; [email protected]
4
The Programme Co-Chairs
We are delighted to welcome you to beautiful Nepal and to the 11th International Conference on
Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries.
Partners for Development: ICT Actors and Actions, we hope to draw special attention to the role
played by multiple actors public and private, activists and entrepreneurs as well as other kinds of
intermediaries within ICT4D processes and their associated impacts. We received 81 submissions,
of which we accepted 48 papers and 5 demo/posters. In addition, we have a set of 4
6 IPID posters. Authors of submitted papers come from all over the
world: South Africa (24 authors), followed by Norway (19), UK (18), India (16), Bangladesh (11), New
Zealand (10), USA and Australia (7 each), Singapore (6), Brazil (4), and Nepal (3). The remaining
submissions came from authors based in Albania, Canada, Ireland, Malawi, Sweden, and Thailand (2
each), and Colombia, Ethiopia, Greece, Malaysia, Mozambique, Nigeria, Switzerland, Tajikistan, UAE
and Vietnam (1 each). The accepted submissions include authors from 22 countries with the UK,
Norway, South Africa, India and Bangladesh accounting for the largest group of authors. The
provides some evidence that
we, the IFIP9.4 group, continue to remain relevant to the audience that we are studying.
and a
pre-conference session on the current ICT4D landscape and the future of the 9.4 group. Then there
are the programme highlights, the keynotes from Mr Mahabir Pun and Professor Geoff Walsham. In
all, I hope you will agree that we have an exciting programme in place to generate some thoughtful
discussion and debate.
could not have been possible without the time and support provided by an
excellent Programme Committee with members from over 20 countries. We would like to thank each
one of you for your contribution.
We hope you will enjoy the conference!
Hari and Bjørn
Dr G. Harindranath, Royal Holloway, University of London [email protected] Bjørn Furuholt, University of Agder, Norway; [email protected]
5
WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Organizing team and Sponsors
Organizing team
Conference chair Dr. Maung K. Sein University of Agder, Norway
Conference co-chair (local organizing) Dr. Subarna Shakya, Tribhuvan University
Programme co-chair Dr. Bjørn Furuholt, University of Agder, Norway
Programme co-chair Dr. G. Harindranath, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
Local organizing co-chair Dr. Devinder Thapa, University of Agder, Norway
Administrator Unni Holbrook Unni.S.Holbrook, University of Agder, Norway
Conference on-site co-ordinator Oyvind Hellang, University of Agder, Norway
Conference Sponsors
We would like to thank the following sponsors of the IFIP WG 9.4 11th International conference:
6
WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Programme Committee and Reviewers
Program co-chairs:
Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
Bjørn Furuholt University of Agder, Norway [email protected]
Program committee:
1. Matin Abdullah BRAC University, Bangladesh
2. Shadi Alabdulrazak Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
3. Annika Andersson Örebro University, Sweden [email protected]
4. Md. Mahfuz Ashraf University of Dhaka [email protected]
5. Savita Bailur London School of Economics, UK
6. Julian M. Bass Robert Gordon University, UK
7. Roberta Bernardi Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
8. Subhash Bhatnagar Indian Institute of Management, India
9. Irwin Brown Univ of Cape Town, South Africa
10. Jyoti Choudrie University of Hertfordshire [email protected]
11. Jose-Rodrigo Cordoba-Pachon
Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
12. Robert Davison City University of Hong Kong [email protected]
13. Rahul De' Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, India
14. Antonio Diaz Andrade
AUT University, New Zealand
15. Romano Dyerson Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
16. Leif Flak University of Agder, Norway [email protected]
17. Åke Grönlund Örebro University [email protected]
18. Cathy Harbor Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
19. Roger Harris Roger Harris Associates, Hong Kong
20. Mathias Hatakka Örebro University, Sweden [email protected]
21. Richard Heeks University of Manchester, UK [email protected]
7
22. Oyvind Hellang University of Agder, Norway [email protected]
23. Marius Johannessen
University of Agder, Norway [email protected]
24. Muhajir Kachwamba
Mzumbe University, Tanzania
25. Sherif Kamel The American University in Cairo, Egypt
26. Dorothea Kleine Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
27. Mikko Korpela University of Eastern Finland [email protected]
28. Kirstin Krauss University of Cape Town, South Africa
29. Matthew Nicolas Kreeger
Royal Holloway, University of London,UK & Thales Information Technology Security, Cambridge,UK
30. Stein Kristiansen University of Agder, Norway [email protected]
31. Endrit Kromidha Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
32. Renata Lebre La Rovere
University Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
33. Arto Lanamäki University og Agder, Norway [email protected]
34. Khuong Le-Nguyen Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
35. Heejin Lee Yonsei University, Korea [email protected]
36. Jonathan Liebenau London School of Economics, UK
37. Shirin Madon London School of Economics, UK
38. Peter Meso Georgia Gwinnett College, USA
39. Brian Nicholson University of Manchester, UK [email protected]
40. Lorne Olfman Claremont Graduate School, USA
41. Hans Olav Omland University of Agder, Norway [email protected]
42. Narcyz Roztocki State University of New York at New Paltz, USA
43. Sundeep Sahay University of Oslo, Norway [email protected]
44. Leiser Silva University of Houston, USA [email protected]
45. Riccardo Spinelli University of Genoa, Italy [email protected]
46. Karen Stendal University of Agder, Norway [email protected]
47. Øystein Sæbø University of Agder, Norway [email protected]
48. Yao-Hua Tan TU Delft, The Netherlands [email protected]
49. Devinder Thapa University of Agder, Norway [email protected]
50. Tim Unwin Royal Holloway, University of London, UK
51. Cathy Urquhart Manchester Metropolitan University, UK
52. Jean-Paul.VanBelle University of Cape Town, South Africa
8
53. Fathul Wahid Islamic University of Indonesia
54. Geoff Walsham University of Cambridge, UK [email protected]
55. H. Roland Weistroffer
Virginia Commonwealth University, USA
56. Chris Westrup University of Manchester, UK [email protected]
57. Gudrun Wikander Karlstad University, Sweden [email protected]
58. Sinfree Gono Royal Holloway, University of London
59. Sutee Pheeraphuttharangkoon
University of Hertfordshire, UK
60. Matthew Smith IDRC Canada [email protected]
61. Ondrej Zach University of Agder, Norway [email protected]
62. Amit Vyas University of Hertfordshire, UK
9
IFIP WG 9.4 Practical information
Calling to Nepal (Kathmandu): +977 1 xxxxxxx
Calling from Nepal: 00+(country code)+(telephone number)
Important telephone numbers
Name Tel #
Police Control Police 100 / 110 / 120 / 130
Police Emergency Police 4226999
Police Head Quarter Police 4411210
Bishal Bazar Ambulance (Free) New Road Ambulance 4244121
Nepal Chamber Ambulance Kathmandu Ambulance 4228094
Paropakar Ambulance Kathmandu Ambulance 4260859
International Flight Services Flights 4470311 / 4472835
Night Taxi Service Night Taxi 4244485 / 4224374
Tourist Information Center Tourist Info. 4220818 / 4471933
ASK ME (Free) Call Center 360000
IFIP conference on-site coordinator (cell.) Oyvind Hellang 004799707001
IFIP conference Hotel Front-desk 4273999
IFIP WG 9.4 conference Hotel
Crowne Plaza Hotel
KATHMANDU-SOALTEE
TAHACHAL KATHMANDU P.O. BOX 97
KATHMANDU, NA NEPAL
Conference rooms at the hotel
Megha lounge: Conference HQ, and information point
Malhar: Session room and Plenary discussions (main conference days)
Malashree: Session room
Marva hall: IPID and poster sessions
Airport transportation
Remember to inform the conference hotel about your flight information, so they can organize round
trip airport transfer. To receive this service, send an email to [email protected] with your
name, booking number and flight details
10
Visa
Please consult the foreign ministry of your country of origin. Many nationalities can obtain a visa on
arrival by air in Nepal. You must fill in an application form and provide a passport photograph. Visa
application forms are available on a table in the arrivals hall, though some airlines (like Thai) provide
this form on the flight. To get a jump on the immigration queue, you can download the visa-on-
arrival form from www.treks.com.np/visa. A single-entry visa valid for 60 days costs US$30. At
Kathmandu's Tribhuvan Airport the fee is payable in any major currency
Cash
Major international currencies, including the US dollar, euro and pounds sterling, are readily
accepted. In Nepal the Indian rupee is also like a hard currency - the Nepali rupee (R) is pegged to the
Indian rupee (INR) at the rate of INR 100 = R 160. Be aware that INR 500 and INR 1000 notes are not
accepted anywhere in Nepal.
ATMs
Standard Chartered Bank has ATMs in Kathmandu and Pokhara; you can get cash advances on both
Visa and MasterCard 24 hours a day, though travellers have reported that these machines don't take
cards that run on the Cirrus system. Other banks, such as the Himalaya Bank, also have ATMs but
some only accept local cards. Using an ATM attached to a bank during business hours will minimise
the hassle in the rare event that the machine eats your card.
Nepal's Electricity
Nepal's Electricity is 220 Volt and 50 MHZ (50 Cycles per Second). Electric Plug is two or three round
prongs, but not flat prongs as found in use in the United States or in some other countries. If your
electronic uses 110 Volt 60 MHZ electricity, you will need a voltage convert. Outages may occur.
11
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Room
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B.
Nic
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R
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D
EVELO
PM
EN
T:
A L
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REVIE
W
40
J.D
obson.
TH
E V
ISIB
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AN
D:
CO
NCEPTU
ALIS
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A R
OLE F
OR
DEVELO
PM
EN
T P
RAC
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ION
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URTH
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ELIH
OO
D
INIT
IATIV
ES
75
J.Choudri
e a
nd
G.
Harindra
nath
RESEARCH
: A B
IBLIO
METRIC
STU
DY
28
S.
Shre
sth
a,
J.P.T
. M
oore
and J
. A.
Nocera
TH
E E
NG
LIS
H L
AN
GU
AG
E
TEAC
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ND
LEARN
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CH
ALLEN
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N P
UBLIC
DIA
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TU
DY
12:3
0-
13:3
0Lu
nch
12
Mon
, 2
31330-
1500
Parall
el
sessio
ns
M2
A.
ICT4D
Theori
es
Chaiir:
Anto
nio
D
iaz
Andra
de
Room
:M
alh
ar
30
J.Bass,
B.
Nic
hols
on a
nd E
.Subra
hm
ania
n.
INSTIT
UTIO
NAL A
NALYSIS
, TH
E C
APABIL
ITY A
PPR
OAC
H
AN
D I
CT F
OR
DEVELO
PM
EN
T
M2
B.
ICT4D
Acto
rs-2
Chair:
Nia
ll
Hayes
Room
: M
ala
shre
e
65
C.
Avgero
u,
B.
Li and A
.Pouly
menakou.
EXPLO
RIN
G T
HE S
OC
IO-
ECO
NO
MIC
STRU
CTU
RES O
F
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D
EVELO
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EN
T:
A S
TU
DY O
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NTREPREN
EU
RS
IN C
HIN
A6
M.
Hata
kka a
nd
R.l D
e'.
DEVELO
PM
EN
T,
CAPABIL
ITIE
S
AN
D T
ECH
NO
LO
GY
AN
EVALU
ATIV
E F
RAM
EW
ORK
51
S.
Kabanda
and I
.Bro
wn.
ERC
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N
OF E
-CO
MM
ER
CE I
N T
AN
ZAN
IA
43
A.D
.Andra
de
and C
.U
rquhart
.U
ND
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DIN
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HEIR
OW
N
CO
NTEXT:
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M
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OD
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O D
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AL
BIL
DU
NG
IN
ICT F
OR
DEVELO
PM
EN
T I
NIT
IATIV
ES
68
A.
Briggs.
INSTIT
UTIO
NAL
ARRAN
GEM
EN
TS I
N T
HE
DEVELO
PM
EN
T O
F E
LECTR
ON
IC
PAYM
EN
T S
YSTEM
IN
A
DEVELO
PIN
G C
OU
NTRY:
ACASE
ELECTRO
NIC
PAYM
EN
T S
YSTEM
Mon
, 2
31515-
1645
Parall
el
sessio
ns
M3
A.
Impact
assessm
ent
Chair:
Chrisanth
i Avgero
u
Room
:M
alh
ar
10
S.
Ferd
ousi, B
.T.
Malik,
N.
Ala
m
and M
.M.
Ashra
f.
PRELIM
INAR
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TU
DY O
F T
HE
OU
TCO
ME O
F A
N
INFO
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ATIO
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MM
UN
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TECH
NO
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ICT)
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AN
GLAD
ESH
M3
B.
ICT4D
Acto
rs-3
Chair:
Subarn
a
Shakya
Room
: M
ala
shre
e
27
R V
aid
ya,
M.
D.
Myers
and L
.G
ard
ner
-REALIT
Y G
AP:
A
STAKEH
OLD
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BASED
MO
DEL F
OR I
S
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EN
TATIO
N I
N
DEVELO
PIN
G C
OU
NTR
IES
16
J.Ala
m,
N.
Ala
m
and M
. M
. Ashra
f.
AN
IM
PAC
T A
SSESSM
EN
T O
F
INFO
RM
ATIO
N A
ND
CO
MM
UN
ICATIO
N
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FO
R
AG
RIC
ULTU
RE T
HRO
UG
H
LIV
ELIH
OO
D F
RAM
EW
ORK
IN
BAN
GLAD
ESH
46
S.
Guddir
eddig
ari
, H
.G
runfe
ld a
nd
G.
Johanson.
EXPLO
RIN
G T
HE R
OLE O
F
DIG
ITAL D
IASPO
RA I
N I
CT4D
PRO
JEC
T I
MPLEM
EN
TATIO
N
8S.
Ibra
him
-dasuki and P
.Abbott
TH
E I
MPACT O
F I
CT
INVESTM
EN
TS O
N
DEVELO
PM
EN
T:
LESSO
NS
FRO
M T
HE N
IGERIA
PRE-P
AID
ELECTRIC
ITY B
ILLIN
G S
YSTEM
35
D.
Thapa.
ICT A
CTO
RS,
NETW
ORKS A
ND
D
EVELO
PM
EN
T:
TH
E C
ASE
STU
DY O
F A
WIR
ELESS
PRO
JEC
T I
N N
EPAL
13
Mon
, 2
31700-
1830
Parall
el
sessio
ns
M4
A.
National
ICT
Chair:
G.
Hari-
ndra
nath
Room
:M
alh
ar
54
Y.
Zheng.
DO
ES I
T T
RAN
SFO
RM
CH
INA?
M4
B.
eH
ealth-1
Chair:
Brian
Nic
hols
on
Room
: M
ala
shre
e
66
C.
Kanjo
and J
.Kaasbøll.
DATA,
INFO
RM
ATIO
N,
AN
D
KN
OW
LED
GE:
TH
E G
REATEST
OF A
LL I
S K
NO
WLED
GE
62
M.
Stilz
.AFG
HAN
ISTAN
S R
OLE I
N A
G
LO
BAL I
NFO
RM
ATIO
N A
GE -
ACTO
RS,
GO
ALS A
ND
REACTIO
NS
57
B.
Lagebo.
TRAIN
ING
STRATEG
Y,
AN
D
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EN
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Keyn
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24
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ICT4D
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Room
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J.Bra
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S.
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Øyste
in
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T. Sanner
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K.
Bra
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B.
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Paul Van
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.Ram
burn
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Chip
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Pan
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1:
Chair
: Pro
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Sundeep S
ahay,
Univ
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f O
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Head o
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Public
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Westr
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16
oyvindhe
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Typewritten Text
WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Key notes
Mahabir Pun
Team Leader for the Nepal Wireless Networking Project
MSc (Univ. of Nebraska)
Professional Experience
After getting his Master's Degree in education from University of Nebraska,
Mahabir Pun returned to his native village Nangi in Nepal, with a
courageous and ambitious goal to set up a school that will serve as a model
for local educational as well as economic development.
Mahabir Pun was elected Ashoka Fellow in 2002 by Ashoka Foundation, USA, which is the global
In 2004 he was given Overall Social
Innovations Award for 2004 by the Global Ideas Bank (aka the Institute for Social Inventions) based in
UK. The Ramon Magsaysay Foundation of the Philipinnes awarded, Mahabir Pun the Ramon
Magsaysay Award 2007 for Community Leadership. University of Nebraska, USA invited Mahabir Pun
for their winter commencement speech and awarded Honorary Degree, Doctor of Humane Letters in
December 2007 for his outstanding work for his country, Nepal.
Geoff Walsham
Emeritus Professor of Management Studies (Information Systems)
MSc (Univ. of Warwick), LittD (Univ. of Cambridge)
Professional Experience
Professor Walsham worked for four years as an operational research
analyst at BP Chemicals before taking up academic posts in operational
research and then information systems. He has extensive international experience having worked as
a teacher, researcher or consultant in over 25 countries in Europe, the Americas, Africa and Asia.
He was part of the senior management team for the telecommunications company Analysys during
its start-up and early growth phases. Professor Walsham has also held university management posts
including being Director of the Cambridge MBA. He has wide editorial experience, having been a
Senior Editor of both MIS Quarterly and Information Systems Research, and he is currently an
editorial board member of a number of other academic journals. He has been a pioneer with regard
to the study of ICT in developing countries.
17
The landscape of ICT4D and the potential for the 9.4 group a
discussion
Sunday 22nd
May: 17.00 to 19.00
Discussants:
Rahul De', Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, India.
Renata Lèbre La Rovere, Instituto de Economia/Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
Sundeep Sahay, University of Oslo, Norway
Chair: Chris Westrup, University of Manchester, UK.
Two questions have brought us together and form the focus of this pre-conference discussion.
We all share a sense that the landscape of ICT4D is changing, perhaps quite rapidly, and that
the question of what ICT4D is, and its thematic priorities and contribution(s), needs continuing
discussion and debate. Out of this debate may arise answers to the second question, how the
potential of the 9.4 group can be best realized in the short and medium term? For this
discussion we have three experienced practitioners and academics in the field who have
prepared short position papers which you might like to read in advance of the debate. To add
some extra facets to this event, three well known contributors to ICT4D were also asked to
write short position papers even though they are unable to attend the conference. The
position papers can be accessed on the conference website and I hope they will provide you
with food for thought and perhaps have you agree and disagree in equal measure. We look
forward to meeting you in Kathmandu.
The position papers are:
Renata Lèbre La Rovere, Challenges and Opportunities of Research on Information and
Communication Technologies and Development in Latin America
Sundeep Sahay, What Role for IFIP9.4 in the Current ICTD Field?
18
Position Paper IFIP 9.4 Nepal Conference
by Rahul De'
One of the problems many researchers face, as they initiate research related to an issue of ICT for development, e-governance or social aspects of information technology, in a developing country like India, is the inadequacy of prior theory. They read up on the relevant theory, as deeply as possible, to draw up their sets of hypothesis or premises or research questions that they want to explore. They design an appropriate data collection method and make a detailed plan. They write up their proposals (for granting agencies or institutional research boards), which they then defend strongly. Then they begin their actual data collection. And then all the troubles start! The prior theory, based on the agreed-upon canon in the ICT4D field (the most cited papers) that is used to frame the research questions is simply not able to help fathom the depth of the situation they find themselves in. When asking questions about design of the ICT project, its implementation, its impact on users, the users' feelings about the technology, and so on, they find that the complicating contextual issues dominate their findings, and confound their research.
In India, where most of my research is focussed, the issues of caste, corruption, the nature of the state, the current political economic situation, the historical processes of development, and the current economic policies, all play a role in defining the context. Researchers are able to ask focussed questions about technology use and design, however, the larger context looms ominously over their shoulders, challenging them to look its way. They find that either their questions are inadequate, or that the observations they are recording, both from interviews and from field experience, hardly capture a fraction of the immense details available to them.
An example: a doctoral student went to a remote district in India to study the impact of a set of telecentres that have been deployed there. He had prepared extensively to ask questions based on Sen's capabilities and freedoms model. He was able to proceed comfortably as long as his questions remained in the vicinity of information technology and its use, but as soon as he asked about issues related to the larger aspects of living in a rural, largely poor part of the state, he found he had to abandon many pre-formed lines of questioning. He had to account for the issues of caste of the respondent using the technology, the place where she lives, the time at which she walks in to access the service, the manner in which she approaches the intermediary, what aspect of her work life forces her to seek the kiosk, her social and economic position, the accent she speaks in, the manner in which she sits or stands at the kiosk, the response she receives from the intermediary, how she makes the payment for the service, whether she has to negotiate a bribe, what she has to say and hear during the interaction, and how she exits the situation.
The demands of international academic research - of rigour, of relevance, of top-tier journal quality analysis and writing - pressure researchers to conform to established norms of doing research. This holds for starting researchers, like doctoral students, as
19
well as for seasoned researchers. Research questions have to be well framed, methods have to be specified precisely and up front, and data collection and analysis plans have to be set forth in a manner that is acceptable to committees and reviewers. These norms do enable the deep insights that all of us seek in research and findings, however, many fresh insights emerge outside of these norms - from observations that are made opportunistically, from sensed, rather than observed, phenomena, from reading nuances in conversations, from the body language of respondents. The power of caste practices, for example, cannot usually be directly asked, it can be inferred from the manner in which respondents react to questions in the presence of others, the distance that they maintain from the interviewer, and the kind of questions they avoid.
The challenge for ICT4D research in developing countries is to seek theories and methods of doing research that can bridge the gap between the demands of the international research communities and the subjective experiences of researchers on the ground. Some effort has been directed at these issues, but more is required. If I were to draw up a wish list of what ICT4D research should offer (or what questions the IFIP community should address in future), I would include:
What is an epistemology for ICT4D research in developing countries? What constitutes, or can constitute, a core theory for driving research?
How can a researcher engage with and include the myriad details observable in a given context to form a coherent picture of the universe their subjects inhabit? How can these details that are particular, highly specific to the situation, the context, the person, specific to the moment and observed within the limited and rational means of the observer, contribute to understanding the whole?
What methods does the researcher have at his or her command that will allow her to observe and record these details in a manner that conforms to the demands of rigour, and also enables the researcher to be opportunistic, flexible, and highly sensitive to the situation? How can the researcher both "abandon" a priori plans for data collection and fieldwork and also conform to their guidelines?
How can the researcher work with intermediaries, for language interpretation, and still access the nuanced meanings within the context? How can one use devices such as maps, pictures, drawings, and figures to reach across to respondents in remote regions, so that they can not only answer the researchers questions but also participate in the ICT design and implementation process?
20
Challenges and Opportunities of Research on Information and
Communication Technologies and Development in Latin America
Renata Lèbre La Rovere
IE/UFRJ
INCT/PPED/UFRJ
The issue of the impacts of ICT diffusion on society has been analyzed by several scholars from
different areas of knowledge such as social sciences, information systems and computer
science. The difficulties to do research in such an interdisciplinary field have been summarized
by Best (2010). Basically he suggests that social scientists, on one hand, tend to treat technical
possibilities offered by ICT innovation and diffusion superficially, while engineers and
computer scientists tend to overemphasize technical aspects of ICT diffusion, leaving aside
evaluation and assessment of impacts. The scholars from the European Information Systems
Schools have tried to overcome these extreme positions by focusing on the study of social
systems involving technologies rather than on the technologies per se (Avgerou and La Rovere,
1999). In Latin America, most papers that deal with this issue come from the area of social
sciences (mainly management studies and studies of economics) and tend to view decisions on
adoption and diffusion of IT from the point of view of organizations.
As suggested by Avgerou and La Rovere (1999) heterodox studies on economics and studies on
information systems are complementary and enable communication between fields, allowing
for solid interdisciplinary research on ICT and development. Organizations may be viewed as
complex structures that have specific coordination mechanisms and are embedded in specific
contexts. Five propositions about these structures can be done:
1. Organizations gather complementary parts of human knowledge to have better
performance than its individual components;
2. The Government, with its multiple agencies, will coordinate and monitor the behavior and
performance of industrial populations;
3. Organizations monitor, coordinate and organize their internal activities and activities
between organizations;
4. Emergent properties are linked to the frequency of modal links in structures and lead to
different patterns of variety of coordination structures at the macro level;
5. Embededdness of organizations in these structures allows for emergence of different
properties of coordination, which emerge in an auto-organized way (Schenk, 2006)
Taking these propositions in consideration leads to an analysis of organizations that focus on
the complex coordination mechanisms that emanate from the variety of links between
organizations, of routines associated with these links and of the potential procedural
rationality of these mechanisms. This analysis takes into account the fact that individual
cognitive abilities are limited but can grow substantially if the individual is inserted in a
network (social and professional) (Nooteboom, 2009). In addition, this analysis considers the
21
fact that different competencies and resources of the organization are aligned through the
establishment of routines. Coordination mechanisms also involve governance structures that
organize relationships within the firm and between the firm and its environment.
These propositions create new opportunities to explore the impact of ICT diffusion on
development. For instance ICT diffusion may be studied considering network effects (e.g. the
relevance of the open access community for ICT innovation, the role of social networks to
promote learning) and on the dissemination of common routines among the members of a
network that may enhance collaboration and innovative activities (e.g. studies on outsourcing).
In addition, ICT diffusion policies (e.g. telecenters and e-gov initiatives) may be studied taking
into consideration governance structures and differences in cognitive capabilities related to
embededdness.
However, scholars that deal with ICT and development have also challenges. The first
challenge is related to the fact that today they are under pressure to publish in high-impact
scientific journals. As observed by Heeks (2010) ICT for development journals have different
impacts and therefore contribute more for scholar evaluation. I made a research on the
journals listed by Heeks (2010) and found that
Brazilian scholars do not have access to just 2 of them Asian Journal of Communication and
International Journal of Advances in ICT for Emerging Regions while they have free access to
the remaining 8 as well as to
Maybe it is true, as observed by Harris (2011) that publication is not an issue for scholars from
developing countries, but I must say that for emerging countries like Brazil (and I suspect this
will be also true for the other BRICS) publication has become an issue. In Brazil, publishing in
high-impact scientific journals is very important because publications are taken into account in
the triennial evaluation of graduate programs made by the Government. As well-rated
graduate programs will have more grants and fellowships than those with low grades, scholars
inserted in graduate programs will look at the grade given to the scientific journal by CAPES,
the agency that is in charge of evaluation and funding of academic research. The difficulty here
is that grades given by CAPES to the scientific journal do not depend only on impact scores;
they also depend on the considerations of the scientific area committee about the relevance of
the journal. For instance, a journal such as World Development is graded A1 for scholars of
management, A2 for interdisciplinary scholars and B1 for economists. Also, among the five first
journals cited by Heeks only the fifth International Journal of Education and
Development Using Information and Communication Technology is graded by CAPES, and its
grade (B3) is not sufficient to incite Brazilian scholars to publish in this journal.
The second challenge is related to the fact that although scholars from Social Sciences may be
also evaluated by their universities based on the extent of their community-related work, the
dialogue between practitioners and scholars has been scarce (Harris, 2011). This leads to
difficulties in the definition of public policies and also poses challenges for those scholars who
try to do empirical research among firms and NGOs involved with ICT4D.
How can these opportunities and challenges be met by the work of WG 9.4? I have some
suggestions. First, the pervasive characteristic of ICT today makes ICT4D a subject with many
22
ramifications. I think we should consider focus on networks, capabilities and coordination
mechanisms. Taking these elements into consideration leads to a systemic analysis of ICT4D
that may be of interest not only to scholars in ICT and interdisciplinary areas but to scholars
Therefore, focusing on these elements could help scholars
involved with the study of ICT4D to have more visibility. Second, we should encourage the
agencies that support academic research in developing countries, so that more scholars from
these countries consider publishing in these journals. Third, we should try to involve more
practitioners and public officials in the academic meetings of the group and promote meetings
devoted to issues of interest to scholars and practitioners as well. In Brazil, for instance, there
is a non-profit organization devoted to promote software development that has recently put
on its agenda the process of fusions and acquisitions in the software sector, an issue that is
crucial for many Brazilian software firms and also very interesting for many scholars that study
innovation in the software sector in Brazil. Finally, we should try to define a set of indicators
that reflect the issues raised by ICT4D scholars. For instance, is the ratio of computers per
schools relevant to assess digital inclusion? I think it is not, but the fact is that policy makers
and practitioners will continue to use this as a proxy for digital inclusion in the design of their
policies unless we propose more accurate indicators.
REFERENCES
AVGEROU, C; LA ROVERE, R.L. (1999) Information Systems and the Economics of Innovation.
Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar
BEST, M. (2010) Understanding our Knowledge Gaps: Or, Do We Have an ICT4D Field? And Do
We Want One? Information Technologies & International Development 6, Special Edition 2010,
49-52
HARRIS, R. (2011) Links between Academic Research and Practice. A Short Position Paper for
IFIP W.G. 9.4, Hong Kong, January
HEEKS, R. (2010) ICT4D Journal Ranking Table. Available at
http://ict4dblog.wordpress.com/2010/04/14/ict4d-journal-ranking-table/
NOOTEBOOM, B. (2009) A Cognitive Theory of the Firm. Learning, Governance and Dynamic
Capabilities. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar
SCHENK, K.E. (2006) Complexity of economic structures and emergent properties.
J.Evol.Econ.16, 231-253
23
What Role for IFIP WG9.4 in the Current ICTD Field?
Sundeep SahayApril 2011
If the aim of the IFIP9.4 community is to research and practically influence positively the implications of computers in developing countries, then a key goal concerns how can the aims of research and that of action (aimed at practical influence) be shaped towards supporting each other. This note is towards understanding why today this mutual shaping is not taking place, or very little of it, today, and from our limited positions what is it we can try to do to address this imbalance.
Before this, it is important to understand and reflect on our perspective towards development,
and with it ICTs for development. Development is about people having trust in society and
the structures of governance. From my experience of having worked in context of public
health in Africa and Asia for some time, it would mean for example that a pregnant woman is
confident if she goes to a clinic when in labour, she will get a clean bed and effective doctor
care. A mother is sure that the vaccine her baby gets is genuine and will immunize him or her
from preventable diseases. Availability of medicines in the pharmacy, ambulances to reach
the hospitals, specialists in the district hospital, equipment in the facilities, and a sense of care
of the health staff may be some of the ingredients that can generate this sense of trust with the
public health system amongst common people. In India, where I have most experience, I see
this sense of trust to be grossly lacking, and a key agenda of the National Rural Health
Mission (NRHM) since 2005 is to make a concentrated effort in a mission mode to restore
this sense of trust of people in the health system, and draw them back to public facilities
rather than the private or informal sector which they seem to prefer or are rather forced to use
because of the lack of a viable alternative. Reforming and strengthening information systems
support forms a key component of this NRHM effort toward reform of the health system.
The examples above helps us to concretize some tasks which research and practice couldjointly aim at identifying and addressing in the context of ICTs for public health. Similarly, concrete tasks can be identified in other development sectors such as education, rural development and environment. Having prioritized tasks of priority, both practice and research can try to identify how best these tasks can be approached. As information systems people, say responsible for designing appropriate systems, we have to try and address these concrete problems, where it makes and helps develop a sense of trust amongst people towards the public health system in my case. For example, maternal deaths (a death of a pregnant woman taking place during pregnancy, or while delivering or 6 weeks after birth) is a global problem (and a key MDG) which can be easily averted (in many cases) if the pregnant woman is provided the possibility to reach the health facility in time duringthe onset of labor. An effective system, for example, is one which can display say on a map the spread of pregnancy cases in a catchment area, their due dates of delivery and the nearest health facility where they can be provided Basic Emergency Obstetric Care services. Such an
24
information system, relatively easy to design, could provide planners with data on how, when and where to provide transport referral services. Of course, providing this information is necessary but not sufficient that the right decision will be made, which will further require political will, resources and appropriate decision making skills. If not anything, this display of information will at least make the problem visible to attract other action (eg from the media), which can help build trust of expecting mothers.
Similarly, another concrete problem that many projects are grappling with in developing the system defines project goals, carries
out procurement, slips under the carpet mechanisms for evaluation and monitoring, creates impediments is using free software in favor of proprietary systems, and fosters donor dependencies with implications on the defining of project trajectories. While systemic problems, such as structures of project management and donor dependencies, are often outside the ambit of control of us researchers given the existing power asymmetries, there are little things which can be done. For example, by demonstrating the field level effectiveness of free software applications, like the HISP network have successfully done in many parts of the world, the trust of the system in such an alternative system can be enhanced, and with it more voices are created that can speak in favor of the alternative and question the existing mainstream. This is necessarily a non-trivial task, and requires a high level of mobilization of people, money, technical knowledge, domain understanding and trust and credibility with the system.
The above two examples of maternal deaths and corruption are provided with the aim of emphasizing the need for our research agendas to be developed based on concrete problems on the ground, and of primary concern should be to develop approaches to address them as only then will practice trust research. This contrasts with the existing dominant approach where researchers (doctoral students and faculty) start with their theoretical concerns (be it structuration or actor network theory), and see the empirical problem merely as an instance to demonstrate the effectiveness of the theory. In such a framework, we are neither able to contribute to theory (as the exercise is to demonstrate the value of existing theory rather than to challenge, contradict or extend it) or to practice (as our engagement with it the problem is at best superficial). There are many academic domains where starting with theory may be appropriate as the research aims may be such, but in a domain like ICT for developmentwhich is necessarily applied, arguably we do need a different balance between research and action. Further, it must be emphasized (especially to doctoral students) that only by engaging directly with an empirical problem in site and concretely, are we able to develop rich insights into it, which can help to develop stronger and more interesting theoretical contributions. Without a sound empirical understanding, there necessarily can not be rich theory, given the applied nature of our discipline.
I believe from our limited positions of researchers in the backdrop of the larger challenges the
development agenda comes with, we are able to make a change in how we frame and carry
out our research. The arguments against this would be research is poorly funded, journals
expect strong theory, doctoral programmes have limited time and so on. But redefining at
least some of these expectations and institutions is within the ambit of influence of a research
community such as ours. We have in our midst journal editors, Phd supervisors, experts
looking at research grants, and so small and critical changes can be introduced, provided of
course that we ourselves deeply believe that is about building trust of people in
25
society and structures of governance, and the role of ICTs is to help address concrete
development problems which can contribute towards enhancing this trust
Various information and communication technology projects are being initiated by
governments in developing countries at high costs, often supported by international
development aid, on the promise of bringing in improved health outcomes and with it
development. However, to the contrary, research has established that 90% of these efforts
over the last two decades have ended up as partial or complete failures, thereby leading to a
gross loss to the development and health exchequer. This evaluation is based largely on
technical criteria of whether the systems worked, did they scale, sustain or if they got used by
managers. If we bring in the additional parameter of did this system contribute to making
improvements in health outcomes or in meeting our social development goals, the failure
figures would arguably be far more magnified. Despite this, investments continue unabated
and with increased dollars, often without seriously examining the basic question of
powerful computers, servers and smart phones for their own sake in the promise of bridging
the digital divide? Or do we expect these interventions to support a broader health
programme (for example maternal or child health) logic which contributes to our national
development goals of reducing maternal or infant mortality? More than a decade of
engagement of the authors with this subject as practical implementers, researchers,
educationists, public health specialists and working with policy makers and managers at
various levels in various countries, we feel the answer even today is to primarily perceive
technology as an end in itself, not as a means of generating information which can be used to
improve health outcomes.
26
Position Paper for Nepal Conference
By Leiser Silva
The belief that technology could boost economic development strengthens after the Second World War.
Such a belief originated from observing that developed nations were more productive and, as a result of
that productivity, wealthier than those nations lacking technology. Productivity was inherently
associated to the use of technology. Following that reasoning, a particular class of technology,
Information Technology (IT) was also considered to be key for productivity. Yet, despite the prevalence
of such a belief, there have never been hardly any evidence or theoretical basis to support a claim for a
direct causal relationship between IT and development. And it is that particular relationship, not
necessarily a causal one, which keeps puzzling this group. Research on the relationship between IT and
development has been a central issue for this group throughout the last two decades. I intend, to set up
my position, and without the ambition of being exhaustive we to summarize some of the main research
questions that have kept us occupied.
IT was presented to developing countries mainly through aid agencies. However, as suggested above,
they did not deliver the expected economic growth. Several explanations were provided. Some argued
that the problem had to with people not adopting them; it was claimed that people were not interested
in using them. Others applied the metaphor of diffusion to state the problem; i.e. what were required
were methods that would diffuse the technology among populations. There were others who argued
that the problem was implementation. In this sense, it was argued that IT was not having its desired
effect because developing nations did not know how to install it, make it work or maintain it.
Accordingly, it was suggested that what was needed were techniques for implementation.
Researchers kept paying attention to this problem IT do not delivering development and, after a
series of empirical studies, they established that techniques and practices were not independent of
context. What would work in one country, they suggested, would not work on another. Those
researchers argued convincingly that institutional, local politics and cultural aspects were fundamental
for implementation and adoption of IT. In this sense, influenced by development academics such as
Escobar, researchers in our field found that local participation and local knowledge were fundamental
for IT projects to achieve their objectives.
Very recently researchers in our area have been concentrated on discussing the meaning of the term
development. The questioning of the meaning of the term development has benefited from
contributions in Welfare Economics as proposed by Amartya Sen. Sen extended the concept of
development beyond economic benefits towards a more democratic and holistic concept: a concept of
development that includes freedom, human rights, health and overall happiness. As a result now we are
starting to consider the role of IT in development, not only as a tool for economic progress, but also for
a wider purpose, achieving democratic and inclusive goals. I believe this has been a turning point in our
inquiries.
Research in our area has influenced practice and has attracted researchers from all around the world. If
we look back at our research questions and our answers to them, we can see that we have a varied,
27
evolving and overall progressive research program. It is in this sense that I would like to anchor my
position. I would like to propose two areas of research through which I believe we can contribute to
keep our research program progressive.
The first one is Social Networking. In this sense two recent cases come to my mind, Iran and Egypt.
Recent events in those two countries illustrate the relevance of IT in spreading information beyond the
control of governments and in facilitating the formation and mobilization of social movements. In the
case of Iran, demonstrations were organized and made possible through the use of social networking
sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Moreover, the rest of the world was informed of what was going
through the use of the Internet. Government was swift in banning and blocking those sites, but users
were able to get around those controls through the use of proxies. In the case of Egypt, it has been
amply documented the role of social networks in organizing demonstrations and mobilizing protesters.
There, also, government attempted to block the services but as in the case of Iran, users were able to
maneuver and avoid them.
Those two cases suggest relevant research questions for our group. They point out directly to the
extended concept of development that we have been discussing recently the one of democratic values,
freedom and human rights and offer a direct link on how democratic values and movements are linked
to IT. They offer an opportunity to study what are the social mechanisms that are in place for such
movements to occur and how they are related to IT. Thus, studying the role of IT in particular of social
networks would allow us to theorize about IT itself and to make contributions to other areas of
research such as those of political and social implications of technology.
However, a critical stance on these technologies, I believe, would be beneficial. We can explore ethical
and social aspects of social networking and ask questions to what extent they maybe trivializing the
meaning of long time social institutions such as friendship and solidarity. A critical view can also be
beneficial in exploring the possibilities of corporations exploiting massive amounts of data that is
supposed to be private. I believe that is our duty to inquire about the aforementioned aspects of IT,
namely social networking, in how they are related to democracy and freedom and at the same time
being able to critically analyze their social and ethical risks.
My second point is
always difficult. Yet, we may agree that there is some consensus on considering developing countries
those that have a lower degree of industrialization in comparison with the so called developed nations.
We may agree also that the term has connotations of low economic income. Definitions are tricky here
because we are talking about relative terms. My call for questioning the term, though, comes from my
personal observations. For example, countries such as Brazil or China, which would be characterized as
developing countries, have cities as modern and with so much wealth in some areas as any major city in
what we would call a developed nation. There are groups of population in Beijing or Sao Paulo, for
example, that have access to world class IT, health and education services. That is when the term
28
Likewise, there are places in developed nations in which people live in conditions of poverty and that are
excluded from political participation and with very limited freedom. This is exacerbates as major cities in
developed nations are receiving massive immigrations. These groups of immigrants often find very
and see themselves excluded of basic
services and human rights. Thus, I argue that , as well, does not convey
the complexity of their societies.
The problem for us researchers by using the terms such as
We need to expand the concept of developing country as it may be misleading in the sense of
inclusion by including wealthy economic groups - and more importantly maybe excluding relevant
groups. Our research can benefit from re-examining the meaning and use of this term as we can expand
the scope and benefit of our studies.
Who knows, this may be another turning point in our research program. All in all, I believe that we are in
an intriguing area of research with so much potential to make a world of difference , to borrow one of
celebrated phrases.
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1
The Landscape of ICT4D and the Potential for the 9.4 Group
Roger Harris
14 March 2011
My experience as both an academic and a
practitioner in two disciplines; Information Systems
interaction between practitioners and academics in
either discipline. Perhaps this is typical of other
areas and therefore it may be naïve and/or
unrealistic to expect that there should be with
WG9.4. But in the case of ICT4D this is a pity. There
are many lines of enquiry that could be usefully
explored by those who are equipped with the skills
that academics possess and which could usefully
inform practice towards ICT implementations that
are more robust and effective in their pursuit of
poverty reduction.
Generally, practitioners in
conferences because they
know there will be little by way
of any practical take-aways
read academic journals for the
same reason. Moreover, it
seems rare to see any
summarised form of the
findings of academic research
in the media channels that
policy-makers and their
advisers do read. The more
serious media that such people tend to take notice
of, such as The Economist or the Wall Street Journal,
seem to conduct their own research and they nearly
always come up rather superficial conclusions; like
academic approach to dig beneath these superficial
generalizations to recapture the complexities and to
help practitioners and policy makers come to the
more nuanced conclusions that are closer to reality.
Possibly the most important area where academic
research can contribute to practice is in the area of
project evaluation and impact assessment. There are
many aspects of orthodox development practice that
do not lend themselves well to the application of ICTs
to development problems. What often occurs is that
the problem is shaped to suit the tools available for
solving it, rather than the other way round.
Evaluation is one area where this stands out as an
inhibitor of learning within the practitioner
community.
We should ask if the academic community is
concerned that practitioners remain largely un-
interested in their work. Per
clear that academics conduct research, attend
conferences and publish their results in the leading
journals in order to survive within their professional
any sort of practitioner linking that would contribute
seriously to this process. I remember MISQ used to
presumably as a way of linking its research to
their web site after 10 minutes of hunting. In the
closed-
probably more effort goes into counting citations
than reaching out to the IS professionals.
It seems a pity for the same to happen in ICT4D. The
developing world academics that I work with seem to
have a genuine concern for how their work can
are under less pressure to publish in leading journals
and they have less access to resources for attending
international conferences. Generally budgets for
conducting research are miniscule anyway. The bi-
lateral and multi-lateral donor organisations that
have far greater access to funds tend to conduct their
own research, ignoring the in-country academic
resources that they could bring into their
programmes and
squandering the
opportunity for learning
that such involvement
offers (in both directions).
So beyond the general
question of the legitimacy
of academic-practitioner
links, what does this mean for WG9.4? Whilst others
may disagree, I would argue that there are benefits
to be had for both communities from closer links
between the two. ICT4D practitioners need practical
solutions to their pressing concerns, a few of which
can be identified briefly here as; achieving
sustainability; rolling out applications for mobile
phones; scaling up from pilot projects to national
programmes; conducting evaluations and impact
Generally,
practitioners in
attend academic
conferences
because they
know there will
be little by way
of any practical
take-aways that
they can use.
For researchers
there is satisfaction
to be had from
addressing real-
world problems.
30
2
assessments; promoting technology convergence and
synergies; formulating pro-poor approaches; and
devising demand-driven methods.
A cursory glance through the WG9.4 programmes
these topics, which is an observation not a criticism,
but for some researchers there is some satisfaction
to be had from the knowledge that they are
addressing real-world problems, so a mechanism for
surfacing them could be of interest. For the
and independence in their evaluation research
enquiries, which is again not always to be found in
the sort of practitioner studies that confuse
correlation with causation and which often generate
rather predictable outcomes when conducted by the
project implementers.
Two particular aspects of WG9.4 present themselves
in the context of fostering closer practitioner links.
They are identity and outreach. The original remit of
be less relevant than the current focus on ICT4D,
which is emerging now by popular demand. Is WG9.4
doing ICT4D or is it just a
sub-set of its realm?
There are practitioners in
any working in the area of
continues to reflect the
early conceptualization of
9.4 which arose before ICTs were recognized as a tool
for poverty reduction (viewing poverty here in its
widest sense of social and economic inequality). It
seems that the Group can no longer be regarded as a
sub-branch of Information Systems, but whose
members are now more likely to regard themselves
as belonging to a branch of Development. In either
case, the issue of links with practice remains; the only
question is; which community of practitioners to
connect with?
So along with the name and the identity which it
conveys, the Group may wish to re-consider its core
mission if there is a desire to engage with ICT4D
potential identity problem here regarding the
difference between ICT4D and ICTD (if there is one),
worth mentioning that the recent ICTD2010
conference in London was organized by the ICT4D
Collective at Royal Holloway, University of London,
and it aimed to provide a forum for those with
interests in information and communication
technologies in development practice (my
emphasis).
The second aspect is outreach to members and
to cultivate an on-line community with more-or-less
continuous interaction. Whilst we have the Group
email list, there are more
effective tools for
supporting an on-line
community and which
would encourage new
members by being more
open and inviting and
purpose and
activities and therefore more appealing to non-
academics.
As a final point, I would like to raise another issue. I
attend many conferences/workshops /seminars on
ICT4D (although not 9.4 for, as a practitioner, the
reasons mentioned), but usually I notice that there
are no poor people in the room. In fact, the events
take place in locations that poor people never visit.
Why is this? Why should development issues be
debated without any participation of those who are
intended to benefit? There are gains to be had from
forging links not only between academics and
practitioners but also between them and the poor
people who suffer from the problems that they are
trying to solve.
Everybody benefits when this happens, and I have
demonstrated how this can work with the eBario
Knowledge Fair (eBKF). This is a multi-disciplinary
biennial conference held in the remote indigenous
village of Bario, Malaysia, in the central highlands of
Borneo. eBario is a multi-award winning telecentre
project that I began in 1998. We are setting up a
first). The first eBKF was held on 2007, the next one
will be in November 2011. The event works because
the community comes together with the pundits to
discuss loc
approach that 9.4 could consider in bringing
academics closer to practice.
Recommendations
1. Change the name of the Group.
2. Mount a recruitment drive in conjunction
with a new social network based web site.
3. Sponsor an Implications for Practitioners
section in EJISDC.
4. Promote participation by the poor; e.g., at
grass-roots events.
The current name of
the Group is an
inhibiter of potential
ICT4D practitioner
interest
In conferences on
ICT4D there are no
poor people in the
room.
31
What Role for IFIP WG9.4 in the Current ICTD Field?
Shirin Madon
26th March 2011
In a short piece that appeared in Information Technology for Development at the occasion of
the 15th Anniversary of IFIP WG9.4, I had commented on the growing sophistication of the
Group in terms of engaging in discussions about the implications of ICTs for the achievement
of development priorities. Over the years, it is heartening to note that the Group continues to
make a concerted effort to strengthen this commitment as it prepares for its 25th Anniversary
in 2013. At the same time, as noted by Roger Harris in his note, the fast-changing landscape
of ICTD means that IFIP WG9.4 has to continuously reconsider its contribution.
share different ideological assumptions and be driven by different priorities although it is
probably true to say that over the past few years there has been much more effort at
believe that one way of creating more direction for this cross-fertilisation of expertise is, as
Roger identifies, to focus on project evaluation and impact assessment of ICTD projects in
developing countries. Here, academic researchers can directly contribute to practice and,
conversely, practitioners can temper over-theorization and relate to the feasibility of
evaluation criter
this could be achieved through some recent discussions I had with my own ICTD students at
the LSE many of whom are also practitioners.
Many ICTD practitioners who are involved in implementing application need to engage in a
period of evaluation which normally takes place in stages. During the first stage of
aiming to improve existing ways of working. After this stage
evaluation stage during which practitioners find themselves involved in making an overall
judgement about the merit and worth of the intervention and about its replicability. This
second stage normally leads to closure in terms of making further improvements or changes
to the system. Many theorists (for example Patton, 2011 in a recent book entitled
Developmental Evaluation)1 argue that this conventional way of designing and developing
ICT solutions leads to systems which eventually prove dysfunctional because they are unable
to take account of the changing contextual environment within which the system is
implemented a classic information systems dilemma. Patton argues that this is often the
case because ICT practitioners have stringent time deadlines and need to move onto new
1Patton, M.Q. (2011) Developmental Evaluation: Applying complexity concepts to enhance innovation and
use, The Guildford Press, London.
32
to continuously keep adapting systems and models that underlie them in order to keep in
touch with changes.
It is possible that a mixed academic and practitioner forum such as IFIP WG9.4 which has
shown a commitment to theorizing the linkage between ICTs and Development can provide a
eoretically-informed evaluation of ICTD
projects. This type of evaluation will serve to mitigate against the common practice of
a practice which often acts
as an inhibitor to learning and improving. On the contrary, the Group can serve as an
incubator for sustained intellectual effort around one topic area in order to enable an ICTD
intervention to be evaluated over time in response to changing conditions, lessons learned and
the emergent needs of different kinds of participants. In this way, the theme of project
evaluation and impact assessment can become a permanent fixture at all future IFIP WG9.4
events. In fact, this Working Group could be dedicated to an ongoing analysis of major
themes of significance with regards to the diffusion and implementation of ICTs for socio-
economic development. This resonates with recent observations made by several scholars
for example, Best (2010)2 and Walsham (2010)3 about the need for the ICTD community to
aid and ICTs, post-conflict and disaster computing, ICTs and basic healthcare although
several other potential areas could be considered.
Eventually, in our attempts to improve the interface between academics and practitioners in
the ICT space we must never lose sight of the impact of ICT interventions on communities in
the developing world. One of the most significant and troubling knowledge gaps in the ICTD
field is failing to learn from the past. Although there is plenty of literature on both success
and failures, there are poor mechanisms in place in order to learn why projects have
succeeded and failed resulting in huge wastage of expenditure on new initiatives which often
do not result in significant developmental gains. A strong commitment is required on the part
of both academics and practitioners in order to further this agenda and IFIP WG9.4 is in a
good position to support such an endeavour.
2Best, M. (2010) Understanding our Knowledge Gaps: Or, do we have an ICT4D field? And do we want one?
ITID, 6 SE, pp. 49-52.
3
33
Panel discussion 1 DoingRoom Malhar
Coordinating Panel: Sundeep Sahay
Background
We are engaged in "doing ICT4D" either as researchers, educationists or practitioners. The aim of
this panel is to see how our respective efforts can more effectively "speak to each other" in order to
collectively contribute more meaningfully to the agenda of development we seek to pursue. For
researchers, it would mean how their research can become more action oriented, and contribute to
making a difference in the development context, while also furthering the frontiers of research.
What we often see is that there is a large disconnect, and research and practice operate in their
compartmentalized domains, while only paying lip service to supporting each other, for example by
researchers claiming they conduct "action research.". The end result is often poor and irrelevant
research with little influence on practice. Similarly, the practitioner is often doing interesting things
on the ground without realizing that similar experiences have been documented elsewhere, and he
or she is unknowingly reinventing the wheel. As educationists, we often don t pursue the agenda of
"learning by doing," and try to imbibe cutting edge research which may have little relevance in the
development context. This panel therefore is an attempt to try and identify the nature of disconnect
between research and practice, and some small steps to try and make them speak more effectively
to each other.
Panelists
Dr Brian Nicholson is senior lecturer (associate professor) of Information Systems at Manchester
Business School Brian holds a PhD degree in Information Systems and Management from University
of Salford. His research and consultancy work revolves around outsourcing and offshoring of services
and various aspects of IT for development. Brian is a regular presenter in international conferences
and has published in numerous journals including MISQ Executive, Journal of Information
Technology, Information and Organization and others. He is the co-author of Global IT Outsourcing
and acted as guest editor for several journal special issues. Brian teaches courses related to IT in
developing countries, outsourcing and offshoring at Masters level and is a director of the University
of Manchester Centre for Development Informatics.
Although Elizabeth Terry has spent most of her working life in the areas of tourism, training and
project design and management, she had the opportunity, about 10 years ago, when she first joined
development initiatives which had ICT at their core. That set the stage for many subsequent
interventions in which she both learnt and was able to witness the potential which ICT can help to
unleash. She has therefore become a passionate advocate for the effective use of these technologies
in all areas of development and particularly to assist Jamaica in achieving status as a knowledge
economy, in keeping with its 2030 vision. This spurned her to take up the chairmanship of ICT4D
Jamaica since its establishment in 2004. ICT4D Jamaica is a not-for-profit, knowledge-sharing
network with a mandate to promote ICTs as a powerful enabling tool for sustainable economic and
34
social development. As Director for Projects and Partnerships with the HEART Trust/NTA, Elizabeth is
organizations and other entities. She holds a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish and French and an MBA,
both from the University of the West Indies along with numerous professional development
certifications.
Rabi Karmacharya is a social entrepreneur who helped launch OLE Nepal to implement the One
Laptop Per Child (OLPC) initiative in Nepal. He began his involvement in the OLPC project in 2006,
when he joined the newly formed community of volunteers in Nepal and guided the movement to
gain momentum in its early days. He established OLE Nepal in 2007 with the vision of transforming
Nepal's public education by integrating technology in the classroom and giving children the tools and
platform necessary to learn and excel. OLE Nepal has made significant strides under his leadership,
and continues to break barriers in integrating technology in classrooms in remote parts of the
country. Born and raised in Kathmandu, Rabi has extensive experience in technological innovation
and management. Prior to launching OLE Nepal, he co-founded HimalayanTechies, one of the first
successful software outsourcing companies in Nepal. Rabi holds a B.Sc. and M.Eng. degrees in
electrical engineering & computer science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He
worked as a design engineer at 3Com Corporation in Santa Clara, California for three years before
returning to Nepal.
Dr Saroj Dhital is a general surgeon with interests beyond clinical surgery. One of the founders of
Public Health Concern Trust-Nepal ( PHECT ), he is the Chief of the Department of Surgery in
Kathmandu Model Hospital and Director of Academic Affairs, PHECT. His interest in 'Demystification
of Knowledge for Empowerment of People' led him to work for promoting rural surgery. This also led
him to close association with individuals and institutions working in the filed of communication and
information technology. He is currently holding the responsibility of Director of Health Sciences and
Telemedicine in NREN. Dr. Dhital is also active in Citizen's Movement for Democracy and Peace in
Nepal and is the senior Vice-president of the Physicians for Social Responsibility-Nepal ( PSRN ), an
affiliate to the International Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War ( IPPNW ). He is the current
President of AMerica-Nepal Medical Foundation ( ANMF - Nepal ).
Panelist contributions
Dr. Brian Nicholson who will speak in support of AR & addressing the relevance debate. In a funding
climate where research money (in UK at least) is becoming increasingly difficult to obtain, combining
a career as consultant / action researcher is a viable route to career development and contribution
to the literature. The work of Peter Checkland is especially valuable in this respect but has become
unfashionable, Brian would try to bring that perspective to the fore as a model for ICT4D AR giving
example of work done in Costa Rica on software export policy formulation.
Elizabeth Terry will discuss "Approaches to ensuring the relevance, cost-effectiveness and timeliness
of research for practitioners - what works and what does not; the Jamaican Experience. The
presentation will focus on the experiences of ICT4D Jamaica, a not-for-profit NGO and knowledge
sharing network established to promote the effective application of ICTs to social and economic
development. Two approaches which the organization has used will be explored. The first, is the
case study approach for which the organization hired the services of a researcher to examine and
document the effectiveness and impact of existing and new ICT enabled projects in order to extract
lessons learnt. The other, an attempt to establish a more formal and longer-term structure tapping
into existing research capacity at universities and similar institutions coupled with the input of ICT
practitioners in order to identify and implement action-research projects" Based on this experience,
some general implications will be discussed.
35
Rabi Karmacharya brings over four years of experience in implementing ICT4E programs in poor
public schools in semi-rural and rural parts of Nepal. It is a universally accepted fact that education
holds the key to the overall socio-economic development of any country, yet education sector
severely lags others when it comes to leveraging technology to provide effective services and
achieve better results. The little inroads that computers have been able to carve out in Nepal's
education system are limited to higher education, and many attempts to 'computerize' schools over
the past decade have produced dismal results. Rabi will highlight some of the reasons behind such
failures, and discuss how technology can be integrated in classroom teaching to make learning more
fun, effective and relevant. Most of the challenges related to integrating technology in schools are
actually non-technical ones, and their solutions cannot be found in the latest hardware or faster
network connection, but rather in the support of the community, leadership of the school
administration, and other enabling conditions.
Dr. Saroj Dhital, a General Surgeon, Chief of Tele-medicine at Kathmandu Model Hospital of phect-
NEPAL and the President of Telemedicine Society of Nepal (TMSoN) will talk about the experience of
e-Health activities and the non-technical' issues in e-health/tele-medicine. He will deal with the
challenges posed by, besides the technological capabilities and financial constraints, differences in -
understanding of the needs, -prioritizing the strength of the ICT for health (ICT4H), -culture, -risk of
dehumanization of doctor-patient relations etc.
36
Panel discussion 2Room Malhar
Jacques Steyn - Panel Moderator
Monash University - South Africa
Jacques is Head of the School of IT at Monash University's South African campus, and Director of IDIA
(International Development Informatics Association). He was Editor-in-Chief of a two volume book
set Vol 1 "ICTs and Sustainable Solutions for the Digital Divide: Theory and Perspectives" and Vol 2
"ICTs for Global Development and Sustainability:
Practice and Applications"; published by IGI Global: Information Science Reference.
Chris Westrup
University of Manchester
Chris is a senior lecturer at Manchester Business School and a member of the Centre of Development
Informatics in the University of Manchester.
He currently is chair of IFIP9.4 group and is co-editing a special issue of the Information Systems
Journal on Theorising Development and Technological Change. His current research interest is social
networking technologies and mobiles and their uptake in the global North and South.
Sudhanshu Rai
Copenhagen Business School
Sudhanshu is a faculty member at the Department of Informatics, Copenhagen Business School and
-developing paradigm; How ICT
developing the idea of Co-creation of ICT Innovation for future markets.
Subarna Shakya
Tribhuvan University (Nepal)
Subarna Shakya is Associate Professor in the Department of Electronics and Computer Engineering,
IOE, Tribhuvan University (Nepal) and received an Academic Excellent Award from the Ministry of
Education and Sport, Government of Nepal.
37
Paper abstracts
Timeand
Theme
Paper number and
Authors
Title and Abstract
Mon, 23 1100-1230
M1A.ICT4D Research
7.N. Hayes and C. Westrup
POWER / KNOWLEDGE AND IMPACT ASSESSMENT: SOME CONSIDERATIONS FOR ICT4D RESEARCH.This paper seeks to contribute to an emerging debate on impact assessment in the domain of information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D). Drawing on the literature and
reflect on the ways in which impact assessment may come to shape the nature and scope of ICT4D projects. We focus our attention to the processes of how development is practiced and its importance for ICT4D outcomes. Specifically we consider the role of methodologies and upstream agencies and argue that impact assessment offers the potential to substantially transform power knowledge relations between donors, NGOs, those working in specific context and the beneficiaries themselves. Overall we will suggest that impact assessment may come to offer a new and subtle form of control that may shape how we may come to understand and undertake development. Based on this analysis, we draw recommendations for the future use of impact assessment in the domain of ICT4D and implications for future research.
79.D. Thapa and Ø. Sæbø.
EXPLORING THE LINK BETWEEN ICT AND DEVELOPMENT: A LITERATURE REVIEW.The quest of relating information and communication technology (ICT) to development (D) is a topic of open deliberation and critical scrutiny. The objective of this literature review is to explore how the ICT4D
remote communities. Our findings indicate a similar view of the role of ICT in development in academia as well as developmentorganizations. The organizations adopted different development approaches such as, modernization, dependency, neoliberalism, and post-development to relate ICT and development. Similarly, academia applied different theories, frameworks, and models to analyze link between ICT and development. Based on our review we argue that
academia and development organizations to understand the link between ICT and development. In order to understand how literatures
projects in remote and rural areas, utilizing the capability approach as our guiding framework. Based on our findings we suggest six gaps in current research and, accordingly, six suggested areas for future research.
75.J. Choudrie and G. Harindranath
BIBLIOMETRIC STUDY
Bibliometric studies have increasingly become popular in charting developments in the information systems (IS) discipline. This research-in-progress paper aims to provide a systematic review of
mainstream IS journals in the last four decades. This study is significant given the recent push, in many countries including the United Kingdom, to publish in so-called mainstream journals to improve university and department research rankings. Such a study
research area. Specifically, the paper uses combined meta-analysis and bibliometric methods to offer a preliminary overview of issues related to research on developing countries, including the key authors, research methods, research themes and journal outlets. Our study finds that while resevibrancy in niche or specialist journals and conferences, it is still restricted to the margins of the mainstream of IS discipline when
38
viewed through a bibliometric analysis. The paper hopes to create a debate on the state of this research area within mainstream IS.
M1B.
ICT4D Actors-1
39.
B. Nicholson and R. Babin
A SUITABLE PARTNER FOR DEVELOPMENT?
PHILANTHROCAPITALISM AND GLOBAL IT OUTSOURCING.This paper examines the role and effectiveness of philanthrocapitalism in global IT outsourcing (GITO) arrangements to enable socio economic development.and interview data from GITO clients and vendors, the paper examines a specific philanthrocapitalist initiative and questions the extent to which it offers socio economic development. The paper contributes the first known empirical analysis of socio economic development potential of philanthrocapitalism in global IT outsourcing arrangements. The paper builds on the Porter and Kramer model and has both theoretical and practical implications of relevance to policymakers and practititioners in global IT outsourcing. A central conclusion concerns the need for approaches to philanthrocapitalism to embrace development theory (such as the work of Sen) and perform systemic analysis (such as the work of Checkland) to ensure priorities are linked to development imperatives and adopt a holistic perspective
40.J. Dobson.
THE VISIBLE HAND: CONCEPTUALISING A ROLE FOR DEVELOPMENT PRACTITIONERS IN FURTHERING LIVELIHOOD
INITIATIVES.This paper examines some of the options available to development practitioners in utilising ICT4D to improve livelihood project outcomes. Four aspects are presented that may help practitioners improve livelihoods projects. First, development failure is examined from an institutional perspective. This permits practitioners to focus on neo-classical economic theory while still considering institutional resistance to successful development. Second, this paper examines competitive and comparative advantage theories and argues that comparative advantage may be a better suited for livelihoods projects. Third, ICT initiatives should seek to improve organisational performance. Efficiency gains tend to be small incremental improvements. While acknowledging some of the criticism of ICT for development, the benefits gained from lowering costs cannot be understated. Forth, action research methodology was designed to study the introduction of new technologies to improve organisational. Practitioners use the four stages of action research: plan, act, observe and reflect to improve livelihoods projects. It is ideally suited to help practitioners utilise SWOT (Strengths, Weakness, Opportunities and Threats) strategies for livelihoods projects. Development whether micro, meso or macro requires multiply facets to succeed. This paper, does not purport to cover all aspects of development, it does combine four distinct perspectives to that conceptualise a role for ICT4D.
28.S. Shrestha, J.P.T. Moore and J. A. Nocera
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING
DIARY STUDY.In the context of developing regions, despite the decreasing cost of ICT infrastructure, supporting education with conventional e-learning technologies using standard paradigms is often regarded as shortsighted approach. Thus, researchers are increasing the focus on relatively cheaper and sustainable mobile technologies to support education. However, before implementing the technology enhanced learning solution, it is crucial to take account of the existing teaching and learning practices and design solution based on the distinct understandings of local context to fully incorporate technology in the existing educational process. This paper describes an exploratory study, carried out to identify the challenges of teaching and learning English in the government schools that use traditional teaching
understand the background and the paper highlights existing pedagogical, technological, social and cultural issues that might be
39
useful for guiding the technological intervention in public schools where one of the current and the urgent requirements is to provide an access to digital contents.
Mon, 23 1330-1500
M2A.ICT4D Theories
30.J. Bass, B. Nicholson and E. Subrahmanian.
INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS, THE CAPABILITY APPROACH AND ICT FOR DEVELOPMENT.Institutional theory and the Capabilities Approach have become influential in development research and practice. Both theories offer analytical tools for interpreting and guiding Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for development interventions. In this paper we propose an analytical framework which applies Institutional theory and the Capabilities Approach in the domain of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for development. We argue, using empirical evidence from a case study, that there are benefits for ICT4D research and practice of utilizing the contrasting strengths of these analytical tools. A combined theoretical framework offers analytical and practical insights in terms of potential
development goals. ICT can create changes in institutional rules and norms enabling enhanced capabilities for individuals. It can also enhance capabilities which in turn lead to institutional change. There are counter-examples, where ICT has negative influences and the lack of capabilities or institutional rules or norms can prevent fulfillment of hoped for benefits from its interventions. In this paper we contribute a combined framework linking both theories and the attendant exciters and inhibitors. The utility of the framework is illustrated with a case study based on empirical work in the Ethiopian higher education sector. The combined framework and case study contribute to theory development and informs practice by offering a novel approach to analyze ICT led developmental interventions.
6.M. Hatakka and R.l De'.
DEVELOPMENT, CAPABILITIES AND TECHNOLOGY AN EVALUATIVE FRAMEWORK.In this paper we present a framework to be used for evaluation of Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) projects. The framework is based on Sen´s notion of development as freedom where human capabilities and functionings are seen as key aspects to development. Sen´s capability approach presents an alternative way of seeing and evaluating development (alternative to more traditional ways of measuring development). The approach is based on expanding freedoms, or eliminating unfreedoms, for people so that they can live a life that they have reason to value. Even though Sen is referenced a lot in ICT4D literature the analysis rarely goes further then stating that Sen presents an alternative to traditional ways of development. Reasons can be that the capability approach does not specifically mention technology, in addition to the lack of guidelines presented by Sen on how to use the framework. The aim of this paper is to operationalize the evaluation process and to include a clear role for technology in Sen´s capability framework. The framework is validated with a case on distance education from Bangladesh
43.
A.D. Andrade and C. Urquhart.
UNDERSTANDING THEIR OWN CONTEXT: FROM MECHANISTIC
MODERNISATION TO DIGITAL BILDUNG IN ICT FOR DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES.
This paper provides a preliminary conceptualisation of how both critical thinking upon the now available computer-mediated information and communicative competence for contextually-based collective action are sine qua non conditions to achieve development. The authors position their argument within the socio-economic transformative discourse of information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) proposed by Avgerou (2008).
unreflective, homogenising, dehumanising and alien traits of the usual technocentric approach of ICT4D. Informed by research conducted mainly in the field of education, different types of literacy and their
40
dimensions are analysed. The argument proceeds by claiming that the reflective and holistic characteristics encapsulated in the concept of digital bildung (Søby, 2008) provide a suitable framework for assessing the impact of ICT to achieve an authentic and truly liberating development.
M2B.ICT4D Actors-2
65.C. Avgerou, B. Li and A. Poulymenakou.
EXPLORING THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC STRUCTURES OF INTERNET-ENABLED DEVELOPMENT: A STUDY OF GRASSROOTS
ENTREPRENEURS IN CHINA.There is increasing interest in the potential of internet platforms for networking and collaboration - often referred to as web 2.0 - to open up unprecedented prospects for individuals to come together and engage in economic and political activities, bypassing and indeed subverting the corporate structures of the market economy and state control. The prevailing discourse on this technology-driven transformative potential focuses on networks of individuals interacting through technology tools with little, if at all, attention to the social context that gives rise and sustains their networked economic or political activities. In this paper we study the social embeddedness of the empowering potential of internet-enabled economic activity. We present and discuss a case of intense entrepreneurial activity in a Chinese community, engaging in C2C trading conducted on a platform of internet tools. Our analysis of this case juxtaposes the emerging views on web2.0 business activities with views drawn from a long established literature on entrepreneurship as a networked activity. We found that internet-based entrepreneurial activity at this case of grassroots development enacts online social networking mechanisms of peer-to-peer and vendor-customer interactions but heavily depends on a corporate service provider, as well as the historically developed community infrastructure for commerce.
51.S. Kabanda and I. Brown.
-COMMERCE IN TANZANIA.E-Commerce in least developing countries (LDCs) is widely believed to be non-existent as a result of poor infrastructure, an immature legal and regulatory environment and a lack of human resources (experts). Limited attention however has been paid to what SMEs think E-Commerce is all about. This study, using structuration theory as a lens
perspectives of E-Commerce. The results indicate that Tanzanian SMEs have adopted some basic form of E-Commerce (a static website), but do not intend to fully integrate E-Commerce transactional capability into their businesses, and across their supply chains (i.e., institutionalized e-commerce). They seemed unconvinced of the need to institutionalize E-Commerce in their context. As such, institutionalised E-strategies. This is not because of a lack of technological, financial or human resources on their part, but because this form of E-Commerce was seen as not being socially compatible with their target market. Rather, they saw mobile based payments systems and e-money as the means for providing transactional capability to customers and suppliers. This hybrid view of e-commerce as being made up of a static website, with transactional capability being taken care of through mobile-based systems is a unique perspective, which is a product of the LDC environment.
68.A. Briggs.
INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF ELECTRONIC PAYMENT SYSTEM IN A DEVELOPING COUNTRY: A
TRONIC PAYMENT SYSTEM.This paper examined the institutional arrangements in the development of nigeria's electronic payment system using the new institutional economics perspective.The governance structure shows elements of power tusle between stakeholders. This does not allow for the development of a viable institutional setting that would sustain free market economic activities and effective development of the payment system.
41
Mon, 23
1515-1645
M3A. Impact assessment
10.
S. Ferdousi, B.T. Malik, N. Alam and M.M. Ashraf.
PRELIMINARY STUDY OF THE OUTCOME OF AN INFORMATION
COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT) PROJECT IN BANGLADESH.Since the mid-1990s, many of the information and communication technology (ICT) interventions of the shared access facility type in the developing world, that were implemented with the objective of bringing the benefits of new ICTs to the rural poor, have been subject to a reasonable amount of evaluation research, using a great variety of conceptual frameworks, methodologies and methods to evaluate individual projects as well as to develop the methodological basis for such evaluations This research is an attempt to understand the outcome of a particular ICT intervention in rural Bangladesh. To conduct this research, we have espoused an interpretive qualitative research approach within a case study context. Nobel Laurent Amarta
collection and analysis stages. Data was collected by personal interviews, focus group discussions and participant observations. This research found that this ICT intervention had momentous impact on socio-politico-economic development at the community level, including income, empowerment, knowledge, awareness, social status and decision making capacity. Further this research proposes an extended conceptual framework based on the field study for future research. Therefore, this research has potential to contribute knowledge to ICT research methodologies in general, and to understanding contribution of an ICT intervention in rural Bangladesh, in particular.
16.J. Alam, N. Alam and M. M. Ashraf.
AN IMPACT ASSESSMENT OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT) FOR AGRICULTURE THROUGH LIVELIHOOD FRAMEWORK IN BANGLADESH.Abstract: Most of the developing countries are characterized by extreme gap between demand and supply of food. The ultimate result is malnutrition, frequent sickness, dependents on import etc. Bangladesh being a developing country is not an exception. To reduce this problem different ICT interventions have been implemented in Bangladesh as it is argued that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can reduce the intensity of this problem. But a question arises to what extent these initiatives are helpful? This research is attempted to find the answer of the question from actual beneficiary perspective. The research has used a bottom-up approach
-research is qualitative in nature and is guided by interpretativeapproach. Besides to understand the sustainability of the project and of its stakeholder the livelihood framework is used. We have illustrated how this intervention has enhanced the livelihood of villagers to improve their living condition. This has impacted positively, on financial, natural, social, physical and human outcome. This research will be useful mainly for the practitioners whose aim is
in rural Bangladesh.8.S. Ibrahim-dasuki and P. Abbott
THE IMPACT OF ICT INVESTMENTS ON DEVELOPMENT: LESSONS FROM THE NIGERIA PRE-PAID ELECTRICITY BILLING
SYSTEM.Most reported ICT for development (ICT4D) literature tends to focus mainly on design, transfer and implementation issues. There is limited focus on the evaluation of the impact of ICT projects on development and little concrete analysis of these initiatives in terms of their long-
capabilities as an evaluative space for ICT project assessment. We employed the key concepts of the capability approach to focus on the developmental impact of such projects. We based our evaluation on the Pre-paid Electricity Billing Meter project in Nigeria. Our analysis show that even though, the pre-paid system has been designed to provide better access to electricity, the relative absence of conversion factors makes it problematic in some context. Hence investing in the
42
pre-paid meter and other commodities alone, are not the appropriate answers to capability deprivation. We conclude with some implications
M3B.ICT4D Actors-3
27.R Vaidya, M. D. Myers and L. Gardner
- REALITY GAP: A STAKEHOLDER PRACTICE BASED MODEL FOR IS IMPLEMENTATION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES.The design reality gap model has become a reasonably well accepted model for describing the failure of an Information System in developing countries. Many researchers agree that such a design reality gap does exist. However, while there has been considerable
suggest that the study of socio-cultural of stakeholder practices
interpretive case study research to demonstrate this in our study of an agricultural marketing information system in India. Our research reveals that stakeholder practices provide a deeper understanding of what are in fact multiple realities of IS implementation.
46.S.Guddireddigari, H. Grunfeld and G. Johanson.
EXPLORING THE ROLE OF DIGITAL DIASPORA IN ICT4D PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION.This paper explores challenges and opportunities in implementing an
- the Vicky Standish e-Education Centre, located in a remote south Indian village. Supporters of this initiative mainly comprise members of the Indian diaspora, non-diasporan host country nationals, and local development partners who contribute with intellectual and technology capital. The VSeEC is managed through a combination of local employees and overseas volunteer advisers, some of whom are
approach presents several challenges and opportunities for local staff to benefit from remote expertise, and for diaspora and foreigners to learn together with the local staff. We consider the feasibility of operating a project of this nature as an informal partnership between local employees and remotely located advisors, suggesting ways of overcoming challenges such co-operation entails. While there are several projects where members of the DD and non-diaspora collaborate remotely on ICT4D and other initiatives in the developing world, this field has not been subject to much research. With more widespread access to ICT in the developing world, this way of collaboration could contribute significantly to capacity building by both sides of such partnerships.
35.D. Thapa.
ICT ACTORS, NETWORKS AND DEVELOPMENT: THE CASE STUDY OF A WIRELESS PROJECT IN NEPAL.The role of ICT actors in the formation and extension of ICT4D projects is important. The actors through their extended network and aligned interest can enhance the effectiveness of the project which in turn enables socioeconomic development opportunities. However, few studies have been conducted to understand the role of these central players. The objective of this paper, therefore, is to address this knowledge gap by conducting a qualitative case study in the Myagdi district in the mountain region of Nepal. In this study we explored the Nepal Wireless Networking Project (NWNP) and examined how an activist started it from one mountain village and gradually extended across more than forty villages. The formation and extension of information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) projects goes through different phases of identification of relevant ICT actors, roles, negotiations, and their interest alignment. To understand the various phases, we employed Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and explored how a social activist, in the midst of challenges, initiates the wireless project to facilitate educational and healthcare services to the mountain regions. In continuum, the study found how the activist identified relevant actors and enrolled them to form a network of aligned interest. Furthermore, we identify some
43
implications for research and practice based on insights from the case study.
Mon, 23 1700-1830
M4A.
National ICT
54.Y. Zheng.
DOES IT TRANSFORM CHINA?This paper provides a historical and multidisciplinary overview of the development and applications of information and communication technologies (ICT), such as the Internet and mobile phones, in China. Drawing upon research from information systems and other
information society and the tension between diverse interests and rationalities, represented by the authority, the business sector, the citizenry, and technologies. The paper constitutes an attempt to provide a deeper and multi-information society, and to generate implications on researching ICT in developing countries in general.
62.M. Stilz.
AFGHANISTANS ROLE IN A GLOBAL INFORMATION AGE -ACTORS, GOALS AND REACTIONS.
he contrary, one observes that, amongst certain groups, the notion of
country like Afghanistan. Indeed, one can observe a distinct awareness that new communication technologies offer many potential new opportunities especially amongst young educated Afghans. Not surprisingly perhaps, (especially for those familiar with Everett Rogers
closely with development organizations in ICT projects. However, decisions on those projects are in most cases negotiated beforehand among representatives of Afghan institutions of higher education, donor agencies and international organisations. The differing experiences with, and expectations of new communication technology among the young Afghans, the international actors and the local older generation civil servants also reflect their differing ideas of
paper examines how these potential conflicts might be avoided by greater awareness of the local and international contexts of new ICT applications and adoption processes.
60.F. Bankole, I. Brown and K-M. Osei-Bryson.
THE IMPACT OF ICT INFRASTRUCTURE ON HUMAN DEVELOPMENT. AN ANALYSIS OF ICT-USE IN SADC
COUNTRIES.Over a decade ago African nations have been increasing investments in Information Communication Technologies (ICTs) infrastructure to aid social economic development. The provision of ICT infrastructures such as internet, mobile phone and telephone aim to bring digital opportunities to all citizen in Africa. The United Nations under the auspices of UNDP and the World Bank affirmed that such infrastructure would improve the level of development in poor nations. The concept of HDI as specified by the UN serves as our measure to specify the improvement of human development of a country.The authors investigate the effects of ICT infrastructure use on human development in Southern African Countries. We use structural equation modeling to explore the impact of internet, mobile and telephone usage on the human development measures. An empirical analysis implies that ICT infrastructure use are significant to human development in African countries.
M4B.eHealth-1
66.C. Kanjo and J. Kaasbøll.
DATA, INFORMATION, AND KNOWLEDGE: THE GREATEST OF ALL IS KNOWLEDGE.Organizations have all the data needed to produce information for decision making. However, they fall short of appropriate knowledge that can lead them to make the right decisions at the right time, for the right reasons. Knowledge resides everywhere documented, and communicated. The challenge is how to make this knowledge visible. The paper looks at a situation where knowledge created in some communities of practice in the health sector is
44
considered less credible than others. Data collection methods and data sources in the health sector both in general and using a specific case study is described. We argue that there is great potential for the e-health initiatives in development both at local and global levels only if organizations were to move the design locus closer to where practical local knowledge is situated. Often, data is transferred from one community of practice to the other, assuming that it makes sense in the same way at both places. A more realistic information system design should rather assume that information needs to be translated in order to become adapted in other communities. Further, for the continuous improvement of the IS, communities also need to transform their knowledge.
57.B. Lagebo.
TRAINING STRATEGY, AND IMPLEMENTATION IN HEALTH MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEM TRAINING IN A DEVELOPING COUNTRY.Research depicts that organizations place a high investment on training to accommodate changes, and that workplace innovation occurring without integrative training strategies usually leads (Bostrom, Olfman, & Sein, 1990)to poor results. This case study examines the Health Management Information System (HMIS) training conducted in the public health sector of Ethiopia to explore the role of strategy in the training and its outcome. The focus dimension of the integrative learning strategy model developed by Olfman et al. (2003) is used to analyze the case through an interpretative approach. The results find the strategic training component in the HMIS Reform
model described, was not used during implementation. Instead, training at the organizational level was guided and conducted by
strategy. By ignoring the strategic training component during implementation (training design and delivery) the ultimate objective of the HMIS Reform strategy was lost, which is in-congruent with the
service. Eventually, trainees either neglected or inappropriately used the tool in their daily routines. Based on these findings, having a sound strategic component at the national level is not adequate unless it serves as a road map for training activities rather than being filled away at the national level. This study suggests that learning training strategies be prepared at the organizational level based on the existing high level strategies such as the training component of the HMIS Reform strategy and the best practices described in the model. This strategy would facilitate the filtering down of the strategy to implementers, and it could be used as a road map for training activities.
38.M. O. Faisal
MOBILE PHONE-BASED HEALTH CARE IN BANGLADESH, -AN IMPACT ASSESSMENT.Over this past decade the phenomenal advancement of mobile communications in Asian Least Developed Countries has created novel ways of improving and handling socioeconomic affairs, such as healthcare. This paper seeks to establish a holistic assessment on the scopes and extents to which mobile telephony based healthcare can be incorporated as a development enabler in Bangladesh. The country is the home of more than 150 million people, which is expected to reach 250 million by the year 2035. The purpose of this paper is to ascertain technological and social gap between participant organizations and beneficiaries of such telephony based healthcare initiatives. While doing so an impact assessment on existing mobile healthcare support in Bangladesh has been attempted. The findings of the study indicate two impending facts; firstly, a growing lack of awareness of popular mobile based healthcare services among rural market and lastly, an absence of a standard record keeping provisions by private and government stakeholders in terms of maintaining
45
on similar mobile healthcare projects in Asian countries. Extensive literature reviews, observation of existing services, field visits, interviews of targeted villagers and organizations have been pivotal in developing the final assessment in this paper.
Tue, 24 1100-1230
T1A.ICT4D Context
47.K. Johnston, M. Tanner, S. Kabanda and W. Adams.
CULTURE, GENDER, RACE AND SUCCESSFUL ICT PROJECT DELIVERY IN THE WESTERN CAPE, SOUTH AFRICA.This research paper was aimed at identifying whether culture, race and gender have an impact on IT project delivery within a large organisation based in the Western Cape, South Africa. The research approach was in the form of a case study using qualitative open-ended interviews with staff on various levels within an organisation. The results revealed culture, race and gender do not directly impact on project delivery but instead impacts on the project environment which in turn influence the project delivery
13.P. Boonphadh, R. Johnson, E. Kemp, S. Wipassilapa and N. Hussain.
CROSSING THE CULTURAL DIVIDE: CHALLENGES INVOLVED IN BRINGING A NEW ZEALAND-DESIGNED INTERACTIVE COMPUTER-BASED ESOL PACKAGE TO THAILAND.In an increasingly globalised world, English language proficiency has become a key factor facilitating the international trade and cooperation that is essential for social and economic advancement in the developing countries. ICT presents a potential means by which the resources of the educational institutions of the developed English-speaking countries can be utilized to spread English literacy world-wide. However, the Western cultural bias of these institutions can be a barrier to effective learning by students in the recipient countries. In this paper we report on the cultural challenges we faced when trialing an online English for Speakers of Other Languages package, developed in New Zealand, to distance students in Thailand. IMMEDIATE ESOL aims to provide an easy-to-use integrated language learning environment to develop reading, writing, speaking and listening skills using New Zealand-based tutors. It is challenging to bring a learning technology developed based on Western learning culture to be tested with groups of Thai participants who hold a different learning ethos. This experience has taught us that a compromise between the different learning cultures should be reflected in the learning technology and its interface.
33.S. Kabanda and R. Patient.
DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AND SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES: THE CASE OF FACEBOOK.The critical role of social networking sites (SNS) like Facebook and MySpace for teaching and learning is gaining currency in academia. However, the majority of the research on social networking sites has concentrated on the developed world and there is dearth of literature from the developing world. This study examines the teaching /learning opportunities and challenges that social networking sites (particularly Facebook) bring to bear on education in an Information Systems (IS) Course in a South African university. We explore how Facebook use by academics and students leveraged some of the teaching and learning challenges experienced in higher education in developing countries. Online ethnography and in-depth interviews with lecturers and students were used to investigate lecturer and student experiences of collaborative academic engagement on Facebook. Our findings suggest that prior exposure to social networking sites and online communicative competence are critical to effective online collaborative learning in resource-constrained environments. In this case study, Facebook offered a potentially complementary learning environment for students. These identified advantages are critical in the South Africa higher education context in light of increasing access to tertiary education by previously disadvantaged groups and the emergence of classes with diverse learning needs
T1B.eHealth-2 -macro
77.J. Saebo, J. Braa, S. Sahay, E. Kossi and D.
NETWORKS OF NETWORKS COLLABORATIVE EFFORTS TO DEVELOP HEALTH INFORMATION SYSTEMS ACROSS DEVELOPING COUNTRIES.The challenge of scale and sustainability in health information systems
46
level Settle development, especially in resource-poor settings, is well known. Earlier studies have argued for organizing such development in networks to increase the chances of success, as well as the heterogeneity leading to better understanding and thus better products. This paper looks at ongoing efforts in West Africa, which have grown in scale to include networks of networks. This has large synergetic effects, much beyond linear growth. The study discussed these effects, as well as the strategies of achieving such second order networks.
63.E. K. Kossi, C. Kanjo, C. Moyo and J. Braa.
DEVELOPING INTEGRATED NATIONAL HEALTH INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN MALAWI: ORIENTED EMERGENCE OF FLEXIBLE ARCHITECTURE.In this paper, development of an integrated health information system based on an iterative and data warehouse approach is discussed. Using a case from Malawi, the process was lead by a data standard task force whose mandate was to organize the overall HIS framework as a way of ensuring that both organizational politics & differences, and technical issues are taken on board. The need for open standards for interoperability is discussed and such standards are seen as important for enabling African countries to control their own systems development despite their relatively weak technical competencies. This development has benefited from collaboration with other African countries such as Sierra Leone and Tanzania through the sharing and exchanging practices and open source software. Based on commonality of the different programs, integration is done one program at a time. Initial success of first systems integrated ensures process continuity and the system gains strength and builds momentum. This encourages more actors to integrate their systems into the data warehouse. This approach improved the interoperability of the Malawian HIS as the initial integration gave a strong basis for its development. But how could such organization achieve its goal when it has no control on system development and lack skills for technical standard making? We explore how the emergence of the new HIS is influenced by both the data standard task force and conjunctures.
Tue, 24 1330-
1500
T2A.eGovernment
48.H. Twinomurinzi and K.B. Ghartey-Tagoe.
CORRUPTION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AND ICT: THE URGENT NEED FOR WORK SYSTEMS TO PRECEDE E-
GOVERNMENT.As governments in developing countries (DC) come under increasing pressure to deal with corruption, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has become an important strategic resource. Although the use of ICT in DCs is not new, its use to deal with corruption is a challenge. This paper reports on an interpretive investigation into understanding the underlying principles common to the successful use of ICT to deal with corruption in DCs. The
agency as a case study. The findings reveal that whilst there are many DC e-government successful efforts to deal with corruption, a most important challenge in DCs is the absence and lack of clarity of government work processes. Key to dealing with corruption is the existence of clear and complete work processes. Although many articles have appeared on the use of ICT to fight corruption, few have extended the discussion to the common underlying principles that lead to the successful e-government systems that deal with corruption. Methods that have the potential to provide governments in developing countries with a strategy, method and techniques for analyzing some of their work processes are required prior to implementing e-government to deal with corruption.
82.F. Wahid, M.K. Sein and B. Furuholt
UNLIKELY ACTORS: RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS AS INTERMEDIARIES IN INDONESIA.Intermediaries play a vital role as actors who help provide access to the vast majority of population in developing countries. The literature has identified several types and categories of such intermediaries and
47
conceptualized their roles, characteristics and sustainability criteria. Inthis paper, we identify an unlikely actor in the specific context of e-Government services in Indonesia, namely, religious organizations (ROs). Our examination indicates that there are several factors that make these organizations sustainable and successful intermediaries. Moreover, they have wide reach and are trusted by the populace they serve. At the same time, they also can be potentially dangerous because of the threat of religious extremism.
T2B.mHealth
64.T. Sanner and K. Braa.
MAKING mHEALTH HAPPEN FOR HEALTH INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN LOW RESOURCE CONTEXTS.The paper offers a reference typology for large scale mHealth solutions in low-resource contexts. The proposed typology is produced through action research engagement with various mHealth initiatives within primary health care; including one fully deployed large-scale solution, medium-sized pilot studies and projects currently being implemented. Our investigations are informed by theoretical assumptions about the cultivation of health informationinfrastructures, through evolutionary strategies of installed base cultivation and local patchwork through bricolage. We view the extension of national Health Information Systems (HIS) through mobile phones to the community level as a socio-technical cultivation process shaped and determined by the availability of communication infrastructures, handset dispersion, telecom service provider schemes and tariffs, local politics & policies available skilled manpower and established work practices. Through the proposition of a reference typology for mHealth implementation strategies we aim to address the need for identification and cross-fertilization of appropriate mobile based approaches for extending digitized HIS to the community health facilities in a continuously changing development context.
49.B. Hwabamungu and Q. Williams.
SUSTAINABILITY AND SCALABILITY OF mHEALTH PROJECTS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES.Various innovative mobile phone-based applications have already been developed to address some of the many health care service delivery challenges faced by developing countries. These innovative solutions have proven the potential mobile technologies and mobile health (mHealth) have in enabling and enhancing health care service delivery in such countries. However, the majority of these applications are not sustained and/or scalable. The interrelations between the various stakeholders involved in mHealth projects in developing countries can have an impact on the projeproject becomes sustainable and scalable. Using stakeholder theory
-in-practice model, this paper explores four mobile phone-based applications for HIV/AIDS care in three developing countries. The aim of the exploration has been to form an
sustainability and scalability of these initiatives. The findings indicate
sustainable and scalable
72.A.A. Gizaw
AN INSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE IN SHAPING mHEALTH SYSTEMS FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: CASE FROM INDIA.Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are revolutionizing the healthcare domain of developing countries. Parts of these ICTs are mHealth solutions that caught the attention of multiple institutions. The current literature of mHealth has served very well in documenting existing practices and implementations experiences of mobile phones in healthcare domains of developing countries. However, there appears little reported on the role that institutions play in shaping mHealth as the focus has been on the potential of mobile phones and their technological characteristics. Trying to
48
redress this imbalance, the focus in this paper is to understand key institutions that shape design and development process of mHealth solutions targeting the context of developing countries. The paper builds from an empirical material obtained from an ongoing action research that the author has participated. Drawing from the case, thepaper provides a framework that conceptualizes the design and development process of mHealth as an organizational field that represent an area of institutional phenomenon identifying the key institutions and their interplay. The institutional analysis carried out helps to highlight the impact of institutional forces on the design and development of ICT for the healthcare domain of developing countries
Tue, 24 1515-1645
T3A.M4D
5.H. Ramburn and J-P. Van Belle
BARRIERS TO THE ADOPTION OF MOBILE DATA SERVICES IN MAURITIUS.This paper investigates the adoption and use of mobile data services in Mauritius. Mauritius has one of the most sophisticated cellular markets on the African continent. However, advanced mobile data services have still not entered the lives of most mobile subscribers. We found that, apart from SMS, users were indeed generally slow to adopt the more advanced 3G data services. Mobile data services targeted in this study include SMS, downloading of ringtones, content services, web browsing, email, MMS, mobile games, mobile banking and mobile chats. The emphasis of this study is on the use of mobile phones as opposed to PDAs. Mobile phones are mainly used for individual use while PDAs are mostly used by corporate users. We list the major obstacles and inhibitors mentioned by the respondents as well as what they perceived could be done to promote the adoption of mobile services. Hopefully, this research may provide useful insights to the different stakeholders of mobile data services as well asresearchers interested in mobile technology adoption in Mauritius.
26.N. Frasheri and A. Fundo.
USE OF MOBILE TECHNOLOGIES IN ALBANIA A CASE STUDY.In the paper we analyze the situation of Albania during 20 years of transition from a isolated country towards the global market. Backwardness of fixed telephony services created good conditions for blooming of mobile telephony, and Internet gradually become a technology used daily by many people. We use data from a survey carried out with students of Polytechnic University of Tirana to evaluate the use of ICT and in particular the mobile telephony in the country. Collected information represents the situation with medium level families in urban and sub-urban areas from different regions. ICT technologies have some positive impactthe development of the country, but for poor and self-employed people in remote areas this impact seems insignificant because of missing necessary conditions fortransformation of information into material goods. Mobile telephony and Internet may have real impact for development in rural and remote areas if there would becareful policies for development of local infrastructure, promotion of local products and creation of conditions for local goods to compete in the market. In the era of globalism such policies seem difficult to be implemented.
59.N. Rangaswamy.
SHORT MESSAGE SOCIAL NETWORKING AND EMERGING DIGITAL LITERACIES: A CASE-STUDY FROM INDIA.We present insights from a case-study of SMSGupShup, the largest mobile social networking platform in India, by adopting a digital inclusion lens to understand information sharing and communication practices leading to computer literacy among users. We point to the pioneering affordances of the platform in a developing country allowing a variety of skill share and transfer among and between mobile communities. Ostensibly friendship, instant connection and
pricing are provided as reasons by users to adopt SMSGupShup. Underlying these is the use of platform by the more privileged tech-savvy group exchanging skillful information with those less capable of
49
doing the same. Equally and arguably important are the affordances of sharing information to hack programs and crack phone codes to expand usage skills. Amidst a variety of usages to achieve diverse ends, social media emerges as a powerful tool to meet the goals of digital inclusion and literacy
T3B.eHealth-3
55.Chipo Kanjo and Jens Kaasbøll
INFLUENCE OF INFORMATION GENERATED FROM TRADITIONAL PRACTICES ON HEALTH INFORMATION SYSTEMS.The health sector in most developing countries comprises a dual legacy of traditional and modern providers. This necessitates that information from both sectors feed into the health information system (HIS). This paper analyses the influence of information generated from traditional practices into HIS in a context where most of the population is assisted by traditional health providers. The paper draws on empirical findings from a developing country using a case of maternal and child health (MCH) information and describes why some information from traditional provider fail to find its way into HIS. The impact which the dual legacy of modern and traditional providers has on delivery of MCH services, the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), and the comprehensiveness of HIS is established. Community of practice (CoP) and chain of CoPs concepts are used to understand the mechanisms that affect data collection and the way data flows from one level to the other in the health sector. We focus on community level where information is generated from traditional practices. We conclude that there is a weak link in the chain of CoPs between the community and district level; causing most data generated from traditional practices to be missed.
76.M. Latifov, A. Mukharjee, V. Chakravarthy and S. Sahay.
PRACTICAL APPROACHES TO DESIGNING STANDARDS: THE CASE OF A DISTRICT HOSPITAL INFORMATION SYSTEM IN NORTHERN INDIA.This paper explores the issue of designing standards within the setting of a district hospital system in the context of a Northern State in India. The aim is to develop a practical approach to the design and implementation of standards during the course of the evolution of a hospital management information system (HospMIS) first in one hospital, and later to be scaled to a total of 20 such hospitals in the state. A three level framework of health information standards comprising of information needs, software and interoperability as been evolved through the HISP (Health Information Systems Programme) initiative is drawn upon to approach this issue of standards. While this framework has indeed been a very useful lens to understand standards, we have also contributed to its extension by additionally focusing on issues relating to the process of development, implementation and scaling of standards.
81.M.S. Chawani, S. Mwakilama, C. Kanjo and J. Kaasboll.
A SCRUTINY OF THE INTEGRATION STATUS AND STANDARDIZATION PROCESS OF ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORD SYSTEMS IN MALAWI.Achieving integration remains a challenge in many developed countries partly attributed to the presence of many different EMR systems which makes standardization and achieving interoperability a difficult and complex undertaking. Unfortunately, there is a lack of literature on whether and how developing countries in Africa are addressing issues related to integration of EMRs in their HIS agendas. A study was therefore conducted to assess the integration status, efforts and strategies in the implementation of EMR systems in Malawi in order to identify integration strategies and processes appropriate for the Malawian context. Thus, this paper presents the integration status and standardization efforts in Malawi and makes recommendations on how to progress towards standardization.
50
Wed,25
1200-1330
W1A.Public Internet Access
18.
R. Gomez and L.F. Baron.
IS PUBLIC ACCESS COMPUTING REALLY CONTRIBUTING TO
DEVELOPMENT?The use of information and communication technologies (ICT) can contribute to local community development and link local communities to global issues. Public access computing (PAC) venues such as telecenters, public libraries and cybercafés make ICT more broadly available and extend the benefits of ICT to underserved populations. This paper discusses findings from a study of PAC in Colombia, with particular attention to the town of Carmen de Bolívar. This town has a strong tradition of community organization for social development, and a long history of violence that has shaped its social fabric. The study assesses the contribution of PAC to community development. While the introduction of PAC may not have contributed significantly to community development, use of ICT gives the local population a sense of belonging to a larger, global community, which in turn may help local activities in support of community development. We conclude that PAC alone does not necessarily contribute directly to community development, especially if the political environment is not conducive.
34.W. Chigona, O. Lekwane, K. Westcott and A. Chigona.
SHARED PUBLIC ACCESS POINTS IN DISADVANTAGED URBAN COMMUNITIES: USES, BENEFITS, AND CHALLENGES.This paper reports of a study exploring the actual use of shared computing facilities, the benefits users accrue from using the facilities and the challenges they faced in using and in gaining benefits. The study used as a case study a shared facility in a disadvantaged community in Cape Town. The study noted that the center was used for both instrumental as well as hedonic purposes. It was also noted that there were economic, social and psychological benefits from using the facilities. However, it was noted that use of the facilities is beset with a number of challenges which prevented use and benefits. The paper also notes the strategies users employed to overcome the challenges.
W1B.Open Source Software
37.G. Rowles, K. Sewchurran and J-P Van Belle.
OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE ADOPTION IN SOUTH AFRICAN NGOS.
Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are developmental organizations that have software requirements of their own. Their developmental approach often relies on collaboration and can be regarded as being aligned to the philosophy of open source software. However, recent studies have indicated a very low adoption rate of open source among these organizations, particularly in developing countries. By reviewing the challenges facing open source software adoption, this paper intends to understand the factors that have influenced this low adoption rate, as confirmed in our findings. The Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) Framework was used to test the two key hypotheses of the research: that the knowledge barrier presents the biggest barrier to OSS adoption (not supported) and that technological, not environmental or organizational factors, have the most impact on the adoption decision (supported). Apart from these specific hypotheses, the paper also contains some descriptive findings about the degree and type of OSS adopted as well as commonly cited reasons for OSS adoption.
71.
51
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73.Z. Saugene and S. Sahay
THE CHALLENGE OF CUSTOMIZING GLOBAL OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE TO LOCAL COUNTRY CONTEXTS: THE CASE OF DHIS GIS FOR HEALTH MANAGEMENT.A software systems that supports wide range of user needs is difficult to customize. Most of the challenges are related to limitation of the tools as well as the skills needed to adapt them to fit local needs. In most cases the business workflow procedure inscribed into these global software systems may not directly map into the practices of the organizations adopting it. In whatever case, there is always a need to develop and apply methods that can help to rapidly integrate them on the business processes and perspectives of the organizations. This paper reports on an action research study that aims at understanding the tensions of adopting global software system for health care management in developing countries. The work was conducted in Mozambique and Malawi and aimed at customizing the spatial analysis module of the district health information software to the local context. The findings of the study reveal that the process is prone for challenges and addressing those challenges require competent and skilled team that may be plunged not only into adaptations but also contributing in the evolution of the tool.
52
Paper overview
Paper
no
Authors Title
5 Hiranjali Ramburn and Jean-Paul Van Belle
Barriers to the Adoption of Mobile Data Services in Mauritius
6 Mathias Hatakka and Rahul De'.
DEVELOPMENT, CAPABILITIES AND TECHNOLOGY AN EVALUATIVE FRAMEWORK
7 Niall Hayes and Chris Westrup
POWER / KNOWLEDGE AND IMPACT ASSESSMENT: SOME CONSIDERATIONS FOR ICT4D RESEARCH
8 Salihu Ibrahim-dasukiand Dr Pamela Abbott
THE IMPACT OF ICT INVESTMENTS ON DEVELOPMENT: LESSONS FROM THE NIGERIA PRE-PAID ELECTRICITY BILLING SYSTEM
10 Sanjida Ferdousi,Bushra Tahseen Malik, Nabid Alam and Dr.Md. Mahfuz Ashraf.A
PRELIMINARY STUDY OF THE OUTCOME OF AN INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT) PROJECT IN BANGLADESH
13 Piyaporn Boonphadh, Russell Johnson,Elizabeth Kemp, Sirirat Wipassilapa and Norlaila Hussain.
Crossing The Cultural Divide: Challenges Involved In Bringing A New Zealand-Designed Interactive Computer-Based Esol Package To Thailand
16 Jahangir Alam, Nabid Alam and Mahfuz Ashraf.
AN IMPACT ASSESSMENT OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT) FOR AGRICULTURE THROUGH LIVELIHOOD FRAMEWORK IN BANGLADESH
18 Ricardo Gomez and Luis F. Baron.
Is public access computing really contributing to development?
26 Neki Frasheri and Akli Fundo.
USE OF MOBILE TECHNOLOGIES IN ALBANIA A CASE STUDY
27 Ranjan Vaidya, Michael D. Myers and Lesley Gardner
Tracing Reality in design -reality gap: A stakeholder practice based model for IS implementation in developing countries
28 Sujan Shrestha, John P.T. Moore and Jose Abdelnour Nocera
THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING CHALLENGES IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF NEPAL:
53
30 Julian Bass, Brian Nicholson and Eswaran Subrahmanian.
INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS, THE CAPABILITY APPROACH AND ICT FOR DEVELOPMENT
33 Salah Kabanda and Rambe Patient.
Developing countries and Social Networking Sites: The Case of Facebook
34 Wallace Chigona, Ofentse Lekwane, Kim Westcott and Agnes Chigona.
Shared Public Access Points in Disadvantaged Urban communities: Uses, Benefits, and Challenges
35 Devinder Thapa. ICT ACTORS, NETWORKS ANDDEVELOPMENT: THE CASE STUDY OF A WIRELESS PROJECT IN NEPAL
37 Gregory Rowles,Kosheek Sewchurranand Jean-Paul Van Belle.
Open Source Software Adoption in South African NGOs
38 Md. Omar Faisal MOBILE PHONE-BASED HEALTH CARE IN BANGLADESH, -AN IMPACT ASSESSMENT
39 brian nicholson and Ron Babin
A Suitable Partner for Development? Philanthrocapitalism and Global IT Outsourcing
40 John Dobson. THE VISIBLE HAND: CONCEPTUALISING A ROLE FOR DEVELOPMENT PRACTICITIONERS INFURTHERING LIVELIHOOD INITIATIVES
43 Antonio Diaz Andrade and Cathy Urquhart.
Understanding their Own Context: From Mechanistic Modernisation to Digital Bildung in ICT for Development Initiatives
46 Sriram Guddireddigari,Helena Grunfeld and Graeme Johanson.
EXPLORING THE ROLE OF DIGITAL DIASPORA IN ICT4D PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION
47 kevin Johnston,maureen tanner, Salah Kabanda and Wasfi Adams.
CULTURE, GENDER, RACE AND SUCCESSFUL ICT PROJECT DELIVERY IN THE WESTERN CAPE, SOUTH AFRICA
48 Hossana Twinomurinziand Kow Bondzie Ghartey-Tagoe.
CORRUPTION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AND ICT: THE URGENT NEED FOR WORK SYSTEMS TO PRECEDE E-GOVERNMENT
49 Boroto Hwabamungu and Quentin Williams.
THE IMPACT OF
ON THE SUSTAINABILITY AND SCALABILITY OF MHEALTH PROJECTS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
54
51 Salah Kabanda and Irwin Brown. E-Commerce in Tanzania
54 Yingqin Zheng. Does IT Transform China?55 Chipo Kanjo and Jens
KaasbøllInfluence of Information Generated from Traditional Practices on Health Information Systems
57 Birkinesh Lagebo. Training Strategy, and Implementation in Health Management Information System Training in a Developing Country
59 nimmi rangaswamy. Short Message Social Networking and Emerging Digital Literacies: A Case-study from India
60 Felix Bankole, Irwin Brown and Kweku-Muata Osei-Bryson.
The Impact of ICT Infrastructure on Human Development. An analysis of ICT-Use in SADC Countries
62 Melanie Stilz. AFGHANISTANS ROLE IN A GLOBAL INFORMATION AGE -ACTORS, GOALS AND REACTIONS
63 Edem Kwame Kossi, Chipo Kanjo, Christon Moyo and Jørn Braa.
Developing Integrated National Health Information Systems in Malawi: Oriented emergence of flexible architecture
64 Sanner and Braa. MAKING MHEALTH HAPPEN FOR HEALTH INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN LOW RESOURCE CONTEXTS
65 Chrisanthi Avgerou, Boyi Li and Angeliki Poulymenakou.
Exploring the socio-economic structures of internet-enabled development: a study of grassroots enetpreneurs in China
66 Chipo Kanjo and JensKaasbøll.
Data, Information, and Knowledge: The Greatest of All is Knowledge
68 Austin Briggs. INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF ELECRONIC PAYMENT SYSTEM IN A DEVELOPING COUNTRY: ACASE STUDY OF NIGERIA'S ELECTRONIC PAYMENT SYSTEM
71
55
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72 Abyot Asalefew Gizaw AN INSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE IN SHAPING mHEALTH SYSTEMS FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: CASE FROM INDIA
73 Zeferino Saugene and Sandeep Sahay
THE CHALLENGE OF CUSTOMIZING GLOBAL OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE TO LOCAL COUNTRY CONTEXTS: THE CASE OF DHIS GIS FOR HEALTH MANAGEMENT
75 Jyoti Choudrie and GHarindranath
Bibliometric Study 76 Murod Latifov,
Arunima Mukharjee, Vasudha Chakravarthy and Sundeep Sahay.
PRACTICAL APPROACHES TO DESIGNING STANDARDS: THE CASE OF A DISTRICT HOSPITAL INFORMATION SYSTEM IN NORTHERN INDIA
77 Johan Saebo, Jørn Braa, Sundeep Sahay, Edem Kossi and Dykki Settle
NETWORKS OF NETWORKS COLLABORATIVE EFFORTS TO DEVELOP HEALTH INFORMATION SYSTEMS ACROSS DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
79 Devinder Thapa and Øystein Sæbø.
EXPLORING THE LINK BETWEEN ICT ANDDEVELOPMENT: A LITERATURE REVIEW
81 Marlen Stacey Chawani, Shawo Mwakilama, Chipo Kanjo and JensKaasboll.
A SCRUTINY OF THE INTEGRATION STATUS AND STANDARDIZATION PROCESS OF ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORD SYSTEMS IN MALAWI
82 Fathul Wahid, Maung Sein and Bjørn Furuholt
UNLIKELY ACTORS: RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS AS INTERMEDIARIES IN THE INDONESIAN E-GOVERNMENT CONTEXT
56
IFIP WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
5
57
Ramburn & Van Belle Mobile Data Services Adoption Barriers in Mauritius
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu,
Nepal, May 2011
BARRIERS TO THE ADOPTION OF MOBILE DATA SERVICES IN MAURITIUS
Hiranjali Ramburn ([email protected])Department of Information Systems, University of Cape Town
Jean-Paul Van Belle ([email protected])Department of Information Systems, University of Cape Town
Abstract: This paper investigates the adoption and use of mobile data services in Mauritius. Mauritius has one of the most sophisticated cellular markets on the African continent. However, advanced mobile data services have still not entered the lives of most mobile subscribers. We found that, apart from SMS, users were indeed generally slow to adopt the more advanced 3G data services. Mobile data services targeted in this study include SMS, downloading of ringtones, content services, web browsing, email, MMS, mobile games, mobile banking and mobile chats. The emphasis of this study is on the use of mobile phones as opposed to PDAs. Mobile phones are mainly used for individual use while PDAs are mostly used by corporate users. We list the major obstacles and inhibitors mentioned by the respondents as well as what they perceived could be done to promote the adoption of mobile services. The targeted sample included both students and staff from a university and corporate users from various business sectors.Hopefully, this research may provide useful insights to the different stakeholders of mobile data services as well as researchers interested in mobile technology adoption in Mauritius.
Keywords:Mobile Data Services; Mauritius; Barriers to Mobile Internet Adoption.
58
Ramburn & Van Belle Mobile Data Services Adoption Barriers in Mauritius
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu,
Nepal, May 2011
BARRIERS TO THE ADOPTION OF MOBILE DATA SERVICES IN MAURITIUS
1. BACKGROUND AND CONTEXT
The rapid evolution of mobile phone technology and mobile internet applications has resulted in a huge expansion of mobile data services. The mobile phone is now regarded as a ubiquitous multipurpose communication and computing device. New functionalities, ranging from Internet browsing and mobile television to video conferencing, are constantly added to the basic data access function of these devices (Tarasewich, 2003).
Mobile data services can be described as any set of activities performed on mobile
The term mobile data service has not been used as frequently as mobile commerce in previous studies; hence precise and accurate definitions of this term are limited. Some studies have used mobile data services, mobile applications/services or even mobile Internet services interchangeably (Bouwman, Carlsson, Molina-Castillo & Walden, 2007). For the purpose of this research, mobile data services are defined as wireless access to a set of B2C activities using a mobile phone available through mobile service providers (Wang & Lin, 2006). From text messaging services, such as SMS and MMS, to mobile commerce services, such as mobile banking, mobile data services have become highly successful in many countries, forming an integral part of the daily life activities of many people.
Similarly, there has been a lot of hype and excitement about use of mobile data services and mobile commerce in African countries over the past few years, with predictions that mobile commerce would become the next new trend in the electronic marketplace (Urbaczewski, Valacich & Jessup, 2003). The actual adoption and use of mobile data services in most African countries has been particularly slow as compared to countries such as Japan, Taiwan, USA and UK. In Africa, the use of SMS and chat services has been widely accepted, but people are still reluctant to engage in other mobile data services, such as MMS, mobile banking and web browsing amongst others (Brown, Gordon, Janik & Meyer, 2005). Patel (2008), as cited by Koegelenberg (2009), foreseesan increase of 31% in total consumer mobile Internet spending, from $29 billion at the end of 2008 to $38 billion at the end of 2013. The major portion of this spending (36%) will occur in Asia Pacific followed by North America (31%) whereas contribution inAfrica including Mauritius will only be less than 1% of the total value. This is illustrated by Figure 5 in Appendix 9A.
2. RESEARCH OBJECTIVE AND CONTRIBUTION
We first investigate the extent to which mobile data services have been adopted inMauritius. The reasons why mobile phone users are reluctant to use different data services and the key inhibitors are explored. Lastly, the factors, which may encourage users to use mobile data services more frequently, are discussed.
The scope of this research is limited to Business to Consumer (B2C) users of mobile data services in Mauritius. The specific mobile data services which have been investigated in this study are the following: Cell phone banking, downloading ring tones, games and logos, downloading content such as weather, sport and/or news, web
59
Ramburn & Van Belle Mobile Data Services Adoption Barriers in Mauritius
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu,
Nepal, May 2011
browsing, accessing email, mobile gaming/Video, playing Online Games, shortMessaging Service (SMS), multimedia Messaging (MMS), online chats such as MSN messenger and Mxit.
These services were selected since they are the most popular and advanced mobile data services available in South Africa. We chose to conduct this study in Mauritius because it already has the required infrastructure for new mobile technologies and services in place, as a result, the economy of the country could experience a major boost with the adoption and use of mobile data services (Rouvinen, 2004). The progress of the mobile telecommunication industries depend not only on the development of mobile technology and the data services provided but, also, the subsequent adoption of the services by the consumers (Bouwman, Carlsson, Molina-Castillo & Walden, 2007).Hence, the necessity to investigate the potential barriers and factors which may encourage potential and existing users to adopt and/or continue use of mobile data services.
This study breaks some new grounds for Mauritian research and provides a benchmark for any future research which might be undertaken in the country. The findings will be of significant value to the different M-commerce stakeholders. The future of mobile telecommunications relies on the growth of mobile services and on providing the right package of mobile data services to the target consumers. Although the mobile industry is currently one of the fastest growing markets in Mauritius, consumers are still reluctant to use and adopt the new services being introduced. One possible reason for this lack of enthusiasm on behalf of consumers may be attributed to the fact that the stakeholders of the mobile data services are neglecting the needs of the consumers. Therefore, this study allows the stakeholders to better understand the consumer market of mobile data services by providing them with an insight into the factors which discourage current and future use, as well as how these might be alleviated.
3. DEFINITIONS AND PRIOR RESEARCH
3.1 Definitions
Mobile data services are here defined as wireless access to a set of B2C activities using a mobile phone available through mobile service providers (Wang & Lin, 2006; WMIS, 2006 as cited by Oh et al., 2006). Examples include transactions, such as, SMS,send/receive emails, MMS, mobile games, content services, mobile banking, e-tickets, mobile auctions and stock trading. Some studies have used mobile data services, mobile applications/services or even mobile Internet services interchangeably (Bouwman, Carlsson, Molina-Castillo & Walden, 2007).
This research focuses on the use of mobile phones as opposed to Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs). This is an important distinction to make since PDAs are mostly used by corporate users for business transactions while mobile phones are mainly utilized for individual use (Singh, 2003). Moreover, in this research, the terms users and consumers are used interchangeably. The difference between mobile phones and PDAs is gradually becoming less apparent as the screen sizes on phones are getting larger, with
numeric keypad and one-hand usage of most phones as opposed to the touch screens and two- 005).
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Ramburn & Van Belle Mobile Data Services Adoption Barriers in Mauritius
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu,
Nepal, May 2011
3.2 The Mobile Telecommunication Industry in Mauritius
Mauritius has an advanced telecommunication sector. In fact, Mauritius was a trend setter for developing nations as it was the first country to launch cellular operations in the Southern Hemisphere on 29 May 1989 (Minges, 1999). However, the use of mobile phones was not as willingly adopted as anticipated and the number of mobile subscribers only surpassed fixed line subscribers in 2002, a milestone which was already attained by several other countries (Minges, Gray & Tayob, 2004). This was explained through the following arguments. Unlike other developing nations, Mauritius has a prevalent accessibility of fixed telephonic networks; hence, mobile phones have never been a substitute for fixed telephony. In addition, Mauritius followed the Receiving Party Pays (RPP) system, implying that the person receiving calls was subject to be billed as well (Minges et al., 2004). However, as from October 2004, the Island adopted the Calling Party Pays (CPP) regime resulting in a substantial increase in use of mobile phones (Minges et al., 2004).
Currently, Mauritius has three Mobile Network Operators namely, Emtel, Cell plus and Mahanagar (MTNL). Cell plus is the current market leader closely followed by EMTEL. MTNL is the latest MNO which entered the market in 2006 (Information and Communication Technologies Authority of Mauritius, 2007). The market penetration of cellular phones was estimated at 82% of the 1.2 million population as at the end of December 2009 (Miemoukanda, 2010). Mauritius has a 2-tier mobile entity with the network operators performing the roles of service providers as well.
4. MOBILE DATA SERVICES IN MAURITIUS
There are very few available studies on the use of mobile data services amongst Mauritians and no survey has been performed to assess level of use at this stage. A research focusing on mobile tourist guide for Mauritius briefly mentions that despite the availability of 3G technology, use of mobile data services is still in an infancy stage. This was attributed mainly to the high cost of 3G handsets in the Island (Suddul & Mohamudally, 2007).
4.1 Enablers and Inhibitors of Mobile Data Services
Mobility, convenience and ubiquity are the main benefits of using mobile data services. Internet now travels with the customers; transactions can be conducted from any location and at any time of the day, which makes it well suited for the customers. Information can now be easily accessed at any time, from any location hence ensuring convenience, mobility and ubiquity (Turban et al., 2002).
However, the actual usability and security of mobile devices have been debated. While some people find using mobile devices to conduct transactions relatively easy, others experience difficulty with the small screen size and small keypad. Data input becomes a problem, and this can lead to wasted time, errors and frustration experienced by users, hence making usability less attractive (Tarasewich, 2003; Chen & Frolick, 2004).
Some researchers believe mobile commerce has fewer security flaws as opposed to electronic commerce as the mobile device travels with the user, hence giving the latter a greater sense of security (Brown et al., 2005; Doens, 2005). However, the mobility of these mobile devices also increases the risk of losing them (Tarasewich, 2003). Mobile users are worried about the safety of their devices as these can easily be lost or stolen. One of the key concerns which emerged during the results analysis of a South African
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ing is convenient and more secure in a way, it would be more inconvenient if one loses the phone, because everything will have to be
(Gordon, Janik & Meyer, 2004).
On the downside of use of mobile data services, information security is a potentialconcern. Information security refers to the safety and security of data as it travels over the network. Concerns have been expressed about the call being intercepted and decrypted (Gordon et al., 2004). Despite technical assurances to the contrary, security perceptions remain negative among many users.
Cost of mobile data services is another prominent inhibitor. It is one of the major factors to be considered by consumers when deciding whether or not to use a technology or service. Most consumers perceive the cost of mobile data services to be particularly high (Gordon et al., 2004). Mobile phone charges in South Africa are believed to be up to10 times more expensive than that of other comparable European countries (Steenkamp, 2005) and Mauritian charges are comparably high, especially when compared to the relative personal income of Mauritians.
Other factors inhibiting use of mobile data services include lack of business requirements, incompatibility of handsets, lack of skills and knowledge concerning theservice and poor design interface of the devices (Singh, 2003).
5. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The main research objectives were to assess the relative extent to which the various mobile data services have been adopted in Mauritius and to determine the main inhibitors to the more widespread adoption of mobile data services. We adopted a positivist, quantitative research approach by sending a questionnaire to a sample of mobile phone users. The research is mainly descriptive in nature. A cross-sectional time horizon was chosen because of the constant evolutionary nature of mobile data services and mobile technologies: new mobile data services are introduced at a very rapid pace.
The questionnaire measured the current, previous and future level of use of respondents by focusing on both the variety and frequency of use of the different mobile data services. The respondents were then prompted to state the reason(s) why they are not using any of the mobile data services. A final section asked respondents to rate the threemost influential factors which they believe will inhibit or encourage their use. The questions related to this research paper were mostly single test items hence reliability tests on this particular section were not conducted. We have included sections ofquestionnaire relevant to this research in appendix 9B.
A stratified sampling approach with sub-groups based on age, occupation and income have been investigated. We selected a first select sub-sample in Mauritius consisting of university students and staff. Especially students can be seen as an interesting population group because they are young, innovative, sophisticated and well-networked users who are familiar with the mobile technology, accounting for some of the key adoption factors in traditional adoption models. A second sub-sample came from the business environment where people are thought to achieve direct financial and time efficienciesize, this selected sample is geographically distributed, thus, representing a fair
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A pilot study was initially conducted. The questionnaires were distributed to a subset of the above described sample. The pilot study allowed the researcher to uncover whether the questionnaire was user-friendly, clear and understandable to the intended sample. Based on the feedback received, the questionnaire was reviewed and refined.
The modified questionnaires were then delivered to the respective samples. The researcher first made some initial contact with a few targeted respondents in order to encourage greater participation of the respective samples, hence ensuring a higher response rate. Some questionnaires were hand-delivered by the researcher, while others were sent via internal mail. 218 questionnaires were returned out of which 19 have not been used due to incompleteness and inaccuracy. This sample is deemed to be ample toprovide reasonably reliable data.
6. DATA ANALYSIS
6.1 Demographic Analysis
The sample consists of 109 (55%) males and 90 (45%) females as depicted by Figure 1 below. The gender distribution is thus fairly equal and well balanced.
55%
45%
Males
Females
Figure 1. Gender distribution of sample
Another important demographic variable is occupation. The target sample comprises of both students and working people. The latter consisted of academics, analysts, programmers and software developers, accountants, researchers, administrators, sales people and marketing executives. The sample consists 36% of students and 64% working people as illustrated below by Figure 2 below.
36%
64%
Students
Workingpeople
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Figure 2. Distribution by cccupation
With respect to the age distribution, the sample reflects a relatively young user group: more than 40% of the respondents fall in the 21-25 year age group. This percentage reflects the stratified sampling approach which targeted students as one of two desired population groups. 15 respondents (8%) in Mauritius are 20 years old. Only 8-9% of the sample is older than 40 years. Although people above 40 years old have been targeted, they were either very reluctant to fill in questionnaires or they did not use any of the mobile data services provided.
6.2 Usage Profile
This section discusses the usage profile of the various mobile data services in Mauritius.The findings show that
SMS is the mostly frequently used service with 98 % of the sample utilising it. Approximately 50% of the sample download content services and ringtones while 45% of the respondents use Top Up to recharge their mobile credit. The rest of the services are not as widely used. Only 20% of Mauritians engage in cell phone banking while 28% use MMS. The three least popular services are web browsing, online chats and emails. Table 1 below depicts the detailed results. With regards to frequency of use, with the exception of SMS, very few respondents use the rest of the services several times on a daily basis.
Several
times daily Daily
2-6 times
weekly
1-6times
monthly
Less than
once
monthly Never
SMS 76% 11% 7% 4% 2% 2%Ring tones 3% 2% 6% 11% 28% 51%
Content 2% 5% 7% 13% 22% 52%MMS 3% 1% 4% 7% 14% 72%
Cell banking 0% 0% 4% 7% 7% 80%Top Up 3% 1% 4% 20% 18% 56%EMAIL 5% 2% 3% 4% 6% 82%
Web browsing 4% 2% 3% 3% 5% 84%Mobile video 2% 3% 3% 7% 12% 75%
Online gaming 3% 1% 4% 6% 10% 77%
Online Chats 4% 2% 5% 2% 6% 82%
Table 1. Frequency of use of mobile data services in Mauritius
These findings confirm what the literature revealed on use of mobile data services in Mauritius. Despite having an advanced telecommunications industry and being a pioneer of cellular operations, mobile data services have not been widely adopted by the population.
6.3 The Major Reasons Accounting for Non-Use of Mobile Data Services
In order to identify the major inhibitors perspective, respondents were asked to provide reasons accounting for non adoption or non use of the different data services in an open response field in the questionnaire. The various reasons assembled were then classified by the researchers into different categories.
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Respondents unanimously cite the lack of need for the services as the main reason accounting for non-use of mobile data services. The unavailability of mobile features is the second most prominent inhibitor followed by lack of interest in the services, high cost of transactions and lack of awareness. However, it should be noted that not all of the reasons that are advanced for non-adoption can be seen as inhibitors: lack of need or awareness are not primary inhibitors (though, admittedly, focused marketing can address both by creating a real or perceived need).
6.4 The Major Inhibitors of Mobile Data Services
In this section, we attempted to identify the significance attribute to key barriers to adoption culled from the literature. Users were asked to choose and rank the factors they perceived as being major inhibitors. The results have been grouped in three categories namely; the number of times respondents rated them as the 1st, 2nd or 3rd.Figure 3 illustrates the findings.
42
36
32
12
14
9
27
7
2
5
28
35
16
13
19
24
14
17
11
7
33
19
23
29
19
15
4
17
87
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
45
Increasedcost of
services
Receivingillegal and
harmfulcontent
Leaking ofmy personalinformation
Lack ofcoverage
Lack of need Billing Erros Spamming Not knowingwhat ampaying
Unreliabilityof mobile
technology
Complexityof operatingthe handset
Inhibitors
Nu
mb
er
of
resp
on
den
ts
1st 2nd 3rd
Figure 3. Inhibitors of mobile data services in Mauritius
Increased costs, receiving harmful content and leaking of personal information are the three major inhibitors of mobile data services in Mauritius. Spamming, lack of need of services, lack of coverage and billing errors follow.
Not surprisingly, increased cost of transaction is rated as the 1st most prominent inhibitor of mobile data services. This result is consistent with the findings of Ramburn (2007) who interviewed a sample Mauritians to better explain the non adoption and non use of mobile data services. Participants unanimously agreed that they will cease use of mobile data services, should the price of services increase. They are keen to use only the
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Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu,
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servic
where cheaper alternatives are available. Examples include sharing information using Bluetooth instead of MMS where possible, or using Internet on their personal computers (PC) or laptops to download ring tones and content. The interviewees revealed that SMS and Top Up are priced reasonably while other services are still relatively expensive. Services such as ring tones, content, web browsing, MMS and chats are not used extensively due to high cost of transactions. This is a possible reason explaining the extent of use of mobile data services investigated in this paper.
Ramburn (2007) also provided some insights into leaking of personal information, spamming and lack of need of services. The research found while respondents are apprehensive to use services such as mobile banking due to the fear of fraud, those who do use it will immediately stop usage, should they lose any confidential information.With regards to spamming, mobile data users do not welcome advertisements that are not focused on mobile products and services. They see this practice as being distracting and frustrating, contributing towards decreasing the value derived from using these services thus acting as a potential inhibitor.
6.5 The Major Factors Encouraging Use of Mobile Data Services
In an attempt to identify the key factors influencing adoption and use of mobile data services, respondents were asked to identify and rank the top three determinants. Anumber of factors were drawn from past literature for this purpose. The findings are detailed below.
49 49
12
21
16
11
8
12
6 5
36
16
31
20 21 22
1412
10
5
27
20
27
15
1921 20
10 10 11
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
Low
er
prices
Wid
er
range o
fserv
ices
Relia
bili
ty o
f th
eserv
ices
A n
ew
mobile
handset
Incre
ased a
ware
ness
Hig
her
incom
e
The r
elia
bili
ty a
nd
dependabili
ty o
fm
obile
technolo
gy
No inte
rnet
availa
bili
ty o
n P
C o
rla
pto
p
It is t
rendy a
nd
impro
ves m
y im
age
Incre
ased a
ware
ness
of
security
measure
s
Factors influencing use
Nu
mb
er
of
resp
on
den
ts
1st 2nd 3rd
Figure 4. The major factors encouraging mobile data services use in Mauritius
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The first two major factors influencing use of mobile data services are lower prices of services and a wider range of services available, followed by availability of a new handset and increased awareness of services. Income is also seen as a factor influencing use.
The significance of cost as both a determinant and inhibitor of mobile data services stand out clearly. This factor is often not given prominence in the research in developed countries. Some of the mobile data services are still relatively expensive, especially when compared to non-African countries. The high costs combined with the relatively lower income appear to reduce usage of important services and stop further usage of entertainment-based services. Conversely, lower-priced services are deemed to be a major incentive promoting trialability of new services. Next, a wider range of services, allowing respondents to be more functionally efficient, would encourage them to engage in more frequent use of mobile data services. Acquisition of new handsets is seen to arouse curiosity and encourage adoption of new mobile data services. Lastly, increased awareness of mobile data services is a distinguishing factor that may encourage trial ability and continueduse.
7. CONCLUSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS
Mauritius has an advanced mobile telecommunication industry. It was the first country to launch 3G technology in the African continent. At present, 3.5G is already available in Mauritius. However, use of advanced mobile data services has still not touched the lives of most Mauritians. This research reports on a survey that looked at the use and adoption of a number of data services, namely SMS, downloading of ringtones, content services, web browsing, email, MMS, mobile games, mobile banking and mobile chats.
A sample of 199 respondents was obtained. 98% of the sample use SMS making it the most widely used service. Downloading of content and ringtones are relatively popular. Web browsing and use of emails are less common amongst Mauritians.
The main inhibitors of mobile data services are mostly cost-related and include the high cost of transactions, billing errors and lack of visibility of transaction costs. Other prominent inhibitors include reception of harmful content, leakage of personal information, spamming and lack of (perceived) need of the services. Lower prices of transactions, a wider range of services and increased awareness were cited as the major factors influencing use of mobile data services.
This research leads to a number of practical recommendations. Lack of awareness is a major problem in Mauritius, therefore more adverts and promotional campaigns could increase consumer knowledge about the new services being introduced and their possible benefits. However, the adverts should focus on educating the consumers with regards to the specific benefits of the services in terms of efficiency and effectiveness and the advantages of using them as opposed to other alternatives.
Cost was found to have a strong inhibiting impact on use. Therefore, the cost of a number of services should be lowered to boost up use of mobile data services. New services should be introduced at a relatively low price for a specific time period to promote trial ability. There needs to be increased transparency with regards to the billing and cost of some transactions.
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8. REFERENCES
Bouwman, H., Carlsson, C., Molina-Castillo, F. & Walden, P. (2007). Barriers and drivers in the adoption of current and future mobile services in Finland. Telematics and
Informatics, 24 (2), 145-160.
Brown, I., Cajee, Z., Davies, D. & Stroebel, S. (2003). Cell phone banking predictors of adoption in South Africa an exploratory study. International Journal of Information
Management, 23 (3), 381-393.
Brown, I., Gordon, C., Janik, N. & Meyer, M. (2005). Investigating adoption/non-adoption of cell Phones for financial transactions in South Africa. Proceedings of the
16th Australasian Conference on Information Systems, Sydney; Australia.
Chen, L. & Frolick, M. (2004). Assessing M-commerce opportunities. Information
Systems Management, 21 (2), 53-61.
convergence of information and communication technologies. South Africa: ITWeb Informatica.
Doens, M. (2005). The current state of B2B E-marketplace adoption in South African agriculture. Masters thesis, Cape Town; Department of Information Systems, Faculty of Commerce, UCT.
E-business handbook. (2006). The E-Business handbook: The review of Innovation at Work in South African Business. Cape Town, South Arica: Trialogue.
Global Network Rollout Status. (2005). 3G South Africa - 3G/UMTS/HSDPA NetworkRollout Status: Statistics and network Information. [Online] Available at: www.3g.co.za/content/view/23/33 [Accessed June 2008]
Goldstuck, A. (2005). The Goldstuck Report: Mobile banking in South Africa. [Online] Available at: http://www.theworx.biz/MOBILE05.htm [Accessed April 2006]
Gordon, C., Janik, N. & Meyer, M. (2004). The non-adoption of cell phones for financial transactions a qualitative study. Empirical Report, Cape Town; Department of Information Systems, Faculty of Commerce, UCT.
Hislop, R. 2004, Hobbled by Ball and Value Chain, ITWeb Brainstorm, April 2004.
Hung, S.Y., Ku, C.Y. & Chang, C.M. (2003). Critical Factors of WAP Services Adoption: an Empirical Study. Electronic Commerce Research & Applications, 2 (1), 42-60.
International Telecommunication Union. (2007). Telecommunication/ICT markets and trends in Africa. [Online] Available at: http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/ict/statistics/material/af_report07.pdf [Accessed September 2008]
Joubert, J. (2006). The importance of Trust in M-commerce. Masters Report, Cape Town; Department of Information Systems, Faculty of Commerce, UCT.
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Kaasinen, E. (2005). User acceptance of mobile services value, ease of use, trust and ease of adoption. Finland: VTT publications. [Online] Available at: http://www.vtt.fi/inf/pdf/publications/2005/P566.pdf [Accessed June 2006]
Koegelenberg, R. (2009). Determine the barriers to the adoption of mobile Internet for purposes of bridging the Digital Divide. Empirical Research, Cape Town; Department of Information Systems, Faculty of Commerce, University of Cape Town.
Manjoo, S. & Kankwenda, G. (2007). The uses and gratifications of mobile internet in South Africa. Empirical Research, Cape Town; Department of Information Systems, Faculty of Commerce, University of Cape Town.
Marrakech, M. (2002). Partnership framework for ICT infrastructure development in Africa: Executive Summary. International Telecommunication Union. [Online] Available at: www.itu.int/ITUD/afr/projects/documents/ITU_NEPAD_Executive_Summary_final_En.pdf [Accessed June 2008]
Massey, A., Ramesh, V. & Venkatesh, V. (2003). Understanding usability in mobile commerce. Communications of the ACM, 46 (12), 55-56.
Mattila, M. (2004). Mobile banking and consumer behaviour: New insights into the diffusion pattern. Journal of Financial services Marketing, 8 (4), 354- 366
Minges, M. (1999). Mobile cellular communications in the Southern African region. Telecommunications Policy, 23, 585-593.
Minges, M., Gray, V. & Tayob, M. (2004). The Fifth Pillar: Republic of Mauritius ICT Case Study. International Telecommunication Union. [Online] Available at: www.itu.int/itudoc/gs/promo/bdt/cast_int/86187.html [Accessed June 2008]
Miemoukanda, M. (2010). Mauritian mobile communications market to reach $271m in 2016. Computer Business Review. [Online] Available at: http://telecoms.cbronline.com/news/mauritian-mobile-communications-market-to-reach-271m-in-2016-frost-sullivan-270710 [Accessed August 2010]
Pinheiro, R. (2003). Strong user Authentication for Electronic and Mobile Commerce. [Online] Available at: www.thebatt.com/news/2oo3/11/18/Scitech/GivingCellPhonesTheCreditTheyreDue-560890.html [Accessed April 2008]
Ramburn, A. (2007). Understanding use and adoption of mobile data services in two African countries. Masters Degree in Information Systems, Cape Town; Department of Information Systems, Faculty of Commerce, University of Cape Town.
Rouvinen, P. (2004). Diffusion of mobile telephony: Are developing countries different? Proceedings of UNU- WIDRER conference, 2004; Finland.
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Singh, I.K. (2003). Mobile commerce: Usage and usability. Proceedings of the 4th Word Wide Web Applications Conference, 4-6th September, University of Stellenbosch, Cape Town; South Africa.
Steenkamp, W. (2005). Cellphone charges far too high: Report. Weekend Argus, September 2005.
Tarasewich, P. (2003). Designing Mobile commerce applications. Communications of
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Turban, E., McLean, E., Wetherbe, J., Bolloju, N. & Davison, R. (2002). Information Technology for Management. USA: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
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Van Wyk, S. & Van Belle, J.P. (2005). Adoption Factors for Mobile Gaming in South Africa. Proceedings of the 5th International Business Information Management Conference (IBIMA), 13-15th December 2005, Cairo; Egypt.
Vecchiatto, P. (2005). Pricey broadband hampers development. IT Web, October 2005.
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9. APPENDICES
9A: Mobile Internet Spend by region
Figure 2 : Mobile Internet spend per region
Source: Patel (2008)
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9B. Modified questionnaire
Understanding Use and Adoption of Mobile Data Services in Mauritius
This survey will take approximately 20 minutes of your time. By completing this questionnaire, you give consent
to participate in this research. Please be sure that your anonymity is ensured and all answers will be treated in the
strictest confidence.
Do you have a cell phone Yes No
Do you have an active bank account Yes No
Section A
Mobile data services
(MDS)
How often do you do use the following services
through your cellular phone?
Tick the
services
which you
are using
more this
year as
compared to
last year
Tick the
services you
intend to use
more next
year as
compared to
this year
Several times a
day
Once /twice a day
2-6times
weekly
1-6times
monthly
Less than once
monthly
Never
Example (Voice
Call)
SMS (Text messaging)
Downloading ring tones and logos
Downloading Content Information such as
weather, sport and/or news
MMS (Multimedia messages)
Cell phone bankingTop up ( Re-crediting your phone through
SMS)Accessing EmailWeb browsingMobile VideoPlaying Online
GamesOnline chats such as
Msn messenger &Mxit
Section B
Questions are not applicable to this paper.
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Section D: What would PREVENT you from
using mobile data services?
Please rate the three most important factors listed below in order of importance from 1 TO
3 with 1 being the most important:
Section E: What would MAKE you use mobile
data services more often? Please rate the three most important factors listed below in order of importance from 1 TO 3 with 1 being the most
important:
Factor Ranking Factor Ranking
Nothing A wider range of services.
SpammingA new mobile handset supporting mobile commerce services
Receiving illegal and harmful content
Reliability of the services
Increased costs of services It is trendy and improves my imageBilling errors Lower price of the services
Increased awareness of the availability of services
Leaking of my personal information.
The reliability and dependability of mobile technology.
Complexity of operating the handset to perform transactions.
No internet availability at home or at work
The services do not fulfill my needs.
Higher Income
Unreliability of mobile commerce technology.
Nothing
Lack of coverage of the network in certain regions
Increased awareness of security measures provided.
Other (please state): Other (please state):
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F: Please TICK your gender? Female Male
G: Please TICK your age category?
<20 21-25 26-30 31-35 36-40 41-45 46-50 51-55 56-60 60+
H: Please TICK the most accurate category of your MONTHLY NET income (income after tax
deductions)?
<R5000 R5001-10000 R10001-15000 R15001-20000 R20001-25000 R25000+
I: Please TICK your personal computer literacy level?
J: Please TICK your occupation?
K: If you would like to receive a copy of the research results, please provide me with your e-mail
address: (Email addresses will be stored separately from the rest of the data collected).
L: Please use the space below for ANY additional comments on use and adoption of mobile data
services in Mauritius.
Thank you very much for your time and assistance
73
IFIP WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
6
74
Development, Capabilities and Technology An Evaluative Framework
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
DEVELOPMENT, CAPABILITIES AND TECHNOLOGY AN EVALUATIVE FRAMEWORK
Mathias Hatakka ([email protected])Swedish Business School at Örebro University
Rahul De' ([email protected])Indian Institute of Management Bangalore
Abstract: In this paper we present a framework to be used for evaluation of Information and Communication Technology for Development (ICT4D) projects. The framework is based on Sen´s notion of development as freedom where human capabilities and functionings are seen as key aspects to development. Sen´s capability approach presents an alternative way of seeing and evaluating development (alternative to more traditional ways of measuring development). The approach is based on expanding freedoms, or eliminating unfreedoms, for people so that they can live a life that they have reason to value. Even though Sen is referenced a lot in ICT4D literature the analysis rarely goes further then stating that Sen presents an alternative to traditional ways of development. Reasons can be that the capability approach does not specifically mention technology, in addition to the lack of guidelines presented by Sen on how to use the framework. The aim of this paper is to operationalize the evaluation process and to include a clear role for technology in Sen´s capability framework. The framework is validated with a case on distance education from Bangladesh.
Keywords: ICT4D, capability approach, evaluation, framework, education
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Development, Capabilities and Technology An Evaluative Framework
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
DEVELOPMENT, CAPABILITIES AND TECHNOLOGY AN EVALUATIVE FRAMEWORK
1. INTRODUCTION
Development is a complex term that has changed over time (Schuurman, 2000; Simon, 1997). Traditionally, development thinking focused on income and GDP per capita whereas alternative approaches focused on human development (in addition to economic development) e.g., education, healthcare, mortality (Peet, 1999). As this paper is situated in the field of information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D), we investigate how information and communication technology (ICT) can be used to foster development (Heeks, 2008; Unwin, 2009). Technology's role for development is not always clear and there is a need to explicate the meaning of development and the role of ICTs (Walsham & Sahay, 2006). ICT research in developing countries is challenged by critical issues associated with the role of technology when encountering questions on policy and practice of development (Avgerou, 2008). One such critical issue is the evaluation of ICT interventions (Heeks, 2010; Pather & Uys, 2010). Evaluation research has developed from the need of evaluating public programs of social change in order to show if services and improvement efforts were succeeding (Stufflebeam, 2001). In ICT4D there has been several attempts to develop frameworks for evaluation (see e.g. Harindranth & Sein, 2007; Heeks & Molla, 2009; Romm & Taylor, 2000; Sein, 2005; Sein & Harindranth, 2004). Despite the oftenunclear role of ICT, and many early reports on the failure of ICT4D projects (Avgerou & Walsham, 2000; Heeks, 2002), the focus in the ICT4D debate is now on how, not if, ICT can lead to development (De' & Ratan, 2009; Sein & Harindranth, 2004; Walsham, Robey, & Sahay, 2007). To help us answer the how question we turn to Amartya Sen´s capability approach. By using the capability approach as the theoretical foundation we adopt a participation evaluation approach (House, 1980) where we see evaluation as an inductive process, and as a participation exercise that is based in personal situated knowledge.
are working with and secondly, to refine our understanding of development processes to recognize . One of the most influential development theories is
Amartya Sen´s capability approach (see e.g. Sen, 1980, 1984, 1999, 2000, 2003, 2009). Sen proposed an alternative to traditional development theories by seeing development as the
reedoms. The capability approach has had an impact both on the academic community (e.g., courses, associations and conferences) and on politics (e.g. UNDPs policy making) (Robeyns, 2006). It is much used in political and economic studies and has gained someinterest in ICT4D studies. For example we find Zheng and Walsham (2008) using Sen´s writings on capability deprivation as social exclusion as a basis for their analysis of two cases, one in South Africa and one in China. The analysis is focused on capability deprivation in terms of well-being freedom and agency freedom. Madon (2004) uses Sen´s notion of capabilities to develop an evaluative framework to analyze the development impact of eGovernance projects in India.Alampay (2006) uses the capability approach to analyze the outcome of the implementation of universal access to ICT policies using survey data in the Philippines. These examples show the usefulness of the capability approach when evaluating the linkage between ICT implementations and development (as defined by Sen). Using the capability approach as an evaluative framework allows us to go beyond superficial variables of access or usage and focus on the ends instead of means, highlight the importance and variations of local conditions and understand the process of development (Gigler, 2004; James, 2006; Madon, 2004; Zheng & Walsham, 2008).
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Development, Capabilities and Technology An Evaluative Framework
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Despite the above examples, the use of Sen´s capability approach in ICT4D studies is low and reasons for that are that it is hard to apply methodologically (Zheng & Walsham, 2008), and because there is an absence of technology in Sen´s writings. There is also a deficit in a clear development focus in many ICT4D studies something which is highly needed when using the capability approach.
The aim of this paper is to develop a framework to be used for evaluation of ICT4D projects by including technology in Sen´s capability approach and by operationalizing the evaluation process.
en´s capability approach framework be
2. DEVELOPMENT AS FREEDOM
Sen´s notion of development (Sen, 1999) is inclusive. He does not specify which variables to base the evaluation of development on. This is in contrast to many other development theories that have defined variables that development should be measured by. For example economic theories measure development based on household income or gross national income (see e.g. WorldBank, 2010) and human development approaches measure literacy, nutrition, healthcare etc. (see e.g. UNDP, 2009a). Sen aims at expanding the information base for development and shifting the focus from a measurable variable to the process and the actual outcomes, i.e. the freedoms that people enjoy and have reason to value (Sen, 1999). The focus of the capability approach is the
removing unfreedoms (Sen, 1999). The shift in focus involves looking at the reasons for introducing different functions, e.g. wealth and healthcare. Internet, for instance, has gained a lot of positive attention since it makes information available for all to use. But is a constantly expanding repository of information development? In Sen´s view we instead have to ask ourselves what the reasons are for wanting more information and what we can do with it. How access to
chose. Hence, we have to look at what capabilities and functionings are enabled.
and choose between them (Sen, 1989). Capabilities are, hence, the set of functionings that persons can choose to utilize. In its most basic sense a functioning can mean to not be hungry by eating and the capability is having the means to avoid hunger (Sen, 1984) by having the choice between buying food from an income or growing your own food. A person's actual freedom is represented by
combinations of functionings, or , p.114).
The conversion of a potential functioning into a realized capability is determined by three conversion factors: personal (gender, literacy etc.), social (laws, public policies etc.) and environmental (infrastructure, resources etc.) (Sen, 1992). A strength with the capability approach is that it allows for individual diversity (Zheng, 2009) and individual variations, as well as structural differences in society, are important factors to be taken into account in evaluating development initiatives , 2007, p.4). Freedoms, consequently, involve both the process to obtain freedoms and people's opportunity to convert potential functionings into achieved functionings given their individual and social circumstances (Sen, 1999). In the analysis of development based on the freedom perspective we must therefore look at both the functions that are made available to people and their opportunity to utilize them given their specific context. The two are interrelated and in the analysis we cannot exclude one in favor of the other. As an
the analysis can show that the amount of material has increased we would be inclined to announcethe project a success. But if people lack the opportunity to convert the new material into an achieved functioning due to e.g., illiteracy or gender inequality the project would have to be considered to have failed based on the freedom approach.
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3. THE CAPABILITY APPROACH FRAMEWORK
We base the design of the framework (Figure 1) on Sen´s writings, and on operationalizations of the framework by researchers outside the field of ICT4D (e.g. Alkire, 2002, 2010; Alsop & Heinsohn, 2005; Frediani, 2010; Robeyns, 2005a, 2005b, 2006) as well as ICT4D operationalizations of the framework (e.g. Gigler, 2004; Kleine, 2010; Madon, 2004; Madon, et al., 2007; Zheng, 2009; Zheng & Walsham, 2008). Many of the operationalizations have similarities to the framework presented here but there are also differences. For example, Zheng and Walsham focus on capability deprivation and Kleine focuses on the choice aspect for human agents. In our approach we focus on the difference between potential and achieved functionings and the importance of context. We also add a role for technology in the framework. In order to validate the framework we apply it to a case in Bangladesh.
Figure 1: The capability approach framework
3.1. Intervention
The role of technology
Even though Sen does not mention technology it is not hard to fit technology into his capability approach. Technology is a commodity and just as Sen argues for seeing income as a means to development and not an end in itself (Sen, 1999) the same logic can be used for technology. Technological artifacts should not been seen as the end result, technology is a means to achieve freedom. Shipping computers to third world countries, building broadband across Africa etc. is in itself not development; it is a means to enabling people to develop. We can also argue that it is not the technology in itself that is enabling; it is the features within the technology (e.g. software applications) and the use of them that are enabling and should be the analytical level. As an example, when analyzing the impact of mobile phones for development the focus should not be on
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the technology but rather on what it enables, how different uses of mobile phone features have impacted human lives (their freedom to live a life they value). This means that evaluating the development of countries, and ranking them according to e.g. number of mobile phones reveals little in terms of development as enabling of capabilities.
Supportive functions
Only focusing on technology in the analysis would be erroneous (in most cases). Introduction of technological artifacts and applications have to be supported by non-technological functions. Computers with educational applications (that could act as a means to development) are being locked away because the teachers lack the necessary computer skills or even more fundamentally, they lack electricity. Supportive functions needed could be teacher training, training of IT support personal and improving the infrastructure.
Enabling or restricting conversion factors
Introduction of technology and applications can also have an effect on the conversion factors:
social conditions but also the personal characteristics which, in term, feed back to conversion factors and decision making mechanisms. Therefore, commodities are important for their contributions to both individual capabilities and to conversion
, p.227)
As an example, expanding Internet access will, of course, both enable functionings related to Internet access as well as improving the infrastructure (conversion factor).
In the analysis of technology as a means to enabling functionings we must therefore focus on the features within the technology that can enable capabilities, what supportive features that are needed and how they affect the conversion factors.
3.2. Functionings and the Importance of Context (Conversion Factors)
Conversion factors
Humans are diverse and have different opportunities to benefit from interventions. This is essential in our analysis of ICT4D interventions.
abilities, particular talents, proneness to illness, and so on) as well as in external circumstances (such as ownership of assets, social backgrounds, environmental
, p.xi)
In our analysis we have to take this into consideration and look at what conversion factors (personal, social and environmental) prevent individuals from expanding their capabilities. In our development projects we can either design the intervention to fit within the context or design interventions that change the context (i.e. the intervention can remedy problematic conversion factors). As an example, the technology chosen for the case study (discussed later) is mobile phones instead of the Internet. The reason is that the mobile phone infrastructure is more developed than the Internet infrastructure in the given context. Conversion factors will influence both the enablement of potential functioning and the ability of people to utilize the potential functioning i.e. their ability to make choices. What functionings the intervention enables must be evaluated within the context where it is deployed.
Potential and achieved functionings
Sen differentiates between two different outcomes: culmination outcomes (a list of capabilities without taking the process into consideration), and comprehensive outcomes (involving the process of choice) (Sen, 1997). Since functionevaluate what the intervention enables people to do and be. If the development intervention aims
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to prevent gettenabling one functioning. Additional functionings that may be enabled are literacy, sex education etc. In our analysis of functionings we have to be sensitive to the social and economical context of the intervention. If we were to develop an application for information about HIV the best option from a technical perspective may be to build an interactive website. But if the target audience does not have access to the Internet, are not trained in using the Internet or do not have electricity it will, of course, not be the best solution in the given context (if the supportive features cannot enable it). The capabilities that are enabled can either be intended or unintended (but sometimes predictable) (Sen, 1999). As an example, the introduction of mobile phones in Burma was not
capability (unintended) that the introduction of mobile phones enabled.
There is a difference between a potential functioning and an achieved functioning (Robeyns, 2005a). An intervention can enable a potential functioning but conversion factors may hinder the choices of the people to utilize it. If we, e.g., introduce better facilities and access to education for
the potential functioning into an achieved functioning may be hindered by their choices (or lack there of). They may have to work instead of going to school to help support their families or they may live in a culture where it is hard for girls to get an education etc. The choice aspect is therefore essential in the capability approach.
e outcome component will map or measure the achieved functionings ,
p.679)
In our analysis of ICT4D interventions we have to focus on both the choice aspect, (i.e. why do people chose to utilize the functioning and what prevents them from making the choice) and the outcome of their choices (i.e. expansion of peoples freedoms as achieved functioning). An achieved functioning can also have an effect on the conversion factors and enable individuals to make additional choices.
4. APPLYING THE FRAMEWORK
To validate the framework we apply it to a case that one of the authors has been involved in from 2007-2010.
4.1. Case Description
The case is in Bangladesh which is ranked as a medium human development country by UNDP (2009b). UNDP also ranks Bangladesh as one of the poorest, and most densely populated, countries in the world with a population over 150 million. The education system is segregated among poor and rich. The richest 20% of the population attend 8 years of education on average whereas the poorest 20% only attend school for 3.6 years (UNESCO, 2010). The literacy rate for the whole population is 47.9% (CIA, 2009) but for youth the literacy is over 70% (UNICEF, 2010).
Infrastructure is poorly developed in Bangladesh with insufficient power supply and poor access to Internet and computers - only 0.36% of the population are Internet users (CIA, 2009). The mobile network coverage is, however, well developed and reaches 97% of the population and 82% of the land area (Grönlund & Islam, 2008). The number of mobile phone subscribers is, however, low (29% of the population, CIA, 2009) but the number of actual users is higher as studies show that people share phones in their communities (Islam S. M. & Grönlund, 2007; ITU, 2010). At the household level it is estimated that around 90% of the people in the urban areas and 70% in the rural areas have access to a mobile phone (Grönlund & Islam, 2008). Bangladesh also has among the cheapest rates in the world for sending SMS and calling on mobile phones.
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The intervention used to validate our proposed framework is the Bangladesh Virtual Classroom (BVC). BVC is the development of a methodology and software for delivery of interactive distance education using mobile phones and TV. The aim of the project was to provide interactive education to distance students using available and appropriate technology (Andersson, 2010; Andersson & Hatakka, 2010; Grönlund & Islam, 2008). The rationale behind the development project is that communication and interaction in education is paramount to develop critical and self-reliant students (see e.g. Andersson, 2010; Freire, 1970; Hatakka, 2010). Bangladesh also suffers from low throughput in education which is said to be due to ineffective teaching methods (Grönlund & Islam, 2008).
BVC started in 2005 with the development of a methodology and software for interaction using constructivist pedagogy, as well as a teacher training program. The methodology was tested and deemed appropriate for distance education (Islam T, Rahman, & Rahman, 2006; Islam Y. M., Rahman, Rahman, & Ashraf, 2005) and in 2007 negotiations were started with Bangladesh Open University (BOU) to test the methodology on one of their courses. BOU is the only public university in Bangladesh that teaches in distance mode. The aim of BOU is to help facilitate
(BOU, 2010). For many students in rural parts of Bangladesh BOU is the only viable option to attend higher education. BOU enrolls over 250,000 students all over Bangladesh and the majority of those are located in rural areas with poor living conditions. Traditionally BOU uses radio, television and printed material in their education. In addition to broadcast lectures students also have the option to visit BOUs learning centers that are located all over Bangladesh (Andersson, 2010; Andersson & Hatakka, 2010). Students can go to the learning centers every Friday to get lectures and help from teachers; the learning centers do, however, teach the old curriculum and are not equipped with the technology needed for the BVC project.
In 2007 the software for the project was re-developed. The plan was to develop functions sostudents could, a) interact with teachers (sending in questions and comments, answering questions, sending in homework etc.), b) interact with the course material (take self quizzes, download text paragraphs etc.) and c) interact with peers (learning partner assignments and homework). With the
In the fall of 2008 BOU agreed to test the methodology on a Higher Secondary Education course. Five teachers were selected to teach the course and a workshop was held to explain the BVC methodology and technology. The teachers were also trained in writing scripts for the recordings of the interactive lessons. The BOU teachers were not used to talking to students directly as their main teaching duties consisted of providing students with printed material and recording radio or TV lectures. Neither the teachers nor the students were used to interactive education as Bangladesh traditionally adopts a transmitting and authoritarian pedagogy (Andersson & Hatakka, 2010) which can be traced back to the British colonial era (Heitzman & Worden, 1989). Therefore, in addition to introducing new technology for interaction in education the project also had to change the pedagogical culture (Andersson, 2010). Lack of computer literacy was also a challenge for the teachers, all of them had used computers, but to a limited extent. In early 2009, 28 interactive lessons were recorded and broadcast to the students at 07.00 am every Saturday.
4.2. Analysis of the Result of BVC
Intervention
Most of the planned technological features were developed but with one exception. The functions to enable collaboration among peers were tested in the initial recordings but not implemented in the final version.
The supportive intervention was workshops with teachers so they could use the technology and teach according to the new pedagogy. This was done on several occasions. First, material for
nd, several workshops were
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held with the teachers to teach them how to interact, how to write scripts for interactive teaching etc. Several test recordings were also made and analyzed. The plan was also to equip learning centers with technology needed to teach the new pedagogy and curriculum. This was, however, abandoned and the project relied on the learning centers traditional facilities and teaching methods.
Capability Set
The potential functionings that the system supported was that it enabled students to interact with teachers using SMS (asking questions, answering broadcast questions, sending in comments, submitting homework etc.). It also enabled students to assess their learning by taking quizzes after each lecture (i.e. testing if they had understood the lecture) and access content for self studies (e.g. download short paragraphs for reading comprehension). By submitting homework to teachers it also enabled a validation of the knowledge. The potential functionings were, however, restricted by a number of conversion factors. First, the TV lessons were not broadcast live (since national regulations prevented this) which resulted in less interactivity with teachers as the functions that were planned to be live where only simulated (i.e. broadcast lectures gave the appearance of live interaction). Teachers also lacked a user-friendly interface for adding and updating content on the server which had an effect on both the teacher-student interaction (teachers had no easy way to see what students asked or reply to their questions and submissions). It also limited the amount of content for students to use for self assessment and learning as there was no intuitive way for teachers to add more content. Even though this clearly was a mistake in the intervention it can also be ascribed to teachers' computer illiteracy. As the supportive function to equip learning centers with the appropriate technology was abandoned students had to rely on their own access to the needed technology. The mobile infrastructure in Bangladesh is fairly well developed but the lack of supportive tools for students did prevent some students from using the system (e.g. due to their financial situation).
Choice and achieved functionings
into achieved functionings were hindered by an additional number of conversation factors. As the technology for educational purposes as well as the concept of interactive education were new to both students and teachers the conversion factors of technologStudents were neither used to interactive education nor to the use of technology in education. Students were quick to adapt to the new technology but observations of their interaction revealed that they had a hard time adapting to the new pedagogy. They chose to use it according to their
thinking for themselves they were more prone to just repeat what the teacher had just said. So even though the system enabled new means of interaction it did not necessarily enable the functionings that were intended (i.e. in accordance with a constructive pedagogy). They were dependent on the teacher and knowledge. Their deeply rooted pedagogical culture determined how they chose to use the system. The plan was to let the learning centers help students with the new pedagogy, but since this was not achieved the students were left on their own. As the learning centers did not teach the new
Even though their use was limited the system did have an unintended consequence as students felt more prone to interact with teachers. Some students expressed that they previously were too shy to approach teachers but the technology allowed them to hide and remain anonymous.
The TV-lessons were aired at 07.00 am on Saturdays and students that worked or had other engagements were unable to view the lessons. When they had the choice between viewing the lessons on TV or earn a living they of course chose the latter. The time was set by Bangladesh National TV so the implementation of the program was restricted by their regulations. The plan was to let the learning centers show the lessons from a DVD but it was not made available.
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Due to lack of functionality and content in the system students also, after initially trying it, chose not to continue using it. They did not feel that they gained anything from it that they could not learn by just watching the lessons and reading the text books. Hence, they did not have any incentives to use the system and did not feel that the costs for sending SMS were worth it. As both the pedagogy and tools were new to them it was planned to make interaction via SMS mandatory to pass the course, thereby, enabling them to see the benefits of the interaction. This was howevernot possible due to university regulations so the interaction remained optional for students and teachers.
Lesson learnt
The project was too focused on the actual system and did not sufficiently address the conversion factors needed to make the project successful. Pedagogical training was needed for students and the project had to support the low computer literacy among the teachers. National and University regulations were also a hindrance for the project. Many of those could, however, have been avoided by supportive interventions. Equipping learning centers with the appropriate tools and technologies would have made it possible for students to take the interactive classes at a time that was more convenient for them. We also underestimated the importance of the traditional educational culture in Bangladesh which is deeply rooted in the students mind.
5. CONCLUSION
If the test case was analyzed from a technological perspective the project could be seen as successful. The system and the methodology was developed, tested, and implemented. Interactive lessons were recorded and broadcasted on Bangladesh National TV. However, when we analyze the project using the capability approach we can see that few new functionings were made available and even fewer were utilized by the students. The capability approach thus allows us to go beyond superficial variables of technology implemented and focus on actual outcomes. In order to capture which capabilities that are enabled and what contextual factors which may influence boincluding the socio-cultural conditions of the users (i.e. demographics, infrastructure, location, economic situations etc.). When applying the framework to the case we can see that not enough attention was given to the context of the students, the intervention was focused on the technology and the teachers. The analysis also shows that just because an option is made available (as a potential functioning) it does not necessarily mean that students gain any value from it (achieved functioning). In our example we can see that students chose not to view the interactive lessons at 7 am because the alternative, to earn a living, has a greater payoff for them. In this case we can even question if viewing the lessons is an actual choice they have, the social and economic context of the students may prevent enabling of an achieved functioning. In our analysis we must, hence, be sensitive to which choices people actually have and not just what choices are made available.
When using the capability approach we also have to take a bottom-up approach. Which
means that the analysis has to be individualistic as there will be variations within otherwise heterogeneous groups (both in term of which capabilities they value and what factors that hinders their choices). In our test case we can see that students used the system (although limited) but they did not use it as intended by the designers. Hence, the achieved functionings were based on their context, their choice and their ability to use the system as they deemed appropriate. If the project were analyzed strictly from the intended consequences of the use the achieved functionings would most likely be ignored (as they were not in line with the aim of the project). The framework helps us to capture the students use based on their context and their appropriation of the system. Using abottom-up approach we can capture the functionings that the system actually enabled and not just how the outcome maps against the implemented intervention.
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The framework presented is relevant for both academia and practice. For academia the framework presents a better lens for analysis. Better in the sense that we focus on ends and not means, the project is viewed within the context where it is deployed and we gain a better understanding of why and how development come about. As the test case shows, we have to look at the whole process and the actual outcomes of our development efforts. For practice it can be used when
aspects of the intervention, including the context (conversion factors) and the notion of choice.
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IFIP WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
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POWER / KNOWLEDGE AND IMPACT ASSESMENT: SOME
CONSIDERATIONS FOR ICT4D RESEARCH
Niall Hayes
Organisation, Work and Technology
Lancaster University
Lancaster
UK
Chris Westrup
Manchester Business School,
University of Manchester,
Manchester
UK
Abstract: This paper seeks to contribute to an emerging debate on impact assessment in the domain of information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) from a conceptual standpoint and, hopefully, stimulate further questioning and discussion. Drawing on the literature and some aspects of
, we reflect on the ways in which impact assessment may come to shape the nature and scope of ICT4D projects. We focus our attention to the processes of how development is practiced and its importance for ICT4D outcomes. Specifically, we consider the role of methodologies and upstream agencies and argue that impact assessment offers the potential to substantially transform power knowledge relations between donors, NGOs, those working in specific context and the beneficiaries themselves. Overall, we will suggest that impact assessment may come to offer a new and subtle form of control that may shape how we may come to understand and undertake development. Based on this analysis, we draw recommendations for the future use of impact assessment in the domain of ICT4D and implications for future research.
Keywords: impact assessment, power, knowledge, donors, information and communication technologies
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POWER / KNOWLEDGE AND IMPACT ASSESMENT: SOME CONSIDERATIONS
FOR ICT4D RESEARCH
1. INTRODUCTION
The importance of impact assessment to information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) is perhaps like motherhood and apple pie: a principle that few would disagree with. It is generally lamented for its absence and recent studies identify its importance and provide useful reviews of what techniques are available and thecharacteristics they possess (see Heeks and Molla 2009; Duncombe 2009). The purpose of this paper is different and seeks to contribute to theorising an emerging debate on the role of impact assessment in development (see Green 2009). For example, Richard Heeks (2008: 33) argues that a focus on impact assessment is characteristic of the latest trend in ICT4D and marks the latest interest in a trajectory of past concerns with readiness, availability, and more recently, uptake. In this paper, we take impact assessment and discussions of its utility for ICT4D as the object of interest and, in doing so, turn attention to the processes of how development is practiced and its importance for ICT4D outcomes.
Much of the literature on impact studies can perhaps be characterised as being preoccupied with unravelling the consequences of binary classifications. A central, and important, argument sees impact assessment as being too techno-centric and, as a consequence, argues that more attention should be paid to the social (Duncombe 2009). Another critique sees it as a supply driven and suggests that the demand side of ICT4D has to be addressed (Madon 2004). A somewhat bleaker assessment takes impact assessment as tyranny and looks instead towards understanding development as the creation of capabilities (Kleine 2010). A further binary questions the timescale of impact assessment and counterpoises the short-termism of most impact assessment with a call to understand the longer term implications of ICT4D (Madon 2004). These binary classifications can be taken further: for instance by arguing thatimpact assessment has to focus on imagined impacts of ICT4D and is ill-equipped to measure or perhaps even recognise the revolutionary consequences of such development. The upshot is that impact assessment is generally considered as a technique whose utility may be improved, but with little attention to how these techniques are both processes and outcomes of, what we can call the practices of development.
Highlighting the importance of ascertaining impact has been the significant investment made by donor organisations on ICT in development. Impacts are seen as ways to seek first to identify what the aims of specific projects should be prior to their inception so as to rank and prioritise the potential finding of different projects. Secondly, impact assessmentcan also be undertaken once a project has reached a particular mile stone or been completed to identify if the aims of the projects were met, and in so doing, if the money invested has had the expected benefits.
This paper reflects on the ways in which impact assessment may come to shape the nature and scope of ICT4D projects. In line with the theme of this conference, we argue that actors such as NGOs are central to this shaping process. The paper begins with a short review of a literature on the management of impact assessment in ICT4D. As a contribution to this literature, the paper proposes that more attention is needed on how impact assessment is practiced and, drawing on Foucault (1977a), on how certain facts become the key means by which impact is to be measured. The next section of the paper discusses the ways in which impact assessment constitutes a particular understanding of development, and especially we focus on the role of methodologies and upstream agencies in this such as NGOs and donors
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before drawing recommendations for the future use of impact assessment in ICT4D andimplications for research.
2. RECENT LITERATURE ON IMPACTASSESSMENT IN ICT4D
Impact assessment refers to identifying what the outcomes might be if no changes are made, and then compared with first the impacts that are forecast (based on previous data), andsecondly, the actual impacts that arise. Impact assessment then is a process, often a methodology, that aims to identify the social and economic impacts of planned or the actual impacts of a development initiative (Kirkpatrick & Hulme (2001:2). More specifically, inrelation to mobile technology, based on Heeks & Molla (2009), Richard Duncombe (2009: 4)identified three areas of impact that arise when assessing a project that has taken place. He
first, the immediate outputs associated with the intervention, defined as micro-
level changes (in behaviour or practices) that are associated with use of mobile phones;
second, the resultant and more immediate outcomes, defined as measurable differences in
cost and benefit associated with the intervention of mobile phones; and third, broader and
longer term impacts, defined as the contribution of the mobile phone intervention to broader
development goals such as the growth or decline in socio-economic indicators (e.g., income
or equity).
Impact assessments have been noted to have ranged both in terms of their qualitative and quantitative scales, not to mention their overall guiding aims and principles. Duncombe (2009) highlights a number of different types of impact assessment. Briefly, his summary highlights how quantitative impact assessment seeks to provide quantifiable and comparable measures of impact based on survey and questionnaire data. Such data is assumed to provide
The aim here is to identify and objectify casual relationships, and findings that may be comparable and thus replicated across different populations. Qualitative impact assessment is noted as requiring an ethnographic and detailed account of the particular project and in doing so is likely to provide results that can identify issues and impacts that may be overlooked with quantifiable impact assessments. Mixed methods, combine quantitative assessment of impact through surveys, though on a smaller scale than quantitative assessments, and also seek to expand and verify such survey results through interviews, which, of course, are not at the level of detail of qualitative impact assessment.
Duncombe highlights that impacts can vary greatly depending on what it are we are trying to identify. With regard to mobile phone use he highlights that outcomes of projects can be more easily identified such as the opening up of a new channel of communication, but what use is actually made of this and the costs and benefits associated with the actual use is likely to be more challenging. Duncombe also implies that when we are deciding what constitutes an impact, choosing the variable(s) to assess impact upon is fundamental, again being it cost, channels or the use of information. This is noted by Duncombe (2009:measurement of impact is generally more straightforward when focused on a single area and comprising a limited number of variables (e.g., solely economic impact) rather than multiple areas (e.g., social, economic and cultural impact), which while desirable may present significant methodological challenges. While not specifically related to ICT4D, Heathfield et al. (1999) argue that there may be many unrecognised and less direct impacts that contribute to those impacts identified as being observed related to the phenomenon being measured. As such clearly identifying variables is not as straight forward as Duncombe suggests. Indeed, some of the broader IS literature highlights that as outcomes of projects are
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often emergent and unintentional, identifying impacts to be assessed is highly limited (Heathcoate et al, 1998; Klecun and Cornford, 2005).
As well as literature that has examined the methodological basis of impact assessment, many commentators are clear that ICT can have a significant impact on development. For example, Heeks (2010) highlighted that impact assessment of the Bhoomi project in India, an e-government project that includes issuing land ownership certificates to farmers who need these to obtain bank loans highlighted that IT cut error rates and improved service quality. Heeks argues that there is a need for objective research that can measure the impacts of projects. He goes on to argue that while there are many successes we need to be cautious about over exaggerating claims for new technological developments. Indeed, Heeks (2010) highlights that there is a lot of discussion about the role of web 2.0 in development, but much of this is long on media hype and public relations efforts but short on facts and figures
about actual impacts how many poor people actually involved; how much money saved;
how much income generated
ranging impacts as they are more readily accessible than many other existing technologies the tools for a digital economy are now and will increasingly be in the hands
ng to international development and necessitate new ways of assessing impact.
A related theme to emerge in the impact assessment literature has been the technological focus of much of the writing (Klecun and Cornford, 2005). Indeed, this is not restricted to the ICT4D literature but is also endemic in the information systems literature more broadly,as is captured by Klecun and Cornford (2005) performance, reliability, robustness and security, cost-benefit, and immediate questions of
In relation to the ICT4D literature, Lee et al (2008) found that impact assessment in South Korea highlighted user dissatisfaction and low usage rates. They argued that thiswas due to the projects being largely focusing on hardware and software developments and in so doing neglected the specific social/cultural context. This then highlights the importance of the designer user gap in part, and associatedly, the dominance of technological knowledge indevelopment projects. Technological determinism is thus a key dimension when considering impact (Heeks, 2002; Avgerou, 2002). Avgerou and McGrath (2007) argue that such technological and rational knowledge is dominant within both information systems and management interventions and while acknowledging that it is hard to displace, they advocatethe questioning such rationality.
In relation to mobile technology, Duncombe (2009) argues that donors have an increasing influence on the requiring an assessment of the effects of the investment of money and time into such projects. Donors are most typically national governments, groupings of national governments, international organisations such as the World Bank, or large not for profit development organisations. ICTs have come to form a central platform for the development agenda as they are viewed by donors as a means for developing nations to leapfrog the normal time period that industrialisation took in advanced industrialised countries (Walsham and Sahay 2006). Madon (1999) argues that donors have become increasing powerful in deciding the priorities and shape of specific projects. She suggests that many donors frame NGOs as implementers of their development projects, and consequently, decide the problems to be addressed, the funds allocated and thus the impacts that they expect to achieve. Further, often multiple donors will pool their funding for a particular project, which has led some to be concerned that NGOs are becoming more accountable to foreign donors who provide their funding rather than to the specific development context. This, Lewis & Madon (2004)
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suggest, has led to excessive accountability upward and too little downward (see also Madon & Sahay, 2002). Madon (1999) argues that even though donors have demanded impact assessment, NGOs have been inadequate in measuring and providing evidence of the outcomes and impacts of their interventions (Lewis & Madon, 2004). This has led to the call for more sophisticated methods of impact assessment. ICTs are often central aspects of impact assessment as they provide the potential to provide detailed performance data about the potential impact and actual impact of specific projects and NGOs more generally. Duncombe (2009) explains that this is likely to lead to an increased reliance on being accountable for all the resources allocated by donors. Further, Duncombe argues that otherdonors in the mobile phone industry such as hardware suppliers or consulting organisations, not to mention the local project organisation itself are also keen for an assessment of the impact their contributions have made. Heeks (2002) expands on this by noting those seeking
tend to mimic their views and messages
secure funding for their project application. Some of the critical information systems literature would concur with this point. For example, Klecun and Cornford (2005) have pointed to the importance of recognising the political nature of evaluation. They argue that any evaluation is made in relation to different stakeholders and thus will often be shaped by their interests and expectations. Klecun and Cornford (2005) concluded their review of the
socially and historically conditioned
They further argue that as evaluations are inherently political, there is a need to question the accepted assumptions and beliefs associated with evaluations, highlighting that: evaluation
may then be conceived as some corrupted or impotent process, for example as a tactic of
Nonetheless, the current literature on impact assessment in ICT4D largely supports their introduction and use. Discussion usually centres on which assessment measure to be used, and, as yet, no definitive assessment measure has been advocated. Instead, debate has centred on the merits and problems of a range of measures (Heeks & Molla 2009) and acceptance that an awareness of context is important in deciding on which impact measures are appropriate for specific situations. What underlies much of the debate is agreement on a specific understanding of the role of ICT4D which is summed up as an input process output assessment model (for a recent example see Heeks & Molla 2009: 2). Elements of debate on impact assessment focus on the scope of this model discussed above as a set of binary classifications: should the model focus on technologies or on social consequences; is it supply or demand driven; are the impacts short term or long term; is this model one of imposition or freeing from constraints? At this stage it is easy to recognise such a model fosters a supply driven; project focused; short term, and technological approach that can demonstrate and justify its intervention through impact assessment. It supports a view of a dominant rationality that underpins information systems and management practices, and as such tends to neglect a thorough examination of power dynamics. Further as Avgerou and McGrath (2007) note, due to the dominance of such rational knowledge there is the assumption that ofessionals are responsible for determining desirable goals through
technical/rational knowledge and practice and thus create a dysfunctional attitude of
Indeed, critics of such a deterministic and rational approaches to development are numerous (Escobar 1995). As Easterly (2007: 321) puts it
questioning such planning the key to unlocking the problem of impact assessment? Easterly thinks so and argues for a freeing of development from extensive planning. The next section seeks to theorise how the dominance of planning for impact assessment creates its own measures.
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3. THEORETICAL UNDERPINNINGS: POWER/KNOWLEDGE
In developing our positioning of impact assessment in the context of ICT4D, we are reminded of some earlier work in the development studies literature. Implicitly or explicitly,this literature has drawn on the work of Foucault (1977a;1977b) to argue that, rather than focusing on the development and ongoing revision of methodologies and techniques in the context of development, more fundamental is the questioning of the knowledge claims and discourses that techniques such as impact assessment assume (Cooke and Kothari, 2001; Mosse, 2001). Mosse (2001:33), for example, has highlighted that the demand for projects to be accountable to external agencies has led to them orienting themselves around the requirements of external agencies such as donors rather than around the operations of a specific project. Similarly, Cooke and Kothari (2001:14) argue that much of the development studies literature has been naive with regard to the complexities of power relations between facilitators and participants, and between donors and beneficiaries. They argue that such relations constitute knowledge and social norms. More specifically, Lewis and Mosse (2006) claim that the prioritizing of specific methods (e.g. impact assessment) should be viewed withsuspicion as they constitute techniques of control and normalisation. We will similarly drawupon the work of Foucault to consider the ways in which ICT4D may better attend to power knowledge relations (Taylor, 2001).
Foucault (1977a) links power and knowledge by way of discourse found in what he terms dispositif or apparatus. This is a heterogeneous collection of discourses, institutions, laws, scientific statements whose interrelationships form a way of understanding, intervening and seeking to control what happen. He argues that power, knowledge and truth are co-constitutive and as such discourse should not be considered to be value free (Foucault, 1977b; Knights, 2004; Willcocks, 2004). Further, as these discourses are drawn upon by others, they may shape their knowledge and possibilities for action (Introna, 2003; Introna & Whittaker, 2004). Foucault (1977a) argues that it is in these relationships that certain regimes of truth become dominant in an institution or society. He contends that the production and reproduction of each regime of truth is tied to institutionally specific power relations, mechanisms, procedures, and rules that distinguish true and false statements. Thus truth is not considered something that is universal, but is taken to be true within a specific institution (or part of) (Foucault, 1977a). Relevant to impact assessment models, Introna & Whittaker (2004) argue that we cannot separate facts from the values and mechanisms that
they become constituted as facts through processes, procedures
and discursive practices that produce them and are likewise produced by them Theyexplain that, in modern society, regimes of truth attach importance to scientific method as the way to produce facts are valued higher than regimes that emphasise intuition and produce speculation. Truth is thus produced within regimes that are considered legitimate during particular epochs (Foucault, 1977b; Willcocks, 2004). Foucault (1977a) also highlights that discourses that prevail in a regime of truth need not necessarily be accepted by all or even the majority with a specific institution, and that there will always be visible or invisible resistance by those with diverging interests and values. Indeed, Foucault (1977a) sees competition among disciplines for defining what is considered as truth as being conflicts of power rather than necessarily intellectual debates. These activities may produce changes in what are considered to be legitimised truth claims.
Consequently we argue that impact assessment represents an important element of a dispositif
or regime of truth that frames possibilities for ICT4D, and as such is central in understanding how and why specific projects may operate (or not) in the ways that they do.
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4. DISCUSSION: POWER / KNOWLEDGE AND IMPACT ASSESSMENT
This discussion section will examine the degree to which impact assessment models may function as a disciplinary technology that supports a new regime of truth. We will suggest that impact assessment offers the potential to substantially transform power knowledge relations between donors, NGOs, those working in specific context and the beneficiaries themselves. Overall we will argue that impact assessment may come to offer a new and subtle form of control that will shape how we may come to understand and undertake development.Specifically we will consider the role of ICTs in this.
Methodologies and the legitimating of impacts
The literature review highlighted that many scholars consider impact assessment to be alargely methodological concern. This first discussion section will argue that this methodological focus has meant that little attention has been paid to the ways in which impact assessment methodologies constitute a new regime of truth for ICT4D and if so what the implications may be? It is important to recognise that knowledge claims (or facts) such as assessments of impact are legitimated value choices. Methodologies act as mechanisms to establish facts that are legitimated through the processes and discursive practices that produce them and are likewise produced by them. This is akin to the ways in which a balance sheet is accorded a truth in a way that less formalised financial representations are not. The balance sheet then frames the possibilities for alternate values such as environmental concerns or family friendly work policies etc. In the same way impact assessment methodologies provide a specific rationale or logic that legitimises certain ways of speaking about ICT4D and in undertaking work over others (Foucault, 1980). Thus, in line with Lewis and Mosse (2006), we claim that the prioritising of different methods and methodologies constitutes techniques of control and thus should be examined critically.
Importantly, such ways of speaking and doing have been pervasive for some time in bothprivate and public sector organisations. The acceptance of the values and techniques of impact assessment in these other sectors is likely to support their claims to their legitimacy as they are reembedded in the development sector. Indeed, Brigham and Hayes (2007)highlighted that private sector consulting methods such as value management are becoming often attractive to development sector organisation such as NGOs. Their study discussed the implications for a public sector value model being transferred and modified for the development sector by a global management consultancy. They claimed that such a model represented a technology of control that embedded specific design decisions that were oriented towards those that fund the projects rather than the needs of specific development locations.
ICTs are likely to form a central part of legitimating these ways of speaking about and doing development work as they are often inextricably interlinked with the operationalisation of methodologies. ICTs can play a significant role in establishing knowledge claims (or facts)as they allow for the calculation and comparison of various measures of impact, as well as for discussion and dissemination. ICTs can render impacts explicit in a way that they may not have previously been. Further, such a proxy can become claims to (and sometimes measures of) success. For example, M-PESA, which is a mobile banking initiative first funded by DFID and Vodafone that initially sought to encourage entrepreneurship in rural Kenya, greatstore was made of the 11 million customer base that was established in the first three years. However, what is less clear is whether M-PESA has benefited poverty reduction (as it originally aimed to) in rural Kenya. Impact assessment may come to emphasise knowledge
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claims that are highly tangible and thus able to provide facts that can support claims of impact (or not). Conversely, impact assessment methodologies may well come to marginalise less tangible impacts, those impacts that are more perceptible rather than quantifiable such as changing mindsets and ethos. Thus, the techniques and the ability torecord and manipulate impact related data make ICTs central to operationalisng impact assessment methodologies. ICTs provide a basis for an ongoing fostering of accountability around development projects and offer the potential to provide for what Rose (1999:135)refers to as a seemingly objective and an regime of visibility. ICTs then act as aspecific mechanism that reinforces the knowledge claims of impact assessment.
As well as ICTs, the power knowledge claims of impact assessment methodologies are reinforced as a consequence of those undertaking particular roles and the legitimacy these roles provide. Professionals such as accountants, auditors, consultants and academics are all involved in varying ways with devising models of impact, advising on impact assessment methodologies, or auditing and reporting on the impacts of specific projects. They are typically employed by NGOs or donor agencies such as DFID or the World Bank. Their legitimacy adds to the apparently objective status of impact assessment methodologies.
One concern that may arise from the pervasiveness of impact assessment methodologies andtheir truth claims are the ways in which they may marginalise and /or be unable to account for emergence, improvisation and change within development projects. Indeed, the fluidity of technology has been an important theme in the ICT4D literature to date. This literature has highlighted that the same technology can be fluid enough to be made to work for manydifferent groups and in many unexpected ways over time. Both the M-PESA case and the well known Zimbabwe bush pump case have highlighted the importance of attending to the fluid nature of work and technology (de Laet and Mol 2000). de Laet and Mol argued that the bush pump could simultaneously be a tool to provide water, improve health and buildcommunity (as it became a focus point for the villagers to gather around). The pump was also easily maintained and changed by the locals due to its design being based on theiravailable natural resources. M-PESA similarly came to be viewed and utilised in a number of different ways. Safaricom viewed it as a payment service, Vodafone as a potentially competitive international payment system while DFID considered M-PESA to assist rural Kenyans to access micro-credit (Hayes and Westrup 2010). What is important to note from these two well known examples is that M-PESA and the Zimbabwean bush pump may nothave emerged in the ways that they did if they had been put into place under a regime of impact assessment. Impact assessors would have required the expected impacts to be specified in advance which would have very much constrained the possibilities for divergence and the emergence of unexpected developments.
The technologies of impact assessment (methodologies, performance indicators, monitoring and contracts) will have strong normalising and disciplinary effects (Avgerou and McGrath,2007). The perceived requirement to adhere to the regime of truth of impact assessment may lead to some negative and contradictory consequences for development projects. For example, Rajão and Hayes (2009) claimed that in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, the goal of reducing poverty in the Amazon region, and the goal of ecological preservation were sometimes in direct conflict with each other. Projects that were put into place to alleviate poverty led to increased deforestation as local inhabitants sought to clear the forest so as to plant crops, graze cattle and / or sell the timber. Conversely, those who were seeking to reduce deforestation were contributing to poverty in the region. In this sense the strong disciplinary effects of the technologies of impact assessment, most notably methodologies
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may lead to apparent positive impacts in one area of development, while inadvertently (perhaps) lead to negative impacts in others (e.g. deforestation).
Overall, we argue that the unanticipated acceptance of methodologies of impact assessment, the pervasive nature of the techniques and apparatus that allow for it (measurement and comparison of impacts) represents the emergence of an important and increasingly dominant regime of impact assessment. The ways in which such a new knowledge claim has established itself, and the ways in which ICTs are implicated in this is central to ourunderstanding of development, e.g. development must have identifiable impacts. One important implication is that while the literature to date has focussed on reviewing methodologies and identifying ways to better capture impact, such debates are already bound by a regime of truth that considers impact assessment in the context of ICT4D as beinglegitimate. This highlights the importance of critically questioning these truth claims thatimpact assessment methodologies reinforce.
Recovering the of impact assessment models
Having established the disciplinary and normalising implications of impact assessment, one important area of future research is to ascertain the assumptions of those directly and indirectly involved in development (e.g. donors, suppliers, NGOs). Crucial here would be to recover their assumptions about what they would consider a positive impact to be by deconstructing the impact assessment models and the technologies that are developed tocollect data. In this sense we are following the call of Avgerou and McGrath (2007) to question the rationalistic and technically oriented knowledge that underpins much information systems and management practice. In one sense,design reality gap, but the intention here is different (cf. Heeks 2002). Rather than identifying a gap between designs, lived reality and implementation of projects, the call here is to recover how intervention is framed in the first instance. Rajão and Hayes (2009) argue that recovering the differing assumptions of those implicated in a particular project requires a longitudinal focus. Their institutional analysis found that the changing assumptions about the role of information technology in the Amazon emerged, formed and changed dramatically over a forty year period. Initially they highlighted that technology was seen as a way to preserve the national sovereignty of the forest, then as a way to support the economic development of the region, and more recently has come to be oriented towards the environmental protection of the forest. The monitoring system was modelled over time to incorporate these different truth claims, and to provide a mechanism to give the monitoring system legitimacy during these different epochs. Such an analysis of the dominant assumptions may reveal the tensions and political negotiations that take place between different claims of knowledge, and the technologies that sustain and potentially erode them.An alternative approach to recovering how intervention is framed can draw on discourse analysis as Mark Thompson did for a speech made by James Wolfensohn as president of the World Bank (Thompson 2004), but the call here is wider to include how development is practiced. In such an analysis impact assessment techniques are both an outcome of and part of a process of development as seen above in the input process output assessment model of ICT4D.
Power, donors and a new regime of truth
We argue that the introduction of impact assessment may lead to changes in power relations that favour upstream donors and NGOs. This, we suggest, represents a new form of discipline in ICT4D projects (Lyon, 1994; Zuboff, 1988). Such new forms of accountability are likely to expand in their effect and their requirements as impact assessment legitimates
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itself as a necessity for every development project. Consequently impact assessment is alluring to both donors and NGOs alike as it reduces the unpredictability associated with the funding and reporting of development projects. The disciplinary nature of impact assessment
as it provides a way to legitimate their activities and their past, current and future funding. However, in doing so it comes to provide a basis for a new form of knowledge and authority pertaining to development projects, that is very much north south oriented. Such a view of knowledge is also emphases a technical and rational view of knowledge which, as we have seen earlier, isdifficult to displace (Avgerou and McGrath, 2007). There is a danger that impact assessment
- the realities of the development context and the range of actors as Easterly (2006) contends. Thus, impact assessment may come to overstate the importance of satisfying upstream donors, rather than attending to the specificities of particular projects.
Overall, our discussion highlights the political nature of impact assessment models (Klecun and Cornford, 2005). They are closely aligned to upstream donor expectations rather than necessarily the needs in specific countries and particular contexts. In this sense, they represent a regime of truth within the development sphere (see Dar & Cooke 2008). Impact assessment represents the introduction of a discourse that is very much legitimated by donors. This discourse is highly political as it has come to shape what activities and discourses are considered legitimate from those that are not, or no longer, considered legitimate (Avgerouand McGrath, 2007). This discourse privileges formal measures of impact, and, in so doing,as impact assessment becomes more and more established, seeks to marginalise informal measures of impact, and accounts that cannot identify a direct impact. Impact assessment models, and other related performance data are central in this as they serve as mechanisms that allow for the dominant impact assessment discourse to be routinely reinforced and verified as being the legitimate discourse. Such technologies also specify what is considered illegitimate practice, namely development work that can not specify before and after the impacts that it has had. Donors play a vital role in this, as the funders for development
and meeting their criteria for development. If the assessment of impacts was not sanctionedby donors, then this would require a revaluation of which and how impacts are to be identified by an NGO. Importantly, it may take away the assessment of impacts from those directly working in a developing context, to those working for an NGO who are expert
who are able to legitimately undertake an evaluation. Thisthen legitimates the establishment of this new regime of impact assessment, but, at the same time, may delegitimize the perspectives of those working directly in the development context.
Strengths and limitations of impact assessment
The motivation of impact assessment could be seen as mainly beneficial; providing objective measures of the intervention of ICT4D in the absence of a lack of measurement or on small case studies (Heeks, 2008). It does have a number of limitations. Conceptually, impact assessment is wedded to an approach that tends to structure and privilege information for those providing resources. Impact assessment is arguably as much about justifying donor
number of broadband connections or mobile phones (see UNCTAD 2010) exemplify such an approach yet when officthat this remains largely unknown (UNCTAD Official, pers. comm, 2010). More studies are needed that look in depth at how programmes such as M-PESA are working. How such studies are crafted is important too.
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One feature of a project based model of ICT4D remains the implicit (and often explicit) emphasis on technologies. The study of M-PESA shows that technologies are a necessary but not sufficient condition for the growth of mobile banking in Kenya. Other issues were important such as banking regulation, the urban/rural dynamics in Kenya, the role of Safaricom and so on (Hayes & Westrup 2010). In short, a model of input process output
assessment model needs rethinking as it implicitly takes technologies qua information as the key variable (see Jensen, 2007). As studies have shown replicating the success of examples such as M-PESA have had mixed results indicating that probably much more is involved than the presence or absence of a specific technology or the associated information (see Camner & Sjöblom 2007).
It is important to remember that as power is relational, a discourse of impact assessment is liable to be questioned and resisted overtly or implicitly by those with diverging values. Such resistance will be ongoing. Resistance is likely to question the degree to which an impact assessment model can capture the impacts in local context and represent them for others far removed? To what degree can the identified impacts really account for the work that makes a project successful to whatever extent to the beneficiaries? Many unexpected outcomes canarise in development projects, as M-PESA shows, and thus it is crucial that impact assessment models are not blind to the emergence of new practices.
What can be done?
The analysis presented here can be summarised as proposing three courses of action for future ICT4D research. In practical terms, we suggest that techniques such as impact analysis come as part of a dispositif or regime of truth. The first issue for research must be to uncover how problems and solutions for ICT4D are framed in specific projects. What is seen as the problem; how is technology to be used; whose resources are being applied; what impacts are envisaged are some of the many questions necessary to understand the framing of specific interventions. In this sense we advocate the critical questioning of the dominance of the current discourse of impact assessment (Avgerou and McGrath, 2007) A second issue is how can this research be done? We have argued elsewhere (Hayes and Westrup 2010) that this requires a combination of detailed/ethnographic engagement coupled with investigation of how categories such as markets, development, etc. are used and reproduced in those settings. Using a different language, this is an attempt toand show how they relate. Finally, we should not be misunderstood as dismissing impact analysis. It is an important technique, but the contribution here is that the managerial deployment of such a technique needs to be complemented by a research understanding of how techniques are brought together to form, as Foucault might have called it, dispositifs.
We suggest that this research understanding is important in identifying features that make ICT4D projects successful and give insights into how such success may be replicated.
5. CONCLUSION
The premise of this paper is that the concepts of ICT4D need continuing investigation and debate. Just as neutrality of technologies is now widely recognised as a myth, concepts in ICT4D are loaded entities bearing a history of assumptions that, in themselves, may need re-evaluation if the contribution of ICT4D is to be improved. Impact assessment is one such conceptualisation. An important literature is emerging that analyses impact assessment as a repertoire of techniques with accompanying strengths and weaknesses. This paper, in contrast, seeks to identify some of the assumptions common to many impact assessmenttechniques and outline appropriate research methodologies. The paper makes four key points. First, impact assessment is fruitfully understood as part of a process of development
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and as an outcome of development. In other words, impact assessment techniques perhaps should not be simply to be chosen from a menu of options, but embody assumptions arising from largely a donor driven model of development. Second, an underlying pattern is one of a model of ICT4D that sees development engagement as input process output assessment. This model can be seen as problematic as it fosters a technical/ information provision framework of ICT4D whereas studies are beginning to realise that such development takes place in a more complex and relational setting. As a consequence, in depth understanding of how specific ICT4D projects have worked (or not worked) are necessary. Such an approach needs to be attentive to innovation in projects as the unexpected is part of the potential transformative or disruptive aspects of ICT4D. Third, ICT4D is more than a combination of appropriate techniques as impact assessment suggests; it takes places in a political environment of connections and contestation in which the processes of ICT4D development are highly related to the forms of impact assessment that are adopted. In a binary classification,or a utopian prospect of the transformative capacities of ICT4D. Neither is an adequate conceptualisation and again more attention needs to paid to how ICT4D is practiced and made to work in specific settings. Such an approach avoids the expectation that successes in
application.
6. REFERENCES
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Avgerou, C. and McGrath, K (2007) Power, Rationality, and the Art of Living, MIS
Quarterly, 31(2) pp. 295-315Brigham, M. and Hayes, N. (2007) Consulting and Development: Emerging Forms of
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Camner, G. Sjöblom, E. (2007) Can the success of M-PESA be repeated? A review of the implementations in Kenya and Tanzania, http://valuablebits.com/camner_sjoblom_differences_ke_tz.pdf .
Cooke, B. and Kothari, U. (2001) The case for participation as tyranny, in Participation: The
New Tyranny London: Zed Books, pp. 1 15.Dar, S., and Cooke, B. (2008) The New Development Management Zed Books: London.Duncombe, R., (2009) Impact assessment of mobile phones on development: concepts,
methods and lessons for practice, Development Informatics Working Paper No.39,IDPM, University of Manchester.
Easterly, W. (2006) Oxford: OUP.de Laet, M. and A. Mol (2000) The Zimbabwe Bush Pump: Mechanics of a Fluid
Technology," Social Studies of Science, (30:2), pp. 225-263.Foucault, M. (1977a) Truth and Power, Power/Knowledge: Selected Interviews & Other
Writings 1972 1977 (Gordon C Ed.), New York: Pantheon Books, pp. 109 133.Foucault, M. (1977b) Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison. London: Allen Lane.
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writings 1972-1977, ed. Gordon C., The Harvester Press, USA, pp.109-133Green, M. (2009) Doing Development and writing culture Anthropological Theory, 9: 395-
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Heathfield H, Pitty D and Hanka R (1998) Evaluating information technology in health care: barriers and challenges. British Medical Journal, 316, 1959-1961.
Heeks, R. improvis The Information Society (18:2), pp. 101 112.
Heeks, R. (2008) ICT4D 2.0: the next phase of applying ICT for international development, Computer, June, 78-85.
Heeks, R. (2010), Do information and communication technologies (ICTs) contribute to development? Journal of International Development, 22:625 640.
Heeks, R. & Molla, A. (2009) Impact assessment of ICT-for-development projects: a compendium of approaches, Development Informatics Working Paper No.36, IDPM, University of Manchester. http://www.sed.manchester.ac.uk/idpm/research/publications/wp/di/di_wp36.htm
Introna, L. (2003) Disciplining Information Systems: Truth and its Regimes, European
Journal of Information Systems. 12 (3), pp. 235 240.Introna, L. and Whittaker, L. (2004) Truth, Journals, and Politics: The Case of the MIS
Quarterly, In Information Systems Research: Relevant Theory and Informed Practice,
(eds) Kaplan, B., Truex III, D., Wastell, D., Wood-Harper, T. and DeGross, J. Boston: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Jensen, R. (2007) The digital provide: information (technology) market performance, and welfare in the South Indian fisheries sector. Quarterly Journal of Economics 122:3879-924.
Klecun, E. and Cornford, T. (2005), "A Critical Approach to Evaluation", European Journal
of Information Systems, 14(3), pp. 229-243.
Kirkpatrick, C. & Hulme, D. (2001) Basic Impact Assessment at Project Level, Enterprise Development Impact Assessment Information Service, University of Manchester.
Kleine, D. (2010), ICT4WHAT? Using the choice framework to operationalise the capability approach to development. Journal of International Development, 22: 674692.
Knights, D. (2004) Writing Organization Analysis into Foucault, in Linstead S (editor) Organizations and Postmodern Thought, London: Sage.
Heeks, R., H Lee, S Jang and K Ko. (2008) Analysing South Korea's ICT for development aid programme. Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries,
35(2): 1-15.Lewis, D. and Madon, S. (2004). Information systems and nongovernmental development
organizations: Advocacy, organizational learning, and accountability. The Information
Society, 20: 117-126.Lewis, D. and Mosse, D. (2006) Encountering Order and Disjuncture: Contemporary
Anthropological Perspectives on the Organisation of Development, Oxford
Development Studies (34:1), pp. 1-13.Lyon, D. (1994) The Electronic Eye: The Rise of Surveillance Society, University of
Minnesota Press, Minneapolis.Madon, S. (1999). International NGOs: networking, information flows and learning. Journal
of Strategic Information Systems, 8: 251-261.Madon, S. and Sahay, S. (2002). An information based model of NGO-mediation for the
empowerment of slum dwellers in India. The Information Society, 18(1), 13 19.
Representations in Rural Development. In Cook, B. and Kothari, U. eds. Participation
the New Tyranny? London: Zed Books, pp. 16-35.
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Rajão, R. and Hayes, N. (2009) Conceptions of control and IT artefacts: an institutional account of the Amazon rainforest monitoring system. Journal of Information
Technology 24, 320 331.Rose N. (1999). Governing the soul. The shaping of the private self. 2nd Edition, Free
Association Books, England.Thompson, M. (2004) "Discourse, 'development' and the 'digital divide': ICT and the World
Bank." Review of African Political Economy, 31(99): 103-123.Taylor, H. (2001) Insights into participation from critical management and labour theory. In
Cook, B. and Kothari, U. eds. Participation the New Tyranny? London: Zed Books, pp. 122-138.
Walsham, G., Sahay, S. (2006). Research on information systems in developing countries: Current landscape and future prospects. Information Technology for Development,12:1, 7 24.
Willcocks, L.P. (2004) Foucault, Power/Knowledge and IS: Reconstructing the present. In Mingers, J. and Willcocks, L.P., Social Theory and Philosophy for Information
Systems, Chichester: Wiley.UNCTAD (2010) Information Economy Report 2010: ICTs, Enterprises and Poverty
alleviation http://www.unctad.org/en/docs/ier2010_embargo2010_en.pdf.Zuboff, S. (1988) In the Age of the Smart Machine, New York, Basic Books.
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9TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF COMPUTERS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES (THE IMPACT OF ICT INVESTMENTS ON DEVELOPMENT: LESSONS FROM THE NIGERIA PRE-PAID ELECTRICITY BILLING SYSTEM)
Salihu Ibrahim Dasuki Pamela AbbottSchool of Information Systems School of Information SystemsBrunel University Brunel UniversityWest London West [email protected] [email protected]
Abstract: Most reported Information and Communication Technology for development (ICT4D) literature tends to focus mainly on design, transfer and implementation issues. There is limited focus on the evaluation of the impact of ICT projects on development and little concrete analysis of these initiatives in terms of their long-term developmental impact. In this
We employed the key concepts of the capability approach to focus on the developmental impact of such projects. We based our evaluation on the Pre-paid Electricity Billing system in Nigeria. Our analysis show that even though, the pre-paid system has been designed to provide better access to electricity, the relative absence of conversion factors makes it problematic in some context. Hence investing in the pre-paid meter and other commodities alone, are not the appropriate answers to capability deprivation. We conclude with some
Keyword: ICT, Development, Capability Approach, Developing Countries, Nigeria.
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9TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON SOCIAL IMPLICATIONS OF COMPUTERS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES (THE IMPACT OF ICT INVESTMENTS ON DEVELOPMENT: A CAPABILITY PERSPECTIVE)
1. INTRODUCTION
In recent years, there has been vast investment on ICT initiatives in developing countries for social, economic and political development. Yet, the impact of these investments on development is difficult to determine. The ICT for development (ICT4D) literature tends to focus mainly on design, transfer and implementation issues (Bhatnagar & Singh, 2010). There is limited focus on the evaluation of the impact of ICT projects on development (Kamel et al., 2009) and little concrete analysis of these initiatives in terms of their long-term developmental impact (Madon, 2004). Some of this work is criticised for lacking rigour, being descriptive, lacking clarity and neglecting sound methodological foundations (Heeks, 2010). Hence, there is a call for more theory-driven approaches to the evaluation of ICT impact (Heeks, 2010).
provide adequate access to resources such as suitable housing, clean water, education and health facilities for satisfying basic human needs. Furthermore, due to denial of political and basic civil rights, the majority of the people in developing countries lack the freedom to make choices in their own lives (Sen, 1999). This situation presents moral circumstances with which we should all be concerned (Walsham et al., 2007).
There is clearly a need therefore for more rigorous, focused, responsive research into the evaluation of the impact of ICT projects on the lives of the people in developing countries.This paper suggests a wider theoretical lens to help foreground the complexity and multiplicity of ICT development initiatives in developing countries. In particular, we draw
ich to evaluateThe contribution of this paper is to give some insight into the reasons why ICT4D initiativesdesigned to meet the needs of all people, particularly the poor and less privileged, are difficult to achieve.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. The next section reviews the relevant literature on the relationship between ICTs and development, focusing on the concept of capabilities as the key concern of our study. This is followed by a section providing details of CA and some selected key concepts upon which the authors will draw to evaluate the impact of a development initiative in Nigeria to enable householders to have better access to a consistentsupply of electricity. The research method, research setting and the analysis of the case are then presented. The final section concludes the paper and demonstrates implications for research and practice.
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2. ICTs AND DEVELOPMENT
An appreciation of the field of ICT4D cannot be complete without unpacking the notion of development. The use of the term has been problematic. Debate on its meaning has centred around three main discourses namely: modernisation, dependency and human development (Sein & Harindranath, 2004). Since the Second World War, development has been predominantly viewed from the perspective of modernisation theory of economic growth. From this viewpoint, under-development is seen to occur partly as a result of deficiencies in knowledge. This perspective deems that in order for poorer countries to become more developed, they need to follow the path already taken by more developed countries. According to this approach, ICTs are seen either as an industry or a motor forindustrialization, with much attention focused on how ICTs can enhance productivity and competitiveness (Zheng, 2009).
The dependency approach, on the other hand, posits that the process that leads to economic growth and development in developed countries results in the underdevelopment of poorer countries. These latter are mostly former colonies, which are caught in the debt trap, suffer from negative terms of trade and submit to technology-industrial dependency (Akpan, 2003). For example, it is often argued that the manufacture of ICT commodities and offshore computing are particularly done to feed the consumerism of richer countries, and not for the benefit of less developed economies (Sein & Harindranath, 2004). Industrialization is seen as the primary means of development in both the dependency and modernization theoretical approaches.
The literature is unable to establish, however, that investments in ICTs do lead to economic growth and improvement of basic needs in developing countries (Avgerou, 2003; Akpan, 2003) so that it appears that technology has failed to achieve its intended purposes (Heeks, 2002, Soeftestad & Sein, 2003). This could be as a result of failure to take the cultural and local context into consideration during the design and implementation of systems (Maumbe et al., 2008), or ill-formulated intervention strategies intended to guide development (Soeftestad & Sein, 2003). This has led Walsham et al. (2007) to call for more emphasis on examining the social and contextual aspects of ICT4D.
The human centered perspective on development acts as an alternative to the modernization and dependency approaches discussed above. The focus of this perspective is on building capacities and creating societies where individual potential can be realized (Prakash & De, 2007). In developing countries, the most plentiful resources are people; hence they should be put at the centre of the development process. Over the past two decades, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) has adopted the human development approach and sees
focuses on the expansion of human freedoms both as the primary end and as the primary means of development (Sen, 1999). In the CA, freedom is concerned with the real opportunities people have to accomplish what they value. The CA is more flexible, less dogmatic, and is multi-disciplinary and clearly directed to long-term international goals of sustainability, stability, equity and human rights (Jolly, 2010).
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In IS studies, most ICT4D researchers often explicitly or implicitly take the perspective of development as economic growth and/or modernization (Zheng, 2009). This paper intends, however, to shift from the dominant perspectives (modernization and dependency) and to explore the value of a human development viewpoint in the discourse on ICT and development. This paper adopts the view that if ICT is properly conceptualized and adapted to the cultural and local context (Sein & Harindranath, 2004; Prakash & De, 2007); development agendas can be further enhanced using ICT as a platform. The paper is informed by capability approach to evaluating ICT for development, which is discussed in detail in the following section.
2.1. The Capability Approach (CA)
The capability approach is a broad normative framework for the evaluation of individual well being and social arrangements and the design of policies and proposals about social change in
ntially concerned with
kind of lives they have reason to value. This contrasts with other philosophical approaches d consumption (Robeyns, 2005). In his well-
known book, Development as Freedom, Sen (1999) views the expansion of freedom as both the primary end and means of development.
The CA is used in a wide range of fields, most prominently in development studies, social policy, welfare economics, and political philosophy. However, the approach has been critiqued to be too individualistic, and pays insufficient attention to social structures and groups (e.g. Navarro, 2000; Devereux, 2001; Corbridge, 2002). It should be noted that Sen explicitly takes into account culture, social structures, and social environments, first by the distinction between capabilities and functionings, secondly by the conversion factors from commodities to functionings (Robeyns, 2005).
Furthermore, some have referred the CA z (Robeyns, 2006). Sen deliberately left the CAintentionally restrains from prescribing a list of capabilities to be taken into account (Robeyns, 2005). The reason for this is because different people have different capabilities and use it for different purposes (Sen, 2004). The incompleteness and vagueness of the CA makes it difficult to find a balance between its conceptual richness and its potential to be operationalized for development research and practice (Kleine, 2010).
However Clark (2006) notes that the CA poses significant information requirement for evaluating social states and well-being. Nevertheless, there has been much effort and progress in applying the CA in empirical studies (see Gasper, 2007; Clark 2006). In IS studies, very few authors have applied the CA (see Madon, 2004; Zheng, 2008). This paper constitutes an effort of operationalising the CA by using its basic concept in the social studies of ICT in developing countries. This contrasts with its use in more complex and technical applications in economics and other disciplines. The following two sections will introduce
CA: functionings, capabilities, well being and Agency.
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2.2. Functionings and Capabilities
Functionings are beings and doings, that is, ways of being and activities that people do which they value or have reason to value, for example, being nourished, literate or employed. However, functionings are not limited to a particular set of people or contexts, which is why the human development approach applies to both developed and developing countries, and to poor and rich people alike. Functionings also include valued activities such as playing a guitar, having a good reputation and a warm circle of friends. Evaluating human development in terms of functionings alone, however, is incomplete. Sen (1999) therefore augments this concept through the introduction of the notion of capability.
(1999) argues that freedom involves both the processes that allow freedom of actions and decisions, and the actual opportunities that people have, given their personal and social circumstances. It should be noted that Sen intentionally refrained from naming these capabilities and functionings, because different capabilities and functionings are used for different purposes.
2.3. Agency and Well being
Another two core aspectscapability can be evaluated in relation to his/her well being whether defined in an elementary fashion (nutritional status) or in a more complex manner (self esteem). Therefore, Sen speaksof well-being freedom or well-ability to pursue and realize the goals that he/she values and has reason to value. According to Sen (1999), an agent is someone who acts and brings about change as opposed to someonewho is forced, oppressed or passive. Hence, Sen also speaks of agency freedom or agency achievements.
The distinction between agency and well-being and between freedom and achievement can be clarified with an example. Let us suppose Paul and Collins are both successful sports athletes in the United Kingdom. Paul now decides to represent England in the commonwealth games in Nigeria for two weeks where he will have to face life threatening situations due to political instability. He thus makes the choice of trading-off aspect of his well being (facing life
threatening situations) to exercise his agency freedom (representing England). Collins shares the concern with the high rate of kidnappings in Nigeria, but chooses not to sacrifice his achieved well-being (stable life situation) for this agency goal (representing England).
A crucial distinction of the capability approach, which is of importance to the study of the developmental impact of ICTs, is the distinction between commodities (goods and services), functionings (beings and doings) and capabilities. The approach recognizes the significant importance of commodities and material goods to our well-being in the short and long term. There is a valid connection between commodities and capabilities, and in order to expand capabilities and sustain these expansions, certain commodities are needed (Alkire & Deneulin, 2009). To clarify this connection, Alkire & Deneulin (2009) used a bicycle as an example to illustrate how these different concepts relate. A person may possess or be able to ride a bicycle (commodity). By riding the bicycle, the person moves around the city, and it is assumed that the person values this mobility (a functioning). However, if the person is unable to ride the bicycle because he/she is not permitted to ride or has no sense of balance, then owning a bicycle would not in fact result in this functioning. Hence, in this scenario, the
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person s own characteristic (balance) together with access to commodity (bicycle) creates the capability to move around the city when he/she wishes.
Figure 1 adapted from Robeyns (2005), illustrates these relationships using these key concepts of the capability approach.
Figure 1. A stylized non-dynamic representation of the key concepts of capability
approach
In figure 1, individual conversion factors are thought to influence the extent to which a person can generate capabilities from commodities. Three categories are identified: personal conversion factors e.g. metabolism, physical condition, sex, reading skills, intelligence; social conversion factors e.g. public policies, social norms, discriminating practices, gender roles, societal hierarchies, power relations; and environmental conversion factors e.g. climate, geographical location (Robeyns, 2005). Furthermore, as shown in figure 1, commodities are
Lastly, the achieved functioning is based on the personal choice to select from available capabilities and depends on personal history, psychology and other decision mechanisms. Hence, commodities, social institutions and so on are important means to well-being, but they are not the ultimate ends of well being (Robeyns, 2005). The capability approach has, however, been deliberately left incomplete as acknowledged by Sen himself (1999) in order for it to be used for a wide range of purposes. In this paper, the authors are interested in understanding how ICT projects, after implementation; can contribute to the enhancement of human capabilities by addressing the following questions:
What capabilities have been enhanced?What capabilities have been deprived?
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However, since human development is primary concerned with the real opportunities people have, the authors are only focusing on the first half of figure 1, that is, the conversion from commodities to capabilities instead of the actual choices of attaining those opportunities. The next section discusses the research methodology adopted in conducting the research.
3. METHODOLOGY
3.1. Research Approach
A broadly interpretive approach was adopted in this study (Walsham, 2006) with the aim of understanding the social context of an IS in use, that is, the social processes by which it is developed and construed by people and through which it influences, and is influenced by, its social setting (Oates, 2006). The research is based on a case study method because it enables multiple methods of data collection to gather information from one or a few entities such as people, groups, or organisations (Benbasat et al., 1991). The research was carried out at the distribution zone of the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN), which is in charge of governing the use of electricity in Nigeria. The study was exploratory in nature (Yin, 2003) with the aim of understanding how ICT innovations contribute to the enhancement of peoples capabilities such that significant lessons can be learned for both policy and decision makers.
3.2. Research Method
Data collection was conducted via semi-structured interviews and document analysis. Seventeen face-to-face in-depth interviews were held with various key players (see Table 1) who were involved in the design and implementation of the system. Each interview lasted approximately one hour, and was conducted within a month during the research field work.
Participants Interviewed Reasons
Head of Technical Operations explore his views of the project at operational and management levels
Five PHCN staff explore their views based on the direct involvement in the IS implementation
Two Electricians to elicit information based on work practices on the IS implementation
Entrepreneur explore their views based on their direct involvement in the IS implementation
Eight electricity consumers to get information about their perspective of the system and ascertain its impact
Table 1.Participants interviewed
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3.3. Data Analysis
In this paper, the authocommodities to capabilities to inform an interpretation of events in the case study. The interview data were transcribed. The interview transcripts were carefully read and re-read to allow for the classification of similar material and for insights to be captured (Bryman & Bell, 2007). After these initial insights were captured from the material, themes in relation to the concepts discussed in the literature review were coded from the data (Klein & Myers, 1999). The documents were analysed with a view of discovering data on policy making of the organization. The results of the case study analysis are presented in the next section illustrating how the introduction of ICTs in developing countries could be implicated in enhancing .
4. CASE STUDY
4.1. Nigeria Context
Nigeria is the most populous country in Africa with about 140 million people (NPC, 2006). Nigeria recognizes the importance of ICTs for development, as reflected in its National
ugh this policy document is: Information Society by the year 2005, using IT as the engine of sustainable development and
Furthermore, the government established the National and Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) tasked specifically with the implementation of this policy. To achieve this vision, ICTs need to be used in areas of health, education, creation of wealth, poverty eradication, job creation and global competitiveness in order to improve accessibility to public administration for all consumers, bringing transparency to government processes within the country (NNPIT, 2001). This paper explores one of those efforts where the Power Holding Company of Nigeria introduced an electricity pre-paid billing meter to increase revenue collection and provide better access to electricity.
4.2. Electricity and the Power Holding Company of Nigeria
Electricity plays a very significant role in the socio-economic and technological development of every country. An uninterrupted power supply is the hallmark of a developed economy. An
potential investors. It is widely accepted that there is a strong correlation between the availability of electricity and socio-economic development (Sambo, 2008). In Nigeria, The central body governing the use of electricity in Nigeria is the Power Holding Company of Nigeria (PHCN formerly known as National Electric Power Authority (NEPA). It has distribution zones and business units in all thirty six states of Nigeria to provide adequate electricity supply (PHCN, 2010).
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However, the majority of the Nigeria citizens have no access to electricity and those who do are provided with an irregular supply. This is even more chronic in rural areas where the lack of access has negatively affected the local economy and the growth of small industries and businesses, which if successful, would have served as important sources of employment and income (Ikeme & Ebohon, 2005). It is this backdrop that led the federal government to embark on an aggressive power sector reform with the aim of resuscitating PHCN and making it more effective, efficient and responsive to the growing populace. Thus, in 2000, the Nigerian government adopted a holistic approach of restructuring the power sector and privatizing the business units of PHCN (Okoro & Chikuni, 2007). A major problem faced by PHCN, however, was revenue collection. Electricity consumers, both individual and corporate, had always evaded paying their electricity bills causing PHCN to be owed more than 70 billion Naira by consumers (Ezigbo, 2010). This drove PHCN to adopt alternative methods of collecting revenues.
4.3. Situation prior to the Introduction of the Pre-Paid Billing Meter
Before the introduction of the pre-paid billing meter, PHCN were using the analogue electric billing and fixed billing meter. With the analogue billing meter, the meter records the amount of power consumed, after which a bill is sent to the consumer for payment. However, PHCN officials do not consistently record monthly meter readings. Hence, some consumers do not receive their bills at the appropriate time while some receive over-estimated bills that they find difficult to pay. Another group of consumers that do not own meters use to get monthly fixed bills that did not reflect how much electricity they consumed in a month.
PHCN were also accused of inefficient and corrupt practices such as collecting of bribes from consumers before their electricity is reconnected. Hence, PHCN officials were violently opposed when attempting to disconnect consumers with outstanding arrears. Some frustrated consumers would go as far as making illegal connections to get power. Some even left their electrical appliances switched on even when not in use so as to psychologically compensate themselves for the high billing rate and sporadic power supply.
To put in simply, when consumers connive with meter reading, tamper with the meter or make illegal connections directly to distribution line, PHCN loses a lot of money that is needed for maintaining existing systems, connecting new consumers and building of new plants. Due to revenue loss and the huge debt owed by consumers, PHCN introduced a cash collection policy called Revenue Cycle Management (RCM) that involved using private organizations such as designated banks in the collection of money paid. Thus, consumerswere expected to pay their bills at their banks. This was to facilitate regular and prompt payment of bills, since consumers did not need to travel far outside their area to settle their outstanding bills.
At that time, the presentation of a PHCN bill was a pre-condition for opening a bank account. However, many still claimed they were too busy to visit the banks in order to settle their bills. PHCN carried out an aggressive media campaign to persuade consumers to pay their bills through television, radio, and billboards. However, this did not yield the expected results; hence the pre-paid billing meter was introduced in 2006.
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4.4. Situation after the Introduction of the Pre-Paid Billing Meter
With the new prepaid meters, consumers purchase their desired units of electricity in advance in any of the designated PHCN offices. The consumers type in the 15-digit number generated by the computerised sales system at the designated PHCN offices into the prepaid meter. After that, the prepaid meter is activated and electricity is dispensed. After the purchased unit is used up, an inbuilt disconnecting device in the meter stops the flow of electricity. Citizens interviewed at the PHCN offices reported that they prefer the new innovation because they have control of their consumption and budget. Consumers also have no hassles with electricity disconnections or reconnections. Furthermore, consumers using the prepaid meters receive a 2.5% discount on the standard electricity-billing rate.
PHCN also benefitted from the new prepaid meter through an upfront payment, decrease in the cases of transformers developing fault as a result of illegal connection and the increase in revenue. For example the Ado-Ekiti business district of PHCN report to have generated the sum of N133.9million as revenue between December 2010 and January 2011 (Adebusuyi, 2011). Also, the new prepaid meter project has been able to demonstrate to the consumer that with the appropriate skills upgrading and training, PHCN officials, who may have been considered corrupt, arrogant and unfriendly, could be turn to play an opposite role. PHCN officials now provide better services to consumers in regards to meter usage, maintenance and billing. Some PHCN staffs trained to use the computerised sales system in issuing electricity vouchers realised they had the interest to become proficient in computer skills and have the ability to enrol for a short-term computer course. Also, the new system has allowed PHCN to monitor and prosecute electricity defrauders by checking the rate at which they recharge their meter within a certain period using the computerized recharge data bank.
There was also a boost in the economic activities of the communities with the introduction of the new system. PHCN hired and trained local electricians for the installation of the prepaid electricity-billing meter. These electricians are usually roadside electricians that do not have formal education but acquired their skills through vocational training. The majority of the electricians employed were on temporary contracts; therefore they saw this job as a way of enhancing their curriculum vitae. Some were even considering applying for the positions of permanent staff after their contract was completed. Apart from local electricians, indigenous contractors also generated income by supplying the pre-paid billing meters and other electrical equipment.
Other entrepreneurs also got real opportunities to generate income with the prepaid billing system. For example, in the past, tenants usually complained about the overpriced electricity bills presented to them by their landlords. Sometimes, they assumed that landlords colluded with PHCN officials to inflate their bills. Some even quarrel with the landlords and go as far as cancelling their tenancy agreements. However with the availability of the new prepaid system, tenants and landlords have separate meters, thus there are no more quarrels and business is moving smoothly for the landlords.
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However, in some areas, issues were raised concerning the introduction of the new system. With the prepaid billing meter, consumers can only recharge their meters when there is electricity. Interview findings of this study shows that some consumers in some particular areas have been unable to recharge their meters for up to three month because there has not been electricity supply in the area. The lack of electricity supply has added to the insecurity of the area and has reduced economic activities. According to the head of technical operations, the erratic power supply is due to the negligence of the energy sector during past regimes. The country produces 2500 megawatts a day of electricity; however the potential need of the country is 30000 megawatts daily.
Besides the epileptic power supply, PHCN staffs are frustrating the effort by consumers to obtain the prepaid meter. Consumers can only acquire this system only when a huge amount of bribe is paid. To quote a staff:
es to earn money to
However, some consumers interviewed reported that the reason for the difficulties in acquiring the meter is because it blocked ways of sharp practices by PHCN officials such assending of over-estimated bills. Finally, the introduction of the prepaid meter came in as a surprise to the consumers. Many of the respondents interviewed noted that, they have never heard of the new meter until PHCN announced on the radio and television that the analogue meter was going to be replaced with the prepaid meter. None of the stakeholders from the demand side were included in the requirements and design of the pre-paid meter as promised by PHCN. The stakeholders from the supply side such as Government, PHCN and the contracted firms were the only ones in charge of the entire design and implementation of the system.
5. DISCUSSION AND ANALYSIS
We concentrated on the aspect of the capability approach that looks at conversion from commodities to capabilities in order to analyse the case study. We looked both at the capabilities afforded to the PHCN and those afforded to the electricity consumers. The analysis is presented under the headings of the two research questions raised: what range of capabilities has been enhanced and what range of capabilities have been deprived?
5.1. What range of capabilities has been enhanced?
In the case of the prepaid billing system, consumers now have the real opportunity to improve the quality of their lives in terms of paying their electricity bills without hassle from PHCN officials. Institutional support which is a key conversion factor has led to the enhancement of PHCN workers capabilities in terms of effectively performing their jobs which in turn has enhanced their well being freedom to redeem their image and self esteem. In Nigeria, the government in collaboration with PHCN have setup the National Power Training Institute of Nigeria (NAPTIN) with the primary purpose of provide training for power sector personnel and coordinating training activities in the sector to ensure that such training generates
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revenue to guarantee sustainable management, maintenance and stable power supply to Nigerians (NAPTIN, 2010).
For example, the skill upgrading and training provided to the staffs of PHCN has allowed them to provide better quality services to the consumers and gave them opportunities to enrol for short-term computer courses. This has changed consumerPHCN staff by increasing the sense of trust between the staffs and consumers, which is turn, has; enhance PHCN staff well-being freedom to live in an environment without been violently resisted.
Furthermore, it is argued that institutional support has been a key conversion factor in
example, PHCN hired local electricians for the installation of the meters and gave local entrepreneurs the contract of supplying prepaid meters and other electrical equipments. This in turn has increased the agency freedoms of the local electricians in terms of enhancing their curriculum vitae and applying for better jobs.
Finally, another conversion which is the availability of the prepaid meter to everyone has enhanced the capability of living in peace and harmony in the society. For example, tenants now acquire their meters separately from the landlords. This has increase the agency freedom of both the tenant and landlord to live in peace without quarrelling, which in turn has increased the agency freedom of the landlords in terms of generating income.
5.2. What range of capabilities has been deprived?
Good workers welfare and prompt payment of salary constitute one set of conversion factors which lead to the capability deprivation of consumers in receiving better electricity supply. For example, the consumers complained of PHCN officials making the acquisition of the meter very frustrating. Consumers can only acquire the system when a large bribe is paid. Also, when consumers report a fault with their pre-paid meters, PHCN officials hardly come to repair the meters despite consumers paying monthly maintenance fees.
In Nigeria, the minimum wage per month for worker is 7500 Naira (NLC, 2009) which is approximately 49 dollars. This is far below the minimum cost of providing the basic needs for the worker and his/her immediate family. Also the government has not paid the PHCN staff their outstanding monetization arrears and balance of the negotiated 150 percent since 2003 till date (Ayankola et al., 2010). The poor workers welfare in Nigeria has curtailed the agency freedom of PHCN staff to effectively do their job. This in turn contributed to the reduced well being freedom of the consumers in terms of receiving consistent electricity supply.
Having access to electricity supply using the prepaid meter also requires other conversionfactors to be in place such as constant electricity supply. However, the sporadic electricity supply also curtailed the well being freedom of consumers in receiving better electricity supply. Nigeria is a country richly endowed with various sources of energy such coal, natural
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gas, crude oil, solar energy and hydropower. However, the country constantly suffers from sporadic power supply, a major impediment to economic development. In spite the enormous power generation potential, only 40 percent of the country have access to power (Onukwugha, 2010). This situation is worsened by corruption, gross inefficiency of PHCN and poorly maintained distribution system (Okafor, 2008). The absence of these conversion factors in turn contributed to the reduced well being freedom of the consumers in terms of receiving electricity supply and the security of live and property.
Finally, the non-inclusion of the demand side in the design and implementation of the system eir concern and be involved in policy
making. In Nigeria, its citizens hardly have the freedom required to exercise their agency in terms of participation The absence of good governance and corruption in Nigeria prevents consumers from participating in policy and decision making processes. The situation above shows us the experience of democracy in Nigeria and its promise since 1999 have still not been realised.
Even though, the pre-paid system has been designed to provide better access to electricity, therelative absence of conversion factors makes it problematic in some context. Hence investing in the pre-paid meter and other commodities alone, are not the appropriate answer to capability deprivation.
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Dasuki & Abbott ICT and Development: A Capability Perspective
Proceedings of the 11h International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
6. CONCLUSION
In this paper the authors evaluated the development impact of ICT projects by concentrating on the introduction of the prepaid electricity billing system in Nigeria. The study was informed by Sen (1999) capability approach, which was used to highlight the conversion from commodities to capabilities. A Capability approach on ICT4D essentially means adopting capabilities and functionings as an evaluative space for the assessment of inequality, poverty and development. Such a perspective allows us to expose the multiplicity and complexity implied in ICT4D, and to avoid the simplistic assumptions about the role of ICT in human development.
Viewing development as the expansion of human capabilities, ICT is conceptualised, as a means to achieving human development in which a whole set of conversion factors are needed to be in place. The conversion factors which have effect on the agency freedom and wellbeing freedom of individuals, is as important (if not more important) than ensuring technology availability. These conversion factors go beyond conditions for ICTs to be effectively diffused and exploited. The conversion factors are conditions that enable people to do what they find valuable in their lives, with or without ICT. Such capabilities included for example to be literate, to be able to use information tools such as ICT to the advantages of themselves and other, to express their opinions. approach for this study has been in highlighting the fact that rather than maximising access to technology, ICT4D initiatives should take into account the needs of the people in order to enhance both their well-being and agency freedom
In this study, the high rate of corruption and poverty gave rise to the capability deprivation of Nigeria citizens to acquire the prepaid billing meter in order to have access to consistent electricity supply. The poor infrastructure and governance gave rise to the capability deprivation of Nigerian citizens to live in an environment without devastation from power outages. Also poor workers welfare gave rise to the capability deprivation of PHCN officials to effectively perform their official duties. Lastly the agency of the consumers was not properly given attention to. In other words, during the design of the prepaid billing meter the demand side were not involved, nor were their local needs properly accounted for to make it meaningful to them.
Secondly, the privatisation policy in the power sector is unlikely to provide the necessary development. These policies are formulated by external agencies such as the World Bank and DFID without taking the local and cultural context into account therefore putting greater priority to economic growth rather than improving the lives of the consumers. The objective of the pre-paid billing meter was based on the government reform policies rather than on development agenda.
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Hence government policies need to shift beyond the introduction of technology for generating revenue and pay attention to the cultural, institutional, social and political context, which
activities. In suggesting the potential for future research, the limitation of this study is recognised. The study was limited in that only a single focused case study was undertaken under severe time limitations; however there is scope for undertaking a longitudinal study on the basis of the current results to provide more insight on developmental issues as the country continues to expand the implementation of the prepaid electricity billing meter.
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123
IFIP WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
10
124
Ferdousi & Malik et al. Study on Outcome of ICT Project in Bangladesh
Proceedings of the 11th
International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
A PRELIMINARY STUDY OF THE OUTCOME OF AN INFORMATION COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT) PROJECT IN BANGLADESH
Sanjida Ferdousi, Brainstorm BangladeshBushra Tahseen Malik, Brainstorm BangladeshNabid Alam, University of DhakaMd. Mahfuz Ashraf, University of Dhaka
Abstract: This research is to explore the outcome of a particular ICT intervention in rural Bangladesh. To conduct this research, we have espoused an interpretive qualitative research approach within a case study context. Data was collected by personal interviews, focus group discussions and participant observations. This research found that this ICT intervention hadimpact on the community level. This research has potential to contribute knowledge to ICTresearch methodologies in general, and to understanding contribution of an ICT intervention in rural Bangladesh, in particular.
Keywords: Information Communication Technology, Interpretive Approach, Developing Countries, Bangladesh
1. INTRODUCTIONBangladesh is a low-income, least developed country where 55 million, 40% of the total population of 138.8 million, live below the poverty line (BBS, 2009). The Government of Bangladesh has a long history of promoting and using ICT to improve the living conditions
. Bangladesh government already declared ICT as thrust sector. To reap the benefits of ICT we have to take it to the doorsteps of general people throughout the country. In recent times, government and non- government authorities and have started ICT based development initiatives all over the country. Bangladesh has a 45.3% functional literacy rate and the majority of population lives in the rural areas. Due to this fact, most of the people are dependent on traditional and relatively low-tech ICT options to access information. According to ICT Development Index prepared by International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Bangladesh has a poor ranking. Bangladesh stands right before Nepal and is ranked 138 among 154 countries. Now that Chittagong Hill Tracts are also under the network coverage of Mobile Phone Services, the overall coverage has increased to 90% in terms of geographical reach, and 98% in terms of population coverage.
currently there are approximately 70 million cellular phone subscribers. (BTRC, 2011) In this paper, we present one such initiative and show research findings on the experience from the perspective of the users of this facility.
2. MOBILE PHONE RECHARGE CENTRE (MPRC): AN INITIATIVE
TO EMPOWER RURAL PEOPLEProfessor Yunus, one of the pioneers of the micro-credit concept and the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize Laureate together with and Iqbal Quadir, the founder of Grameen Phone developed the
-employed income generating program, that provides modern telecommunication services in rural Bangladesh (Richardson. et. al, 2000).for developing a financial and technological model to empower thousands of women
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Richardson, Ramirez, & Haq, 2000). Consequently, influencing by successful story of Grameen Village Phone program, different mobile telephone company like Grameen phone, Citycell, Robi, Banglalink, Teletalk and Airtel Telecom have initiated countrywide mobile phone recharge centre in recent time which play an imperative role for creating micro entrepreneur specially in rural areas of Bangladesh.
The mobile phone density in Bangladesh is 29 phones per 100 inhabitants. Grameen phone is the largest mobile phone service provider in Bangladesh, with 30.428 million subscribers. Besides, subscribers of other five operators are Banglalink 20.038 million, Robi 12.626million, Airtel Bangladesh 4.184 million, Citycell 1.858 million and TeleTalk 1.204 million (BTRC, 2011). To mitigate the growing subscribers' demand MPRC operators are providing open access for flexible recharge, they also offer the use of their phones to people on a per-call basis. Offering services at affordable rates to customers. Sometimes, this centre provides additional facilities like using computer, internet, photocopy machine and fax services and so on. In this research we consider this MPRC as one kind of telecentre for ICT4D and selected
Citycell, Robi, Banglalink, Teletalk and Airtel Bangladesh pre-paid subscribers was introduced with Flexiload, e-Top up, Easy Load, i-Top up, Tele Charge and Easy Load the electronic re-charge system (Grameenphone, 2011; Citycell, 2011; Robi, 2011; Banglalink, 2011; Teletalk, 2011; Airtel, 2011) . The feature allows all those mobile phone pre-paid subscribers, the option to transfer certain amounts of balance to any other GP pre-paid subscribers within the defined business rules. The mobile phone companies are very flexible to provide license to the recharge operators by maintaining minimum official formalities.
Initially, the operators have to know how to transfer balance. The procedure of transfer balance for instance of Grameen Phone the first stage is to go to the message option, write
-paid number followed by an empty space and finally the amount of money to be transferred. Send the SMS to the number 1000. In return message, both the sender and receiver will get confirmation messages along with their respective balance amounts. GP
3. METHODOLOGYThe data was collected from rural areas (2 villages) of Bangladesh by using three types of data collection techniques, the personal interview, focus group discussions and participant observation.
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Figure 1. Location of the study sites
Purposive sampling was used to select respondents. i.e. the sample was selected deliberately by the researchers. . According to this sampling technique the researcher selects a sample in purposive way to fulfill the research objectives (Kothari, 2005). Initially, we randomlyselected 25 respondents from two villages. All of these respondents, male and female, wereinvolved in operating mobile phone recharge centres.
4. PRELIMINARY FIELD RESULTMPRC has been actively responding the challenges of ICT for development in rural areas of Bangladesh. Our findings demonstrate that the presence of this micro-entrepreneur initiative enables the villagers to become independent and to attain empowerment, consequently, improving their financial and social status. In addition, information access facilitates to use their common sense in case of decision making, and choice as well as improve in education, health, knowledge and increase awareness. This approach is presented in figure 2.
Study Sites
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Figure 2. Illustration of implementation and implication of the MPRC intervention
Here, we conceptualize development as economic freedom as an example through the ICT in individual to community level. The illustration contains two major parts. The first part refers to the implementation of ICT in rural community. In brief, the ICT/ICT4D intervention (MPRC) is provided and implemented through the mobile phone company and the community whilst the rural people act as a micro-entrepreneur. The second part of the illustration contains the implicationconducive to their socio-politico-economic development.
This research explored that ICTs have contributed to economic facilities through MPRC initiative such as, generating micro-entrepreneur, creating employment opportunity, enhancing economic growth and empowerment. The financial independency makes the operators able to afford their survival need and this affordability has great impact on the rural community. The following table presents the findings of the project.
Context Changes towards development Areas of impact
Financial barrierLack of income sourceSurvival needDependency
1. MPRC produced micro entrepreneur as rural people enhanced their livelihoods2. Helpless female and male specially unemployed youth get employment opportunity3. Rural women entrepreneur are capable to facilitate their family financially and make a position in the family and society4. Rural people can take pleasure in financial autonomy as they fulfill their survival and additional demand such as they can gather three meals, send their children educational institutions etc5. People improved their existing financial condition as they run MPRC along with other job or business
Create micro-entrepreneur EmploymentEconomic growthEmpowermentDemand mitigation
Lack of knowledge and
1. Most of the people have desired about their children's further study though many of them could not complete their education as they
Awareness about social factor
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awareness know it is important to progress in life. Sometimes they also involved themselves to continue study 2. Most of the rural communities determined that they never take any dowry and involve in any social crime like women violence3. Progress is noticeable in social position because people who are involving in MPRC established themselves in the family as well as society
(education/ health)KnowledgeSocial commitmentSocial status
Insecure survival demand
1. MPRC business enhanced permanent income source for the community.2. Rural people have ensured three meals for their family3. They tried to build house for their safe and sound living
Ensure standard living including food, clothing,housing, health and other social services
Table 1. Changes into development according to respondents' perceptions and Attitudes
REFERENCES
Bangladesh: Dhaka.
Airtel. (2011). Retrieved February 21, 2011, from Airtel: http://www.waridtel.com.bd/
Banglalink. (2011). Retrieved February 21, 2011, from Banglalink: http://www.banglalinkgsm.com/
Bayes, A. and J. Vn Braun, & Akhteret, R.(1999). Village Pay Phones and Poverty Reduction: Insights from a Grameen Bank Initiative in Bangladesh, ZEF Discussion Papers on Development Policy No. 8, Center for Development Research (ZEF), Bonn.
BBS (2009). Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics' (BBS), Government of Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
BTRC. (2011). Retrieved February 20, 2011, from BTRC: http://www.btrc.gov.bd/newsandevents/mobile_phone_subscribers.php
Citycell. (2011) Retrieved February 21, 2011, from Citycell: http://www.citycell.com/home_flash.php
Grameenphone. (2011) Retrieved February 21, 2011, from Grameenphone: http://www.grameenphone.com/
Kothari, C.R. (2005), Research Methodology, Methods and Techniques, Second edition, New Delhi: New Age International Private Limited.
Richardson, D.; R. Ramirez, & M. Haq, (2000). Grameen Phone (GP), Village Phone Project: Final Report, C.I.D.A. (CIDA), Editor. Guelph Ontario, Canada.
Robi. (2011). Retrieved February 21, 2011, from Robi: http://www.robi.com.bd/
Teletalk. (2011). Retrieved February 21, 2011, from Teletalk: http://www.teletalk.com.bd/
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IFIP WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
13
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Boonphadh, Johnson et al Crossing The Cultural Divide With Online ESOL
Proceedings of the 11h International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
CROSSING THE CULTURAL DIVIDE: CHALLENGES INVOLVED IN BRINGING A NEW ZEALAND-DESIGNED INTERACTIVE COMPUTER-BASED ESOL PACKAGE TO THAILAND
Piyaporn Boonphadh: [email protected] of Nursing, Prince of Songkla UniversityThailand
Russell Johnson: [email protected] of Engineering and Advanced TechnologyMassey University, New Zealand
Elizabeth Kemp: [email protected] of Engineering and Advanced TechnologyMassey University, New Zealand
Sirirat Wipassilapa: [email protected] Thammathirat Open University,
Thailand
Norlaila Hussain: [email protected] of Engineering and Advanced TechnologyMassey University, New Zealand
Abstract: In an increasingly globalised world, English language proficiency has become a key factor facilitating the international trade and cooperation that is essential for social and economic advancement in the developing countries. ICT presents a potential means by which the resources of the educational institutions of the developed English-speaking countries can be utilized to spread English literacy world-wide. However, the Western cultural bias of these institutions can be a barrier to effective learning by students in the recipient countries. In this paper we report on the cultural challenges we faced when trialing an online English for Speakers of Other Languages package, developed in New Zealand, to distance students in Thailand. IMMEDIATE ESOL aims to provide an easy-to-use integrated language learning environment to develop reading, writing, speaking and listening skills using New Zealand-based tutors. It is challenging to bring a learning technology developed based on Western learning culture to be tested with groups of Thai participants who hold a different learning ethos. This experience has taught us that a compromise between the different learning cultures should be reflected in the learning technology and its interface.
.
Keywords: ESOL, e-learning, online language learning, international cultural divide, Thailand, cross-cultural e-learning
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CROSSING THE CULTURAL DIVIDE: CHALLENGES INVOLVED IN BRINGING A NEW ZEALAND-DESIGNED INTERACTIVE COMPUTER-BASED ESOL PACKAGE TO THAILAND)
1. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND
In an increasingly globalised world, English language proficiency has become a key factor facilitating the international trade and cooperation that is essential for social and economic advancement in the developing countries. ICT presents a potential means by which the resources of the educational institutions of the developed English-speaking countries can be utilized to spread English literacy world-wide. However, the Western cultural bias of these institutions can be a barrier to effective learning by students in the recipient countries. In this paper we report on the cultural challenges faced when trialing an online English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL) package, developed in New Zealand, to distance students in Thailand.
Although English has become the dominant language used throughout the world, it has never been ingrained in Thailand. However, in recent years the demand for learning English has been rising (Thongsin, 2007; Thai-Asean News Network, 2009). This trend is occurring due to socioeconomic development, including the growth of the hospitality and tourism industry, and the merging of Thai and foreign companies. To work in these industries a high level of English proficiency is an advantage. Consequently, to meet this demand, the number of international and bilingual schools, undergraduate and postgraduate programs using English as the principal means of communication, and private English language study institutes, has increased dramatically (Wiriyachitra, 2007). Furthermore, attending overseas English courses has become more and more widespread, at least among those with access to the necessary financial resources. New Zealand is a popular destination for this purpose.
However, attending English language training courses in conventional face-to-face classes, either in Thailand or overseas, can be problematic for people with financial and/or time constraints. For this reason, a group of researchers developed and evaluated an online ESOL package, including practicing reading, writing, listening and speaking, which would be taught from New Zealand. It is aimed at maximizing the opportunity for Thai adult distance learners to learn English from native speakers and qualified overseas institutes.
Mancuso (2001) and Hill (2006) pointed out that continuing to learn on the job requires ability to effectively self- and flexibility in learning settings and times. Hence, distance learning was considered by the research team as an appropriate method for delivering an English training course to tless human interaction and learners being able to leave out areas of difficulty or miss important
-learning) mentioned in some literature (Fredskild, 2008; Hawthorne et al., 2009), there was evidence proving advantages of this learning technology, including producing effective learning outcomes (Bloomfield et al, 2009; Jeffries et al, 2003), cost-saving for providers and learners, flexible delivery and flexible learning environment, and easy-to-be-modified programs (Cotharn et al., 2009; Steffens & Reiss, 2010; Hill, 2006).
An interactive computer-based ESOL prototype was developed using the Integrating MultiMEdia in a DIstAnce learning And Teaching Environment (IMMEDIATE) software designed by anengineering faculty member at the NZ university. The software was evaluated in New Zealand with six postgraduate students, three with experience of learning English as a second language and three with experience in evaluating the interface of computer systems. Then, the prototype ( ) was brought across to Thailand for pilot and field testing. The pilot and field tests were conducted between late 2009 and early 2010 with learners at a large Thai open
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university. Thailand was chosen because of the high demand for ESOL courses there, and because the necessary collaborations, facilities and funding had been established in both countries.
The goals of these evaluations were 1) to determine the feasibility and applicability of the software technology in delivering the English language training course, and 2) to evaluate what we needed to be aware of when introducing a learning application to learners with a learning culture different from that of the application developers. The detailed results with regard to the first aim have been published elsewhere (Hussain et al, 2010). Therefore, in this paper, the focus is on the second goal,with the qualitative research approach employed and results described in detail. Before proceeding to this, we would like to briefly portray IMMEDIATE and describe the main findings from the evaluations based on quantitative data.
1.1. IMMEDIATE
IMMEDIATE is an ongoing research project which applies the concept of the information appliance (Norman, 1998) to simplify the computing environment for distance students by temporarily converting a desktop or laptop computer into a specialized, easy-to-use learning appliance (Johnson et al, 2007). This enables more contextual learning support to be provided to the student than is possible with a web-based Learning Management System (LMS). IMMEDIATE also differs from an LMS in that, wherever possible, learning content is stored at the student end rather than the server, freeing up available bandwidth for audio and textcommunications, and enabling students to work offline where necessary. This makes IMMEDIATE highly interactive since the local system can respond to a student action immediately rather than requests and responses being reliant on the quality of the Internet connection. Students can still work from anywhere as the course material and software is mounted on a portable flash drive, which can be plugged into and run from any available computer. The course content is updated periodically in the background while the student works, either over the Internet or via portable storage media.
These features make IMMEDIATE particularly suitable to support distance learning especially in developing countries such as Thailand where internet connection may not always be reliable and students may not be able to access high performance computers or may not have a computer of their own at all.
The research methodology underpinning IMMEDIATE is the open-ended evolutionary, or incremental, prototyping method (Pressman, 1997, pp. 285-288). The underlying concepts havebeen explored and progressively refined through cycles of heuristic evaluation (Neilsen, 1994) and user testing. For this study, the student learning appliance was customized for teaching ESOL, while the learning content, which forms the foundation of the package, was provided by ESOL curriculum teachers in New Zealand. The course material was broken down into topics, each of which could be studied along the dimensions (study modes) of reading, writing, listening and
and grammar practice, live audio and text conversations between students and with the tutor, assignments with marker feedback, contextual learning support, and student self-reflection.
While IMMEDIATE can support different teaching and learning styles, IMMEDIATE ESOL was specifically customised to maximise learner autonomy within either a self-directed or social constructivist framework. This reflects the predominant approach to distance education in New Zealand.
1.2. Evaluations of IMMEDIATE ESOL based on quantitative studies
The key quantitative data were gathered from the preliminary evaluation in New Zealand and the major field test in Thailand. The results of both studies showed that the evaluators rated the tool well for usability and saw IMMEDIATE ESOL as suitable for delivering language teaching. In the NZ study only 5% of the responses indicated dissatisfaction with aspects of the interface. In the
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Thai field test, all the modes and features of IMMEDIATE were seen by the participants as supporting the learning process and there appeared to be no problem completing exercises or using the reflection mode to monitor progress. Students reported that they enjoyed using the software with its attractive appearance, finding the experience mentally stimulating. Eight of the eleven participants (73%) were prepared to recommend the software to colleagues. Only in 8.5% of cases was there strong disagreement with statements about the merits of the interface.
Much of the negative feedback from the Thai participants could be traced back to bugs in the software, which impeded some activities, but were largely unavoidable in a research prototype.Some of the more experienced Windows users were also initially confused because appliance features and functions are mapped to the learning domain and do not always follow the Windows GUI pattern.
More importantly, however, the feedback suggested a significant mismatch between the Thai -student relationship (learning culture), and the
user-centred learning approach embodied in IMMEDIATE ESOL and its content. This emerged clearly in the qualitative study which is discussed next.
2. QUALITATIVE STUDY
Qualitative research has been noted as an effective approach for obtaining culturally-specific information about values, opinions, and behaviors of specific groups of human beings (Mack et al, 2005). ility to interpret and gain a better understanding
quantitative data alone may not be able to shed light on such aspects. For this reason, we believed it was necessary to apply qualitative data collection techniques to provide a textual description of how the study participants experienced using a learning package developed by people with a learning culture different from those of their own.
In the Thai pilot test and the subsequent field study, the qualitative methods employed for data collection were observation and focus group meetings. Observation was adopted for gathering information on behaviors occurring while the participants were using the appliance, whereas the
using the learning appliance and how their embedded learning culture influenced their opinions and experience. In other words, the observation wour viewpoint, on the context related to the study interest (Boyle, 1994) and the focus group was
what we have seen and perceived from our direct observation (Leininger, 1985; Roper & Shapira, 2000).
We assigned a bilingual researcher, with expertise in qualitative research, to take the role of focus group facilitator to overcome any language barrier. Thus, all dialogues were immediately translated either from Thai to English or from English to Thai. We noted that when the participants were able to communicate using the language they were comfortable with, they were more willing to express their opinions. Each focus group lasted approximately one and a half hours.
and the conversation during the focus groups was also recorded. Later, the information recorded was transcribed in verbatim.
3. RESULTS
The information gathered was analyzed using qualitative data analysis techniques. We reviewed all data sources, observation records and focus groups records to seek for interesting patterns relevant to the study focus and the data were coded and allocated into categories, then, similarities,
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differences, and relationships across the whole categories were determined in order to identifycultural phenomena being researched (Hammersley & Atkinson, 1995).
The analyzed information showed a set of mismatches between the learning culture embedded in the ESOL application and those of the Thai learners. We categorized these mismatches as
, uraged to express oneself vs. ,t , and basic
familiarity with English vs. Thai- Before discussing these issues, some background information on the Thai learning culture is provided.
3.1. Thai Learning Culture
At an early age, Thais are taught and expected to form basic attitudes; (inhibition), (awe-respectful fear), (respect), politeness and obedience, and
children are expected to accept a and recognize (gratefulness) (Mulder, 1992, p.65 and p.64). Mulder wrote that in Thailand, alongside
parents, teachers who are perceived as wise and reliable persons and who represent goodness and morality hold Bunkhun over their pupils. Therefore, Thais are expected to show respect and obedience to theiwisdom and ethos must be avoided, and that confronting hierarchical power could lead to disturbing consequences. This culture tends to be ingrained in all Thais unless they have successfully immersed themselves in other cultures.
This culture has impeded the implementation of the National Education Act, 1999 launched by the Thailand Office of the National Education Commission to promote life-long, autonomous and self-regulated learning. Relationships between teachers and students tend to remain a conservative, hierarchical structure instead of a partnership (Office of Commercial Services, 2002; Tipyanopakhun, 2009).
Thai school students are directed to study according to a strict curriculum involving six or seven subjects daily (Dailynews online, 01/08/2010), plus, for many, additional after-school tutorial sessions organized by their parents. Asking awkward questions or experimentation by students is not always welcomed by teachers (Office of Commercial Services, 2002).
Some argue that this hierarchical relationship coupled with the rigid curriculum has resulted in a low level of analytical and critical thinking ability by Thai students and little aptitude for self-directed learning. Hence, they are often labeled as rote learners (Chiangkool, 2009; Punya, 2009; Wiriyachitra, 2007).
3.2. Dependent vs. independent
Although the participants differed in their backgrounds regarding English proficiency and computer skills, their responses to the self-directed learning style of IMMEDIATE ESOL where students are free to explore the course and design their own learning sequence were similar. All participants said that they preferred a prescribed course with a step-by-step instruction.
A step-by-examples. (Focus group 1)
We got lost not knowing what to do, where to go, or how to do things. Though there are
we were expected (Focus group 2)
The participants wanted a more detailed instruction which was clear and specific with examples of how to do each exercise, and were hesitant to independently work on the given scenarios without
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first seeking approval. For example, they were reluctant to make decisions on how to indicate chosen answers to questions even when it did not matter how they did it.
should I underline my answers or type them or highlight them. (Focus group 1)
circle around chosen answer, or please draw X in front of chosen answer, or highlight chosen answer. (Focus group 2)
A participant estudents sometimes were not curious enough or too nervous to experiment or explore what they were unfamiliar with. This statement was supported by another participant: ink it is an instinct,
As Chen et al (2008) point out in relation to China, Thai learning characteristics still revolve around instructive teaching and rote learning, and classes are operated in large size using rigid course structures and assignments with prescribed correct answers. There may be resistance to teaching innovation and stress on the student-teacher hierarchical relationship (Office of Commercial Services, 2002). The Thai participants were unfamiliar with the self-directed learning conception of the IMMEDIATE ESOL, preferred to be directed in their studies, and viewed the reduction of teacher guidance as a potential hindrance to their motivation to learn.
3.3. Encouraged to express oneself vs.
In the western approach to education, learners are encouraged to question to understand (Chen et o reflect on
what they have heard and seen, and helps transform them into active learners who possess the quality to think critically and to learn independently. To this end, IMMEDIATE ESOL contains a
mode with a for the students to freely write down their own learning objectives, to reflect on and critique their own learning development, or make notes of questions they come across. These were not popular with the participants:
d an opinion on the I
about it. (Focus group 2).
topersonality (Mulder,
themselves and question lessons planned for them and taught by teachers. This helps explain why mode and saw it as less important than
the other modes.
3.4. Technology innovation vs. innovation resistance
To minimize distractions and make the interface more intuitive for inexperienced computer users, the IMMEDIATE ESOL appliance temporarily disables all the general-purpose features and functions of the host Windows environment and replaces them with a simplified set of features directed specifically towards supporting the current learning task. However, this quality of the IMMEDIATE ESOL was not appreciated by some of the more experienced computer users among the participants.
When we plugged the drive containing the learning application into the computer, the
to use the translation facility (Focus group 1)
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Having the menu bar and command icons (of the Windows host) is very important because users may want to listen to music, watch DVD while they study. (Focus group 2)
This resistance perhaps emerged from fear of an unfamiliar environment and a consequent feeling of loss of control (Olaniran, 2007). These feelings are prone to intensify in non-adventurous learners, like Thais. Olaniran suggested that in order to gain a favorable outcome, it is crucial that a familiar atmosphere is conveyed when a new learning technology is introduced to a particular group of users.
Some participants wanted IMMEDIATE ESOL to look and feel like a Windows application;
I think to make it easier to users; the interface of the (IMMEDIATE) application should be similar to those of other software or computer programs which people have used before (Focus group 2)
Others thought the answer was to provide a more detailed introduction and guide in Thai to help users become familiar with the learning application.
Without a simple way to handle the commands and without detailed but simple manual, users could get real headaches. Before we are going use anything, we need to familiarize ourselves with it, just like we need to know what kind of person our co-worker is, so we could work with the person nicely. Therefore the manual should contain both Thai and English, and explain what each mode and command is there for, as well as the general
nd what is underneath each topic, and so on. (Focus group 2)
3.5. Keen reader vs. text avoidance
The user manual and scenarios provided were full of text. This aspect of the IMMEDIATE ESOL was unpopular among the participants. The need to read through the user manual and scenarios
Someone who was sitting next to me suggested that the manual and scenarios should display a copy of the actual interface of the learning application. (Focus group 1)
make sense of it, we are unable to follow the learning protocol. (Focus group 2)
This attitude towards reading is not unusual among Thais. In his article Reading culture of Thais,Tuntiwittayapituk (2008) reported that in comparison to people of neighboring countries, such as Vietnam and Singapore, Thais read the least. In a year, on average, a Vietnamese read 60 books, and a Singaporean read 40-50 books, whereas a Thai read two books. Tuntiwittayapituk explained that in the past reading in Thailand was confined to people of the upper class and monks while lay people gained knowledge and entertained themselves through story telling. Not until 1930, when more books were published, did lay people have more access to books. However, before the reading habit became ingrained, television became available. Recent research found that mostThais preferred to spend their leisure time watching television, listening to the radio or browsing the internet than read books (NOP World, 2005).
3.6. Basic familiarity with English vs. Thai-only language nation
Within an English-speaking country like New Zealand, an ESOL course can assume a basic familiarity with English. This is not true in Thailand. For decades, Thais have been taught English as soon as they enter primary school, and nowadays, maybe even at pre-school level. However, because Thai is the only official language in Thailand (National Identity Office of Thailand,2002), Thai people do not have regular opportunities to communicate in English. Therefore, the level of English proficiency of Thais is rated at a low level when compared with neighboring countries like Malaysia, Singapore, and the Philippines (Wiriyachitra, 2007). The IMMEDIATE
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ESOL content and interface is presented in English. The participants, particularly the non-ESOL students making up the first focus group, found this stressful and this as an obstacle to learning.
I was shocked when I knew that everything was in English. (Focus group 1)
know what I was expected to do. (Focus group 1)
Overall, the participants all agreed that the help instructions, user guide, and learning support should be available in Thai.
I recommend that the manual should be prepared in a few different languages, at least Thai and English, so that people from different linguistic backgrounds are able to work on the application. (Focus group 2)
It would be better if the meanings of vocabularies are also presented in Thai because with
would have to get out from the learning interface to seek help elsewhere, like from Google. (Focus group 1)
In addition, the use of English menu commands in the learning interface was seen as problematic, particularly as the interfaces to many of the most popular applications Google, MSN, Yahoo, as well as Microsoft Word are translated into Thai.
This supports a point made by Olaniran (2007) that inexperienced English-speaking individuals may perceive that the learning application offers them little since they cannot even understand the user guide let alone the learning content.
4. DISCUSSION
behaviour (Henderson, 2007). Chen et al (2008) stress that it influenfundamental beliefs about the nature of knowledge and the way to acquire knowledge and that,
(p.307) is prone to occur when learners use an application or material embedded with educational theories from a different culture . Olaniran (2007) reminds the e-learning innovator that learners tend not to welcome a learning innovation which does not match their local learning culture. And when this happens, the learners view the new learning innovation as being a hindrance rather than a help. Thus, to gain an optimal learning outcome, it is
technology and its associated educational resources.
In recent years, online learning applications developed in the West have been globally welcomed by academics including in Asia (Henderson, 2007). However, Chen et al (2008) point out that the online learning applications underlined by western learning cultures featuring self-directed learning, reflective practice, and collaborative learning, could disadvantage learners who were not familiar with such an approach. This conclusion mirrors the results of the current study, suggesting a wider relevance across Eastern and Southeastern Asia. The Thai participants who were used to a
autonomous nature of IMMEDIATE ESOL and perceived it as a potential hindrance to their learning performance. Similar to the results of an Asian study done by Kember (2000), the participants were unable to adjust when they were left to make own decisions on their learning
tation to autonomously explore the learning materials. Regarding such evidence, Henderson (2007) suggested perhaps a structured course with step by step instruction would be more beneficial to learners who were unused to the western learning approach. A similar suggestion was voiced by the participants of this study.
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Harvel (2006) emphasized that the learning application interface is a tool used by learners to accomplish their learning goals. Thus, it is critically important that the interface is designed for
and to be convenient, relevant and time- (p.163). The Asian students in the evaluation that took place in New Zealand found the interface satisfactory and were particularly happy with the invisibility of the technology for learning purposes. The Thai students, on the other hand, were more resistant to some of the innovative aspects of the interface. It is not unusual forhuman beings to find change difficult to adapt to (Kember, 2000). But the uneasiness towards new technologies is likely to be intensified among learners schooled in a tightly structured approach. It was useful to have this resistance addressed during our focus groups, so that we could establish a plan to deal with the situation.
Learning technology and its interfaclearners cannot go pass the gate they are unable to access learning content. In this instance, proposed strategies suggested by the participants to help them enter the gate include a face-to-face and/or video presentation introducing IMMEDIATE and the provision of a detailed step-by-step user guide. Overall, though, even in the study in Thailand only 8.5% of the responses were highly critical of the interface (compared to 5% in the New Zealand study). As one of the participants in the second focus group said:
I personally think that once we are familiar with all the commands, this application would be easy to work with.
Another question worth discussing is the in which the course is presented. Olaniran (2007) writes: -world learning is the issue of
language, since the majority of Internet content is in English language, Non-English speaking
individuals may feel that technology has nothing to offer them since they cannot understand the
contents
In New Zealand, ESOL courses are taught successfully in an English-only environment. And initially some of the research team thought that by presenting everything in English in our online ESOL it would help students improve their English proficiency. However, based on our observations and information gained from the interviews, we realized that English-only presentation in a Thai environment could be an obstruction to people trying to learn the language,especially beginners. An IT undergraduate student who participated in the pilot test stated that though she would love to improve her English, she was intimidated by it, and when she saw that everything provided in the IMMEDIATE ESOL was in English, she felt defeated. The simple
the meaning, the meaning was also in English. She sensed that the process of seeking for meanings of words would never end and this impression lowered her motivation to learn.
5. CONCLUSION
It is challenging to bring a learning technology developed based on Western learning culture to be tested with groups of Thai participants who hold a different learning ethos. This experience has taught us that a compromise between the different learning cultures should be reflected in the learning technology and its interface. It would not be fair to enforce educators to completely abandon their teaching-learning concepts and to expect the learners to easily shake off their
drawn from
both cultures. Importantly, when introducing a learning approach for teaching languages with unfamiliar technology, we ought to prepare strategies to help the learners to overcome their struggles. It is necessary to give them enough time to adapt and familiarize themselves with a learning application newly introduced to them before judging the quality of the learning
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application and assessing learning outcomes. Last but not least, we are obliged to understand that simplicity for one may be complication for another.
The challenge that the developers of IMMEDIATE have to meet is to still provide freedom to the user whilst minimizing complications. Using the software was seen as a mentally stimulating experience and many of the field test participants would recommend it to their colleagues. Helping the users to get started more quickly, therefore, could assist them deal with some of the cultural issues mentioned above and not exacerbate the situation.
We think that similar cultural challenges will be faced when trying to apply Western e-learning technologies to many other countries in Asia and the rest of the developing world.
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IFIP WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
16
143
Alam & Alam et al. Impact Assessment of ICT for Agriculture in Bangladesh
Proceedings of the 11th
International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
AN IMPACT ASSESSMENT OF INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGY (ICT) FOR AGRICULTURE THROUGH LIVELIHOOD FRAMEWORK IN BANGLADESH
Md. Jahngir Alam,Brainstorm BangladeshNabid Alam, University of DhakaMd. Mahfuz Ashraf, University of Dhaka
Abstract: Most of the developing countries are characterized by extreme gap between demand and supply of food. The ultimate result is malnutrition, frequent sickness, dependents on import etc. Bangladesh being a developing country is not an exception. To reduce this problem different ICT interventions have been implemented in Bangladesh since it is argued that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has can reduce the intensity of this problem. But a question arises to what extent these initiatives are helpful? This research is attempted to find the answer of the question from actual beneficiary perspective. The research has used a bottom- -The research is qualitative in nature and is guided by interpretative approach. Besides to understand the sustainability of the project and of its stakeholder the livelihood framework is used. We have illustrated how this intervention has enhanced the livelihood of villagers to improve their living condition.
Keywords: Information and Communication Technology, Livelihood, Rural People, Development, e-krishok.
1. INTRODUCTION Bangladesh is a developing country where 85 percent people live in rural area . From different study it is found that most of the people are suffering from unemployment, malnutrition, illiteracy and poor financial condition (Rabbani, Prakash & Sulaiman, 2006).The density of population of the country is very high and the ultimate result is unusual price hike of daily necessities of life in general and of food in particular. To solve this problem it becomes crucial to increase the production of food within these limited natural resources. For this reason besides other initiatives it is necessary to introduce farmers with modern technology, arrange immediate solution of problems and finally to reduce time and distance barriers by which our farmers are suffering severely. As it is argued that Information and Communication Technology (ICT) can play a significant role for alleviating poverty in rural areas of developing countries if it aligns with appropriate development strategy (Harris, 2004, 2002; Martin and McKeown, 1993), government of Bangladesh and other national and International organizations have implemented different ICT intervention in Bangladesh. But from observation it has found that most developing country-based enterprises have failed to reap the benefits offered by modern information and communications technologies (ICTs).An impact assessment of these projects from actual beneficiary perspective has becomes necessary to make the ICT intervention successful. In this research, using livelihood framework -taken the initiative to increase the knowledge level of farmers and to reduce their time and distance barriers from which they are suffering a lot. The project was launched Bangladesh Institute of ICT in Development (BIID) in October 2008.
2. LINK BETWEEN ICT AND AGRICULTURERealizing the importance of ICT for agriculture different Scholars have recommended applying ICT for agriculture (Jensen, 2007; Akers, 2008; Goyal, 2008). According to them ICT can help farmers by providing information about pest and disease control, especially
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early warning systems, new varieties, new ways to optimize production and regulations for quality control (Jac Stienen et al., 2007). According to (Richardson, 2003) ICT can contribute to agriculture by helping them to build network, making them more informed and finally byincreasing their capacity. According to (Nancy & Hele, 2002) ICT can help farmers by reducing ICT can contribute in agriculture by reducing physical remoteness, Complementing conventional information technologies (e.g. rural radio) with new technologies (e.g. Internet) to bridge information gaps and by providing access in new economic and commercial market information. (Narula & Nainwal, 2010) commented that most of the farmers in developing country have poor market linkages, poor access to quality farm-inputs, services and technology, lack of information about Government resources, institutions and extension services. The farmers also lack real time information about consumers, market demand and prices and hence are prone to more exploitation by existing intermediaries in the supply chain. According to them ICT can help farmers who have poor access to information, especially regarding customers and markets.
3. CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK OF THE STUDYThe research is based on livelihood framework to understand -
covers what people do for their survival and how they go about fulfilling these needs. A livelihood can be considered sustainable when it can both respond to and recover from stresses and shocks while preserving or improving assets and capabilities (De Haan and Zoomers, 2003). When the framework is applied to any intervention researchers try to see, whether the project is able to ensure following important assets so that people can take protective measures to save them from vulnerable condition and whether the outcomes of the project is sustainable:Its elements (DFID 1999):
Vulnerability context: the external environment that shapes people's lives via shocks (e.g. conflict, disaster), trends (e.g. demographics, changing global prices), and seasonality.
Assets: five types of capital Human (skills, knowledge, health, ability to work); Natural (land, forests, water); Financial (income, financial savings, non-financial savings (e.g. jewellery, livestock)); Physical (infrastructure (transport, housing, water, energy, information/communications), producers goods (tools, equipment)); Social (networks, connectedness, group/organisation membership, relationships)
Structures: the public, private and NGO sector organisations that deliver policy, legislation, services, goods and markets
Processes: the forces shaping how organisations and individuals behave (i.e. operate and interact)
Strategies: "the range and combination of activities and choices that people make/undertake in order to achieve their livelihood goals"
Outcomes: what strategies achieve through use of assets via structures and processes within a context
4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY AND STUDY PROJECTThis research is exploratory and explanatory studies. Firstly, qualitative research method naming literature review and in depth interview technique are adopted. Quantitative data helps analysts and policy makers understand progress towards achieving targets or pre-defined objectives (Powell, 2006). However, quantitative data does not explain why difficulties were experienced in achieving a particular target or exploring the context in which learning takes place (Powell, 2006). Qualitative analysis can provide data that is policy-relevant and informative. Moreover, qualitative analysis provides richer descriptive
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data and enables a rich, in-depth exploration of complex phenomena in a way that quantitative data cannot.
- -up protective capital. The Bangladesh Institute of ICT in Development has plans to expand e-Krishok to over 500 locations across the country at sub-district level by the end of 2011. By the end of 2013, e-Krishok will be available throughout Bangladesh. In the longer term, the service could be expanded to include all income-generating activities in rural areas, to provide information and advice on fisheries, livestock, cottage industries, arts and crafts, as well as agriculture.
The information delivery model applied by BIID has been quite simple. A rural telecenter owner/operator is trained to use the user friendly Bangla content available on the eKrishok
or query. In case, (s) he is unable to find solution, (s) he would send a web mail to [email protected] . An agriculturist, managed by BIID would respond to all queries deposited to the mailbox on daily basis. Hence, in about 24 hours, solution is reached to the center operator which (s) he would pass on to the farmer. Farmers in a locality are mobilized using a local guy known as e Krishok brand promoter, or BP. A BP communicates with farmers in 2 stages. In the first stage, groups (consisting of 30 -50 farmers) of farmers (at least 200) are organized in courtyard meetings. In a courtyard meeting, A BP, along with identified local elderly farmers and opinion leaders make farmers aware of information services available through their nearby telecenter. To ensure sustained communication with a number of identified farmers, a BP would also encourage those who gather at the courtyard meeting to enlist as eKrishok member and would record their burning problems in their current nature of agricultural activities. In the next step, enlisted farmers are contacted directly in their field or at home to further understand their farming problems or to reach them solutions to problems already recorded. The role of BP is to create trial of the service for the first time.
-
Establishment of Tele center with e-Krishok Facility
Selection of BP team for promotion
Informing people through social gathering
Further follow-up with existing and new members
Communication of problems to Krishok center
Processing of Problem
Search the solution of problem through searching web
Send the problem to specialist through email
Solution of Problem
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5. DISCUSSION & SUMMARY Despite the fact that much remains to be explored in terms of the role and potential of e-krishok for ensuring rural livelihood, the analysis conducted here sheds light on key conceptual foundations that help better understand the complex linkages that exist within vulnerable livelihood systems, and that ultimately determine the role of e-commerce in achieving development outcomes amidst an uncertain vulnerable condition.
The aim of this research was to highlight some impacts of ICT for ensuring sustainable livelihood of rural community in Bangladesh. We have illustrated how this intervention has enhanced the livelihood of villagers to improve their living condition. This has impacted positively, on financial, natural, social, physical and human outcome. By illustrating how ICT, in the form of e-krishok, has provided resources for villagers to enable them to gain livelihood assets to make better lives, we have demonstrated a practical application of the Livelihood framework.
Based on the foundations provided by the sustainable livelihoods approach, the study has showed that e-krishok has both direct and indirect effect on rural people, which has helped them to develop livelihood assets in vulnerable context and to develop their condition. While the credit of intensity of changes in the life of rural people may not be fully given to e-krishok but definitely the role of e-krishok has some positive contribution towards these changes.
e-krishok has helped them to get relief from destruction of crops and to get employment. It has also helped them to develop new skill that will help them to increase productivity. e-krishok not only helped people to get relief from financial vulnerability but it also helped them to get social respect and identity. It has also helped women to contribute in the family and in the society and make them worthwhile for their family. The benefit of e-krishok has also extends its benefit to agricultural specialists by providing them access in real data for further research and development. e-krishok has helped people to obtain financial assets by providing new employment opportunity, entrepreneurship opportunity and finally to protect crops from all kind of vulnerability.
e-krishok has also helped people to develop human capital. e-krishok has helped people to gather knowledge to make proper uses of existing resources and to cope up with changing pattern. It has helped them to expand output from limited input. Besides it has also helped specialists to gather knowledge. Earlier the research and development activities were greatly hindered due to lack of database. But now with the help of e-commerce now it is possible to build a database for further research and development. This database will help future researchers to develop further skill and knowledge. e-krishok helped to achieve natural capital. With the help of e-krishok people now use optimum uses of fertilizers and pesticides rather then excessive use. It has helped to reduce the vulnerability of natural component. People now use the optimum amount of scarce resources which has reduced the wastage of scarce resources. e-krishok has helped people to make new social network that has helped them to solve many problems that are necessary for ensuring proper livelihood. It has also helped people specially women to achieve new social identity. e-krishok has helped them to contribute in the family that has make them worthwhile in the family. e-krishok has also increased the social identity and respect of employees. e-krishok has not only helped general people but it also helped agricultural specialists to make effective communication and to reduce the distance that was prevailing in our country.
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Finally e-krishok has also helped to build physical capital to some extent to take relief from physical vulnerability. e-krishok has helped people to solve their problem with wasting their time, energy and money. With the help of e-krishok it is now possible for farmers to solve their problem easily. It has also given farmers to modern technology and has given them knowledge to combine traditional and modern method for better output. e-krishok also helped to specialists to gather data for research and development without physical presence. It has reduced the barrier between rural farmers and urban specialists.
While the research shows that e-krishok has contributed to build livelihood to take protective measure from different vulnerability it has much scope to strength these assets through different measures. From example e-krishok has not created a platform to know the market price of different products and e-the farmers have to spend lots of money, time and energy for land record. e-krishok also
em which could save farmers from extreme loss. Besides in e-krishok there is no online buying and selling facility. To strength the positive livelihood impact of e-krishok the above area should be improved.
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International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
Narula SA and Nainwal N(2010) ICTs and Agricultural Supply Chains: Opportunities for Successful Implementation Information Technology in Developing Countries,Vol.20, No.1, 24-29, 2010
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IFIP WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
18
150
1
Is public access computing really
contributing to development?
Lessons from libraries, telecenters
and cybercafés in Colombia
Revised paper, for submission to IFIP WG 9.4 CONFERENCE 2011 KATHMANDU, NEPAL
Paper 87
Ricardo Gómez & Luis Fernando Barón-Porras1,
University of Washington Information School
Feb 2011
Abstract
The use of information and communication technologies (ICT) can contribute to local community
development and link local communities to global issues. Public access computing (PAC) venues
such as telecenters, public libraries and cybercafés make ICT more broadly available and extend
the benefits of ICT to underserved populations. This paper discusses findings from a study of PAC
in Colombia, with particular attention to the town of Carmen de Bolívar. This town has a strong
tradition of community organization for social development, and a long history of violence that
has shaped its social fabric. The study assesses the contribution of PAC to community
development. While the introduction of PAC may not have contributed significantly to
community development, use of ICT gives the local population a sense of belonging to a larger,
global community, which in turn may help local activities in support of community development.
We conclude that PAC alone does not necessarily contribute directly to community development,
especially if the political environment is not conducive.
1Gomez is Assistant Professor, University of Washington Information School. Barón-Porras is doctoral
student, University of Washington Information School. Corresponding author is Baron [email protected].
The authors acknowledge the contributions of Mónica Valdés, Nyria Rodríguez, and Lady Otálora in
conducting this research. This research was conducted by the Technology and Social Change Group at the
University of Washington, in partnership with ICESI University in Colombia.
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Introduction
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) have great potential to contribute to
community development (Unwin 2009), especially for local communities of underserved and
marginalized populations. Public Access Computing (PAC) experiences through venues such as
telecenters and public libraries have taken root in Colombia and around the world as part of
strategies for digital inclusion (Warschauer 2003; Amariles, Paz et al. 2006; Parkinson and
Lauzon 2008). Cybercafés are also important PAC venues that can contribute to digital inclusion
and community development. Empowerment is a key component of community development:
empowerment is a process (rather than an event) by which individuals, organizations and
communities gain control and mastery over their own social and economic conditions, over
political processes that affect them, and over their own stories (Melkote and Steeves 2001).
In order to contribute effectively to community development, people not only need access
(public or private) to ICT, but they also need strong community organizations and the ability to
participate in social and political processes. Community organizations are critical to the
construction of social capital (Putnam 2000; Putnam, Feldstein et al. 2003). Community
organizations play a key role in the use of ICTs for development processes because they mediate
between ICTs and the community, between local needs and global sources of information.
In areas where violence is widespread, community organization and effective mechanisms for
communication are crucial to social transformation. In his analysis of the role of communication
and power in the networked society, Castells concludes that
contemporary
context, with the construction of meaning in the production and reproduction of power
relationships in all domains of social life. The process of constructing meaning operates
(Castells 2009).
In this study, we build on notion of communication as power to assess the contribution
of PAC (a new and powerful communication tool) for community development, empowerment,
and social transformation. In this sense the research questions that guide this paper are: In
what ways does public access to ICT contribute to community development?
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As part of a wider study about the state of PAC in Colombia, this paper analyzes the case of
Carmen de Bolívar, a municipality on the Caribbean coast of Colombia, two hours south of the
historic city of Cartagena. The national study also included other municipalities and capital cities
in five regions of the county, where we sought to understand the role of PAC and its
contribution to community development. We examined public libraries, telecenters, and
cybercafés as the principal points of access to ICTs. Given resource constraints, this study did not
include non-users of ICT, a topic that calls for additional research.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows: First, it offers a review of the literature on PAC for
development, with a particular focus on Colombia. Then, we describe the unique characteristics
of the municipality of Carmen de Bolívar, Colombia, with particular reference to violence and
community organization. This is followed by a description of the research method in this studys.
Next, we discuss the principal findings of the study in Carmen de Bolívar and conclude with a
discussion of the implications these findings have for PAC programs from a community
development perspective.
Literature Review
In a recent, extensive review of the literature about the impact of public access to ICT,
University of Washington researchers Sey & Fellows (2009) concluded that even though ICT are
nomic advancement in both
developed and developing countries, there is limited definitive evidence of downstream impacts
of public access to ICT. This is not necessarily because public access has had no impact, but
because it is particularly difficult to identify and measure. Their report contributes valuable
insight to the ongoing debate about the continued relevance of public access ICTs, particularly in
cases that receive public funding.
Furthermore recent studies of free access to computers through public libraries in US show that
in 2008 about 77 million people visited public libraries to get on the Internet; of these, a large
proportion are low-income individuals looking for jobs or doing homework at computer centers
in the library, or bringing their own laptops and using wireless connections. According to that
study, computers in libraries are used primarily for social connections, education, employment,
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health and wellness, e-government, community engagement, and managing finances (Becker,
Crandall et al. 2010).
In Colombia there are three types of venues that make up the public access ecosystem in the
country: libraries, telecenters and cybercafés. Public libraries are increasingly offering (or
planning to offer) access to computers and the internet. There are 1,563 libraries affiliated with
the National Network of Public Libraries2, and about 16% of them offer PAC, with plans to
dramatically extend this to all public libraries by 2015. Community telecenters are non-profit
centers that offer PAC as part of a development program or other community activities such as
health, agriculture or education activities. There are today 1,062 telecenters operated by non-
government organizations, and 1,490 operated by government-sponsored programs, primarily
(Casasbuenas 2007). Cybercafés are for-profit centers that offer PAC as a business, frequently
coupled with other services such as food, beverages, photocopies, etc. Our extrapolation of data
from official reports suggests there were 14,166 cybercafés in the country at the beginning of
20103.
Based on user surveys from the National Department of Statistics, a recent study found that the
most frequent type of access to the Internet was through public access venues, especially paid
venues (47.2%), followed by access at home (43.8%), at school (26.6%), at work (24.6%), or at
Free PAC was least used (only 4.1%) (Colnodo, APC et al. 2007).
In sum, PAC is a key player in use of computers and the Internet in Colombia (almost half the
Internet use in the country is through PAC venues).
The Context of Carmen de Bolívar
2http://www.bibliotecanacional.gov.co/?idcategoria=27552
3Based on Quarterly report of Ministry of ICT, first quarter of 2010
(http://www.mintic.gov.co/mincom/faces/index.jsp?id=14580), which cites number of broadband
connections to the Internet for shared access, separate from home and business access, and subtracting
the know totals for libraries and telecenters.
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5
El Carmen de Bolivar is a town with a population of 70,000, about two hours south of the city of
Cartagena, on the Caribbean of Colombia. The region has a paradoxical history of social
organization, agricultural development, and violence. In the past five to ten years the town has
experienced a dramatic transformation of its ICT resources, with the introduction of mobile
phones, broadband Internet access available for homes and businesses, computers in schools,
and PAC venues including one public library, two telecenters, and between seven and ten
cybercafés.
The region is rich in natural resources: farming and ranching industries are complemented by a
prosperous mining industry (coal and nickel). Nonetheless, there are also high levels of
unemployment and informal employment in the region, and the country as a whole (11.8%
unemployment in the country in March 2010, according to official statistics4. Three types of
informal businesses are symptomatic of the local needs in the community: the sale of minutes
(mobile phone calls) by street vendors, transportation (mototaxi rides) by informal taxi drivers
on motorcycles, and water (clean water or potable water that is by street vendors sold door to
door). There is no aqueduct in Carmen de Bolivar. These three activities illustrate some of what
is missing in the municipality: basic necessities that people resolve by resorting to the informal
economy.
The region of Carmen de Bolivar is also known, sadly, as one of the regions most affected by the
long history of political violence in Colombia. In the 1990s, this region became the site of a
territorial dispute between all of the armed groups in the country: guerilla organizations,
paramilitary groups, drug traffickers, and the National Army, with grave consequences for the
civilian population caught in the middle of the conflict. During that time, leftist guerrillas fought
right-wing paramilitary groups for control over the region, also a corridor for supplies in the drug
traffic business, in an unprecedented escalation of violence that is epitomized by the massacre
of El Salado, a small village 10 km from El Carmen de Bolivar, in February 2000. During three
days, between 300 and 450 armed paramilitaries took over the town and publicly assassinated
between 70 and 100 civilians and caused the displacement of over 4,000 people. According to
official reports, between 1999 and 2001, paramilitaries committed 42 massacres in the region of
4http://www.dane.gov.co/daneweb_V09/
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6
Carmen de Bolívar, leaving at least 354 people dead (Grupo Memoria Historica 2009). This
history of violence has left deep scars in the social fabric of the community.
In addition to the history of violence in the region of El Carmen de Bolivar, there is also a long
tradition of community organization and social development activities in the region, which
makes it a unique context to examine the contribution of ICT, and PAC in particular, to
strengthening social capital and contributing to community development. Community
organization activities in the Carmen de Bolivar region have been supported by international
donors, the State, the Catholic Church, and, to a lesser degree, by private businesses.
Development projects promoted by organizations such as Montes de Maria Communications
Collective have made important contributions to community empowerment and wellbeing in
the region (Rodriguez 2008). The Communications Collective provides a good example of how
communication and culture can become tools of cultural resistance against the negative effects
of armed conflict. This grassroots organization offers training in radio production for children,
teenagers and young adults in El Carmen and in neighboring communities; they also offer
training in radio and television for groups of displaced women in local communities, as well as a
travelling street cinema project and a cable television channel (Rodriguez 2008; Vega and
Bayuelo 2008). In 2003, the Communications Collective received a prestigious National Peace
Prize in recognition of the group's work contributing to the reconciliation and peaceful
coexistence by strengthening the social fabric of the region (Rodriguez 2008).
The existence of strong organizations for community development in the context of political
violence, together with the relatively recent arrival of PAC through library, telecenters and
cybercafés, make Carmen de Bolivar a unique site to understand the contribution of PAC to
community development in Colombia.
Research Methods
The Colombia study builds on previous work on the research project, Landscape of Public Access
to ICT in 25 Countries, conducted between 2007 and 2009 by the University of Washington
(Gomez 2011). In particular, we used the Access, Capacity & Environment (ACE) framework
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7
developed in that study. The three pillars of the ACE are: (1) equitable access: physical access to
the venue and to technology in it, suitability of the venue, and affordability of the services it
provides; (2) human capacity and relevance: human capacity and training of both users and
staff, meeting local needs, and social appropriation of the venue and services it offers; and (3)
enabling environment: socio-cultural factors, political will and legal and regulatory framework,
as well as popular support. (Gomez 2010).
We used a mixed-methods approach for data collection and analysis, which gives the study
added relevance and credibility (Creswell, Plano Clark et al. 2002), by combining the breadth of
a statistically representative survey, with the depth and insight of semi-structured interviews,
and the context and interaction of focus group workshops in different communities.
The data collection strategy was based on the following activities: user surveys (1,182), semi-
structured expert interviews (10), structured operator5 interviews (100), personal history
conversational interviews with users (10) and focus group workshops (6) with operators and
users in six parts of the country. The main purpose of these workshops was to understand the
PAC ecosystem in the community with more depth than what the individual interviews afforded
in earlier studies.
To better reflect the diversity of the population in Colombia, we adopted the regional
distribution criteria used in the National Survey of Community Television (Angel 1998), which
divides the country into five regions based on cultural and demographic characteristics: the
Caribbean coast, Santanderes, Antioquia and Eje Cafetero, Central region, and Southwest
region. In each of these regions, we studied a large city and a small town. This regional
distribution model allowed us to have national representation and to distribute the aggregate
sample proportionally and statistically in the selected regions, based on the 2005 Census6. In the
5upport to users in
public libraries, telecenters, and cybercafés.
6The National Administrative Department of Statistics NADS (DANE in Spanish) is the entity
responsible for the planning, processing, analysis, and distribution of official statistics in Colombia. [Cited
26 May 2010. Available at
http://www.dane.gov.co/daneweb_V09/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=175&Itemid=2
8]
157
8
Caribbean coast of the country, we included the municipality of El Carmen de Bolívar as part of
the sample for the study. In-depth data collected there during site visits and a focus group
workshop in February 2010 informs the majority of this paper, complemented with results from
31 user surveys, 20 operator interviews, and one in-depth personal history interview, all of them
conducted in this municipality. Results are also contrasted with findings from research in the
rest of the country.
Findings and Discussion
The PAC ecosystem in Carmen de Bolivar is comprised of two telecenters that are run out of an
educational institution that provides after-school training; the municipal library, which offers
limited-but-free public access to computers and the Internet; and several cybercafés located in
the center of town. Focus group participants also mentioned several people who offer Internet
access in their houses in remote neighborhoods, as well as a commercial (and expensive)
wireless Internet service that covers nearly all of the municipal capital.
Uses of PAC
The majority of PAC users are young people between 16 and 35 years of age. Patterns of PAC
use in Carmen de Bolivar are convergent with national trends. Results of the national survey
showed people who attend PAC venues (in the country, not limited to Carmen de Bolivar) are
generally men and women between 18 and 35 years of age (77%), and they are mostly students
(42%). They frequently go to these venues to use email (42%), to browse the web (20%), to use
social networks (19%), and for online chat (14%). They also responded they mainly attend
those places to look for information related to education (30%), for personal issues (25%), for
entertainment (19%), for news (8%) and (6%) to conduct transactions or find information about
jobs.
Perceived Benefits of PAC
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9
The national survey (n=1182) included an open-ended question about how use of PAC has
. Analysis of the responses yielded twelve themes, grouped into four broad
categories: more information (42%), relationships (25%), learning (20%), and transactions (10%).
All of these can have potential negative consequences as well, which were identified by a small
proportion of respondents (3%). Negative consequences are mostly related to increased
dependency or addiction, less time available, more superficial interactions or knowledge, more
expensive (new costs), problems with virus or hackers, and lack of privacy.
In the Relationships category there are three different emerging themes: (1) Friends and Family
(16%): PAC is perceived to enable closer contact and communication with friends and family,
and to shorten distances with those who are away. For many respondents this is not limited to
maintaining existing friends, but offers opportunities to meet new people and make new friends
as well. (2) Connectedness (5%): PAC gives users a stronger sense of belonging, of being part of
a larger world; it offers users better connections and relationship with clients, friends and
organizations; new opportunities for advancement, teamwork and collaboration; and an
increased sense of ownership of their destiny and their future. There is an important nuance in
the way some respondents describe a transformation in the sense of connection and
relationship afforded by use of ICT that goes beyond the mere cultivation of friendship:
respondents express an added quality of depth and connection, and a stronger sense of
belonging to a larger, broader world. (3) Entertainment (4%): a small proportion of users
emphasize how PAC has opened new avenues for entertainment, spending time with friends
mostly sharing games and music. friends and family. The distribution of responses about the
summarized in the following figure:
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10
Figure 1: Perceived Impacts of PAC: stronger relationships
The perceived benefit we called sense of
belonging to a broader, larger world, with more opportunities for interaction and understanding
of other realities and other practices
community development.
going on in other places, nationally or internationally; 2) the ability to communicate with people
in other places (other regions or other countries); and 3) opportunities for learning new things,
being informed and learning about new things in the world worlds. This sense of connectedness
is strengthened by the speed and ease with which people can now access multiple sources of
information, and it results in a sense of empowerment and confidence-building on the part of
users of ICT. A small proportion of respondents also highlight work-related benefits of this sense
of connectedness, either in maintaining relations with clients, finding new business
opportunities, or gathering ideas for new products and services to offer. For example:
It is amazing to see the peasants to come in and they know more or less how to use the
y come to see what kind of plague is affecting their crops, or where they
can get more information about it. It is beautiful, beautiful to see that they come to find
out whether their subsidy is arrived, because they sometimes come from far away in the
countryside, and they come to ask if their payment is arrived and if it has not, then they
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11
come back later and keep on checking (Operator Interview, Carmen de Bolivar,
Colombia).
It is also important to point out that libraries, telecenters and cybercafés have all turned into
places for meeting and socializing of different sectors of the population. PAC venues become
places where local meets local, where individuals and groups meet to share and exchange with
peers and colleagues, both face to face and remotely, in town and in the rest of the country and
of the world.
PAC venues are also enabling other kinds of relations between ICT and the social context in
which they are inserted, relations that may need further study with interdisciplinary tools and
appr
literacy courses and may develop new bonds and relations that go beyond the ICT training
alone; new forms of relating to State institutions, as may happen as a result of workshops on
digital citizenship, or as a result of vulnerable groups gaining access to online payments and
subsidies; or new forms of relationship with economic opportunities, as evidenced with an
incipient evidence of looking for and applying to jobs online, as well as the growing use of ICT for
While we found early indications of these new relations between ICT and society in Carmen de
Bolivar, they were not strong themes but subtle, emerging themes that may warrant further
investigation and better understanding.
PAC Disconnected from Local Context
However one of the most surprising findings from the study in Carmen de Bolívar is the absence
of context, or rather, the silence with respect to the extremely strong presences in the region's
history: war and community organizing. Only one of the users, who had previous ties with the
Communication Collective, indicated that ICT served to generate solidarity with those in other
places. ICT had also helped disseminate alternative information about a region that had been
highly stigmatized:
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12
se here in El Carmen there are few spaces
for sports, and the Internet seduces the youth, it fills the free time. And we, in the
Collective, we are starting to think that we can take advantage of the new technologies,
to maintain the communication among the communities, to exchange experiences and
memories, and to work with education institutions wehre we have groups that are part
But this single statement was not corroborated by other participants, interviewees, or survey
respondents in Carmen de Bolivar. Apart from this isolated comment, in the focus group
discussion we did not hear of any other indication of social fabric being strengthened by public
access to ICT, and only limited evidence of this process came out in interviews and survey
responses.
In addition, users consider that there are very few sources of local information provided by
government institutions, social organizations, or by the local media on the Internet. This
absence has discouraged their interest not only to look for information about local events and
situations, but has also limited their opportunity to build new links with other local issues and
social actors. In this particular aspect, ICTs are not providing them other alternatives to get
informed on local topics, or to engage with other people away from their local environments.
In sum, El Carmen de Bolívar is a place where the informal economy of poverty rules, with cheap
calls through cell phone vendors of minutes on the street, cheap rides on informal mototaxis,
and expensive water sold by street vendors for drinking and daily use. It is also a region scarred
by violence, with 42 massacres between 1999 and 2001, including one of the cruelest in the
country's recent history, the El Salado massacre of 2000. Although community organization in
Carmen de Bolívar reinvents forms of communication and celebrates life with the creativity and
inventiveness of groups such as the Communications Collective, deserving of the National Peace
Prize in 2003, public access to ICT, through the municipal library, telecenters, or cybercafés does
not appear to have helped strengthen citizen initiatives, give voice to community organizations,
or open avenues for community development in this poor, war-torn region.
Conclusions
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These findings lead us to conclude that, for the most part, there is little or no connection
between the new information and communication opportunities people have gained through
PAC, and the community development needs in their contexts. Furthermore, despite the
strength of community organizations, and despite the potential of stronger relationships and a
heightened sense of connectedness afforded through PAC, personal friendships and
entertainment are perceived as stronger benefits of PAC, not community development or social
transformation.
It is possible that the seeds of ICT-enabled community empowerment were present and we did
not see them in spite of the variety of mechanisms we used to gather our data. . It is possible
that use of computers and the Internet for social change is not happening in public spaces, but
rather in the private spaces of organizations, schools, homes, and workplaces. It is possible that
the scars of war are too deep, and that the public space created by libraries, telecenters, and
cybercafés is still too young to handle the memories of death and destruction. It is possible that
this is an expression of the Net Delusion described by Morozov: ial
online, whatever the political realities of the physical world. For these captives, online
around them] (Morozov 2011). Any of these possibilities is better than the most disheartening
one: the violence of the war has defeated community organizations and their potential.
The situation in El Carmen shows that PAC venues are indispensable. This is especially true in
communities where residents first need to pay for expensive water before being able to pay for
local transportation or phone calls, all of which are offered as part of an informal economy of
poverty. Furthermore, the results of this study show that public access venues are very useful in
introducing disadvantaged students and young people to ICT: for training those who are
unemployed and are looking for other work, and to provide opportunities to the services and
information provided by State institutions and social programs run by NGOs and private
foundations to people and communities (vulnerable and excluded).
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Other uses emphasized in public access venues are communication and entertainment. Through
chats and videoconferences, users communicate with friends and family, form groups and
communities around common interests, and explore and communicate with others: other cities
and municipalities, exploring other affairs around the country and the planet. Furthermore,
public access venues seem to be interesting spaces for social interaction: places to hang out and
meet with friends, for enjoyment and socializing. And this is particularly important to enrich and
to reactivate the life of Carmen de Bolivar, where social life and communication have been
strongly affected by violence.
Our findings show there is a strong perception of empowerment among PAC users. They
expressed they have gained control in their own lives in the context of participating with others.
It also has involved process of self-esteem and self-efficacy. In many cases it also has implicated
a proactive approach to life and in some cases a critical understanding of the sociopolitical
environment. Taking into account the empowerment perspective of Kabeer (1999), the
responses also reflect the expansion in people's ability to make strategic life choices, to acquire
resources through social and institutional relationships, and to define goals and act upon them
(which Kabeer defines as agency). However, according to ategories of
empowerment (1995), the kind of empowerment we identified among PAC users in Carmen de
Bolivar is more comprised of intrapersonal and behavioral components rather than interactional
ones. In other words, it is more related with personal interactions than with organizational and
institutional ones. We found very little evidence of processes of empowering communities to
participate in the construction/consolidation of larger social arenas and public spheres where
representations and resources are disputed. Furthermore there are few indications of process to
exert pressure on channels of decision making and institutional power to respond to their
needs, which are other important characterizations of empowerment (Campbell & Jovchelovitch
2000).
In a context like El Carmen, it is necessary to help reconstruct the social fabric and trust. The
richness of spaces for organization and communication processes in the region can be a fertile
area to generate processes for the use and adoption of ICT, transforming these venues into
spaces for local information and communication. They can be the effective mediators in the
complex process and situation in El Carmen is demanding, not just providers of more windows
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for personal friendships and entertainment, no matter how important friendships and
entertainment may be. PAC venues can become spaces for meeting and coexistence, places for
innovation and creative undertakings, and centers of job creation and alternative income-
generation opportunities that offer alternatives and opportunities to take people away from
violence, unemployment and hopelessness. PAC venues can be something more than providers
of, as one respondent put it, just Facebook and Porn.
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IFIP WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
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167
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179
IFIP WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
27
180
Vaidya et al Tracing ‘reality’ in the design – reality gap
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
TRACING ‘REALITY’ IN THE DESIGN – REALITY GAP: A STAKEHOLDER
PRACTICE BASED MODEL FOR IS IMPLEMENTATION IN DEVELOPING
COUNTRIES
First Author: Ranjan VaidyaPhD Candidate, Information Systems
Department of Information Systems & Operations Management, University of Auckland Business School, New Zealand
Email: [email protected]
Second Author: Dr. Michael D. MyersProfessor, Information Systems
Department of Information Systems & Operations Management, University of Auckland Business School, New Zealand
Email: [email protected]
Third Author: Dr. Lesley GardnerSenior Lecturer, Information Systems
Department of Information Systems & Operations Management, University of Auckland Business School, New Zealand
Email: [email protected]
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Vaidya et al Tracing ‘reality’ in the design – reality gap
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
TRACING ‘REALITY’ IN THE DESIGN – REALITY GAP: A STAKEHOLDER
PRACTICE BASED MODEL FOR IS IMPLEMENTATION IN DEVELOPING
COUNTRIES
Abstract: The design reality gap model has become a reasonably well accepted model for describing the failure of an Information System in developing countries. Many researchers agree that such a design reality gap does exist. However, while there has been considerable discussion on the ‘design’ aspect of the model, there has been much less discussion on the aspects of ‘reality’ and how to understand it. We suggest that the study of socio-cultural practices of stakeholder provides a new and meaningful way to understand ‘reality’. We use interpretive case study research to demonstrate this in our study of an agricultural marketing information system in India. Our research reveals that stakeholder practices provide a deeper understanding of what are in fact multiple realities of IS implementation.
Keywords: Stakeholder practices, implementation, case study, information systems, developing countries, design reality gap
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Vaidya et al Tracing ‘reality’ in the design – reality gap
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
TRACING ‘REALITY’ IN THE DESIGN – REALITY GAP: A STAKEHOLDER
PRACTICE BASED MODEL FOR IS IMPLEMENTATION IN DEVELOPING
COUNTRIES
1. INTRODUCTION
The failure of ICT projects is an important theme within the research stream concerned withInformation System in Developing Countries (ISDC) (Avgerou, 2008). Authors have tried to explain IS failure in terms of stakeholder issues (Bhatnagar, 2007; Heeks, 2002; Krishna & Walsham, 2005; Kumar & Best, 2006; Walsham & Sahay, 2006) organizational culture and processes (Avgerou, 2008; Cecchini & Raina, 2004; Krishna & Walsham, 2005; Markus, 1983), technology related issues (Madon, 1992; Stanforth, 2006) and infrastructural issues (Madon, Sahay, & Sudan, 2007; Ray & Mukherjee, 2007; Schware & Deane, 2003; Veeraraghavan, Yasodhar, & Toyama, 2009).Many of the IS failure studies of developing countries use the design reality gap model proposed by Heeks, also known as the ITPOSMO model (Dada, 2006 pp 4; Pucihar, Bogataj, & Wimmer, 2007 pp 448). The model includes two constructs namely, IS design and the reality of implementation. The model suggests that the greater the gap between these two, the higher the chance of IS failure. This gap may exist along seven dimensions of information, technology, processes, objectives & values, staffing & skills, management systems & structures and certain other dimensions such as time and money. Under the model the organizational reality is assessed at the current and the projected stage along the sevendimensions. The main contribution of this paper relates to the conceptualization of reality. While the design reality gap model conceptualizes reality as an organizational concept, we focus on reality as a stakeholder (practice) concept. Earlier studies have highlighted that the neglect of practices has an impact on systems design (Wynn, 1992) and that this neglect often results in IS failure in developing countries (Sarantis, Smithson, Charalabidis, & Askounis, 2010). We suggest that the study of stakeholder practices can be used to bridge this gap. In this paper we suggest focusing on stakeholder practices is a better way of understanding the design and reality gap. We demonstrate this through an interpretive case study of an agricultural marketing board in India. The board is implementing an agricultural marketing information system in one of the states of India. The IS was initiated in 2003 with an objective of connecting the various government agricultural markets of the state. The project involves four key stakeholders namely government, farmers, traders and private partners implementing the project. The paper proceeds as follows. In the next section we briefly review the discussion on socio-cultural practices in IS. In section 3 we discuss the interpretive case study method used in the current research. Section 4 and 5 present the case study. In section 6 we present our analysis of the study. Lastly we draw the conclusions and discussions.
2. STAKHOLDER PRACTICES AND INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Incomplete assessment of the problem has been identified as one of the factors for failure of ICT4D projects (Tongia & Subrahmanian, 2006). An accurate assessment requires the knowledge of three stakeholder attributes. First, who are the stakeholders; second, what aretheir interests; and third, how do they achieve these interests (Frooman, 1999). The third question is of considerable importance as it directly relates to stakeholder practices. Yet it has not received much attention within the ISDC research stream (Bailur, 2006). IS researchers have studied stakeholder issues under the themes of objective attainment (Krishna & Walsham, 2005), impact on stakeholder interests (Bhatnagar, 2007), involvement of
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Vaidya et al Tracing ‘reality’ in the design – reality gap
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
stakeholders in IS design and implementation (Kumar & Best, 2006) and expectations from IS (Lyytinen, 1988; Lyytinen & Hirschheim, 1987). We suggest that the neglect of stakeholder practices has resulted in incomplete assessment of the IS implementation issues.
Little attention has been given to stakeholder practices in IS-cultural studies as well. Such studies discuss the cultural transformation due to IS or role of culture in IS acceptance (Leidener & Kayworth, 2006). One feature of such studies is that they recognise that a culture comprises of both ideational and material components (Leidener & Kayworth, 2006; Myers & Tan, 2002). A group’s basic assumptions and its value system seem to be ideational components, while the various artefacts are the material components (Kappos & Rivard, 2008). Amongst the ideational component, value based studies have received considerable attraction in IS as values are easy to study (Schein, 1985). Examples of such studies include those done by (Calhoun, Teng, & Cheon, 2002; Ford, Connelly, & Meister, 2003; Loch, Straub, & Kamel, 2003; Rose, Evaristo, & Straub, 2003; Straub, 1994; Weisinger & Trauth, 2003). Our proposition is that we need to study stakeholder practices (what they do) as well as stakeholder values. Leidener and Kayworth (2006) comment that:
“Even while focus (of IS studies) has largely been on values, there is a tight linkage between cultural values and the subsequent behaviours and actions of social groups...In this sense, values can be seen as set of social norms that define the rules or context of social interaction through which people act and communicate...(Leidener & Kayworth, 2006 pp 359)”
Stakeholder practices provide grounding for the understanding of values. In the design reality gap model, reality is an organizational concept that can be understood along seven dimensions (Heeks, 2003). We suggest that reality can be seen a stakeholder (practice)
concept. The advantage of such a conception is that the researcher is not tied to the seven dimensions. We present stakeholder practices as a tool for acquiring knowledge about reality.For this we use the theoretical model presented in Figure 1, which is based on the design reality gap model of Heeks (2002; Heeks, 2003) except that stakeholder practice is introduced as an intermediary concept between design and reality. The model suggests that IS design should include the social reality in the form of the norms and practices of stakeholders.
Figure 1: Stakeholder practice based theoretical model for IS implementation
IS - DesignSocial reality
Stakeholder norms
and practices
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Vaidya et al Tracing ‘reality’ in the design – reality gap
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
3. RESEARCH METHOD
The current agricultural marketing information system connects 64 market yards of one state in India through ICT technologies. At these yards, the transaction data between the farmer and trader is captured. The processed data is then redistributed to the yards. This provides information related to the latest market rates, commodity arrivals, etc to the farmers and traders of other yards. There are four major stakeholders in the project namely farmers, traders, government officers and private partners. In order to have a contextual understanding of the stakeholders’ reality, the most appropriate research approach was qualitative. Qualitative research enables researchers to understand the behavior of people in the light of their context and values (Myers, 2009). Our approach has been interpretive (Klein & Myers, 1999; Nandhakumar & Jones, 1997; Orlikowski & Baroudi, 1991). According to Cavaye (1996) interpretive research does not require the formulation of constructs a priori, and “allows constructs to emerge whilst the researcher is in the field learning about and trying to understand the phenomenon”. We thus choose an interpretive case study as it is well suited for studying social reality in context (Cavaye, 1996; Klein & Myers, 1999; Walsham, 2006).The data for the study was collected by one of the authors over a period of six months in 2009 and 2010. Initial discussions with senior officers of the government and the private partners were undertaken at the state capital. Based on these discussions, preliminary visits were undertaken to six market yards. Four yards were identified for data collection. The data was collected from semi structured interviews, observations, field notes and government records. In total 27 interviews were conducted with farmers, government officers, private partners and traders. The interviews with the government officers were undertaken at different levels of the hierarchy including the secretaries, sub inspectors, clerks, etc. Interviews with the private partners were undertaken with the data entry operators, projects manager and director. The interviews with the farmers and traders were undertaken at market yards as well as villages. The interviews lasted from between 30 minutes to 2 hours. The interviews with the farmers were tape recorded while notes were taken for the interviews with other stakeholders. The data was analyzed using N Vivo software. Certain documents and reports such as project reports, mandi details, Performa, reports generated by IS, etc. were also collected both from the office of the private partners as well as the government offices.
4. CASE DESCRIPTION
This case study describes the implementation of an information system by the government agricultural marketing board in one of the Indian states. The information system intends to integrate over two hundred government owned agricultural commodity markets in the state in various phases. Presently 64 markets have been connected through the use of ICT. The connected markets share information about such as commodity arrivals, their maximum and minimum rates.
4.1. State of Madhya Pradesh
The state of Madhya Pradesh is located centrally in India. The total population of the state is over 60 million of which over seventy percent is rural. There are over fifty thousand villages in the state and agriculture is a major source of livelihood. The state is a leading producer of various agricultural commodities in India namely, soybean, gram, oilseeds and pulses. Local farmers sell their commodities to the traders in the government owned market yards. These are wholesale markets and are colloquially known as mandis. The government organization,
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Vaidya et al Tracing ‘reality’ in the design – reality gap
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
Madhya Pradesh State Agricultural Marketing Board acts as an intermediary in these trade transactions.
4.2. Madhya Pradesh Agricultural Marketing Board
The Madhya Pradesh Agricultural Marketing Board is the apex organization responsible for providing marketing support to the farmers. The board can be viewed as a three level organization. The first level comprises of the market yards (mandis) where the tradetransactions take place. At the second level are the regional offices of the mandi board that control and monitor the yards. At the third and the top most level is the mandi board head office which is located in the state capital of Bhopal. At present there are overall 239 mandis in the state which are managed through the seven regional offices.
4.3. Process of trade transactions in mandi
The trade transactions at mandi includes processes of auctioning of commodity, weighing of the commodity, payments to the farmers and depositing of the mandi service charges by the traders. These are described in steps below:Step 1: The farmers enter the mandi premises and are issued an entry slip. Step 2: After entry farmers display their commodities for sale to traders at designated spots. A mandi employee conducts the auction in front of the traders and the farmers. Step 3: After the auction is over the commodity is weighed by the contractual laborers and the weight is certified by the weight certificatory. Step 4: The farmer collects payment from the trader. Step 5: The trader is required to deposit the service charges payable to the mandi. The service charge is two percent of the payment value1
After the service charge is deposited, the trader is issued a no objection certificate (NOC) by the mandi. The trader is required to show this certificate for transporting the commodities through various check posts, such as the inter-state check-posts. Figure 2 below presents a diagrammatic description of the process. The rectangles represent the documents generated in each process and the ellipsoids represent the basic processes.
.
1A further 0.20 percent fee is charged from the traders and is contributed in the fund for the homeless people.
Thus a trader pays a total fee of 2.20 percent.
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Vaidya et al Tracing ‘reality’ in the design – reality gap
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
Figure 2: Basic process of transactions at the yard
Entry Entry Slip
Farmer
Auction
Weight
Farmer Payment
Service Charge
Auction Slip
Weight Slip
Payment Slip
NOC
Main processes Process related documents
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Vaidya et al Tracing ‘reality’ in the design – reality gap
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
4.4. History of mandis in Madhya Pradesh
The first law related to agricultural commodities was enacted during the British colonialismand was referred to as the Berar Cotton and Grain Market law (1897). This law was replaced by the Bombay Cotton Market Act of 1927. The act specified the establishment of certain open yards where un-baled cotton of the farmers could be marketed (Singh, 2007). The Bombay Cotton Market Act became the basis for various other acts that were passed by the state government. Finally in 1972, the Madhya Pradesh Krishi Upaj Adhiniyam (MadhyaPradesh Agricultural Produce Act), 1972 was enacted. This act stipulated the creation of the Madhya Pradesh State Agricultural Marketing Board for regulating the agricultural markets of the state.
With the creation of the mandi board, the board regained a greater control over the mandis. The trade transactions at mandi during the initial years happened through commission agents. In late eighties, however, the system of commissioning was banned because of the exploitative tendencies of commission agents. With the ban of commissioning, most of the commission agents started either trading in commodities or they became intermediaries between the traders. In the nineties the board made some efforts to synchronies mandi operations. The recruitment process was streamlined, the service charges were increased, and a common exemplary code of rules was prescribed for all mandis. There were some efforts towards use of technology such as installation of electronic weighing machines at various mandis.
In order to streamline its operations further, in 2003 the board started a project on computerization of the mandi. Before discussing this project, we present the problems with the manual system.
4.5. Problems in manual system
The farmers travel long distance to sell their commodity. However, often the rates are unfavorable and they end up with losses. Moreover, the mandi processes are complicated and farmers often face exploitations by the traders. Also there are quality related conflicts between the traders and the farmers. Often the data from various mandi processes do not reconcile and this is a major embarrassment for the mandi employees. There is also under reporting of the trade transactions by the traders as this reduces their service charge obligations. Thus in order to streamline its operations, prevent the exploitation of the farmers and to help them realize better prices for their commodities, the mandi started a project on computerization.
5. COMPUTERIZATION OF MANDIS
It is against this background that the mandi board initiated the project on computerization of its operations in 2003. This project was called as e-Krishi Vipanan Initiative (EKVI – e-Agricultural Marketing Initiative). The project involved capturing the data on all the mandi processes electronically. The data is captured through computer terminals, hand held electronic terminals and electronic weigh bridges. At each mandi the captured data is uploaded to a central server and is redistributed to various mandis, inter-state check posts and the mandi board head office at Bhopal. The data is also displayed on the website of the mandi board (http://www.mpmandiboard.org). At each computerized mandi, the processed data such as auction rates are displayed on TV sets. The farmers thus get information on the auction rates at various other mandis.
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Vaidya et al Tracing ‘reality’ in the design – reality gap
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This project has been conceived and executed by the Mandi Board and a consortium of organizations. The entire investment on hardware, software, manpower and maintenance has been done by the private partners. The mandi board pays the vendor a percentage of the total mandi service charges collected. At the time of the study, 64 mandis and one inter-state check post had been computerized. An evaluation by the Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Information and Communication Technology, Government of India in 2008 indicates that the project has been successful on some aspects (DIT, 2008 pp 92). Empirical evidence however suggests that there are certain issues with IS implementation.
6. CASE ANALYSIS
The computerization of the Madhya Pradesh Agricultural Marketing Board is part of a larger initiative by the government of India to computerize the public services. The EKVI project is a unique project because it is the first government effort to computerize the agricultural markets in India. There are four primary stakeholders in the mandi the farmers, traders, government officers and the private partners. Each of these has developed certain practices through which they serve their interests in the mandi. Here we analyze the case from these perspectives. One major problem in IS implementation has been that it challenges some of the traditional practices of the traders. As per the mandi rules, a trader is required to submit the records of trade transaction once every fifteen days. Under the manual system, there was a fair amount of flexibility in this cycle. However, with the implementation of the IS, it became a necessary that data is reconciled every fifteen days. The traders do not follow the cycle of fifteen days and continue submitting the records as per their convenience. This results in massive data reconciliation problems. One of the traders described his reasoning for submitting the records as under:
“See if you look at the root of the word Pakshik (the Hindi name for the document in which the traders submit their returns), it is in the Sanskrit word Paksha. A paksha is of fifteen days and refers to the waxing and waning cycles of the moon. This has been a traditional practice to submit the records every fifteen days. But the government has never implemented it. So we have been submitting the records as per our convenience and usually once every ten days”.
Such a practice of the traders is exploited by the private partners to prove the effectiveness of the IS. This was explained by one of the government officer as under:
“I will give you one more example of the kind of tricks that private partners play to prove the effectiveness of the IS. The traders submit their records of the transaction usually after ten days. For instance for the trade done between the 1st and 10th of a month, the trader submits the record on 11th. Similarly for the next 10 days, the records are submitted after 20th. Obviously if you check the computerized records on the fifteenth, it will show that some traders have not paid their service charges. So the private partner reports a recovery from the trader, when in effect the truth is that the trader has not yet submitted the records. So the private partners do such false reporting to show that the IS has been successful in recovering the service charge payments”.
Often such practices have repercussions on organizational culture as well as its efficiency. The government officer further mentioned that:
“They frequently generate such false reports. And then based on such reports our senior officers send us ‘show-cause’ notices. In one such situation, we saw that three officers were transferred due to such misreporting of the private partners. Our irony is that the mandi board does not question the private partners. It is for such reasons that
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the last payments of the private partners have not been cleared”.The root cause of such a problem has been the continuance of the traditional practice of the traders. With the cognizance of this practice as an important design consideration, the current problem of data reconciliation becomes obsolete. This indicates that the study of practices provides an effective means to understand the current realities of IS implementation.Another practice which has its root in the overall socio-cultural context of India relates to quality conflicts in the Mandi. In the process of auction, the traders see a sample and make the judgment of the entire commodity lot. At a later stage when the lot is opened, there may be some difference in the quality. This frequently creates conflicts in the market yards between traders and farmers. It seems that practice was completely ignored and hence the quality conflicts have not been addressed by the current IS. This has adversely impacted the expectations from IS. One of the researchers discussed this issue with a farmer who described the context of quality related problems as under:
“See in this field you will observe that the wheat crop is not homogenous. Some grains have grown tall while others are stunted. The farmer here has mixed different seed varieties. See he might not be having enough seeds of one variety. So he has sown whatever he was having or may be that his intention is to sell the commodity in Mandi. So if the higher quality grains are mixed with the lower quality, there are chances that the commodity can be sold for higher rates”
A private partner employee also recognized that such quality conflicts are frequent in the mandi and he described these conflicts as under:
“Often the farmers have old stock of commodity. Such stock has lost its luster and the farmers know that it won’t yield them a good price. So the crafty farmers sometimes mix the old stock with the new. Sometimes various farmers share the lorry and their produce gets mixed up and results in a mixed quality. Sometimes the traders also play tricks. They feel that the price of the commodity will reduce and so they refuse to buy the commodity and blame the farmers for quality manipulations. So sometimes the farmers are crafty while sometimes the traders are crafty”.
Another government officer mentioned that the current computerization project was not integrated with such quality grading processes. According to him:
“The farmer does not have grading equipments for these different commodities. So if we can install these different grading machines in the mandi such conflicts will be reduced. So computerization should look into these aspects also”.
The statement of the government officer clearly indicates the lacuna created by neglecting such quality manipulation practices. Given that quality conflicts are frequent, it is important that the information system addresses this issue. Such field level realities are only revealed through a careful study of stakeholder practices. Another practice that created frequent farmer trader conflict was related to weight adjustments by the traders. The farmers bring their commodities in their own bags. These bags are then standardized by the traders into designated weight denominations. During this process the weight of the bag is adjusted. This adjustment often is a bone of contention between the farmers and traders. One farmer described this as under:
“These electronic weights have not been able to control the manipulations by the traders. In weighing they do not correctly adjust the weight of the bag and they don’t give any reason for this. So for us what’s the use of these electronic weights?”
It is to be noted that during the design of this IS project, it would seem to be common sense to install electronic weighing machines as these capture the weight precisely. However, if the current practice of the traders to adjust the weight of the bag is overlooked, the entire IS effort is compromised. This clearly indicates the importance of studying stakeholder practices for understanding the realities of IS design and implementation.
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Another instance of this kind is revealed in the farmers’ practice of not respecting their auction contracts. This also creates massive data reconciliation problems. One government officer explained this as under:
“It is quite common here that the farmers do not respect their auctions contracts. If the prices increase they re-auction their commodity and don’t cancel their previous contracts. This has implications on the other mandi processes as two contracts exist for single transaction”.
The IS has the capability to reconcile the data at various stages of the recorded transactions. However, the IS fails when the farmers sign multiple contracts. Two contracts are created, but only one is enacted. Clearly, the practice of the farmers to sign multiple contracts was overlooked during the requirements study. This has serious implications for the success of theIS as it is not considered trustworthy enough to detect such transactions. There are certain employee practices, rooted deeply in public sector organizational culture of India, that have serious consequences for the success of information systems. There should be mechanisms to address such practices. For example, one such practice relates to avoidance of everyday tasks and responsibilities. One government officer attributed this to the overall culture of India and mentioned that:
“See the mentality in India is such that even in marriages people prefer to have grooms that are in government service. They know that if he is in a government service he is bound to be paid till 62 years. If I ever commit a mistake then at the most the government can suspend me for some time...but after all I will again get reinstated”
Also the seniors in the staff hierarchy have developed a practice of apathy towards the needs and concerns of the juniors. One junior officer described the situation as under:
“So in India no one thinks about these matters. Our work is not even analyzed, forget about appreciation. I am almost going to complete about two years here and in this duration none of my seniors have given me any feedback about my work”
In the current IS there is no mechanism whereby feedback may be provided to the employees on their performance with respect to the IS implementation project. Thus the specific reality -that seniors are apathetic towards the juniors – was not captured in the requirement analysis. The above examples clearly indicate that stakeholder practices are an effective tool for the assessment of current realities. Such practices have roots in the organizational as well as the social culture of India and have direct implication on the success of information systems. In the case of mandi computerization, we see that such practices have resulted in conflicts amongst the stakeholders and have led to a lack of trust in the system. Our model thus presents the practices as an intermediary concept between design and reality. We suggest this should result in a better assessment of reality as the researcher is not limited by the seven dimensions of the design reality gap model.
7. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
Earlier studies have suggested that the study of practices has been neglected in information system design studies (Wynn, 1992). Studies have also suggested that ICT4D is “primarily a design challenge” and inaccurate assessment of the reality leads to their failure (Tongia & Subrahmanian, 2006). Consequently, assessment of reality should be a key area of focus in ISDC research. It has also been stressed that stakeholders’ understanding of the conceptual model of the reform process has an impact on the success of information systems (Kouroubali, 2002). We suggest a stakeholder practice based conceptualization of “realities.” The focus of the design reality gap framework is on the identification of the gaps in design and development of e-governance projects (Jain & Kesar, 2008). We suggest stakeholder practices as an intermediary concept for the identification of such gaps.
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In our study of the implementation of an information system by the government agricultural marketing board in one of the states of India, we saw that the absence of a detailed study of stakeholder practices compromised the integrity of the system. For example, the quality manipulation by farmers was not taken account of by the system, yet it is a major cause of conflict in the mandi. Also, the current IS records the net weight displayed on the balances, but does not take into account the adjustments made by the traders. The result is that the IS does not meets the expectations of stakeholders. The IS brings little convenience to the farmers and only partially addresses their needs. We attribute this to the incomplete assessment of reality. We suggest that a comprehensive study of stakeholder practices could have led to a much better outcome.While we believe that the results from this study may be applicable to other developing countries, we acknowledge that the present study was limited to India. Another limitation of the study is that it is specific to the case of agricultural marketing. However, given the similarities of the issues in other developing countries, we believe that the findings from this study will be of interest to all those conducting research on or involved in some way with IS implementation in developing countries.
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11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
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THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING CHALLENGES IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF NEPAL: TEACHER S DIARY STUDY
Sujan Shrestha, John Moore, José Abdelnour NoceraThames Valley University St. Mary's RoadLondon W5 5RF, United Kingdom {sujan.shrestha, moorejo, Jose.Abdelnour-Nocera}@tvu.ac.uk
Abstract: In the context of developing regions, despite the decreasing cost of ICT infrastructure, supporting education with conventional e-learning technologies using standard paradigms is often regarded as shortsighted approach. Thus, researchers are increasing the focus on relatively cheaper and sustainable mobile technologies to supporteducation. However, before implementing the technology enhanced learning solution, it is crucial to take account of the existing teaching and learning practices and design solution based on the distinct understandings of local context to fully incorporate technology in the existing educational process. This paper describes an exploratorystudy, carried out to identify the challenges of teaching and learning English in the government schools that use traditional teaching practices in Nepal. A diary study method was used to understand the background and the paper highlights existing pedagogical, technological, social and cultural issues that might be useful for guiding the technological intervention in public schools where one of the current and theurgent requirements is to provide an access to digital contents.
Keywords: mobile learning, ICT4E, ICT4D, open-source platform, Technology Enhanced Learning, Nepal.
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THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING AND LEARNING CHALLENGES IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF NEPAL: TEACHER S DIARY STUDY
1. BACKGROUND
Nepal is a mountainous country where most of the countryside is remote and about 42% of the population lives below the national poverty line. According to the United Nations Development Program, poverty in Nepal has increased over the past three decades, especially in rural areas (UNDP, 2010). It has an estimated population of 23.4 million and at least 15 major racial groups(Vaidya & Shrestha, 2010). A large proportion of the rural population of Nepal is illiterate, as the literacy is around 55% in which, Nepali (national language) is 82% and English is approximately 18% (ENRD, 2009). Approximately half of the population in Nepal lacks the basic skills of functional literacy and numeracy (MOE, 2009a).
There are Nepali non-profit organizations such as Open Learning Exchange (OLE) and Nepal Wireless Networking Project (NWNP), working towards improving quality and access in Nepal's public education system and currently NWNP is also in the testing phase of using the network for online-based learning (Thapa & Sein, 2010). Shrestha (2008) reviewed the state of the overall English Language Teaching (ELT) in Nepal and highlighted the unsatisfactory ELT situation in the country due to ineffective teacher education, the medium of instruction, language policies, university entrance examinations and a lack of resources. But we are not aware of the studies which explored the challenges to introduce technology in education and the use of mobile technologies to enhance teaching and learning in public schools of Nepal.
The objectives of our research are: i) to identify the current challenges in public schools that lack access to Information Communication Technology, ii) understand how ICT is helping to address such concerns in schools that have privilege to use the technology in education, and iii) explore the opportunities to supplement the existing teaching and learning practices by providing a much needed access to digital resources using low-cost open-source mobile platform (Shrestha, Moore, & Adbelnour-Nocera, 2011 forthcoming). In this paper, we present the findings from the initial study that we conducted in eight public schools located within an urban area of Chitwan district using a pre-questionnaire and 2 weeks long English
The organization of this paper is as follows: section 2 is a literature review and theoretical orientation; section 3 discusses the methodology and demographics; section 4 highlights thechallenges of delivering learning in government funded public schools of Nepal; and section 5concludes the paper.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
The exploration of the use of mobile technology to support language learning around the world is increasing which shows that the ICT intervention in language teaching and learning is facilitatingtransition from teacher-centered approaches towards more student-centered ones, such as Communicative Language Teaching (Vihavainen, Kuula, & Federley, 2010). There are a number of studies that focused on mobile learning in the context of developing regions like Africa, China and India which evaluated mobile learning in controlled classroom and unsupervised settings as well (Kumar et al., 2010).
Previously, one of the applied research project in Sub-Saharan Africa showed the improvement to access and quality of an education by the use of mobile technologies (Leach, Ahmed, Makalima, & Power, 2006). One of the key policy implications raised by this study was the need to further investigate in a wider range of contexts and purposes of the potential of new mobile technologies.
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According to Kukulska-Hulme, (2009) Designing mobile learning solutions also need a clear understanding of what is best learnt in the classroom, what should be learnt outside, and the ways to achieve balance between these settings .
Even though, serious education challenges cannot be solved by simply introducing computer and internet technologies in low-income schools (Warschauer, Knobel, & Stone, 2004), there are evidences of the use of ICT in education within developing countries that demonstrated its potential to have a positive impact when an appropriate technology was combined with quality curriculum-based content (Sahni et al., 2008; Hollow & Masperi, 2009; Hutchful, Mathur, Joshi, & Cutrell, 2010; Thapa & Sæbø, 2011);. In a recent study of the role of NWNP and use of ICT in the context of an underdeveloped remote mountainous region of Nepal, it has shown how ICT is helping to develop and extend the social capital, which assists people in developing and improvingtheir education, healthcare, communication, and generating economic activities (Thapa & Sein, 2010).
Therefore, it is crucial for technology research to identify the best-fit solutions for developing regions (Brewer et al., 2005) that integrates with the social and cultural practices of the locality to make sure it is a sustainable solution and for long-term use and benefits (Evans et al., 2008). Adetailed discussion of wide range of technical, environmental, and cultural challenges in general(mainly in the context of India, Ghana and Cambodia) provided some guidelines for implementing different ICT related solutions in developing regions (Brewer et al., 2006). However, the challenges of introducing ICT for education in countries like Nepal stretch beyond the economical, infrastructural and other technical requirements. Thus, there is also a need for an understanding of existing teaching and learning practices in the current social, cultural and political context of Nepal, and therefore our study has a socio-cultural theoretical orientation.
3. METHODOLOGY
The study was conducted in Chitwan District of Nepal and the organization of this study and the data collection was completed in two and a half months starting early August 2010. Eight government funded schools within the district were randomly chosen to participate in our study.From those schools, we selected 16 teachers (2 from each school) responsible for teaching English for year 9 and 10. All the schools are located in and outskirt of Narayangarh, which is a small town situated 140 km South/west of the capital of Nepal, Kathmandu. Our decision to conduct thestudy in this particular area was due to time constraint and limited financial resources. There isalso limitation on the generalization that could be made on the findings of this study as the schools are located in a relatively developed part of the country.
We collected qualitative data without researchers needing to be physically present at the site to supervise the study during the study period, which minimized the risk of influencing behavior. The study was, supported by a native social worker who is also a respected retired teacher. He also has an excellent local knowledge and rapport with the schools and the community, which immensely helped us to establish the relation with schools and our credibility among the teachers.
Initially, we contacted head teachers of all the schools and were given permission to speak to teachers. We obtained the written informed consents from the teachers who agreed to participate in this study and administrated the pre-questionnaires and analyzed the demographics. Then, teacherswere provided a diary and a pen to enable them to self-report which also encouraged a sense of
(Hall, 2008). According to David McLachlan Jeffrey, (2007) Teacher diaries also generate a self-awareness which is beneficial for the personal-professional development of teachers, as they involve inwardly reflective procedure of writing about what happened in the classroom, and then analyzing the entries for deeper
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We decided to conduct a paper-pen based diary study, as approaches such as combining data logging with e-diary in field trials (N. Liu, Y. Liu, & Wang, 2010) are more suitable for the browser/server based architecture and also due to the cost of implementing such an approach and the limited access to Internet technologies. Indeed, diary study can suffer from the drawback of potentially missing data, because participants forget to record entries or are selective in reporting (Bolger & Davis, 2003). Teachers are very busy and writing diaries require dedication as well(Jeffrey, 2007). It is also possible that participants may find it difficult to write unprompted (Hall, 2008). Therefore, to minimize such issues, we provided a list of 25 open questions that teachers used as guidance which helped to collect their thoughts and write down teaching and learning related experience. The questions helped teachers to articulate their perceptions and where available, our interpretations of their diaries are backed up by the findings from previous researches.
The questions focusedEnglish is taught in public schools, teaching techniques used, the social and cultural norms that are peculiar to each school, issues related to infrastructure, availability of resources and access to ICT,
in teaching English, the preconceptions about the role of ICT, mobile device in particular and expectations of how useful it would be in the context of learning.All the teachers added an entry to their diary in English language either in the school or at home.The choice of English medium instead of native Nepali language for writing diary may have affected quality and quantity of data collected in our study.
All the diaries were transcribed, summarized, coded and categorized manually. From this interpretive study, we present the challenges of achieving the objectives proposed by the English curriculum of government funded public schools of Nepal and highlight why teaching and learning English is not effective in public schools.
3.1. Demographics
Out of sixteen, only two teachers were female. The age of five teachers was below 35 and the age range of rest varied from 36 to 65. Ten of the teachers have access to desktop computer at home, three have access at school and the other three teachers have no access to desktop computers and no experience of using them as well. Those who have access, have a low to average desktop using experience and they use the computer for personal use. Only five teachers said that they use desktop computer almost every day. Eleven of those teachers also have access to internet but most of them go online once a week or less than once a week for personal use. Interestingly, all the teachers have access to mobile phones and have an average to a lot of experience of using the phone. Ten out of sixteen teachers own low to mid-range Nokia phone (models range: 1600, 6030, 6085, 6120c), and the rest have a Nokia 5800 music express, Samsung (e1160 and e2130), Benq
Out of sixteen, only two teachers are on contract (postpaid) plan and the rest are
teachers use their mobile phones mostly for making calls and text messaging. Most of the teachers are concerned about the cost of using mobile internet. Some of them do not need to use mobile phone for browsing as desktop use is sufficient for them and when available, some teachers prefer desktop computer to mobile device for accessing the internet. In the below section, the findings from the diary study is discussed in detail.
4. THE CHALLENGES
Nepal has both public and private schools. In the existing Education Act and the relevant Regulations, the school supported by government has been recognized as 'community school', while the privately owned school is called the 'institutional school' (MOE, 2008). Generally, private schools are English medium, and many also introduce computers in the curricula. Even inpublic schools, English is taught as one of the compulsory subjects. In higher education, the
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importance of English is even greater as it is the preferred language to access the scientific literature and the economic opportunity in employment abroad (Hall, Ghimire, & Newton, 2009).
According to Graddol, (2006) recent trends in the use of English worldwide and its changing relationships with other languages is due to the economic globalization which encourages thespread of English but the spread of English is also encouraging The motivation to teach and learn English is clearly driven by the understanding of its value in a much broader context. The importance of English language is such that teachers refer it as an international (global) language, a popular language, a practical language, a must-have knowledge and a passport to travel all over the world. One of the teachers highlighted the importance of English language:
English is the language of a modern technology. It is important to teach English because most of
the valuable books are written in English and medicines, newspapers, computers knowledge are in
English language. English is for getting good job in the context of our country (Nepal). It is for
higher education, and for studying abroad.
Thus, even though providing localized resources will have wider use and impacteducation, we believe that English based resources will also be useful for students and teachers.But, to provide access to digital resources and to introduce ICT for developing education, there are significant challenges that need to be considered.
4.1. Teaching Techniques in Public School
English curriculum and textbooks are designed and developed to improve communicative skills;fluency and accuracy in communication are therefore desired goals. But teaching English is not succeeding in public schools due to use of grammar-translation method and chorus drills in their lessons and the limited use of pair and group activities, which are central to communicative language teaching (CLT) in the West (Shrestha, 2008). Teachers find it difficult to apply modern techniques of teaching as one of the teachers described the teaching in public schools as an act of depositing under the current situation, a phenomenon similar to the Banking view of education eloquently described by Freire (1996):
Worse yet, it turns them (students)which they patiently receive, memorize and repeat. The more completely he (teacher) fills the
receptacles, the better a teacher he is. The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be
filled, the better students they are.
Most of the teachers stated the problem is also in use of a translation method as preferred by students and teachers. Previously, Nepalese students were described as passive learners relying on their teacher to provide the material to be learned (Watkins & Regmi, 1990). As computing is almost nonexistent in the great majority of educational institutions (Goodman, Kelly, Minges, & Press, 2000), even today, education is still traditionally text-book oriented and therefore dependent on teachers as only reliable resource. Students find very difficult to learn English and they rarely use English language even within the classroom. Therefore, every item is translated into thevernacular language. inability to communicate is mainly due to lack of interactive/communicative activities in English-language lessons (Shrestha, 2008). A teacherhighlighted the use of such method and its consequences in learning:
It is because they (students) study all other subjects in Nepali medium and English is the only
subject they learn in different language. Therefore, most of the schools English subject is taught
by translating in native language, which at the beginning phase sounds suitable, but in the long
.
Another teacher said:
Using such method, teaching and learning English language becomes tough and gradually
students pay less attention to learn the language. Eventually, the motive of teaching and learning
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English is considered as passing the examination rather than making the students communicate in
real life situations and their weakness even promote them to cheat in the exams.
4.2. The English Learning Environment
Students in public schools have rarely or no interactions with English speakers outside school. But the schools also lack English learning environment within the school and rarely use English
English is difficult for not only the students but for the Some of the teachers provide private tuitions for students from their own school or from outside as the students seek extra classes to pass the exam with good marks. A study of a Private tutoring in English (PT-E) for secondary school students inBangladesh showed that the students saw private tutoring as imperative for successful learning achievement (Hamid, Sussex, & Khan, 2009).
Based on the observation of one of the teachers, the root cause of weakness in English starts from primary level and the concerns should be focused on this level. It has been highlighted that in some schools the students from primary classes are graded every year in upper classes though they almost failed in English. As a result when they reach secondary level, the English teachers face bigger challenge of teaching the language. Shrestha, (2008) found the lack of training of primaryschoolteachers, which means there may be even fewer primary-school English teachers with appropriate skills and knowledge to teach English to young children. According to MOE (2009b), On one hand, all school teachers are not trained and on the other, trained teachers do not get
enough teaching material to make teaching and learning process effective .
Teachers also pointed out that the allocated time for teaching English is not enough, as only 5 periods are provided in a week to teach English. However, under the current circumstances, all the teachers in these schools teach average 25 hours a week.
Teachers in government schools are overworked, underpaid and not as respected as they should
be. There is no effective means of evaluation as well. Provided that they (teachers) are not going
to be evaluated, negligence do occurs.
4.3. The Social Inequality
The teachers highlighted that the different cultural background and economic status in the community is clearly affecting the teaching and learning practices. In Nepal, generally, those who can afford, send their children to the private English Boarding Schools, as the quality of education is believed to be better than the public schools which is also reflected in the annual school leaving certificate (SLC) exam results (Watkins et al., 1991: 37-38 in Shrestha, 2008; MOE, 2008).Circumstances are such that:
know the value of education and unable to provide good environment and want their children to
stay at home and support in household work. As they have to work and support their parents in the
regularly.
A previous study also showed the reasons for out of school children are the poor family condition, lack of awareness about importance of education among the parents, lack of child friendly school environment and socio-cultural beliefs and rituals (MOE, 2009b).
A teacher described the private and public schools as two opposite poles. Private schools are profit-oriented, have an expensive fee structure and books that the poor cannot afford. An average annual cost per student is US$ 65 in public schools whereas it is US$ 205 in the private schools(MOE, 2008). Nepal remains one of the poorest countries in the world, with per capita income of $447 per annum, wide income disparities, and poor access by a large section of the population to basic social services .Owing to this, the majority of students in a government school are from underprivileged/marginalized group, backwards and schedule casts. The serious consequence is that it deepens the social inequality that
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already exists even further by clearly dividing the society between rich and poor in a Nepalese ethnically diverse and complex society.
4.4. Lack of Resources
In public schools, the lack of teaching materials is also a major problem. Poor students cannot afford to buy reference materials and practice books, as highlighted by a teacher:
have money to buy books, magazines and
newspapers. As a result, pupils are deprived from reading extra materials. They have to rely on
the textbook only. For listening have cassette player. If they have, there is no
facility of electricity. There are a lot of attractive books available in bookshops, but students
cannot afford to buy them, because most of the students in government school have poor
background family.
In Nepal, there is also a shortage of relevant materials in local languages relevant to their needs. Including the technical challenges of developing suitable services to provide access to digital resources, one of the harder challenges of delivering localized learning materials in Nepal is the English language itself. Despite low levels of familiarity with English language, as highlighted before, its importance and socioeconomic value is very high (Hall et al., 2009). Goodman et al., (2000) -country languages, Nepali suffers from not being
According to Shrestha, (2008) Even though, the English Language Teaching (ELT) situation in Nepal is far from satisfactory, it has affected the society as a whole, particularly the English-vernacular (Nepali) divide in the country .
The National Curriculum Framework (NCF), 2006 has emphasised on the need for education in mother tongue, and incorporation of local contents in school curricula. A recent study (MOE,2010) carried out by ministry of education reviewed the existing status of local contents, and mother tongue education and highlighted the major challenge is to change the English language oriented mindset into the mother tongue. The study showed the significant increase in the demandof English education at the community level. As the study showed, the two reason that the schools are using optional English as a local curriculum instead of promoting the local knowledge are,
it has made easy to the schools and the teachers to implement the local curricula as they do not need to take further initiative of
4.5. The Infrastructure
Nepal faces the biggest challenge of establishing the proper information infrastructure as the topography makes it extremely difficult to develop the much needed telecommunications infrastructure.
MOE (2009b)from and all the eight schools involved in this study are conveniently located in or the outskirt of Narayangah town. But, teachers are concerned with the lack of physical facilities, especially the over-crowded classrooms and the imbalanced teacher-student ratio across schools.In the 8 schools we studied, the average class size was 56 students per class.
Only income source of a public school is the grant/subsidy provided by the government, which means many public schools are unable to spend for any other activities (MOE, 2008). The lack of well facilitated rooms and proper teaching aids especially to use in the classroom are the major problems faced by teachers and therefore they find it hard to use the informal teaching methods.Electricity is available in these schools but it is very unreliable. While Nepal electricity authorityis planning for further power cuts and hike the electricity tariff by 30 percent (nepalnews, 2010),the use of multimedia equipment such as cassette player is not common in the classrooms. Ateacher expressed his frustration:
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Load-shedding is sometimes more than 12 hours. So it has adverse effects upon teaching and
learning activities. It creates problems to run our already limited computer classes and other ICT
programs.
4.6. The political Instability
It has been more than 4 years since a 10-year civil war between the state and the Maoist rebels ended in Nepal. However, the country is still suffering due to a political instability and weak governance, and there is no certainty when this transition phase will end. Because of the constant
parties, there is a political deadlock and Nepal still has an interim-government and a constitution has not been written yet. Even thoughtgovernment may show willingness towards development, the impact of the current political situation is felt in every sector and hampering the growth.
Considering what is currently being done from the government level to revitalize the educational practices, teachers stated that there is a lack of clear policy about education and believe that Nepal is not on the track to achieve the goals of Education For All (EFA) by 2015 (MOE, 2009a).Schools lack investments from government level in novel educational techniques and support teaching. Teachers also raised the issue of politics and mismanagement of resources within the school:
We are facing the situation of anarchy. Everywhere in the government schools, there is a direct
and indirect interference of political parties. The involvement of teachers under certain political
umbrella is one major cause for loosing standard of government schools. The schools open for
only 150 days, while it meant to open for at least 220 days according to the government calendar.
4.7. Access and Role of ICT
Indeed, GPRS/3G networks and handsets are becoming cheaper. However, regardless of the fastest growth of mobile phones in the poorest regions (Heeks, 2008); common use of expensive smart phones is not yet possible in public schools of Nepal. Most of the teachers that took part in this study have said that they and the students do not have basic knowledge of using ICT, as in most of these schools, computer lessons are not part of the curriculum mainly due to the lack of funding support. A teacher stated:
few teachers and hardly a small number of students have access to ICT. Some schools may be
equipped with ICT while the most schools have no access to it.
A couple of schools that have computers are being used for accountancy or some other official purpose. Those schools with a limited computer access do not use it for teaching and learning English as one of the teacher mentioned:
Our school has run computer as an extra subject since last year only for the students of lower
secondary level. Only computer teachers are involved in this subject.
In these schools, the affordability of computing remains a primary barrier (Ho, Smyth, Kam, & Dearden, 2009). Also, Hutchful et al., (2010)may affect their ability to create digital content needed for teaching. Therefore, even though theinnovative but simple solutions such as Multiple Mice project (Pal, Patra, Nedevschi, Plauche, & Pawar, 2009) can provide financial and learning benefits, it is important to design a product that supports simplified process for teachers to engage in computer-mediated learning.
In this study, most of the teachers stated that the introduction of technology into classroom will help both teaching and learning process. As one teacher expressed his positive perception:
The traditional way of teaching is out date. Chalk and duster which has been only tools of teacher need to change. Computer, projector, cassette player are supposed to be urgent requirements for
the school which are out of our access. I think ICT will facilities us to teach and learn better
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English by making our task motivating and effective. It may create a rich environment for
language learning. It offers great potential for student interaction and practice with authentic
communicative language functions.
In higher education of Nepal, English as a medium of instruction is widely used than at school (Shrestha, 2008). Referring it as a critical situation, another teacher stated why it is so important to improve English language teaching in public schools:
Our previous records show that the students from government school, as they are weak in English,
unable to get admission in technical institute. And, to avoid this, our total attention should be paid
on course book design, resources and the techniques used.
4.8. Mobile Platform
Relatively cheaper mobile technology, compared to desktop computers and laptops, has more realistic adoption possibilities and help both teaching and learning process. A teacher said:
These days it seems mobile phones are used everywhere by everyone. They are increasingly
powerful devices. Most importantly phones are social tools that facilitate authentic and relevant
communication and collaboration among learners. By using mobile device, I think we can
motivate students and encourage them to participate in class activities.
Mobile learning researchers around the world are focusing on integrating smart mobile devices (such as iPhone and iPod Touch) into m and support formal and informal learning. English in Action is one of such current project in the context of Bangladesh(for more detail, see Power & Shrestha, 2010). But the cost of the device is also one important factor (Chhanabhai & Holt, 2009) and only inexpensive platforms can facilitate rapid application development (Ledlie, Odero, & Eagle, 2009). It is important to consider cost-effective alternative platforms to high end mobile devices and also, from a developer perspective, developing solutions for a locked down device restricts creative and innovative development (Moore, Oussena, & Zhang, 2009).Teachers stated that introducing mobile technology in schools will require financial support as the students are from poor background and for its successful adoption it is important to be a part of existing curriculum. Therefore, to deliver and support learning as a key aspect of a sustainable mobile learning solution, the importance of considering an appropriate target mobile platform before proposing, developing and piloting such solution is recommended (Shrestha, Moore, & Abdelnour-Nocera, 2010). Including the cost for the device, it is also important to consider the cost that users may have to pay for using the mobile services.
5. FUTURE WORK
This study shows a very low penetration of computer and mobile technologies and Internet connectivity is mostly unavailable in public schools of urban Nepal. Nepal is a mountainous country where 86 per cent of population lives in rural areas (Vaidya & Shrestha, 2010), and the education in rural public schools is even more challenging. Therefore, even though ICT based services provide opportunities to improve teaching and learning, poor information infrastructure, lack of resources means the necessity to develop an affordable mobile learning solution that does not completely depend on the availability of wireless network, internet connectivity and smart devices. The challenge is also to support the traditional teaching and learning practices considering the existing socio-technical issues.
With the overall deeper understanding of ways of teaching and learning, needs and concerns ingovernment schools of Nepal, we will conduct a similar study in private schools for a comparisonas the quality of education is believed to be better than the public schools. A further study will be conducted to identify the type of resources that will be useful for teaching by understanding how teachers go about preparing lessons; what type of information they use to prepare lessons; where
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do they get the information from; how do they share material with fellow teachers and if there was a device to help prepare lessons what content would they like to have?
Similarly, another study will be conducted in the schools supported by OLE Nepal in Makwanpur and Kapilvastu districts to investigate how the use of ICT in teaching and learning may be helping to solve some of the concerns highlighted in this paper. Then, based on the findings from these studies, we aim to explore the use of low-cost open-source mobile devices to deliver customized contents in public schools to support English language teaching and learning. We believe open-source hardware and software does not only lower cost in enabling Information and Communication Technologies in developing countries, but sustainably may increase access to much needed knowledge and learning resources that are readily available and freely accessible.This will also help focus on evaluating the usefulness of the proposed solution for supporting teaching and learning. The evaluation will use mixed methods research methodology and adopt an approach recommended by Sharples (Sharples, 2009), which is to address usability (will it work?), effectiveness (is it enhancing learning?) and satisfaction (is it liked?). Data analysis will be guided by the Framework for the Rational Analysis of Mobile Education (FRAME) model (Koole, 2009).
6. CONCLUSION
The idea of this paper is not to imply that the teaching and learning English in public schools is afailure. Instead, we have highlighted the existing concerns and why English language teachingmay not be succeeding in public schools, regardless of how teachers are personally trying to incorporate changes at a teaching level to improve classroom learning experience and make learning student-centered.
This inquiry has helped us to gain deeper understanding of how the English teachers in public schools teach and deliver learning, how the courses are structured, and what could be their motivation to adopt Information Communication Technology to support teaching and learning. We hope that it will help to identify design implications concerning technology in the context of government schools of Nepal and this understanding of the background against which technological intervention can be designed. It has also helped us to identify interest in the further research study.
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Bass et al. Institutions, Capabilities and ICT for Development
IFIP 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS, THE CAPABILITY APPROACH AND ICT FOR DEVELOPMENT
Julian M. Bass ([email protected])Robert Gordon University
Brian Nicholson ([email protected])Manchester Business School
Eswaran Subrahmanian ([email protected])Center for study of Science, Technology & Policy1
Abstract: Institutional theory and the Capabilities Approach have become influential in development research and practice. Both theories offer analytical tools for interpreting and guiding Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for development interventions. In this paper we propose an analytical framework which applies Institutional theory and the Capabilities Approach in the domain of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for development. We argue, using empirical evidence from a case study, that there are benefits for ICT4D research and practice ofutilizing the contrasting strengths of these analytical tools. A combined theoretical framework offers analytical and practical insights in terms of potential for stimulation
degradation inhibition of development goals. ICT can create changes in institutional rules and norms enabling enhanced capabilities for individuals. It can also enhance capabilities which in turn lead to institutional change. There are counter-examples, where ICT has negative influences and the lack of capabilities or institutional rules or norms can prevent fulfillment of hoped for benefits from its interventions. In this paper we contribute a combined framework linking both theories and the attendant exciters and inhibitors. The utility of the framework is illustrated with a case study based on empirical work in the Ethiopian higher education sector.The combined framework and case study contribute to theory development and informs practice by offering a novel approach to analyze ICT led developmental interventions.
Keywords: Capability Approach, Institutional Theory, ICT for Development, ICT4D
1 On leave from Carnegie Mellon University
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INSTITUTIONAL ANALYSIS, THE CAPABILITY APPROACH AND ICT FOR DEVELOPMENT
1. INTRODUCTION
This paper introduces a novel analytical framework of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for Development (ICT4D) informed by Institutional theory (North, 1990, Scott, 2004) and the Capabilities Approach (Sen, 1985, 1987, 1992, 1999). Institutional theory has been influential in improving our understanding of contextual features that may support or impede development (Piotti, Chilundo and Sahay, 2006, Currie and Swanson, 2009). For example, it has been used to articulate the development policy implications of entrepreneurship (Sautet, 2005) and the institutions affecting policymaking for Costa Rica (Nicholson and Sahay 2009). The Capabilities Approach has also strongly influenced the development community. It has been used to establish basic capabilities in health, nutrition and education (Alkire, 2002, Saito, 2003, Robeyns, 2005, Johnstone, 2007). It is practically helpful because it distinguishes between commodities, human functioning, capability and utility; concepts that are often conflated in traditional welfare economics (Clark, 2005).
This paper is motivated by recognition of the potential benefits of improved connections between Institutional Theory and the Capability Approach contributing to
This work builds on Evans (2009) who:
[s] the claim that an expanded institutional cultural approach points us toward the possibility of integrating the institutional turn and the capability
105)
The capability approach enables analysis to expand the definition of development goals. The approach has also defined political processes that can legitimately prioritize these new broader goals. In addition, Institutional theory has shifted attention away from levels of investment and price setting to historically evolving processes that generate enduring rules, norms and organizational structures.
This paper addresses the research question: How can the combined complementary strengths of the Institutional theory and Capability Approach inform ICT for development policy-making, projects and analysis?
We propose here a novel combined analytical framework that uses the complimentary strengths of Institutional theory and the Capability Approach. The analytical framework has been developed from previous work identifying strengths and weaknesses in the two approaches and relevant prior empirical work (Scott, 2007, Sen, 1999). The utility of the combined analytical framework is then illustrated drawing on an empirical case study involving the use of ICT in the Ethiopian higher education sector.
The paper is organized as follows: Section 2 provides an introduction to Institutional theory and the Capabilities Approach. Section 3 introduces the novel analytical framework for understanding ICT4D projects while Section 4 describes the research method used to gather empirical data. The case study illustrating the analytical framework is presented in Section 5. Conclusions and futurework are presented in Section 6.
2. BACKGROUND
An overview of Institutional Theory and the Capabilities Approach is presented below. There are substantial bodies of work associated with both so this section focuses on the facets of most relevance to the scope of this project. The Capabilities approach offers -framework where the starting point is
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wants and needs. In contrast, Institutional Theory may be understood as a lens -analysis of the rules and norms that are used to regulate interactions and transactions in society.
2.1. Institutional Theory
Institutional analysis has been widely advocated as a valuable theoretical tool for ICT and development, e.g. (Avgerou, 2003). Silva and Figueroa (2002) for instance draw on an institutional analysis for ICT policy in Chile to examine why some policies achieve their objectives while others may not. A challenge confronting researchers and practitioners is the apparent lack of a central frame of theoretical reference and set of concepts. Scott (2004) divides institutional theorists into:
regulative,
normative and
cultural-cognitive.
Scott writes that most economists and rational choice theorists stress regulative elements; early sociologists favored normative elements and more recent organizational sociologists and cultural anthropologists emphasize cultural-cognitive elements (p. 465). The Nobel Prize winning economist Douglass clear concepts from which to use and extend our understanding of institutional processes. For North, institutions represent the rules and norms that individuals follow in their daily lives:
nts that shape 1990, p. 3).
Institutions can take the form of formal rules or informal norms, for example the formal constitution of a country, or the socially accepted norms of behavior towards the elderly in a particular society. Institutions affect behavior when they are enforced, formally when rules are infringed such as a fine for speeding, or informally, such as a sneer towards someone who is disrespectful to an elderly person.
Where there is limited or no overlap between formal and informal rules, informal rules tend to take priority in shaping behavior. Costs of conducting formal enforcements increase as the overlap between formal and informal rules shrinks. Thus the smaller the overlap, the more difficult it will be for policymakers to influence individual behavior, with higher enforcement costs.
For North (1990), organizations are created to take advantage of the opportunities in society which together with the standard constraints of economic theory are determined by institutions. As organizations evolve, they alter the institutions (North, 1990, p. 7). Formal and informal institutions change and evolve over time when amended or evolve spontaneously based on their usefulness.
Informal norms are more difficult to influence than formal rules and ignoring the informal norms can make enforcement of formal rules problematic (North, 1990, p. 6). Thus, Institutional theoryemphasizes that reform of the formal institutions will require knowledge of both the formal rules and informal norms that exist in a given society. Contradictions between formal and informal institutions provide both the potential for reform or persistence of institutions.
2.2. The Capabilities Approach
The Capability Approach emerged in mainstream development research and practice in the 1980s with the work of Amartya Sen (1999). It has stimulated wide ranging debate, critique and expansion (Nussbaum, 1988, Alkire, 2002). Current debates on the global human development agenda are increasingly influenced by the Capability Approach, for example through the creation of human development indicators (UNDP, 1990).
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work has improved our understanding of previous work that tended to conflate the abundance of commodities and achievement. The conversion between commodities and capabilities are of particular interest to this discussion, as shown in Figure 1. The social context (which we will argue is best analyzed using Institutional theory) to create capabilities (freedom to achieve) from commodities (production, transactions, goods and services). Further, social influences affect choices about how to deploy capabilities to create functionings (actual achievement).
The Capability Approach recognizes that neither opulence (income or commodity ownership) nor utility (happiness or desire fulfillment) are sufficient to conceptualize human well-being or deprivation (Robeyns, 2005, Clark, 2005). Within the Capabilities Approach an indicator of positive development is whether people enjoy greater capabilities today than they did in the past. Further, development itself should be a process that enables the expansion of the real freedoms the opportunities of people.
Figure 1 Stylized Static Representation of the Capabilities Approach (Robeyns, 2005)
The Individual Conversion Factors, shown in the Figure 1, represent the impact of social context the
freedom to achieve their capabilities (Robeyns, 2005). The Capabilities Approach rightly places emphasis on these conversion factors, and the choices subsequently available to convert capabilities into achievement (functionings). We argue that the limits and opportunities presented by the social context may be analyzed using Institutional theory, while retaining the analytical benefits of the Capabilities Approach for understanding conversion factors and capabilities.
It is clear that technologies can offer enhanced capabilities, offering a complementary perspective to people-centered development approaches (Zheng, 2009development projects tends to refer to an individuals ability to use technology. In comparison, in
freedom to achieve and accomplish their goals. Another pitfall in ICT for Development is the tendency to see ICT as intrinsically good, as if the use of technology in itself was a valuable achievement. The Capability Approach is helpful as a reminder that ICT is a type of commodity or service, and thus meaningful only in the ways that it enhances human capabilities. This discussion of the Capability Approach fits well with explorations of computer ethics (Johnstone, 2007). Here the focus again is on the extent to which
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It is recognized that there is a need to practically operationalize the Capabilities Approach. This has led to debate within the development studies community aboutbasic needs (Robeyns, 2005). It has also led the development of a choice framework tooperationalize the approach from an ICT for development perspective (Kleine, 2010).
3. A CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
The novel analytical framework presented here identifies the links between the Capabilities Approach and Institutional theory in relation to development. In this context, ICT is an enabling technology to deliver human centered development (Schech, 2002). ICT can provide a strong linkbetween institutions and capabilities to foster development. ICT allows for the embedding of the institutional rules (e.g. rules embedded into accounting software) and thus plays a role in the enactment of institutions. It is an enabler of capabilities (e.g. low cost communication) and enables institutional change (e.g. e-Government reducing corruption)
its ability to create network effects; creating a network of knowledge which can be shared and is open to a larger stakeholder group, the pervasiveness of these network effects has led to what Castells (2000) calls the Network Society,
to allow for collective accrual and development of knowledge enhancing social memory. and
to enhance transparency and continuous feedback based improvements which plays a critical role in service delivery (Zheng, 2009, Madon, 2006).
Using the theoretical strands identified above, we have outlined an analytical framework which links institutions, capability and ICT outlined in Figure 2.
Figure 2 Institutional Theory, the Capabilities Approach and ICT
The diagrammatic form of the analytical framework uses bidirectional arrows to represent influences between ICTs, the Capabilities Approach and Institutional theory. These influences should not be seen in terms of simple cause and effect relationships but as a metaphor (Morgan 2006) to explore the complex inter-relationships and influences. In an ICT implementation, prior research has demonstrated that a wide range of social forces, pressures and influences over time can be envisaged including dialectical conflicts between social groups (Avison and Wood-Harper,1990).
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The dashed lines in Figure 2 show the relationship between the elements of the framework and the overall goal of ICT4D. In this framework, any project directed towards development has the design task of balancing institutional design, individual capabilities needs and design within thescope and limitations of technology available.
The bidirectional arrows in Figure 2 represent both positive and negative influences. There are a range of influences, both positive and negative, in each direction, as shown in Figure 3. Positive influences can be seen as exciters , while negative influences are inhibitors .
Figure 3 Exciters and Inhibitors
Institutions and Capabilities (Dimension A)
Group or individual capabilities may have a positive influence on the formal rules and informal norms identified using institutional analysis (an exciter from capabilities to institutions on Dimension A in Figure 2). For instance, Ameripour, Nicholson and Newman (2010) and Rheingold (2002) describe how virtual communities have deployed their capability in Internet social media usage to inculcate institutional change. In contrast, informal institutional norms such as discrimination or sexist practices resulting in low status for women, poor people or ethnic minorities create social exclusion and limits on ICT access that has a negative impact on the fulfillment of desires (an inhibitor from institutions to capabilities on Dimension A in Figure 2).Examples of inhibitors may be male-dominated ICT sector, unequal access to training, the lack of local language Internet content and training, high Internet connectivity costs, lack of awareness and policy advocacy.
Capabilities and ICTs (Dimension B)
ICTs can increase access to opportunities through, for example, distance learning or by providing access to information resources. These increased opportunities created by technologies can enable the fulfillment of aspiration leading to individuals with enhanced capabilities. The first phase of the Pan African e-Network Project, a collaboration of the Government of India and the African Union, er sessions using video conference facilities installed in major teaching hospitals in sub-Saharan Africa (Pan African e-Network, 2010). We see this as an example of the use of technologies to build individual capabilities in practicing medical professionals. In our analytical framework ICT represents an
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exciter for Capabilities. Conversely, lack of awareness of the benefits of ICTs or lack of access can exclude individuals or communities from the opportunities to enhance capabilities (Madon, 2004, Johnstone, 2007).
Institutions and ICTs (Dimension C)
The relationship between Institutions and ICTs is shown as the Dimension C in Figure 2. ICTs can increase transparency by providing information about service provision to stakeholder groups. Improved access to information can ensure officials are held to account for their actions leading to reduced corruption. For example, an NGO in Bangalore has used technology mediated means to enable slum dwellers to voice demands and exercise pressure on authorities (Madon and Sahay, 2002). Furthermore, longitudinal studies in Gujarat have shown how automated production of entitlement certificates, such as land registration, eliminates opportunities for local officials to extort bribes (Madon, 2006). In contrast, lack of access to technologies can inhibit the transparent application of policies and institutionalized corruption persists.
4. METHOD
This research uses a case study approach (Yin, 2008). The Case Study uses audio recorded interviews which were conducted in February 2009, December 2009 and March 2010, as well as secondary literature (e.g. internal documents and external sources such as newspaper reports) and reflection on field notes made in personal journals. Structured interview guides were used and supplemented with open-ended questioning. Most interviews were conducted in on-campus meeting rooms where interviewees came to the meeting rooms during the course of a day. Interviews typically lasted between 30 minutes and one hour with 45 minutes being typical. Recorded interviews were reviewed, transcribed, analyzed and coded (Patton, 2002). Interview transcript coding emphasized issues raised by more than one interviewee. Thus, issues arising in more than one interview were clustered into categories representing common themes. The analysis and coding drew on the conceptual framework discussed in section 3. Particular effort was made to identify indigenous concepts and practices evident from the information sources.
Total University
(Where Applicable)
February 2009 December 2009 April 2010
Voluntary Service Overseas, Staff
5 5
Voluntary Service Overseas, Volunteers
2 2
University Department Heads and Deans
5
Addis Ababa 1
Bahir Dar
Debre Birhan 2 2
Hawassa
University Instructors 15
Addis Ababa
Bahir Dar 1
Debre Birhan 2 11
Hawassa 1
Table 1. Interview Schedule and Interviewee Affiliation
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Job Title University Number of Respondents
Department Head
Addis Ababa
Bahir Dar
Debre Birhan 2
Hawassa
Dean (Including Assistant Dean)
Addis Ababa 1
Bahir Dar
Debre Birhan 2
Hawassa
Instructor
Addis Ababa
Bahir Dar 1
Debre Birhan 1
Hawassa 1
Graduate Assistant
Addis Ababa
Bahir Dar
Debre Birhan 12
Hawassa
Table 2. University Interviewee Job Title
The empirical data draws on 27 recorded interviews conducted in February and October 2009 and April 2010, as shown in Table 1. The interviewees were mostly university staff from four public universities (Debre Birhan, Bahir Dar, Addis Ababa and Hawassa) with positions ranging from newly appointed graduate teaching assistants to department heads and faculty Deans, as shown in Table 2. The staff members interviewed from Debre Birhan are all in the 20-29 age range, while faculty members in the other more established universities are more experienced and in the 30-39 or 40-49 age ranges. In addition, interviews were conducted with 5 staff and 2 volunteers involved in educational capacity building from the international NGO Voluntary Service Overseas.
5. CASE STUDY
We now illustrate the analytical features and demonstrate the utility of the analytical frameworkusing empirical data from our study of ICT in the Ethiopian higher education sector.
Links between the Capabilities Approach and the field of education have been identified by priorresearch (Walker, 2005, Saito, 2003). Education has the potential to develop or expand capabilities both of students and teachers. This potential may not be fulfilled, of course, if some learners arenot valued because of their gender, ethnicity, etc. From this perspective, individual empowerment can help to overcome specific forms of oppression. The acquisition of skills that contribute to enhanced livelihoods are a route to development (Lall, 2001). Education can come to be seen as aroute to improved life chances. Higher education presents an opportunity to inculcate pro-poor professional capabilities (Walker, McLean, Dison and Peppin-Vaughan, 2009). This can be used to stimulate the capability among students to become change agents or the capability to work with high standards of professional ethics. Favorable rules and norms in education, considered from an institutional perspective, can amplify opportunities for learning. The educational syllabus is derived from social groups reconciling competing stakeholder interests bounded by the broader educational curriculum which is an expression of the prevailing social norms and formal rules (Stenhouse, 1975). We explore the potential for ICT to assist the development of capability and forICT in education to beneficially affect institutions.
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Background
Ethiopia is a land-locked country in East Africa bordering Sudan, Eritrea, Somalia and Kenya. Ethiopia has a population of 85 million, Gross National Income per capita of US $992, a life expectancy of 56.1 years and is ranked 157 out of 169 in the human development index (UNDP, 2010). Combined gross enrolment in education has risen from 24% in 1997 to 49% in 2007 (UNDP, 1999, UNDP, 2009). Decision-making in some parts of the education sector isdecentralized, as shown in Figure 4. Public universities have some autonomous decision-making powers, but report directly to the Ministry of Education who also provide funding.
Figure 4 Management of Education Institutions in Ethiopia
There has been a planned expansion of the higher education sector (MoE, 2005) to cope with the demand for teacher educators and other skilled professionals (Commission for Africa, 2005). The level of ambitions and challenges to higher education expansion have been described by Saint (2004) and can be seen as barriers to achieving functionings for students. These challenges include the adverse impact of HIV and AIDS, sector financing, and management capacities (Saint, 2004). In 2000 Ethiopia had two public universities. In 2006-07 13 new public universities were opened,complimenting the 9 existing at that time. The total number of students enrolled has risen from 54,285 in 2002-03 to 263,001 in 2007-08 (MoE, 2008, 2009). This expansion program has created opportunities for over 200,000 previously disenfranchised students to gain access to higher education. However, expansion has attracted criticism for compromising standards (Poor Quality, 2009). The legal context for these developments has evolved from placing emphasis on the management framework of public universities and governmental support agencies, assigningspecific responsibilities to specific officers (Proclamation No. 351, 2003). More recent legislation is less prescriptive about while reflecting increasing interest by central Government in educational outcomes by being much more specific about curriculum and quality enhancement issues (Proclamation No. 650, 2009).
Case analysis
In the following sections we consider the case study data through the lens of the analytical model.The analysis is summarized in Figure 5.
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Figure 5 Case study examples mapped to analytical framework
Institutions and Capabilities (Dimension A)
A major obstacle for this change process, viewed from an institutional perspective, is the shortage of academic skills among university staff (DAG, 2008). The Government has taken the view that you cannot improve the quality of universities that you do not actually have 2 and there is a
paucity of experienced academic leaders and managers. The Presidents in some of the 13 new universities (founded in 2007) are not Professors, in at least one case they do not have a PhD, and there are widespread shortages of higher degree holders among teaching staff members. Using ouranalytical framework we see this lack of academic management and research skills as an inhibitor from capabilities to building and sustaining institutions, shown on Dimension A in Figure 5.
ate provision to alleviating this problem, by legislation for formal rules on the allocation of all places on Masters and PhD programs to applicants from public universities. This policy change represents a change to formal rules and norms in institutional terms. According to an official at Addis Ababa University (recipient of many of the university instructors sent for higher degrees)
the Government is making its effort to promote and train many instructors, at Masters level and at PhD level so that the staffing will be as envisaged [to implement] the curricula
For example, an instructor from Debre Birhan University, was successful in entrance examinations and selected to undertake Masters degrees in Addis Ababa.
2 For example, Prof Zinabu Gebremariam, Director General, Higher Education Strategy Centre, Addis Ababa, personal communication.
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I have finished my postgraduate education and with the help of God, I have graduated. Now I am about to start my work [in Debre Birhan University]. (S. Demissie, personal communication, 5th September 2010)
Having successfully completed a Masters degree has a positive impact on the capabilities and functionings of these university staff. This is an exciter from institutions to capabilities on Dimension A of our analytical framework, as shown in Figure 5. Further, the institution is now able to benefit from this enhanced capability.
university [has] now opened a new department called Information System department and they have assigned me as a course coordinator for the department (that means head of the department.) They have also gave me full responsibility to bring an IS (Information System) curricudays to bring the curriculum because [the program will be] starting on 2003E.C (2010 G.C), (S. Demissie, personal communication, 7th October 2010)
The enhanced capability gained through completion of a Masters Degree can be seen as an exciter for institutional development in Dimension A, in Figure 5, in our analytical framework.
Capabilities and ICTs (Dimension B)
Provision of Internet access to staff and/or students is clearly intended to support educational outcomes. We can see personal educational outcomes as enhanced capabilities (Johnstone, 2007, Walker, McLean, Dison and Peppin-Vaughan, 2009) which may, through appropriate choices, lead to enhanced educational functionings. We can see several potential positive influences from ICTs in terms of educational capabilities (Johnstone, 2007):-
Faster, cheaper access to information,
Ability to participate in global forums,
Lowered cost and increased frequency of interaction with existing partners,
New opportunities for critical dialogue,
Access to collective problem solving forums, and
Access to a greater range of expertise leading to new models and understandings.
The Pan African e-Network (2010) has been developing networking connectivity with sufficient bandwidth to support video-conferencing between centers in India and Africa. The Faculty of Medicine at Addis Ababa University has been receiving online professional development lectures from India. Phase two of the program is supporting distance learning. As one head of department put it
they are going to send three individuals [to Addis Ababa to] learn in Ethiopia by tele-
Tele-education is an exciter from ICTs to capabilities on Dimension B of our analytical framework, as shown in Figure 5.
There is recognition that Ethiopia does not have the resources to develop new technologies. However, there is value in utilizing and adapting technology to meet local needs and solve problems. As one deputy Dean put it
Ethiopia is a developing country; we are taking and using technology. We are not inventing technology. But here, the education system [must create graduates who are] in a position to have a skill for adaptation of the technology, utilization of technology, for facilitating the development process of the country That
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enables [graduates] to be more competent in adapting the technology and using the technology [to solve] the problems in the country.
This local adaptation and utilization of technology is seen as an exciter from capabilities to ICTs on dimension B in our analytical framework as shown in Figure 5.
Institutions and ICTs (Dimension C)
A number of efforts to change institutional norms have been initiated by central Government. The profile of funding available for teaching subjects has been changed through a target setting approach. In both the secondary and tertiary education sectors, 70% of students must be studying science and technology related subjects. As one head of computer science department put it
the MoE [Ministry of Education] focus [is] on 70% natural science, 30% social science student ratio.
This, not universally welcomed policy, is motivated by a desire to align the education sector to the achievement of those development goals that can be achieved through technocratic means. Thisbrings resources in terms of staff recruitment, staff professional development and capital investment to the technology subject areas. Several universities are using this opportunity to prioritize ICT. According to one Dean
The faculty was given special budgets, and purchasing special equipment.
So, in our analysis framework, we see the prioritization of technology subjects and resultant prioritization of spending as an exciter from institutions to ICT.
However, as can be imagined there is a general concern about resource shortages, despite this preferential support for science and technology subjects. According to a deputy Dean
in software technology, hardware technology, even though, to some extent, we have some resources for introductory and intermediate courses. But for advanced courses we have serious shortage and problem for acquiring this software and network technologies
As one instructor put it
in Mekele university every batch [cohort] has it is own lab: year one, year two, year three... But here, it is not as much good.
And another
in Bahir Dar university there are operating system labs separately, there are programming lab separately, networking lab separately
For some stakeholders, this not only about a shortage of resources, but also about institutional weaknesses in regarded to fulfilling ICT needs. According to the deputy Dean, again
Up to now nothing has been planned, nothing has been captured Processing this activities, purchasing process activities and planning, setting budgets for this purpose still have some limitations, on that regard
We also observed complaints from instructors about lack of Internet access. The issue would be vigorously raised at meetings with instructors convened by university officials. As one instructor put it
Even the there is no Internet connection, there is no reading material. So it affects [implementation of] the curriculum
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This lack of planning, the weaknesses in purchasing processes and the difficulties of setting budgets tied to ICT curriculum needs and lack of Internet access are all seen as inhibitors from institutions to ICTs.
Enforcement of anti corruption legislation requires that anyone accused of corruption is required to go to prison immediately while waiting for the case to come to court. There is no system of bail and the slow pace of legal processes means long periods on remand.
The former Managing Director of the ETC [Ethiopian Telecommunications Corporation], Tesfaye, received his doctorate degree while in prison. (Alemu, 2009)
In fairness to the legal system, Dr Tesfaye had, in fact, already started his higher degree when a major contract awarded by ETC was challenged.
This anti-corruption legislation creates informal norms that inhibit delegation of responsibility for equipment. Individual staff members can be (and sometimes are) held personally responsible for equipment in their care. Where staff members do accept delegated responsibility for protecting valuable equipment their concerns over personal accountability for its theft inhibits student access to teaching laboratories. As one deputy Dean says
[University administrators] should try to give the opportunity for students to work in the laboratories to the maximum 24 hours in every day. But, that administration process is still not yet reflected [in reality].
Viewing this complex of anti-corruption legislation, university rules and bureaucratic processes from an institutional perspective presents the high risk of personal accountability combined with the low status of students as rules and norms that hamper access to computer laboratories outside formal class times. Thus, rules and norms act as inhibitors from institutions to ICTs.
Some universities have appointed temporary security staff members, or even student representatives, to enable and monitor student access to laboratories outside normal working hours. As one instructor enviously observed
in Mekele university ICT [ ] they have their own lab and it is open 24 hours.
Rules and resulting norms can be shaped to support access to technology representing an exciter from institutions to technologies.
6. CONCLUSIONS AND FURTHER WORK
This paper addresses the research question: can the complementary strengths of Institutional Theory and Capability Approach simultaneously inform ICT for development policy-making, projects and analysis?
The paper contributes a framework that combines the Capabilities Approach and Institutional theory in conjunction with ICT as an analytical framework for post hoc analysis and to practically emphasize the multidimensionality of ICT for development projects. This builds on the work of Evans (2009) in Successful Societies which is not specific to the field of ICT for development.Thus, this paper offers the first known attempt to link institutional theory, capabilities approach in the context of ICT for development.
Practitioners, policymakers, managers and consultants would benefit from using the framework during interventions to help consideration of both the development of human capacities and the prevailing context in terms of institutional rules and norms when designing ICT4D projects. We have shown how the analytical framework helps to unpack and make explicit the interactions between institutions, capabilities and ICTs. These interactions could be overlooked when using any of the approaches in isolation. The Ethiopian higher education Case Study (figure 2) showsthe complex multifaceted nature of the problem of capability building and how institutions, ICTs
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and capabilities are linked, excited and inhibited. Government interventions are creating opportunities for university staff to enhance their capabilities, derived from a technocratic
The analysis generated could lead to a practical set of recommendations for means to remove some or all of the inhibiters to capability achievement.
There are opportunities to expand on this work in the future to explore the links between the elements of the analytical framework. The following areas for future research have been identified:-
Application of the framework to further empirical research to enable a more detailed taxonomy of the dimensions, exciters and inhibitors during ICT for developmentinterventions,
Related to this, we are interested in how to use the analytical framework towards effective a priori design possibilities
A limitation of the research presented here is that it is based on a single case study in Ethiopia.However, we feel that using the research approach advocated by Yin (2008) the case study reveals much and the analytical model we have developed does generalize in its applicability. Further studies in the future in other contexts would broaden the range of empirical data.
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Kabanda and Rambe Social Networking Sites for Academic Engagement
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DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AND SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES: THE CASE OF FACEBOOK
Abstract: The critical role of social networking sites (SNS) like Facebook and MySpace for teaching and learning is gaining currency in academia. However, the majority of the research on social networking sites has concentrated on the developed world and there is dearth of literature from the developing world. This study examines the teaching /learning opportunities and challenges that social networking sites (particularly Facebook) bring to bear on education in an Information Systems (IS) Course in a South African university. We explore how Facebook use by academics and students leveraged some of the teaching and learning challenges experienced in higher education in developing countries. Online ethnography and in-depth interviews with lecturers and students were used to investigate lecturer and student experiences of collaborative academic engagement on Facebook. Our findings suggest that prior exposure to social networking sites and online communicative competence are critical to effective online collaborative learning in resource-constrained environments. In this case study, Facebook offered a potentially complementary learning environment for students. These identified advantages are critical in the South Africa higher education context in light of increasing access to tertiary education by previously disadvantaged groups and the emergence of classes with diverse learning needs.
Keywords: Social Networking Sites, Facebook, Developing countries, South Africa
Salah Kabanda University of Cape Town
Private Bag X3 Rondebosch 7701, South Africa
Patient RambeUniversity of Cape Town
Private Bag X3 Rondebosch 7701, South Africa
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DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AND SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES: THE CASE OF FACEBOOK
1. INTRODUCTION
There has been a general claim that the use of new technologies and software such as Social Networking Sites (SNS) in an educational setting activates new learning opportunities (Laru and Järvelä, 2008). SNS describe a pattern of friendship, advice, communication or support which
constitute an important asset (Boyd, 2007; Woolcock, 2006; Valente, 1996). The patterns are developed as members link their Web pages to those of their friends and search through the vast sites to find new friends who share common interests (Trotter 2006). These affordances make social networking sites relevant for academic networking because they give students the opportunity to connect with classmates in large lectures; form study groups; find high school classmates who are now on other campuses; and develop a sense of community by finding students with similar interests and backgrounds (Bishop-Russell et al, 2006). Academics can now also, use SNS to communicate with students outside of a controlled environment (the traditional classroom) and they can now meet students in their territory (Mazer et al, 2007).
By providing a meeting place, SNS present a platform for the formation of an academic community and an environment that promotes student development by providing the opportunity to learn informally through regular interaction and collaboration with people from diverse backgrounds (Selwyn, 2007; Chickering and Reisser, 1993). Through this collaboration, SNS can potentially affect the maintenance of networks that may positively influence resources sharing, connectivity, and academic relations building. These are very important incentives to developing countries where resource scarcity is a challenge. Although there has been a growing body of research literature demonstrating the surging popularity of social networking sites for student learning in academic settings, there has been limited investigation of what SNS has to offer for developing countries (Maloney, 2007; Bugeja, 2006; Bartlett-Bragg, 2006; Boulos, and Wheeler, 2007). This study therefore investigates the use of SNS (Facebook in particular) for academic engagement in South Africa. Specifically we investigate the teaching and learning opportunities Facebook presents for academics and learners in an Information Systems course at a higher education institute.
The structure of the rest of this paper as follows: Section 2 examines social networking sites with special reference to developing countries. Section 3 introduces Facebook as an SNS. Section 4 articulates the research methodology and Section 5 presents our data analysis and results. Section 6 discusses the findings and Section 7 concludes the paper.
2. ICT AND DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
As the importance of information and communications technologies (ICTs) is increasingly being emphasized in developed economies, the continuous digital divide widens between the developed and developing countries. Developing countries such as those in Africa face being cut off from the knowledge economy because to participate in a knowledge society in the era of the information economy, one has to connect to modern ICTs which are expensive to acquire, maintain and use (Britza et al, 2006). This is more so in the education sector were educators in developing countries find themselves facing numerous challenges not faced by their counterparts in developed economies such as limited resources in terms of computers and internet; technical competence, and computer and information literacy; increasing number of students; brain drain, frequent labor
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strife, campus closures, and declining educational quality (Adam, 2003; Wells and Wells, 2007).Most Universities find the cost of acquiring and using ICTs expensive and as a result, learners are forced to rely on public ICT facilities such as telecenters, cybercafés, and information access points which make the access possible because of the more affordable cost associated with sharing as compared to individual home ownership of ICTs and individual network use fees (Kabanda and Brown, 2010). Against this background, developing countries, like South Africa, find themselves lagging behind and loosing the possible opportunities presented by ICTs not only because of the high costs associated with firstly acquiring these new technologies and the training that follows; but specific to South Africa, the potential of ICTs is sandwiched between the increasing pressure
on higher education institutions from government to meet the social transformation and skills
needs of South Africa (Jaffer et al, 2007).
Despite these challenges, there have been Higher education institutions looking to the possibilities offered by ICTs to improve their higher education systems. Although they have succeeded, such as the University of Cape Town, which has managed to obtain and use ICTs in their delivery process, most institutions, including the University of Cape Town are now faced with new challenges the dramatic increase to tertiary education by previously disadvantaged groups and the emergence of student classes with diverse learning needs. Due to the historical apartheid regime in South Africa, institutions such as the University of Cape Town have traditionally catered for the minority group of the population who were academically prepared for tertiary schooling and as a result academics enjoyed not only low student numbers but were not faced with a huge diversity of student body. Today, however, South African higher education institutions are being transformed to become multicultural African universities that cater for the previously disadvantaged groups. This has resulted in the dramatic number of student enrolment at tertiary institutions to rise. As a consequence, insufficient academic support, decline in the number of qualified teachers and limited peer based engagement could potentially trigger inequitable academic outcomes, especially for the underprepared learners involved if interventions are not made. In this paper, we see ICTand specifically SNS as part of the solution that may help to solve some of these.
3. FACEBOOK
Facebook is a social networking site that began with a focus on colleges and universities, but now includes high schools and other organizations (Dwye, Passerini, Hiltz, 2007). To have a Facebook account, the prospective user requires just an email account for a participant to be admitted to the online social network. It enables its users to present themselves in an online profile, and users can then and share pictures and messages and view eachprofiles, (Ellison, Steinfield and Lampe, 2007; Hewitt and Forte, 2006). It has experienced exponential growth in membership in recent years and its success is due to the fact that it is tightly integrated into the daily media practices of its users mostly the younger generation group; the amount and the quality of personal information users make available on it; and the fact that, unlike other networks for young users, that information is personally identified, showing contact information (including personal addresses and cell phone numbers) and additional data rarelyavailable on other networks (Acquisti and Ralph Gross, 2006). It also allows members to join virtual groups based on common interests, see what classes they have in common, and learn each
interests, musical tastes, and romantic relationship status through the profiles(Ellison et al, 2007); and offers its members very granular and powerful control on the privacy (in terms of searchability and visibility) of their personal information (Acquisti and Ralph Gross,2006). As a result, by the year 20 the sixth most-trafficked website in the worldand the number one photo-sharing site, with over 80 million active users across over 55,000 regional, work, high school, and college networks (Lewis, Kaufman, Gonzalez, Wimmer, Christakis, 2008).
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4. METHODOLOGY
The study is interpretive in nature and used a grounded approach with the purpose of educators and students experiences of Facebook. obtain a detailed understanding of the individual construction of online learning by First Year Information Systems (IS) students and academics in a social networking environment. The Grounded Theory will allow for the generation and development of concepts, categories and propositions is an iterative process involving interaction between theory, concepts and raw data (Pandit, 1996).
In our study, we examined the large corpus of data of student posting in the different Facebook spaces (wall, discussion board and inbox) and unedited transcripts of interviews to understand the different kinds of Facebook use and why students used Facebook the way they did. The IS class consisted of 450 students and was offered in the first semester of the year 2009. All students had access to a mobile phone and more than 60 % of them had Internet access on their phones. There was also internet access in the student accommodation vicinity. As such access was not restricted to the institution. Facebook presented opportunities for mobile learning as student could access the discussions and make queries beyond the campus provided there was internet connectivity, such as using their phones. Apart from Facebook, the class had the usual web-supplemented learning resources posted on the University learning management system. In order to facilitate the learning
academic queries and questions anytime during the normal working hours (08h30-17h00). Firstly an Information Systems Group on Facebook was created by the online course instructor; and students were advised to join for academic consultation on theory, practical related and course administration issues. Students were able to consult their peers and the online instructors by
book inbox; using the Facebook discussion board; and the Facebook wall.
Of the 450 students, 165 students participated in this study. These participants posted 154 wall of the
matters. All postings were downloaded from the Facebook site, printed and analysed using thematic content analysis. To enrich the data, semi-structured interviews were used to gather
environment for academic purposes. Interviews were conducted with two lecturers (the online administrator and the course convener); and 31 students who voluntarily participated in the study. We audio-recorded the interviews, transcribed them verbatim and printed them for analysis.
5. DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
students, and the data from interviews and online observations was analyzed using grounded theory. From the analysis, five themes identified as: (1) address of general course confusion, (2) peer-to-peer collaboration, (3) students with ICT under preparedness better attended to, (4) code switching and (5) was a platform for handling grievances and constant course evaluation. The themes and meaning making were inductively derived from the Facebook corpus of data.
5.1. Addressed General Course confusion
Results show that although students had the necessary course structure information in their course outline, not all of them read the outline. A course outline provided students with the course description and an overall plan for the course to enable them to function efficiently and effectively in the course. However, students were never sure of when their next evaluation is, what material it would cover despite these information being present in their outline. This could possibly be because the course is not part of their major subjects and as such less attention paid to it. Others,
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specifically students not exposed to ICTs were usually confused, indicating that the course runs at a high pace before they could comprehend what was taught the previous lecture. As a result, students were always in a state of panic and confusion as to what to study, how and what will be evaluated on. Traditionally, the instructor used to handle queries immediately after the class; during the consultation period in her office; or via individual emails that students send. However
addressed. However Facebook provided
a complementary space for academic networking that was otherwise limited in our huge
traditional undergraduate classes. There is limited time for asking questions because of
limited contact time, so they can ask questions on facebook. (Instructor Interview 3/08/09).
been impossible with a face-to-simultaneously on Face book, the instructor was
able to communicate with them quickly and they communicate back to you in an instance if
they are logged on, which they are always, even if they are in a class, they are logged on to
4/08/09).
Facebook solves this problem by creating a virtual interactive space for question-based interaction on task related matters that was already limited in class. For example, several students raised a concern on Facebook regarding the poor communication that took place in class with regard to one of the Task. This prompted the lecturer to restructure the next lecture around that Task. In this manner, Facebook became a platform for on-demand consultation on task related matters, making students to be no longer constrained by the temporality of contact time in lectures.
5.2. Enabled Peer-to-Peer collaboration
The diversity of the class was one of the challenges faced by the instructor. The racial, gender, communicative competencies and the previous disadvantaged versus the advantaged was quite apparent. For example, student who had communicative incompetency and were unable to express themselves fluently in English tended to shy away from asking questions in class but would do so during office consultation hours. There was also minimal interaction between the various racial groups and this was depicted in the sitting patterns in the classroom. However, once Facebook was made compulsory on the course, there was evidence of peer to peer learning, especially in the practical oriented tasks. Peer-to-peer interaction, as illustrated in figure 1 was frequent in cases where the online administrator was unavailable beyond working hours, with some students assuming resource person roles in these collaborative processes by giving answers and elaborations to the questions posed by their peers. In figure 1, Student Z, assumes the resource person role during the collaboration with the other students.
Figure 1: Peer-to-Peer posts
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When student Y was later approached for an interview he indicated that Facebook provided a second chance for him to further understand what was said in lectures because
sometimes I find that in discussions and forums other students have similar problems. For
example, it is not necessary for me to ask the lecturers the same questions because the
answers are there (on the discussion board). Students can also comment if I have a
problem. In that way I get to speak to more people and I get more solutions to a problem. I
for Facebook. In other courses, I would e-mail the instructor and it would take long to get
the responses but in IS it is quicker because of Facebook (Student Y Interview 12/08/09).
These remarks were collaborated by other students who indicated that Facebook was a usefulinformation dissemination and communicative platform that facilitated peer-to-peer discussions because
it made me know how other people are thinking about the same concepts and questioning
oneself whether I am also thinking in that direction and then getting the correct
information this is very important to me (Student W Interview 14/08/09).
Knowing what other students are asking and how others are responding made them reflect on their
processes in accordance with those of their peers.
5.3. Identified students with ICT under preparedness
Although there was peer-to-peer collaboration, theory-related queries where mostly directed at the instructor than practical oriented queries suggesting that lecturers seemed to be more credible information sources than peers. These queries were frequently posted on the discussion board and all students were able to view the response from the instructor. However, practical oriented questions featured less on the discussion botheory queries. These were requests for extra lessons in the practical and technical side of the course from half of the posters. When this was observed, posters were asked for an interview sessions, with each of them indicated that the practical side of the course was indeed a challenge because it was their first time to interact with ICTs. One student indicated that
,
others already know them in high school. So I prefer to send the lecturer a message to her
facebook inbox because when I ask a stupid question, I do not want to see on her face or
Interview 20/07/09).
For these students, Facebook offered them the platform to voice their concerns on areas that seem trivial to other students who have had the opportunity of training in this area.
5.4. Code switching
In addition to providing a safe haven, some students used a mixture of English and their vernacular language to engage with the course material during their discussion sessions. Language competence problems, particularly the use of English as a medium of communication and as a language of discourse in the IS course was a challenge for most students whose English was no their first language. In South Africa, some disadvantaged students are still taught in vernacular language. Although these students tend to shy away from asking questions in classroom, they were able to pose their questions on Facebook via code switching method. A student indicated that Facebook
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made it easier to gather your thoughts before presenting them because in class I am unable
to do that, because of English. My English is not good and I have to think first in my
language which takes time. I then tend not to ask that question but now I can because on
Facebook, my mates explains the material better in a language that I understand even if I
am not with them ph
They were able to pose questions to peers who were able to explain the course material in alanguage they understand and things became clearer because I do not have to think how I am
going to express that in English before I speak it (Student P Interview 20/07/09).
5.5. Platform for grievances and constant course evaluation
The huge number of students usually hampered the administration of the course. In order to keep to give the instructor that platform where
students can at least hide their personality, and say things they cannot say face-to-face. For
example grievances with regards to tutors are not brought to me face to face, but are all referred
to me via Faceboo
According to the instructor, this was the most effective process to make changes to the course and address student problems than the end of semester student evaluation system of the course which did not benefit current students but future incoming students. The instructor indicated that we were able to better the course in the administration and entire delivery mechanism process because itwas possible to attend to the student problems immediately and not at the end of the course.
6. DISCUSSION
The results in this study indicate that students, specifically those not exposed to ICTs found Facebook highly resourceful as it increased peer based collaborative academic networking that
to racial and ICT under-preparedness tensions. The ability of university entrants to engage critically amongst themselves has proven to be possible and useful via SNS. These findings are consistent with literature in which incoming students who are academically underprepared, especially to the use of ICT found Facebook a useful resource for summarizing their understanding of the course lectures and material through the online discussions (Jaffer et al, 2007; Paras, 2001; Howie and Pietersen, 2001). In this manner, apprenticing students can collaboratively interact with peers thereby broadening their knowledge base beyond the lecturer as the main information source. The fact that the lecturer provided additional information and elaborated on concepts on Facebook - that would not otherwise have been elaborated on in lectures because of limited contact time and huge undergraduate classes demonstrates that online interaction augmented classroom praxis. Facebook became a diagnostic instrument for the lecturer to identify common problem areas for students and a heuristic intervention for students consulting with peers.
However, what was more encouraging about Facebook was its ability to break the diversity challenges inherent within the traditional classroom in which racial, gender and under preparedness tensions exists. Facebook was seen as an efficient way of managing diversity by addressing in detail the novel questions that students that are more capable asked, while also
ophisticated frequently asked queries. Thus Facebook as computer mediated communication subverted social boundaries such as race, gender, ethnicity, status and power differentials that characterise face-to-face interaction through text-based media that withhold certain identity markers (Postmes, 1998; Tidwell and Walther, 2002; Cook, 2004).
during peer-to-peer discussion. This phenomenon, common in South Africa is explained is as a result of the South African national policy that dictates that schools may choose how to implement
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instruction (Scott and Yeld, 2008). Many African teachers in schools resort to code switching from vernacular to English and as a result, English as a language of instruction and communication becomes a challenge for second language learners who enroll in English speaking higher learning institutions. The implication is that the extent and effective use of social networking sites for online consultation is not only dependent on extent of prior exposure to online networking, but also on the ability to engage publicly using a common language - English, which unfortunately is foreign to most developing country users. Thereforeinstructional designers and online educators need to familiarize students with online collaborative engagement, netiquette and the complexities of constructing scholarly knowledge in online environments.
not possible in the learning management system used at the University which made the po
without the notion of being undermined.
7. CONCLUSION
The study indicate that the extent and effective use of social networking sites for online consultation is dependent highly on the extent of prior exposure to ICTs, English language mastery and ability to engage publicly in online environments. Instructional designers and online educators need to familiarize students with online collaborative engagement, netiquette and the complexities of constructing scholarly knowledge in online environments. Training second language learners in
to learning resources. While physical access to learning resources on social networking sites is critical it is epistemological access that ensures effective use of these learning resources for knowledge construction and building of new perspectives. This is because student under-preparedness often leads to the underutilization of educational resources provided in the academic
-based collaborative engagement. As such, systematic pedagogical interventions in a relaxed student-driven learning environment could target theoretical argument development, peer-based knowledge sharing and needs- Facebook pages to information resources like websites, hyper textual links to databases of relevance to theoretical deliberations.
In addition, given the prevalence of need-based consultation and the necessity of real time communication, e-learners could benefit from synchronous consultations with online educators.This could allow for anytime, anywhere learning which provides more flexibility to the learning process. In light of the different times at which students engage in different learning activities, synchronism would allow students to access peer-based and lecturer support when and as per their need. Therefore, Facebook extends time for classroom interaction. The high prevalence of cell phones at university institutions is an opportunity that educators could take full advantage for engendering mobile learning. While this learning opportunity is worth recognizing, the asymmetries of ownership and access to web-enabled mobile phones have to be taken into account. In light of this difficulty, institutionally provided web enabled handhelds (for example, smart phones) could be a useful entry point for promoting universal access to and use of mobile phones for learning. Universal access to web-enabled mobile devices could close the gap in access to educational resources exchanged on handhelds between underprepared learners and learners that are more capable.
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Tidwell, L.C., and Walther, J.B. (2002). Computer-mediated communication effects on disclosure, impressions, and interpersonal evaluations: Getting to know one another a bit at a time. Human
Communication Research, 28(3), 317-348
Trotter, A. (2006). Social-Networking Web Sites Pose Growing Challenge for Educators. Retrieved online on the 07/05/08 at www.edweek.org/ew
Valente, T.W (1996). Social network thresholds in the diffusion of innovations. Journal of Social
Networks 18 Issue 1, January 1996, 69-89
Wells, R. and Wells, S. (2007) Challenges and opportunities in ICT educational development: A Ugandan case study (2007). International Journal of Education and Development using ICT Vol. 3, No. 2 (2007). Available http://ijedict.dec.uwi.edu/viewarticle.php?id=296&layout=html
Woolcock, M. (2006). The place of social capital in understanding social and economic outcomes Retrieved online on the 07/05/08 at http://142.236.154.1/sp-ps/arb-dgra/publications/books/oecd/en/5-woolcock.pdf
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Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
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SHARED PUBLIC ACCESS POINTS IN DISADVANTAGED URBAN COMMUNITIES: USES, BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES
Wallace Chigona*, Ofentse Lekwane, Kim Westcott, Agnes Chigona
Department of Information Systems, University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Abstract: This paper reports on a study exploring the actual use of shared computing facilities, the benefits users accrue from using the facilities and the challenges they face in using and in gaining benefits. The study used as a case study was a shared facility in a disadvantaged community in Cape Town. The study noted that the center is used for both instrumental and hedonic purposes. It was also noted that there are economic, social and psychological benefits from using the facilities. However, it was noted that use of the facilities is beset by a number of challenges which hinder use and benefits. The paper also noted the strategies users employ to overcome the challenges.
Keywords: telecenter, benefits, challenges, disadvantaged communities, South Africa.
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SHARED PUBLIC ACCESS POINTS IN DISADVANTAGED URBAN COMMUNITIES: USES, BENEFITS AND CHALLENGES
Wallace Chigona*, Ofentse Lekwane, Kim Westcott, Agnes Chigona
Department of Information Systems, University of Cape Town, South Africa.
1. INTRODUCTION
While Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have the potential to revolutionisethe social and economic behaviour of communities, it is argued that they have not provided equal opportunities for the population, and have lewith access to the technologies and those without (Cullen, 2001). Less developed communities are unable to harness the benefits that various technologies offer and this increases the inequality between the world s rich and poor. To address this problem, increasing interest has been placed on the use of communal access to ICTs as a catalyst for development in disadvantaged communities (Parkinson & Ramirez, 2006). Governments, NGOs and other funding agencies have been advocating the implementation of ICT-based community initiatives, such as telecenters, in disadvantaged areas, to improve access to information and ICT resources which would otherwise be unattainable for these communities.
The use of shared facilities as an antidote to problems of access for disadvantaged communities is not new. Such facilities have been around for over two decades (Rega, 2010). However, the question remains: are the disadvantaged communities really benefiting from the facilities? If not, what are the challenges? In this study we use as a case study a public access point located in a disadvantaged community in Cape Town, South Africa. We seek to understand the use, the actual benefits the communities are realising from the use, and also the challenges faced by both the users and non-users of the commodity. This type of study is not only important as a tool to inform the implementation of similar ICT-based community development initiatives, but also as a learning tool for future shared access projects, so that they do not repeat mistakes, but can develop to their full potential. Again, the lasting impact of shared facilities on disadvantaged communities has not been well-established, due to the general lack of understanding of:
1. the actual benefits the community being served is gaining from the ICT facilities, and
2. the challenges the community faces when using the facilities and other issues which could lead to the non-use of the centers.
The premise of this study is, therefore, to understand the benefits disadvantaged communities are deriving from shared access facilities, and the challenges they face in realising the benefits. The main question this study is trying to address is: What challenges do the disadvantaged
communities face when deriving the actual benefits of the shared access projects? To answer the questions, we employed a qualitative research approach in order to explore the experiences of the users and non-users of the Smart Cape facilities.
Looking at the benefits of shared facilities is particularly important, especially with the growing sceptics about the future of shared facilities in the growing expansion of mobile development in developing countries. Recent studies are advocating mobile technology as a solution for the access in developing countries. Again, South Africa is noted for a high adoption rate of mobile technology (van Belle et al, 2010). The question then is, what are people still using shared facilities for?
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2. SHARED COMPUTER FACILITIES: OVERVIEW
The common form of shared access points are telecenters. Such centers serve as information hubs providing learning systems community, national and global economic enhancement services, as well as support systems that facilitate socio-economic sustainability within the community (Ernberg, 2001; Lewis, 2005; Ariyabandu, 2009). The centers offer a range of services to users, from computer-related services (such as access to internet, e-mails, government information, computer training and e-learning) to other ICT services e.g. phone, fax, scanning, binding and laminating (Gomez et al, 1999; Rao, 2008). While many telecenters offer their services at a low cost, some are established with the aim of providing free service to communities. The idea is to incentivise users to utilise these services, particularly in disadvantaged communities (McCornell, 2001; Rao, 2008).
The proponents of public access emphasise the macro level benefits that could be gained from these centers e.g. the potential to enhance quality of life, the reduction of social exclusion,increased access to education and commercial products, and better access to information silos on the internet, to those previously restricted (Gomez et al, 1999, Chigona & Mbhele, 2008). Other benefits outlined in literature include increased literacy, socio-economic advancement, and even poverty alleviation (Oestmann & Dymond, 2001). Interestingly, few studies have actually validated the elicitation of these alleged benefits from the use of telecenters. As a result, these benefits appear vague and one can even go as far as saying that no ground-level ways of garnering these benefits have been identified and defined.
Further, several studies have reported that such facilities are failing to meet their goals. For example, the extent of the digital divide has not changed between 2002 and 2007, regardless of the significant improvement in ICT development in developing countries. It has also been noted that most telecenters fail to be self-sustaining (Benjamin & Dahms, 1999). Dragon (2001) reported that only one out of every 100 telecenters is useful in addressing community issues such as development and social change. This, they say, is because telecenters have their fair share of challenges. However, unlike the benefits, the challenges have been well researched at a microscopic level, and have been more tangibly identified. For example, findings show that the mere provision of technology, infrastructure and the internet are not sufficient to make telecenterswork for the poor (Oestmann & Dymond, 2001; Roman & Colle, 2002). This is because having access to ICT services does not directly translate to usage. User dependent factors such as computer literacy, general anxiety towards computers and distance of the centers from homes,among others, are reported to pose a challenge to telecenter adoption (Oestamnn & Dymond,2001; Gyamfi 2005; Gomez et al, 1999). Language barriers on the internet e.g. most sites sharing
e language, are also reported to discourage into the community are also challenging
(Roman & Colle, 2002). Despite all these challenges, telecenters have been deemed to play an integral role in addressing the digital divide, social exclusion and other socio-economic inequalities.
3. CONTEXT: SMART CAPE FACILITY
Like most developing countries, the post-apartheid South African has had a number of government-funded shared computing initiatives. However, Most of these initiatives have not been successful. The facility used as a case study is part of the Smart Cape Initiative, a City of CapeTown initiative which provides free computer access in the public access in the city. The choice of the initiative was mainly driven by the fact that the facilities offer the services free of charge. We did not want to focus on the lack of access due to financial resources.
The project, which began in 2001 to serve mainly the disadvantaged communities of the city, now runs in almost all the libraries. To register as a user, one needs to have a City of Cape Town
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library membership card which is free of charge. Due to the high demand for the facilities, use of these facilities is limited to 45 minutes per day per person.
The center examined in this study was situated in a public library in one of the townships in Cape Town. The library is situated on the outskirts of the township, but is easily accessible by public transport and in walking distance of a large portion of the community. The facilities are in pristine condition, almost at odds with the informal surroundings. The building has areas specially allocated for young children, a quiet study area, couches for people to read magazines and newspapers, as well as for the Smart Cape facilities. The Smart Cape facilities are clearly noticeable at the library entrance. Each computer is cordoned off in an individual cubicle; however, the computer screens are still easily visible to the other computer users.
There are nine flat screen computers currently at the facility. Five computers were added to the telecenter in April 2010, due to the huge demand for the facilities. The computers, like all Smart Cape facilities, are run off open-source software customised for the Smart Cape project. The software has a front-end for the actual users, and a back-end for library staff to monitor the program being used. After logging in, users are directed to a Smart Cape Dashboard page, which consists of intuitive links to the different application programs and a countdown timer showing the remaining time the user has left on the computer. The following applications appear on the dashboard: Internet Browser, Word Processer, Acrobat Reader, CV Template, Email, Spreadsheet, Removable Storage, Community Announcements, Internet Relay Chat, Presentation Package, World Book Online, Britannica Online, Paint, Typing Tutor, Library Catalogue and Help. Based on our assessment, the front-end system is intuitive and user friendly.
Although there have been a growing number of studies on shared computing facilities in South Africa, there is a limited focus on such facilities in the urban settings. Such studies are particularly important considering the ever increasing rate of urbanization in the country. Further, the urban settings in South African are beset with a high degree of inequality. Studies, such as this one would contribute towards understanding how the use of shared computing facilities would contribute towards addressing the challenges faced by the urban poor.
4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
This study used a qualitative approach. Empirical data for the study was gathered using one-on-one interviews with 15 different stakeholders of the Smart Cape Telecenter.
4.1. Sampling
The target population for the study consisted of both users and non-users of the shared public facility in the township. The sample was randomly drawn from the users and non-users coming to use the ICT facilities or the library. The users were those using the computer facilities. Non-users were those who utilised the library facilities, but not the Smart Cape computers. These included even those who had used the computers at some stage, but had subsequently stopped. The sample included nine users and five non-users.
We also interviewed the librarian. Within his duty, the librarian liaised with the center and -to-day running of the center.
tterns, attitudes and concerns.
4.2. Data gathering and analysis
The data was collected in the month of July 2010. All the interviews were audio-recorded and transcribed. The transcription process helped us to get closer to the data we were able to think about what the respondents were saying and how this was said. We read each typed transcript several times while listening to the corresponding audio tape to ensure accuracy of the
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process of transcribing and listening also prompted additional questions for subsequent sets of interviews.
aspects of the users and non-users experiences. In this approach, we read the text several times and statements that appeared to be revealing about the phenomenon were highlighted. Themes
experiences. Then we selected each of these highlighted phrases or sentences and tried to ascertain what meaning was put forward in the highlighted material. After identifying the themes, we embarked on the process of recording the themes and describing how they were interrelated. Re-writing continued until we felt that the themes and the relationship between the themes were identified as accurately as possible.
4.3. Ethical issues
All interviews were conducted with full consent from the participants. Prior to an interview, we explained the study to the participant. The interviewees were given the option not to answer any questions with which they felt uncomfortable. Privacy and confidentiality concerns were given the deserved consideration (Cohen et al, 2007). We were sensitive to not only how information was to be protected from unauthorised observation, but also if and how participants were to be notified of any unforeseen findings from the research that they may or may not have wanted to be known. No real names of the participants were used in the study.
5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The results and discussions will be presented under the four main themes of use, benefits, challenges and user strategies. It was necessary to separate use from benefits since usage does notnecessarily translate into benefits.
5.1. The use of the Smart Cape facilities
The uses of the facility included both instrumental uses and hedonic uses. Most of the respondents indicated that they used the facilities to look for jobs. The facilities provided a portal which linked websites that listed jobs advertisements. The facilities were also used for social network
keep in touch with family and friends center were students who used the online information found for their school assignments. Some students also used the internet at the facilities to research potential universities and even made it possible to register for tertiary education online, thus reducing postage and travel costs.
Only a few respondents indicated that they used the center for internet banking. Many respondents had not signed up for internet banking at all. Also, some respondents did not trust working on banking in such a public area. It was also possible that community members were unbanked since 36% of South African adults, many of whom reside in low income communities like this one, are unbanked (Finscope, 2009).
Users reported sports and entertainment as the biggest hedonic use of the facility, followed by surfing the internet and reading news. The hedonic uses of the center were never cited as primary activities by users. Instead, they were activities engaged in only after more important activities were completed. From the interviews, one can infer that users are less likely to use the center for hedonic purposes. This could be because they have more pressing issues to address when at the center. Thus, the center is more popularly used for socio-economic development than for
n this finding. Since the community is previously disadvantaged , users may prefer to deal with issues of welfare before their leisure needs (Maslow, 1943).
Also, of serving their hedonic needs in light of more important activities. It is also possible that the demand for the
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facilities is high and that users might feel guilty when using the facility for hedonic purposes,while others waiting in queues might have potentially serious issues to deal with.
It was noted that almost all users had no alternative computer access besides the library and the school (the school access is very limited and controlled). Again, all the respondents owned a mobile phone which they used to access the internet. However, they preferred to use computers where possible.
5.2. The benefits of the Smart Cape facility
The analysis shows that the facility was benefiting some members of the community, particularly users of the facility. The benefits from the use of the center were economic, social and psychological. The biggest economic benefit of the use of the facility was in money saved by using the facility instead of using other facilities where the users would have to pay. Some of the responses on the issue were:
s so the library helps them very much.
Having access at no financial cost is particularly relevant to the disadvantaged communities and those in search of employment, since the majority may not be able to afford to pay for access. Many users regarded the access to business and job opportunities as an important benefit of the facilities. One user commented that she now had a better chance at finding a job because,whereas newspapers only show you some jobs, the internet shows you everything. :
, so I
have been able to contact them to build a working relationship so we can do a similar program here. I have been able
Although no respondent reported finding employment, they still recognised the limitless job opportunities they are exposed to through the center. From the respondents of the study, it is difficult to establish whether the use of the facilities indeed helped users to secure employment. Those who might have found a job would not be at the center since the center only opens during working hours.
Increased efficiency in financial management was also noted as a benefit. The few who were using the center for banking regarded the ability to manage money through internet banking as a benefit.
The majority of respondents indicated deriving social benefits from the centers. The most common social benefit was keeping in touch with friends. Increased confidence with computers was also perceived as an important benefit among users. One user said,
social, and perhaps psychological, benefit of this is that users can increase their self-confidence and social standing. This may also have economic implications, as the increased skills of users may allow them to search for jobs more successfully, as well as increasing their skills, thus making them more employable.
The findings suggest that people are aware of the vast information and knowledge available on the
increasing and so they are using them more. If this is the case, it could imply that continuous computer use translates into increased confidence with computers. A positive note is that this discovery of knowledge, coupled with the accessibility of the center and the increasing confidence in computer use, are potentially powerful stepping stones to addressing the knowledge divide, as they form the basis for knowledge gathering and sharing (Rao, 2005).
5.3. Challenges in using, and benefiting from, the center
The challenges faced by the disadvantaged communities when deriving the actual benefits of theSmart Cape Center include:
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access to the premises (the library card)
inadequate ICT skills
inadequate resources at the center
lack of privacy
5.3.1. Access to the premises (the library card)
The internal library policy stipulated that the center could only be accessed by those with a valid library card with no outstanding fines. A library card could be applied for by any member of the public with an identity document and proof of residential address. Further, users with outstanding books or library fines could not re-apply for a new library card until their books were returned and fines settled.
Most of the respondents cited problems relating to their library cards as preventing their use of the center. Some users and some non-users could not access the facility because they either did not have library cards due to the cards being lost or stolen, or they were unable to pay their library fines for overdue books. Many appeared disheartened by this issue. Some of the remarks were:
the very first time I took a book out of the library, I was not told that I had to return the book by a certain date.
Because of this, I now have a R29 fine on my card, and I cannot get a new card until I pay that fine. I do not think it is
fair for me to be fined for something I did not know about. I have tried to explain my situation to the librarian but they
are strict with th
When asked for suggestions on how to overcome this problem, respondents suggested that the use of the facility should not be tied to the library card, especially considering that the cards
Many felt it was difficult to replace lost cards, especially for minors who need assistance/consent of parents to do these transactions. For instance, one user remarked:
card because you need a proof of address. But my mom is at work during the times the library is open,
This finding raises a number of interesting points regarding the implementation and user expectations of public access centers. In the first instance, it brings back the debate of the ideal location of a public access point. It has been argued that libraries form an ideal location for such facilities, since both the library and the public access points are in the business of providing access information to the public (Chigona, 2006). However, based on the data from this study, it may also be argued that the library, by enforcing the no-valid library card/no-access, is erecting barriers to usage. Theoretically, a person with no library card is denied two possible sources of information: the materials in the library and the computer access.
The reluctance of some of the respondents to settle their fines also gives the sense of the individuals distancing themselves from the problem, perceiving it as one to be fixed by someone else and not by themselves. The inability to settle library fines may be due to economic hardships
since most members of the community are economically weak. However, some of the responses displayed a sense of entitlement mentality (Camay & Gordon, 2002; Hughes, 2007). Therespondents felt that, since they were classified as poor, the government or someone else should sort out their library fines, in order to allow them access to the library and the computer facilities.Solutions to such problems may be beyond the control of a single library. There is a need for the political structure to seek to work towards attitude change amongst the population.
The location of the shared facilities in the library, as well as tying the use of the facilities to the adherence of library regulations, may have worked against the adoption of the facilities. The community in which the center is located is predominantly black African, which is traditionally an oral society. Oral societies do not place as much emphasis on written text as a source of knowledge. As such, some community members may perceive the library to be a place for the
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educated or school learners only. Due to such perceptions, the community may be unlikely to apply for a library membership card which could give access to the facilities. This perception needs to be managed, so that all individuals, from all backgrounds, with all beliefs, feel comfortable to use the facilities, regardless of their location.
5.3.2. Inadequate computer skills levels
A low level of computer literacy skills is one of the challenges preventing potential adopters from using the center. Several interview responses on this issue were characterised by statements such as: with one non-user further explaining:
Most respondents adopting the center perceived their computer skills, coupled with language used on the computers (i.e. English), as inadequate, or not up to standard to fully reap the benefits of the center. Some users reported mixed feelings regarding this issue, hinting at levels of both comfort and discomfort with computers. For example, one user said:
, for example, i
language, for example recognise how to save by the Save button icon. But sometimes there is a lot of English on the
The respondents attributed the lack of skill to little exposure to computers. Other users attributedtheir lower skill level to the fact that the center runs an Open Source system instead of a Microsoft Windows based system which are For example, one user remarked that:
he way the computers are programmed does not make them easy to use. It took a while to adapt to the system
because it is not like normal PC
This lack of computer skill could have stemmed from several sources. For instance, the non-users may have not had basic training, or could have had little exposure to computers. This could be attributed to the economic status of the community. Furthermore, since English is not the first language of the majority of residents (StatsSA, 2004to use the center and to use the internet. Moreover, computers being seen as intimidating may also serve as a contributing factor to the continued lack of skills for non-users (Gyamfi 2005, Parkinson, 2005). From this, it can be deduced that the reluctance of non-users to adopt centers is not always a result of the failure of the center itself, but may be due to cultural, social and even attitudinal factors (Parkinson, 2005).
The use of Open Source software can also affect non- , in turn, their perceived levels of skill. Due to the general popularity of Microsoft Windows products, it is possible that, though some non-users may have basic skills, they may find it hard to transfer thesewhen working on a different platform.
The question of training dominated as a suggested solution to the computer illiteracy problem. A number of non-user respondents indicated that they would consider using the computers if they were taught how to. The librarian also supported the notion of training, commenting that,although we offer a user friendly system, people are not computer literate and are generally
scared of using computers, so they need basic skills However, others suggested that the solutiongoes beyond training, as indicated by one respondent, people are embarrassed to ask for help
just be limited to training, but that, an open society where people feel free to ask for help
created.
5.3.3. Inadequate resources at the center
There appears to be a big demand for the center within the community, although its resources are limited. From our own observations, we noted that the library often had queues of people waiting
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to use the centerlibrarian also cited this as the biggest challenge after skills shortage, stating that:
he library initially had five PC
Users suggested increasing the number of computers to meet the high demand. The librarian agreed with this suggestion but also acknowledged the difficulty of meeting this challenge saying:Other branches want PC nfair to them if
only we get PCs
Some non-users were deterred by the large demand for the center which led to non-adoption. Some non-users did not value the center much, and were not willing to wait in queues for their turn. It could also be argued that, since non-users were in most cases likely to be less computer literate, they feared that they would seem to be those with pressing issues for using the center. Since there are limited resources at the center, the pressure on the less skilled users may prevent them from developing their computer skills bypractising on the machines.
5.3.4. Perceived lack of privacy and security
Many respondents, including both users and non-users, expressed dissatisfaction about the privacy when using the center. They felt there was a lack of physical privacy when using the computers,because other people using the other computers could see what one was doing on the machine. Those not confident enough to use the computers felt uncomfortable when others were watching them struggling to use the machines. One user said, People want to see what you are doing on the
computer, it is not nice.
Others indicated that they did not trust the working environment. Most respondents avoided using the facilities for transactions, especially for internet banking. The dissatisfaction with the level of privacy partly explains the low levels of internet banking done at the center.
5.4.
We were particularly interested in how the users dealt with the challenges they faced in using the facility. We noted that the limited time they spent on the computer was often well planned and maximised. For instance, some users used the newspapers in the library to do the initial search of jobs, this en to go straight to the job they would like to apply for A similar strategy was noted with the use of social network sites. Most users accessed their Facebook account from their mobile technology and did most of the basic stuff from their mobile phones. When they came to use the computers they were prepared on what activities to engage in on their social network sites.
6. DISCUSSIONS AND CONCLUSIONS
The study has provided empirical evidence about users and non-users perceived benefits and challenges of a free shared facility located in a disadvantaged communities. The analysis has shown that, while there are instances where members of the communities around the centers may derive benefits from the facilities, there are still some challenges which deter some community members to adopt and benefit from the centers.
It was noted that there is a still a huge demand for shared ICT access facilities in urban areas. Even users, who use mobile phones for accessing their internet, still have the need to access the computer. This contributes to the debate on whether mobile phones are replacing the telecenters as a means of access by the masses in developing countries (Chigona et al, 2009). The degree and the demand of use of the facilities show that there is still need of shared facilities despite the growing use of mobile technology. What is emerging are the creative ways in which users are combining the different technologies to satisfy their information needs. Maybe the debate should not focus on
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replacing the shared facilities with mobile technology, but rather exploring how the two supplement each other.
There are economic, social and psychological benefits which some community members derivefrom the use of center. The community members perceive free access to the facilities as the biggest economic benefit they derive from the center. Other economic benefits include internet access to complete schoolwork and academic transactions online, and access to business and job opportunities. Socially, the members of the community are benefiting through social networking and the opportunity to access information about what is happening in other societies. Some hedonic benefits of the center include sports and entertainment accessed from the facility.
The challenges hindering the communities from deriving benefits include non-adoption of the center, inadequate ICT skills, inadequate resources at the center, difficulty with access to the premises (the library card), and lack of privacy. Some community members are unable to use the center due to insufficient computer literacy skills. Most of the challenges seem to affect especially those with limited or no computer skills. In the first instance, no training is provided to the would-be adopters, making it challenging for those with no skills to come aboard. The limited number of computers available at the centers also made it difficult for people to self-teach or to improve their skill levels. The limited resources necessitated the time limit for using the facilities. With the limited time, in an open space and with a queue of people waiting, it is intimidating for a novice to spend time learning how to use the computers.
To enable more people to benefit from the facilities, there is a need for the center to address the challenges. Among other things, there is a need to make computer literacy training available to the disadvantaged communities. Although there are computer training opportunities available in CapeTown, many of these are inaccessible to disadvantaged community members due to their high cost or location.
7. REFERENCES AND CITATIONS
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Benjamin, P., and Dahms, M. (1999). Socialise the modem of production: The role of telecentersin development. Telecenter Evaluation: A Global Perspective (Report of an International
Meeting on Telecenter Evaluation), pp. 49-67.
Camay, P. and Gordon, A. (2002). Civil Society as Advocate of Social Change in Pre- and Post-transition Societies: Building Sound Governance in South Africa, ISTR Fifth International
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Chigona, W. (2006). Should communal computing facilities cohabit with public facilities? The
Journal of Community Informatics, 2(3), pp. 1-3.
Chigona, W., and Mbhele, F. (2008). The role of the internet in alleviating social exclusion: Case of Western Cape Province. South African Computer Journal (pp. 75-86).
Chigona, W., Beukes, D., Vally, J., and Tanner, M. (2009). Can mobile internet help alleviate social exclusion in developing countries? EJISDC, 36(7), pp. 1-16.
Cohen, L. Manion, L. and Morrison, K (2007). Research Methods in Education. 6th edition. London. Routledge Falmer.
Cullen, R. (2001). Addressing the digital divide. [Online April 10, 2010] http://www.swetswise.com/FullTextProxy/swproxy?
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Dragon, A. G. (2001). Prometheus riding a Cadillac? Telecenters as the promised flame of knowledge. Journal of Development Communication, 12(2). [Online, May 17, 2010]: http://ip.cals.cornell.edu/commdev/documents/jdc-dagron.doc
Ernberg, J. (2001). Telecenters and the Incubation of Public Policy. Journal of Development
Communication, 12(2). [Online March 31, 2010 http://ip.cals.cornell.edu/commdev/jdc-ernberg.doc
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Nation: South Africa 2007. Human Science Research Council Press, Cape Town.
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ICT ACTORS, NETWORKS AND DEVELOPMENT: THE CASE STUDY OF A WIRELESS PROJECT IN NEPAL
Devinder Thapa ([email protected])Department of Information Systems University of Agder 4604 Kristiansand Norway
Abstract: The role of ICT actors in the formation and extension of ICT4D projects is important. The actors through their extended network and aligned interest can enhance the effectiveness of the project which in turn enables socioeconomic development opportunities. However, few studies have been conducted to understand the role of these central players. The objective of this paper, therefore,is to address this knowledge gap by conducting a qualitative case studyparticularly interpretive in the Myagdi district in the mountain region of Nepal. In this study we explored the Nepal Wireless Networking Project (NWNP) and examined how an activist started it from one mountain village and gradually extended across more than forty villages. The formation and extension of information and communication technology for development (ICT4D) projectsgoes through different phases of identification of relevant ICT actors, roles,negotiations, and their interest alignment. To understand the various phases, weemployed Actor-Network Theory (ANT) and explored how a social activist, in the midst of challenges, initiates the wireless project to facilitate educational and healthcare services to the mountain regions. In continuum, the study found how the activist identified relevant actors and enrolled them to form a network of aligned interest. Furthermore, we identify some implications for research and practice based on insights from the case study.
Keywords: ICT Actors, Actor-Network Theory (ANT), Development, ICT4D, Nepal.
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ICT ACTORS, NETWORKS AND DEVELOPMENT: THE CASE STUDY OF A WIRELESS PROJECT IN NEPAL
1. INTRODUCTION
With the increasing interest of academia and development organizations in ICT4D research and practice, the need to understand interplay among various social and technological actors,rather than lopsided explanation to understand implementation process of the project were identified (Hanseth, et al., 1996; Heeks & Stanforth, 2007; Martin, 2000; Stanforth, 2007; UNDP, 2001; Walsham & Sahay, 1999). Similarly, understanding of local socio-cultural context in IS research in general and ICT4D research in particular is mentioned (Mengesha, 2010; Walsham & Sahay, 1999). However, the missing link in the existing literature is to understand the roles of different ICT actors
1 in the formation and extension of ICT4D projects. The need of charismatic leaders and champions to bring together and develop commitment among stakeholders is acknowledged (Kleine & Unwin, 2009). The challenge of how to create champions, however, remains a question(Heeks, 2008).Study suggest that the role of individual actors who enjoyed passing on information and people who had larger networks than their peers is critical in the sharing of computer-mediated information(Andrade & Urquhart, 2010b). Similarly, in developing countries low literacy rate, caste, culture, gender, and religious issues create obstacles in getting the benefits of information technology to the vast majority of the population. It creates the information
- Disadvantageous group of people are seldom aware of the information available on the net and even when they are, they have difficulty using it. In this situation, an intermediary role is important to facilitate access to the information(Sein &Furuholt, 2009). However, there is still a need for pursuing further research to understand the role of ICT actors(Andrade & Urquhart, 2010b) as a project initiator, champions, and intermediaries, particularly, in the mountain regions of developing countries(Heeks & Kanashiro, 2009).In this paper, we address this issue. Our specific research question was: How does different
ICT actors form and extend ICT4D projects and how does extended networks in turn foster
socio-economic development? To examine our research question, we conducted a case study in the Myagdi district in the mountain region of Nepal and explored the role of ICT actors in establishing the Nepal Wireless Networking Project (NWNP). We found that despite challenges and some negative consequences, the initiative positively influenced development through its extended network. This study employed actor-network theory to understand the formation and extension process of NWNP in their local context. Major focus of the theory when applied in this particular case was to explain the interaction processes between different ICT actors and their roles during the wireless project formation and extension process.This paper illustrates how a successful network of aligned interests among the ICT actors is created through the enrolment of a sufficient body of allies and translation of their interest,and what roles different ICT actors played to create sufficient body of allies. So that they are willing to participate in particular ways of thinking and acting that maintains the network (Latour, 2005). Literatures on ICT4D provide evidence that qualitative research combined with analytical lens of ANT can be used to enhance the understanding of translation process(Andrade & Urquhart, 2010a; Braa, et al., 2007; Heeks & Stanforth, 2007; Rhodes, 2009; Sarker , et al., 2006; Walsham & Sahay, 1999).
1 ICT Actors in this paper refers to all human and technical actors involved in the formation and extension of ICT4D projects,
ICT actors and actors are sometimes used interchangeably in this paper.
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Rest of the paper is organized as follows. Section 2 discusses the theoretical foundation and its relevance to the case study. Section 3 and 4 illustrate research context and methodology. Section 5 illustrates research findings from the case study of NWNP. Finally, Section 5concludes the paper with a brief notes on its achievements and some implications.
2. THEORETICAL FOUNDATION
2.1 Actor-Network Theory (ANT)
ANT is developed from the study of sociology and science at the Ecole des Mines inParis(Callon, 1986; Latour, 2005; Law, 1992). The concept was derived from Gabriel Tarde who in his book Monadologie et sociologie argued that division between nature and society is irrelevant for understanding the world of human interactions(Latour, 2002). As summarized in Table 1, the basic concept of ANT includes actors (or actants). Both human beings and non-human (eg. technical) objects are considered as an actor.
conceptual (Callon, 1997). Actor-Network is a heterogeneous network of aligned interests, including people, organizations and standards (Walsham, 1997)
f the question of who and what participants in the action is not first of all thoroughly explored, even though it might mean letting elements in which, for lack of a better term, we would call non- (Latour, 2005)
Actor (or actant) Both human beings and nonhuman actors such as technological artifacts
Actor-Network Heterogeneous network of aligned interest, including people, organizations, and standards
Enrolment and Translation Creating body of allies, human and nonhuman, through a process of translating their interests to be aligned with the actor-network
Delegates and Inscriptionparticular viewpoints which have been inscribed in them, e.g., software as frozen organizational discourse
Irreversibility The degree to which it is subsequently impossible to go back to point where alternative possibilities exists
Black Box A frozen network element, often with properties of irreversibility
Immutable mobile Network element with strong properties of irreversibility, and effects which transcend time and place, e.g., software standards
Table 1. A Summary of Actor-Network Theory (adopted from (Walsham, 1997))
2.2 Translation Process
The translation process can enhance the deeper understanding of interplay among various ICT actors by providing the details of all the strategies through which an actor identifies other actors and arranges them in relation to each other. This process requires the focus to be on understanding how actor-networks are created, strengthened and weakened, rather than on
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causes and effects. The translation process has four phases known as Problematization,
Interessement, Enrollment, and Mobilization. These phases are not sequential and can be overlapped.In the problematization phase, different actors define their problems and objectives that need to be solved. As different objectives cannot be attained by the actors individually, they try to identify other relevant actors. After identifying the groups of actors, they select delegates that will represent them. A focal actor, in this phase, tries to convince different actors and definetheir roles and identities in such a way to establish itself as an obligatory passage point between the other actors and the network. The obligatory passage point, as shown in Figure 1,is defined as a common goal that benefits those involved in the network.movement, which renders him[focal actor] indispensable in the network, is what we call problematization(Callon, 1986)
Figure 1. Finding Obligatory Passage Point
In the Interessement phase, the focal actor attempts to negotiate and stabilize the identity of the other actors, which it defines through its Problematization process. During the problematization we learned how different actors carefully defined their identity, goals and their inclinations of the allies. These identities can be changed based on their own competitive interest. After the Interessement phase, the focal actor seeks through physical actions and negotiations to define and coordinate the roles of other actors. It designates the device by which a set of interrelated roles is defined and attributed to actors who accept them. For all the groups involved the device helps create a favorable balance of power, and corner the entities to be enrolled in the network. It attempts to interrupt all potential competing associations and to construct a system of alliances composed of different socio-technical actors(Callon, 1986).The successful enrolment depends on the negotiation and consolidation among actors during the Interessement phase. To describe enrolment is thus to describe the group of actors with various interests, negotiations among them, and finally synthesize their interests with the common goal.In the Mobilisation phase, the focal actor seeks to ensure that specific representative of all the other actors has been chosen and accepted by their groups. All unions have their delegates or spokesperson; even the IT artifacts have the representation in project blueprint, such as
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wireless stations, equipments in use, and software. Thereafter, the focal actor is accepted as the main voice or a delegate that speaks on behalf of all the actors in the networks. The state when the actor network gets strong properties of irreversibility, and effects, which transcend time and place, is known as immutable mobile (Callon, 1986). However, this consensus and the alliances that it implies can be contested at any moment and the translation can be turned into treason; known as dissidence (Callon, 1986). The notion of lack of alignment is simultaneously a timely reminder that agendas and interests may be diverging, in opposition, or competing direction.Looking at the nature of the qualitative research approach, and the involvement of various ICT actors(Tatnall & Gilding, 1999) in forming and extending the Nepal Wireless Networking Project, this study uses ANT as the theoretical lens. More specifically, the theory can provide a lens for deeper understanding into how the processes, controversies and negotiations lead to the formation and extension of the wireless project in the mountain regions of Nepal.materials that they deploy to generate themselves(Callon, 1997)
3. RESEARCH CONTEXT
3.1 Nepal Wireless Networking Project (NWNP)
The Nepal Wireless Networking Project (NWNP) was started in 1997 by educationist and social activist Mahabir Pun (team leader of the project). After completing his Masters degree from US, Pun returned to teach at a village high school located in Nangi in Myagdi district. At that time, villagers had to make two-day trips to the nearest town (Pokhara) to check their e-mail from friends abroad. In 1997, through personal correspondence, Pun succeeded in acquiring four used computers from Australia and began teaching computer classes at the Nangi high school using them. Later, the school received some more donated computers; however, there were no telephone or internet connection in the village. In 2001, Pun wrote an email to the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) asking for ideas to connect this remote village to the outside world through internet. When the BBC published his email, the response was overwhelming. Because of the positive consequence of this interaction, within a year, volunteers from Europe and the United States began to help him in setting up a wireless connection between Nangi and other neighboring villages such as Tikot,using TV dish antennas mounted in trees. Gradually, the success story of NWNP spread across the World Wide Web, and his social network started extending across to other parts of the world. Volunteers from several countries started donating computers, parts, Wi-Fi equipments, and perhaps most importantly, their skills to these mountain villages.Since 2003, this project has been in full-fledged operation. Despite difficult circumstances, such as lack of government support, lack of funding, lack of technical knowledge, and an unstable political system (Nepal was in fact involved in a civil war between the government and the Maoists when the project started), the project succeeded in providing internet service. It uses minimal wireless technology, home-made antennas, and relay stations that had to be hidden in trees. Pun was recognized for his initiative to enroll different human and technical actors to extend wireless network across mountain regions. He received the prestigious Magsaysay Award in 2007.
3.2 Research Site
The starting point for the research was Nangi and Tikot villages in the Myagdi district, located in western Nepal on the southern flank of the Annapurna and Dhaulagiri ranges of the Himalayas. We chose Nangi because it was the first Himalayan rural village of Nepal where
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NWNP provided internet connection. The central office of NWNP Project is the Nangi telecenter which is run by Himanchal Higher Secondary School and it coordinates the wholewireless network which covers the different villages of Myagdi, Parbat and Kaski districts. The center has now started extending its services to several other rural and remote villages of Nepal. The total population of Nangi and Tikot villages is around 2,000. Villagers from these remote regions have to go to urban areas to procure employment, education, and healthcare services. Tikot is not accessible by road. While Nangi is better connected, it still takes about four hoursseven-hour bus ride to reach the capital city of Kathmandu. These two villages are inhabited predominantly by Magar ethnic communities including other minority castes and social groups (Pun, 2006). Most of the villages in mountain regions are scattered in small clusters with average populations of less than one thousand. The inhabitants in these villages still practice shamanistic rituals and shamans are respected as traditional doctors and healers. Medical clinics have only recently been set up. Most of the villagers are farmers growing mainly potatoes and other agricultural products. Young men from these villages prefer to join military service either in India or UK, mainly because a high level of education is not a requirement for enrolling. The main source of revenue for the villagers is not surprisingly remittances of salary from military service, and whatever isearned from selling agricultural and dairy products.
4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The qualitative case study particularly interpretive approach was used to understand the research problem. The philosophical basis of interpretive research inherited from the ethnographic research tradition in anthropology, hermeneutic, and phenomenology (Butler, 1998; Klein & Myers, 1999; Walsham, 1995a). Interpretive approach can better explain the complex socio-technical interaction process using ethnographic interviews, thick case description, and empirical observation.
4.1 Data Collection
This paper has used the interpretive case study methodology(Walsham, 1995b, 2006) to guide the collection and analysis of data. The initial process of research started with a literature review and building a conceptual framework. A series of interviews were conducted with different stakeholders as listed in Table 1. To understand the historical background and detail enrollment process, we conducted an ethnographic interview of the team leader of thewireless project in situ. In addition, notes taking, observations, still and video pictures wereused to capture the socio-cultural and technical context. Different secondary reports were also used. The interviewee selected were teachers, social activist, health workers, students, local users and non-users of the ICT services. Semi-structured guide was used for the individual interviews, each of which lasted from 40 to 60 minutes and was tape-recorded. Table 1, Appendix (A), illustrates ICT actors interviewed and their objectives for using wireless internet services.To understand the collective view, focus group interview was conducted in the Schools of Nangi and Tikot villages. Similarly, observation of ICT usage was done in schools, telecenters, and village telemedicine clinics. In addition, supplementary data were obtained from different relevant Internet sites, informal discussions, email exchange, social networking sites, different websites of ICT4D projects, and ICT4D workshop in Kathmandu. The workshop was attended by various ICT actors involved in NWNP including Mahabir Pun.
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4.2 Data Analysis
The objective of data analysis was to understand different interpretation of use of technology by actors and their motives to enroll in the wireless network. The data collected through interviews, note taking, workshops, and observations in the field were analyzed using qualitative techniques. All the interviews were transcribed, summarized, coded and categorized keeping actor-network theory as a guiding framework. For example, as shown in Appendix (A), Table 1, through this analysis process, we identified the interpretation of different ICT actors in enrolling to Nepal Wireless Networking Project.Throughout the project constant data comparison was used to make connection between different categories and interview codes. Peer review was done by colleagues and other researchers to check the reliability and validity of interview and interpretation. One of the researchers background was from the remote communities of Nepal, his knowledge and experience as an insider and outsider helped to understand the reality of the research context with critical perspectives. The whole research process was evaluated according to set of principles for interpretive research in IS (Klein & Myers, 1999). It is important to emphasize that the use of theoretical concept was to get a richer understanding of the process as a sensitizing device rather than resting or falsifying hypothesis. The actor-network theory lens thus served as a priori guideline for collecting and analyzing data (Walsham, 1995a).
5. RESEARCH FINDINGS
The following sections will trace the moments of interplay between heterogeneous ICT actorsduring the wireless project formation and extension process. These moments constitute the different phases of translation process as described below.
5.1. Problematization
As defined in Section 2.2, in this phase, focal actor seeks to define a problem that interests other relevant actors. For example, the problem which focal actor, Pun, the team leader of the wireless project, in this case, wanted to solve was to foster socioeconomic development in the mountain regions through internet connection. Subsequently, the focal actor started finding different relevant actors who, besides having their own interests, can be agreed to collaborate with the wireless project. The brief account of actors discussed in this paper and their problematization are formulated as follows.Starting with the team leader, Pun, who stated:One of the reasons I am involved in this project is because I have seen that this has good
potential to provide some very basic services to the rural community. Like health and
education services Because there is no way Nepali government is going to build hospital
and bring doctors in the rural areas as it cost so much money to do that also you can see
a lot of good schools and colleges are in the urban areas students are getting opportunity to
get quality education there but students in rural areas are not. So there is a huge education
gap I think ICT can help to bring this education gap closer. Similarly, to make
project and internet telephony.
The team leader also plays an important role as a representative or intermediary of the villagers. One of the villagers explained:He[Pun] has a very high contribution for the implementation of these projects, because of
that children are very attracted tow
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of this wireless projects in the village was not possible without his help. He gave us the idea
of this project and we are working according to those ideas and plan.
Pun mentioned that when he initiated this wireless project, there were many challenges, such as human skill, physical infrastructure, political instability, and lack of finance before him. Todeal with this problem, he started searching for other set of actors besides community people.His first interaction with outer world to start wireless project was through writing email to British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) I wrote the BBC about it [NWNP] in 2000. The idea just came into my mind and I wrote them and asked them if there is any person who knows about it then provide me some suggestion. BBC published his article, and he received overwhelming response from all around the world. After that I started getting email
Thereafter, he started seeking for other human and technical actors. For example, he started working with Gandaki Boarding School, national and international volunteers, OLE Nepal, Kathmandu Model Hospital, Thamel.com, etc. In addition, technical actor, for instance, the wireless project, was inscribed as a platform to facilitate socioeconomic development.
The next ICT actor, Open Learning Exchange (OLE) Nepal, an NGO based in the US and Kathmandu, as a partner to develop educational contents for the school children. The contentsare based on the government curriculum from grade one through ten. The NWNP is in the testing phase of using the wireless network for online learning. The objective of OLE is to provide standard education for youngsters living in the rural and remote villages. The executive director of OLE Nepal expressed:Getting more teachers training, building schools, building classrooms, in spite of this, we are
not saying that we should stop it, but in parallel start looking into quality. One of the
best ways is to introduce computers like OLPC in the classrooms other thing technology
can do is from the communication aspects, it improves the access, so now they can go to
school and access lot of quality education materials. Many places every year in remote areas
, sometimes the books arrived when the academic year is over, so
we are facing lot of these challenges. By introducing technology we can update and send the
materials immediately, and easily access the materials. These are the things we can do with
technology.
Kathmandu Model hospital is one of the key ICT actors who are working with the wireless project. To address the challenges of bringing specialist doctors into the mountain villages, NWNP and the hospital have initiated telemedicine services in some villages of the Myagdi district. Every morning, the village ladies (being responsible for health care services in the villages) consult doctors from main hospitals using videoconferencing services, to discuss patients, common diseases or to learn from doctors and village ladies from other communities. One of the doctors problematize the telemedicine project as follows:Currently we are in a very initial stage daily video conference can provide continue training
to the health workers in the remote area. And secondly, at the time of emergency, they can
bring patients before camera. Our effort is that health workers here in the village become
efficient. The people in this village should trust them more, and the ultimately it will benefit
village people.
Another ICT actor, the thamel.com, is planning to start a remittance service in the remote area because most of the family members from remote communities go to work abroad. Moreover, virtual ATM machine services are being piloted in Ghore Pani (a famous trekking route for
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tourist), which will be further distributed to other tourist areas. Director of thamel.com statedhis interest as follows:In the rural areas, there is always a misconception that there is no market. What works in
urban obviously not work in rural areas, but the thing is all the rural areas have there own
socio-economic dynamics. Where we can plug in the technology and create some kind of
socio-economic opportunities people in every village in the mountains like Nangi and Tikot
are working somewhere else So there are people making money and there are people
sending money to villages ight now the remittance service in the middle of four or five
villages can stop villagers to come down to Beni(district headquarter). If we bring that
remittance service in the village the
5.2. Interessement
As defined in Section 2.2, the interessement process explains how the focal actor identifies the threat to different actors and builds an interessement (balancing) device which can be placed between them. In this case the wireless project constitutes a representation of the interessement device. For example, all actors acknowledged the central role of the wireless project:
we can plug in the technology and create some kind of socio-economic opportunities
video conference can provide continue training to the health work
I am involved in this [wireless internet] project because I have seen that this has good
potential to provide some very basic
Our goal here is to see how we can improve the quality of education especially in primary
level. We get the most return in investment if we can start early and get the kids, if we can
impart some quality education into the children then we can have long term benefits and also
to improve access to quality education. So those are the two major areas where we believe
5.3. Enrolment
As defined in Section 2.2, in the enrollment process the focal actor seeks through physical actions and negotiations to define and coordinate the roles of other actors. Physical actions in this case are installation of wireless equipments, such as towers on top of mountains, servers, and software. Likewise, negotiations denotes to arrangement of social and institutional norms among actors. It designates the device (documents) by which a set of interrelated roles is defined and attributed to actors who accept them. For example,
The OLE, Nepal explains the reason for partnering with wireless project as follows:Mahabir came three years back to us and said contents I connect computers and internet
you have to build contents and then right from the beginning content is our core word.
We have 30 people in this organization 15 of them directly involved in developing contents, 2
of them build elibrary, so all our researcher are going into contents implementation part, like
I said, we do it through the government resources.
Another ICT actor, director of thamel.com, explained why they enroll to wireless project:Because his [Mahabir] dream is to promote education and healthcare, certain percentage of
profits goes towards it, and he is such an iconic figure in Nepal. There is a different element
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of brand he
who is dedicating his entire life selflessly without asking anything for himself. And then but
lls he got
certain skills,
5.4. Mobilisation
As defined in Section 2.2, In the Mobilisation phase, as depicted in Figure 2, the focal actor seeks to ensure that specific representative of all the other actors has been chosen and accepted by their groups. All unions have their delegates or spokesperson; even the IT artifacts have the representation in project blueprint such as wireless stations, equipments in use, and software. The focal actor, the team leader, is accepted as the main voice or a delegate that speaks on behalf of all the actors in the networks. As one of the villager expressed:
any other person who came here to work like Mahabir. For example, there are many people
from foreign countries who came to observe the project, but there was no one who says that I
will work with Mahabir. Therefore, until Mahabir is here it will function properly, however in
his absence we need another person like him for the sustainability of this project. Therefore,
in his absence this project may not function properly, I am bit worried about it.
Figure 2. Enrollment and Mobilisation
A doctor from telemedicine project mentioned:It is the effort of Mahabir to connect the whole Nepal through wireless technology. There are
other 3-4 institutions working along with him, we are one of them to provide health related
services. There is another organization called NREN (Nepal research and education
network), in this institute there are 3-4 friends including Mahabir and I. this organization is
also helping us, besides that there are other private companies who are working with us. They
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are also motivated to make this telemedicine project successful. However, Mahabir is the key
player in this project.
The focal actor translates the interest of all the parties resulting in the irreversible black box or actor-network. Although it will take long time to converge the wireless project into a complete black box, it is gradually enrolling local, national, and international ICT actors inthis formation and extension of ICT4D project. As the team leader, Pun, expressed:This is a pilot study to learn about future possibilities ight now, we are not doing any big
things or magic. What we are trying to do simply is to tell that this [ICT] is very important
and necessary for the future. In future, those who will not know ICT will be like a blind man.
Therefore, we are trying to open their eyes right now o we cannot say the result of this
project will be seen after one or two years. The impact can be seen after 10 or 20 years
lesson they learned now will be very useful to them in the long run.
The project has been extended across more than 40 villages in the mountain region. Different actors are mobilizing together regardless of their physical displacement or distance. They are working in their own, however, heading towards a common goal of socioeconomic development; this togetherness using main representative is known as Concentration(Callon, 1986).
5.5. Dissidence
As defined in Section 2.2, the consensus and the alliances that it implies can be contested at any moment and the translation can be turned into treason. There can be lack of alignment between ICT actors, and interests may be diverging, in opposition, or competing direction due to different social, human, physical, economical, and political factors(Thapa & Sæbø, forthcoming). For instance, the existing challenges such as, lack of physical infrastructure, power shortages, illiteracy, one man dependency, political instability, brain drain, lack of employment opportunities, lack of funding, market competition, and lack of pro-poorgovernment planning may hamper the alliance, consequently, development process in a long run. In this context, director of Nepal telecommunication authority expressed his worries:Rural means no affordability, lower literacy rate, everything is below average, and poverty
incidence is high. Moreover, the supporting infrastructure, such as electricity, road network,
and other supporting infrastructure, is not yet developed in the rural areas.
Joint secretary of HLCIT also mentioned the challenges in terms of human skill:We are looking for more technical hands, but still it is quite difficult to get specially IT
sector is not like private sector so that is the challenge with the government institutions.
According to Karmacharya, director of OLE Nepal:Putting computer at schools and connecting internet will not bridge the gap, but we need to
produce the useful contents that can be understood our first and foremost target should be
to convince the government organizations because we are not doing this forever. Our role
here is more of catalyst bringing all the stakeholders together to discuss the possible
solutions, such as to find different ways of doing it, and to find how best to do it and how best
to take this to the mass involvement of local community is also important. Therefore, the
solutions they [government] are employing besides building technical infrastructure are
teachers training, capacity building of the government employees, and approaching
community leaders.
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6. CONCLUSIONS
This paper highlights the importance of ICT actors, their roles and actions in the formation and extension of ICT4D projects. To enhance this understanding, we conducted a qualitativecase study in the Myagdi district in the mountain region of Nepal and studied the Nepal Wireless Networking Project (NWNP) to examine how an activist started this project from one mountain village and gradually extended across more than forty villages. Using actor-network theory we found that the formation and extension of ICT4D projects goes through different phases of identification of relevant actors, roles, negotiations, and their interest alignment. The study revealed the initiation taken by different actors and community people, in the midst of many challenges, to enable education, healthcare, and economic opportunities in the mountain villages. The roles of different ICT actors and interconnection between technology and society can provide us better lens to understand how ICTs can effectively be used to enhance the livelihoods of poor and marginalised communities (Unwin, 2009).Theoretically, this paper contributes to the use of actor-network theory for deeper understanding into how the ICT actors play their roles in the formation and extension of ICT4D projects. ANT also enhances the understanding of differences in the methods and materials that actors deploy to achieve their individual as well as common goals. The detail translation process describes how at the beginning different actors were separate, and how their interest has unified them. This study through empirical case examined how a focal actor, the team leader of wireless project, enroll different actors, such as social activists, technical experts, community users, doctors, entrepreneurs, national and international volunteers, and researcher through enrollment process, and mobilize the wireless project. The wireless project in turns enables development opportunities in the mountain region of Nepal.The study has some practical implications. It shows that ICT actors can play a major role in the formation and extension of ICT4D project and foster socioeconomic development through enrolling into common objective. For example, the wireless project provides a promising opportunity to create social, human, physical, financial, and political capital(Thapa & Sæbø, forthcoming). People may access data resources and they are offered training to improve their competence. People living in the villages have better access to medical competence due to theproject. Transaction costs are reduced and there are some promising opportunities to empower marginalized groups, especially women, through training programs. However, at the same time, the challenges like lack of political instability, skilled manpower, and physical infrastructures can perturb the enrolment process and dissolve the network. The limitations of this study are our data was collected from two remote mountain villages in Nepal is thus highly context dependent. That may restrict the generalization scope. The time frame of the study also raises the possibility that we may not have captured the effects at the right time. Such projects may require a longer period to have a more sustained influence. The researched communities were composed of homogeneous group; result could have been different in other multi ethnic communities. Difficult geographical location, gender issues,and low literacy rates were other obstacles in collecting data. Finally, the actor-network theory does not consider the macro level effect, such as government policies, and market situation. In practice, macro level factors influence and influenced by the local development context. Likewise, ANT is not able to provide answers to some questions such as, why do the actors act the way they do? What motivates or drives them? In future research endeavors, in addition to ANT, theories such as, Stakeholders or Genres of communication can be used to examine these issues. Similarly, by combining social capital approaches with actor-network theories, we can increase the understanding of social changes and the role of various stakeholders and technologies in fostering socioeconomic development. These are avenues for future research.
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7. REFERENCES
Andrade, A. D., & Urquhart, C. (2010a). The affordances of actor network theory in ICT for development research. Information Technology & People, 23(4), 352 - 374.
Andrade, A. D., & Urquhart, C. (2010b). The role of social connectors in seeking computer-mediated information in rural societies. HUMAN IT, 11(1), 1-29.
Braa, J., Hanseth, O., & Heywood, A. (2007). Developing health information systems in developing countries: the flexible standards strategy. MIS Quarterly, 31(2), 381-402.
Butler, T. (1998). Towards a hermeneutic method for interpretive research in information systems. Journal of Information Technology, 13, 285-300.
Callon, M. (1986). Some elements of a sociology of translation: domestication of the scallops and fisherman of st. brieuc bya. In J. Law (Ed.), Poer, action and belief: a new sociology of knowledge? (pp. 196-233). Routledge, London.
Callon, M. (1997). Actor-network theory - the market test, actor network and after workshop:Keele University.
Hanseth, O., Monteiro, E., & Hatling, M. (1996). Developing information infrastructure : The tension between standardization and flexibility. Science Technology & Human Values, 21(4), 407-426.
Heeks, R. (2008). ICT4D 2. 0 : the next phase of applying ICT for International Development. Computer ( Formerly : Computer Group News ), 41(6), 26-33.
Heeks, R., & Kanashiro, L. (2009). Telecentres in mountain regions - A Peruvian case study of the impact of information and communication technologies on remoteness and exclusion. Journal of Mountain Science, 6(4), 320 - 330.
Heeks, R., & Stanforth, C. (2007). Understanding e-Government project trajectories from an actor-network perspective. European Journal of Information Systems, 16, 165-177.
Klein, H. K., & Myers, M. D. (1999). A Set of Principles for Conducting and Evaluating Interpretive Field Studies in Information Systems. MIS Quarterly, 23(1), 67-93.
Kleine, D., & Unwin, T. (2009). Technological Revolution, Evolution and New Dependencies: what's new about ict4d? Third World Quarterly, 30, 1045-1067.
Latour, B. (2002). Gabriel Tarde and the End of the Social. In P. Joyce (Ed.), The Social in Question: New Bearings in the History and the Social Sciences (pp. 117 132). London: Routledge.
Latour, B. (2005). Reassembling the social, an introduction to actor-network theory: Oxford University Press.
Law, J. (1992). Notes on the theory of the actor network:ordering, strategy and heterogeneity:Centre for Science Studies, Lancaster University.
Martin, E. (2000). Actor - networks and implementation : examples from conservation GIS in Ecuador. International Journal of Geographical Information Science, 14(8), 715-738.
Mengesha, N. T. (2010). Sociotechnical Dynamics in IS Development in Organizations: The Case of a Resource-Constrained and Competitive Context. Information Technologies & International Development, 6(3), 33-50.
Pun, M. (2006). Nepal wireless networking project:case study and evaluation report, from www.nepalwireless.net
Rhodes, J. (2009). Using Actor-Network Theory to Trace an ICT (Telecenter) Implementation Trajectory in an African Women's Micro-Enterprise Development Organization. Information Technologies & International Development, 5(3), 1-20.
Sarker , S., Sarker , S., & Sidorova , A. (2006). Understanding business process change failure : An actor - network perspective. Journal of Management Information Systems, 23(1), 51-86.
Sein, M. K., & Furuholt, B. (2009). Paper presented at the Proceedings of Second Annual SIG GlobDev Workshop, Phoenix, USA.
Stanforth, C. (2007). Using Actor - Network Theory to Analyze E - Government Implementation in Developing Countries. Information Technologies and International Development, 3(3), 35-60.
Tatnall, A., & Gilding, A. (1999). Actor-Network Theory and Information Systems Research.Paper presented at the Proc. 10th Australasian Conference on Information Systems, 1999.
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Thapa, D., & Sæbø, Ø. (forthcoming). Demystifying the Possibilities of ICT4D in the Mountain Regions of Nepal. Paper presented at the Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-44), 2011 (Forthcoming).
UNDP (2001). Making new technologies work for human development United Nations Development Programme, New york.
Unwin, T. (2009). ICT4D: Information and Communication Technologies for Development:ICT4D: Information and Communication Technologies for Development.
Walsham, G. (1995a). The emergence of interpretivism in IS research. Information Systems Research, 6(4), 376-364.
Walsham, G. (1995b). Interpretive case studies in IS research: nature and method. European Journal of Information Systems, 4, 74 81.
Walsham, G. (1997). Actor-Network Theory and IS research: Current status and future prospects. In A. S. Lee, J. Liebenau & J. I. DeGross (Eds.), Information systems and qualitative research (pp. 466-480). London: Chapman and Hall.
Walsham, G. (2006). Doing interpretive research. European Journal of Information Systems, 15(3), 320-330.
Walsham, G., & Sahay, S. (1999). GIS for District-Level Administration in India: Problems and Opportunities. MIS Quarterly, 23(1), 39-65.
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APPENDIX (A)
Table 1. Actors and their Interpretation for Enrolling in the NWNP
ORGANIZATION POSITION OBJECTIVES
Nepal Telecommunication Authority
Director Connecting all the district head quarters to optical fibers
OLE Nepal Director Facilitate learning and teaching using computer mediated program
Thamel.com CEO Expansion of ecommerce services in remote areas
High Level Commission for Information Technology (HLCIT)
Joint Secretary Monitoring and evaluation of egovernment services
Kathmandu Model Hospital
Doctor Install telemedicine services in the mountain regions
Nepal wireless network project
Team Leader Socioeconomic development of mountain regions
Himanchal Boarding School
Teacher/Technical support
Computer based teaching and learning
Tikot School Computer teacher Computer based teaching and learning
VDC Nangi Chairman Access information and communication
Kipang VDC Chairman Access information and communication
Institute of Engineering (IOE), Tribhuvan University
Asst. Professor Research, teaching and implementation of ICT4D and eGovernment projects
Madan Puraskar Pustakalaya (MPP)
Director Localization such as, developing contents in Nepali language
Nangi Health Center Health worker Provide better healthcare services to remote communities
Tikot Health Center Health worker Provide better healthcare services to remote communities
Tikot School Principal/activist Provide better education, and socioeconomic development
NWNP Technical expert Provide better internet connection to the village people
BBC Journalist Broadcast the socioeconomic development activities in the mountain region through thewireless project
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OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE ADOPTION IN SOUTH AFRICAN NGOS
Greg Rowles ([email protected])Department of Information Systems, University of Cape Town
Jean-Paul Van Belle ([email protected])Department of Information Systems, University of Cape Town
Abstract: Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are developmental organizations that have software requirements of their own. Their developmental approach often relies on collaboration and can be regarded as being aligned to the philosophy of open source software. However, recent studies have indicated a very low adoption rate of open source among these organizations. By reviewing the challenges facing open source software adoption, this paper intends to understand the factors that have influenced this low adoption rate,as confirmed in our findings. The Technology-Organization-Environment (TOE) Framework was used to test the two key hypotheses of the research:that the knowledge barrier presents the biggest barrier to OSS adoption (not supported) and that technological, not environmental or organizational factors, have the greatest impact on the adoption decision (supported). Apart from these specific hypotheses, the paper also contains some descriptive findings about the degree and type of OSS adopted as well as commonly cited reasons for OSS adoption.
Keywords:Open Source Software; OSS Adoption; Non-Government Organizations(NGOs); South Africa.
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OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE ADOPTION IN SOUTH AFRICAN NGOS
1. INTRODUCTION
Open Source Software (OSS) has received a great amount of attention of late, in particular with regards to its potential role in helping developing countries with building up ICT capacity. Its adoption among private business, particularly Medium and Small Enterprises (MSEs), is documented (e.g. Ellis & Van Belle, 2009) but this is not thecase in the NGO sector. Across the globe, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) perform the important role of focusing on development projects (Parikh, 2009). Their developmental approach contributes to improved conditions for many communities and people. While these organizations are recognized as belonging to civil society (Betsill & Corell, 2008), they share commonalities with private business (Sell & Prakash, 2004)albeit with a different set of guiding principles and motivating factors. They are often run on shoe-string budgets and their operations require them to make use of information and communication technologies. They may also require systems to provide evidence of activities to their funders.
The adoption of OSS could provide many advantages to NGOs, though there may be barriers to overcome (Bhattacherjee, Nagy, & Yassin, 2010). By understanding the requirements of NGOs and the motivations that affect their software selection, it may be possible for open source software to be recognized as a real alternative to proprietary software in the NGO sector. This study describes the results of a study into open source software adoption and non-adoption by South African NGOs.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. The Developmental Role of NGOs
quality of living, while minimizing our footprint on the environment (Parikh, 2009).The establishment of the Millennium Development Goals in the year 2000 was themission statement for 192 countries of the world in response to this challenge.
NGOs form part of civil society and are recognized as partners in the global struggle to promote sustainable development (Betsill & Corell, 2008). Civil society encompasses a wide range of voluntary and co-operative activities. It consists of organizations that are non-profit and non-state whose activities represent social, economic, political, cultural and environmental interests (Parikh, 2009).
, businesses follow a strategy that is motivated by financial or material gain while NGOs are motivated by a set of guiding principles and values. However different these motives may be, Sell and Prakash (2004) suggest that the frameworks and objectives that inform their actions could be examined through a common lens one that shares more similarities than differences. While their financial constraints may be considerably different from those of private businesses (Peizer, 2003), NGOs could be considered variants of SMEs with different motivations and goals.
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2.2. Open Source Software (OSS)
-friendly term describing software that is provided with the underlying source code available for viewing and editing. By authorizing such modifications to source code, open-source software solutions are able to evolve
The free software movement advocates the development and contribution of source code with the freedom to modify the source code for whatever purpose (Finnegan & Morgan, 2007).The Free software movement co-exists with the Open Source software movement to form Free and Open Source Software.
Across different organization types, common conditions have emerged that present themselves as barriers to the successful adoption of open source software. A number of these issues seem to be particular to developing countries. One such example is the local competition from pirated software. This particular problem presents a unique discussion point for advocates of open source. While pirated software is recognized as a barrier to open source software adoption (Ellis & Van Belle, 2009), in other cases, it has been argued that the solution to the problem of pirated software is the introduction of open source software (Fang, Pykäläinena, & Yangb, 2009). Although the piracy issue isdependent on it is remains a fact that among many developing nations, software piracy is an everyday business transaction in busy street markets.
Another developmental-stage specific cause of the slow adoption rate of open source software is the poor or prohibitively expensive telecommunications infrastructure (i.e.
updates, documentation or receive online support. While this may be a documented issue affecting OSS adoption, according to Ambrose and Goldstuck (2009), the South African NGO sector has recently seen strong growth in ADSL usage, with more than 75% of the surveyed NGOs making use of it as their first choice internet connectivity method.
Other important aspects affecting the adoption of OSS are more general and apply equally to developing and developed countries, e.g. open source awareness (knowledge of the technology and where to find it and its support services), the risk of development-forking, having sunk costs (or having to write off previous investments) and technological immaturity (or alternative product confidence) (Bhattacherjee et al., 2010). Table 1 summarizes these key barriers along with some suggested remedies.
Barrier Description Remedy
Knowledge
Barrier
Lack of awareness of software availability or relevance; Technical knowledge needed to implement and use it; Business knowledge needed to customize it
Monitor open source archives; Train internal staff; Outsourcesystem implementation and maintenance
Forking Open source software is written by different groups and different instances may not interoperate with each other or to other applications
Self-resolving with the development of self-managed standards bodies
Sunk costs Prior investments in proprietary Consider open source in areas
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software without proprietary software; Compare future cost streams of maintaining proprietary versus open source software
Technological
immaturity
Non-professional development with considerable variation in available support
Benchmark OSS against OSS maturity models and independently evaluated case studies.
Table 1. Organizational OSS adoption barriers and proposed remedies
(Bhattacherjee et al., 2010)
2.3. The need for ICT in the NGO Sector
Information and Communication Technologies present an opportunity for improving our understanding of the problems faced by developmental organizations. By utilizing tools to facilitate improved planning, an improved execution strategy may follow. These tools and processes should be available to all sectors of society and not only to the economic, social and technological elite (Parikh, 2009).
In developing countries, many ICT developmental projects focus on individuals as the beneficiaries of technology, while the NGO often act as institutional change agents. These NGOs have nurtured relationships with local people and have intimate knowledge of local conditions and are therefore vital to local communities.
For NGOs, the value chain reward system is still evolving but in order to maintain their funding, they must often prove or demonstrate a positive social or economic outcome as a result of their work. Alternatively, they must present the potential for a broader outcome resulting from their work, as the impact of their efforts may establish or determine future funding. However, the tools available to NGOs to demonstrate thesebenefits and progress are limited.
Traditionally, information systems used by NGOs are restricted by infrastructure and technical expertise (Parikh, 2009). They tend to rely on locally developed reporting and management systems to collect data to be captured. Often these systems are narrow in scope. The timeliness and quality of data is frequently insufficient but fortunately (or perhaps not?) funders or donors rarely interrogate NGO information systems. This may have a negative impact on NGOs, as funders may find it difficult to justify their support on projects where there is little to support the evidence of work or where inaccurate data distorts the appearance of activities. On the other hand, dedicated NGOs may find it difficult to distinguish themselves from media-savvy but superficial recipients of donor funding (Parikh, 2009).
Ambrose and Goldstuck (2009) analyzed ICT and software use at 800 NGOs. They interviewed decision-makers from these NGOs and were able to draw up an informed overview of software adoption in this sector.
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Figure 1. OSS Satisfaction among South African NGOs (Ambrose & Goldstuck,
2009)
Of the NGOs making use of OSS, a majority (47%) reported dissatisfaction with their choice in software (figure 1). It is worth noting that the sponsors of the survey were leading proprietary software vendors (Microsoft) who sponsor discounted products to many NGO organizations in South Africa, though it does not invalidate the results. The fact that this satisfaction assessment covers only a small fraction of South African NGOs (4%) is also relevant.
2.4. Theoretical Framework used for Analyzing OSS Adoption
Four major models and frameworks were considered as theoretical frameworks for this study: Self-determination theory, the Technology Acceptance Model (and its derivatives, see e.g. Venkatesh & Davis, 2000), the TOE Framework (Chau & Tam, 1997), and the ISO/IEC 9126 standard (with extensions). In the end, an OSS-specific version of the TOE framework was selected as the most productive framework; this is fully motivated in (Ellis & Van Belle, 2009).
Area Factors
Technology CostReliabilityCompatibility
Organization BoundariesResourcesInnovativeness
External Environment Assets and StandardsIndustryProduct Awareness
Table 2. The TOE Framework (Ellis & Van Belle, 2009)
2.4.1. Technology Adoption factors
The process of adopting any technology will impose a set of costs on an organization. In terms of software procurement, an organization may spend money on licensing or itmay not. In this category, OSS acquisition costs are extremely low and competitive. The other cost-benefit of OSS is the inclusion of free software upgrades, that contribute to a lowered total cost of ownership (TCO) (Ellis & Van Belle, 2009). Finally, with respect to hardware costs, OSS is hailed for its low hardware-resource requirements and its
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capacity to be modified to address scalability issues. There is, however, a long term cost associated with any technology acquisition, be it software or hardware: the unavoidable maintenance, support and training fees. This cost of training, support and maintenance may, however, be subsidized by existing skills and resources in the organization depending on the chosen technology (Van Beulen, Van Belle & Madhusudhan, 2009).
Figure 2. Two perspectives on software adoption costs (open source vs.
proprietary)
One of the great benefits of using OSS is the advantage of an objective peer reviewed process. With the source code being openly available, this review process can contribute to a more stable, superior and secure end product (Ellis & Van Belle, 2009). However,recent claims by successful proprietary-software vendors suggest that this perception may not be entirely correct. Examples for and against this claim may exist but reliability
will remain crucial for users of any technology.
An important factor is the ability for the technology to integrate with existing systems and infrastructure. System flexibility is an important factor when the organization is reliant on multiple systems. This integration ability will be influenced by existing skills, existing technologies and task requirements. One limiting factor of OSS is that some applications are platform specific, i.e. are only designed to run on Linux (Ellis & Van Belle, 2009), but for the most part OSS is flexible and platform independent.
Ellis and Van Belle (2009) propose a supplement to the TOE framework beingperformance expectancy
new technology to positively influence their ability to perform their job. In addition source code transparency allows customizations to meet this expectation, although some organizations consider source code availability to be a risk rather than an advantage,because the ability to successfully read and change code requires very specific highly skilled resources.
2.4.2. Organizational Adoption factors
In an organization that plans to adopt a new technology, having staff with previous boundary spanner
can influence the technologies considered, as well as the final decision on whether or not to adopt. It may also itechnology (Van Beulen, Van Belle & Madhusudhan, 2009).
Slack resources i.e. the time and money spent evaluating and purchasing technology options. Organizations with high ICT budgets are able to conduct detailed evaluations and implement expensive
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technologies, while organizations with limited resources are better suited to OSS (Ellis & Van Belle, 2009). Finally, the perception of a technology being innovative is also an important factor for organizations, as it may shape the perception outsiders have of organisations adopting the technology.
2.4.3. Environmental Factors
Product skills and support services are a major concern for organizations adopting OSS. While proprietary software often includes formal support options, OSS may have dispersed support or be limited to online technical support. For this reason, support of OSS cannot always be guaranteed. While this may be important to large corporations, it is likely to be less relevant to smaller organizations. The added advantage of proprietary software is the general availability of documentation and support agreements that some find absent in OSS systems. Although online support, in the form of online communities, does exist, some users of software may find it more convenient and comfortable to have a formalized support structure present (Van Beulen, Van Belle & Madhusudhan, 2009).
Technological legitimacy can be an important issue. Nothing inspires confidence more than large ICT vendors, such as IBM or HP, endorsing a technology. On the other hand,technology being abandoned and no longer supported will negatively influence an organizations decision to adopt it.
Product awareness is a well-known shortcoming of OSS. With successful proprietary vendors employing marketing strategies and campaigns, the world of OSS remains unknown to a large section of software users. In fact, one South African company that distributes a well-known OSS package does not actively market the product. This results in an inadequately informed group of decision makers selecting technologies without being aware of the advantages of OSS (Ellis & Van Belle, 2009).
3. Research Methodology
A positivist stance and quantitative research approach were adopted to quantify the level of OSS adoption among NGOs and some of its antecedents. In particular, the following two hypotheses have been formulated and are tested in this study:
H1: The Knowledge-Barrier presents the greatest hurdle in overcoming OSS
adoption in South African NGOs.
H2: Technology factors (as in the TOE framework) have the greatest influence on
OSS adoption in South African NGOs.
A structured survey questionnaire was developed based on the TOE framework
The questionnaire consisted of 50 questions relating to various aspects of the organization and its software usage. 4 questions focused purely on demographic details, 27 related to software and decision making and 18 related to a proposed OSS ICT toolkit.
It is estimated that approximately 100,000 NGOs operated in South Africa in 2009 (Ambrose & Goldstuck, 2009). The Prodder directory (www.prodder.org.za) claims to have 10,000 registered non-governmental or developmental organizations operating in South Africa. While this represents only 1% of the total estimated NGO population, a subset of roughly 800 NGOs were selected from the directory to participate in the study
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of which 62 replied making this research a representation of 0.062% of South African NGOs.
4. Research Findings
4.1. Respondent Demographics
in the data (including NGOs that focus on activities at a national level). A clear majority came from Gauteng and the Western Cape. Combined, these two provinces account for 63% of all NGO respondents. This figure is consistent with the study done by Ambrose and Goldstuck (2009) when they recorded 68% for these two provinces combined. No responses were received from NGOs in the Free-State and the North-West Provinces.
In terms of organization size, 50% of NGOs interviewed by Ambrose and Goldstuck (2009) employed 1 10 staff members, while this study found 42% of their NGOs in this group. Similarly, on the other end of the scale, 10% of NGOs from the 2009 study had 50 or more employees, while this study found 14% to be in this group.
Organization
Size
Eas
tern
Cap
e
Gau
teng
Kw
aZul
u-N
atal
Lim
popo
Mpu
mal
anga
NA
TIO
NA
L
Nor
ther
n C
ape
Wes
tern
Cap
e
TO
TA
L %
0 5 1 6 1 4 12 19%
6 10 2 4 1 7 14 23%
11 20 5 3 1 1 4 1 1 16 26%
21 35 2 2 1 3 8 13%
36 50 1 2 3 5%
50+ 5 2 2 9 15%
Table 3. Organization size vs. Geographic Area represented by NGO
A number of programme focus areas featured more strongly than others. Responses were received from three or more NGOs for a given programme in the following areas: community development (10 NGOs); formal education and research (6); HIV/AIDS treatment (5); advocacy and awareness (including HIV advocacy) (4) child welfare (4); counselling, therapy and psycho-social rehabilitation (3); health (3); and social services (3).
As expected, open-source advocacy is popular among NGOs with 52% supporting open source while 18% indicated they did not. Provincially Gauteng and the Western Cape account for 63% of all NGOs that support open-source software.
However, overall confidence in access to information is rather low, with 60% of NGOs feeling they are insufficiently informed when it comes to software decision making. This data supports the need for an ICT toolkit that can be used by NGOs to make better decisions.
Software procurement in NGOs was dominated by IT-Support with 36% of all NGOs relying on this resource for their software. Unfortunately, this study did not investigate this area any further. Local retailers are also a popular choice among NGOs with 31% making use of their products. Hardware suppliers seemed to provide only 13% of software to NGOs.
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4.2. OSS Adoption
Strangely, even though 52% of NGOs indicated their support for OSS, only 19% actually adopted OSS. In total 9% are currently making use of web services. Figure 2 details this breakdown per software category.
Figure 3. Software usage in South African NGOs
While it is possible that the respondent NGOs of this study may be technologically more advanced the those interviewed by Ambrose and Goldstuck (2009), it is apparent that there is a greater variety of office management software in use this year than showed in the 2009 study. For example, Apple software and Easyoffice did not show up in the 2009 study which could indicate that their NGO population may have had even less access to ICT information. Microsoft Office together with Microsoft Works had a 58% share of office productivity software while OpenOffice.org was relatively in line with the 2009 data. Interestingly, web-services (i.e. Google Docs) were used by nearly 20% of respondents. This indicates a high level of interest and confidence in this area. This area may see more growth as the telecommunication sector of South African continues to see unprecedented lowering of prices on internet services and products.
Figure 4. Office Suites used by NGOs.
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4.3. Hypothesis Testing
H1: The Knowledge-Barrier presents the greatest hurdle in overcoming OSS
adoption in South African NGOs.
OSS a % share of knowledge related adoption-barriers was compared against other common barriers (see Table 4).More specifically, by grouping together all factors that could be identified under themes
pose the greatest challenge to overall OSS a
Based on this comparison, the first hypothesis is difficult to support. A total of 45.8% of ed
by 3.5%. While there are some limitations in the approach used to calculate these totals, a broader more intense study may yield different results if a wider range of measures were to be used. For this study though, hy
COMMON
BARRIERReasons NOT using OSS
Against
OSS
For
Proprie-
tary
Knowledge Product Knowledge 8Existing Skills 8Availability of Support Services 7Product Confidence 6.3Unaware of Alternative Software Options 5.5OSS too Complicated 3.9Insufficient OSS Support 3.6TOTAL: 42.3%
Sunk costs Operational Requirement 5.5TOTAL: 5.5%
Technological immaturity Ease of use 6.7
Reliability 5.8Stability 5.5Performance Expectancy 5.3No Advantage in using OSS 4.6Technological Advantage 4.3Legitimacy 3.9Strategic Advantage 3.1Evaluation deemed favourable 2.7OSS too Complicated 3.9TOTAL: 45.8%
Table 4. (H1).
H2: Technology factors (as in the TOE framework) have the greatest influence on
OSS adoption in South African NGOs.
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component of the TOE framework, it should be possible to confirm whether or not their
With a total of 52% of all weighted factors influencing OSS adoption falling into the technology area, it seems to be the outright leader, with perceived ease-of-use, price, flexibility, compatibility and stability being the main reasons why NGOs prefer open source software. These strengths seem to cover all the software areas covered by this study, namely operating systems, offices suites, email clients, web browsers and accounting packages. Perhaps these could be considered guiding features for open source developers to increase the popularity and overall use of the software.
Figure 5. The Technology Factors are most prominent.
4.4. Common Reasons to Choose OSS
The top reasons given for using open source software relate to issues of knowledge, cost and flexibility. While cost is an obvious deciding factor for financially constrained organizations like NGOs, knowledge and flexibility are good indications that users of open source are confident and skilled in the use of the software. If skills transfer and learning occur more regularly, we could see an uptake of OSS in this sector. Unsurprisingly, avoiding software piracy is low on the list of reasons for using OSS. NGOs are traditionally regarded as having a high ethical standing among organizations and it could be argued that piracy would be a rare occurrence in these organizations, although 20% did indicate that they had received or had considered using pirated software. The full list of reasons, sorted by the % of NGOs which ranked it in the top three, is given in Figure 6.
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Figure 6. Reasons for OSS Adoption in NGOs.
4.5. Research Findings Summary
The NGO respondents that participated in this study seemed to have a sophisticated understanding of their organizational requirements but lack the confidence in their ability to make informed decisions related to software. Nearly 50% of all respondents were previously employed by the private sector, all of which made use of proprietary software in some form but this does little to prove the link between proprietary software adoption and previous work experience, as most of these NGOs also make use of OSS.
While open source software does have a higher impact in products that may be considered less lucrative to proprietary vendors (i.e. web browsers, email clients and [some] accounting packages), its overall adoption is hugely dependent on a range of issues, such as support services (that are currently unavailable to NGOs), ease-of-use (which can be considered a design issue), product confidence and many other factors.
Overall, the data has in many ways confirmed the results of the Ambrose and Goldstuck
organizations, as all of the respondents showed interest and understanding with regards to their chosen software technologies and the reasons for their choice. It is hoped that the challenges recognized by these organizations can be translated into action through the introduction of an ICT Toolkit.
5. CONCLUSION
Open source is a technology choice, a philosophy, a cost option and an idea that is attractive but also fragile. This idea can easily be damaged by bad experiences, such as inappropriate application of the software. Today, software technologies are changing at a dramatic rate and open source needs to be able to keep up with this pace. The NGO sector plays a very important role in South Africa by contributing to its economy and society. Although the success of NGO projects is not dependent on the success of open source software, it would be great if open source software could act as a platform to support these activities and assist NGOs to achieve their goals.
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Perhaps the most important finding of this research is that, although more than half of the NGOs surveyed support the notion of using OSS, only one-fifth have actually adopted OSS in their own organisation. As disappointing as the low actual adoption rate may initially seem, the fact that most NGOs are aware of the alternative is an encouraging sign. In previous research, the lack of OSS awareness was often cited as the key barrier to adoption. This research found that there has been a shift and that technological factors are now the key drivers of OSS adoption. Ease of use, affordability and existing skill sets form the prime motivating factors.
From a theoretical perspective, the study made the following contributions. The first hypothesis, based on a substantial body of prior research, that the lack of knowledge about OSS presents the greatest hurdle to OSS adoption, could not be supported. In fact, Technological Immaturity turned out to be an equally great challenge facing OSS adoption in NGOs sampled. Secondly, of all three groups of factors in the TOE framework, the technology factors were found to have the greatest influence on OSS adoption among the sampled South African NGOs, outweighing even the combined organizational and environmental factors. Finally, from a research methodology perspective, the TOE framework was again found to be a very useful theoretical framework to research OSS adoption.
From a practical perspective, proprietary software is still perceived to be better supported, easier to use, more reliable and stable. To the extent that OSS alternatives can match or beat proprietary software on these scores, there is obviously a call for better education. In addition, most NGOs have a much higher skill base and product knowledge of proprietary software. If governments or educational institutions want to encourage the adoption of OSS, they should build an appropriate skills-base through both technical and general education.
Importantly, it must be realised that the sample was relatively small and showed a geographic bias. However, the demographics of the respondents showed a strong correlation with that of a much larger study (Ambrose and Goldstuck, 2009), giving some tentative validity support. However, it is unlikely that the results can be extrapolated or generalized to other countries with different economic, educational, environmental and technological dynamics. Ongoing validation of the results in South Africa will be necessary, but it would also be very interesting if other researchers could conduct comparative research in other developing countries.
One of the requests from NGOs was the demand for objective i.e. unbiased sources of information with respect to information technology (including OSS) options. This should be seen as a challenge to the academic community to contribute to society and the next phase of this research is concerned with providing such a resource.
6. References
Ambrose, S., & Goldstuck, A. (2009). The state of ICTs in the South African NGO sector. Unpublished manuscript. Retrieved 01/03/2010 from www.ngopulse.org/node/13482.
Bassett, G., Fitzgerald, B. (2003). Legal issues relating to free and open source software. Essays in Technology Policy and Law, Vol 1: Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane.
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Betsill, M., & Corell, E. (2008). NGO diplomacy: The influence of nongovernmental organizations in international environmental negotiations. Global Environmental
Politics, 8(4).
Bhattacherjee, A., Nagy, D., & Yassin, A. (2010). Organizational adoption of open source software: Barriers and remedies. Paper presented at the Virtual Extension, 53(3) 148-151.
Chau, P.Y.K., & Tam, K.Y. (1997) Factors Affecting the Adoption of Open Systems: An Exploratory Study. MIS Quarterly, 21(1), 1-24.
Ellis, J., & Van Belle, J. (2009). Open source software adoption by south african MSEs: Barriers and enablers. Proceedings of the 2009 Annual Conference of the Southern
African Computer Lecturers' Association, 41-49.
Fang, T., Pykäläinena, T., & Yangb, D. (2009). Alleviating piracy through open source strategy: An exploratory study of business software firms in china. The Journal of
Strategic Information Systems, 18(4), 165-177.
Finnegan, P., & Morgan, L. (2007). How Perceptions of Open Source Software Influence Adoption: An Exploratory Study. Proceedings of the 15
thEuropean
Conference on Information Systems, 973-984).
Madsen, P., & Vaccaro, A. (2009). ICT and an NGO: Difficulties in attempting to be extremely transparent. Ethics and Information Technology, 11(3), 221-231.
Nash, J. C. (2010). Directions for open source software over the next decade. Futures,
42(4), 427-433.
Orlikowski, W. J. & Baroudi, J. J. (1991). Studying information technology in Information Systems Research,
2(1), pp. 1 28.
Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, B., & Lal, K. (2006). Learning new technologies by small and medium enterprises in developing countries. Technovation, 26(2), 220-231.
Parikh, T. (2009). Engineering rural development. Communications of the ACM, 52(1), 54-63.
Peizer, J. (2003). Realizing the promise of open source in the non-profit sector. Open
Society Foundations. Retrieved 25/05/2010, from www.soros.org/initiatives/information/articles_publications/articles/realizing_20030903
Rossi, B., Russo, B., & Succi, G. (2007). Evaluation of a migration to open source software. Handbook of research on open source software: Technological, economic,
and social perspectives (pp.309-326) IGI Global.
Sell, S. K., & Prakash, A. (2004). Using ideas strategically: The contest between business and NGO networks in intellectual property rights. International Studies
Quarterly, 48(1), 143-175.
Van Beulen I., Van Belle J.P., & Madhusudhan M. (2009) Organisational Adoption of Open Source Software in South Africa. Proceedings of the Euro-India ICT for
Innovation Conference, New Delhi, India.
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Venkatesh V., & Davis F. (2000) A Theoretical Extension of the Technology Acceptance Model: Four Longitudinal Field Studies. INFORMS, 46(2), 186-204.
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Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
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MOBILE PHONE-BASED HEALTH CARE IN BANGLADESH-AN IMPACT ASSESSMENT
Author: Md. Omar FaisalM.Sc in ICT4D.
ABSTRACTOver this past decade the phenomenal advancement of mobile communications in Asian Least Developed Countries has created novel ways of improving and handling socioeconomic affairs, such as healthcare. This paper seeks to establish a holistic assessment on the scopes and extents towhich mobile telephony based healthcare can be incorporated as a development enabler in Bangladesh. The country is the home of more than 150 million people, which is expected to reach 250 million by the year 2035. The purpose of this paper is to ascertain technological and social gap between participant organizations and beneficiaries of such telephony based healthcare initiatives. While doing so an impact assessment on existing mobile healthcare support in Bangladesh has been attempted. The findings of the study indicate two impending facts; firstly, a growing lack of awareness of popular mobile based healthcare services among rural market andlastly, an absence of a standard record keeping provisions by private and government stakeholders in terms of record. The study has reviewed some cardinal case studies on similar mobile healthcare projects in Asian countries. Extensive literature reviews, observation of existing services, field visits, interviews of targeted villagers and organizations have been pivotal in developing the final assessment in this paper.
Keywords: Bangladesh, Healthcare, GSM, m-health, Telemedicine.
BACKGROUND
Majority of the population of Bangladesh lives and works under the high risk of infectious diseases, such as diarrhoea, typhoid, dysentery. According to World Bank, the rate of malnutrition in both women and children are among the highest in the world and more than 60% of populations have no access to modern healthcare facilities whatsoever. The UNDP report indicated (2008) that more than 46% of the populations live under the poverty line with marginal access to wretched transportation system nationwide. The residents of remote rural areas where there are hardly any community clinics or hospitals in the vicinity have to commute to a long distance even for petty advice on minute health conditions. On the contrary, currently there are more than 58 million mobile subscribers nurtured by 6 operators and a competitive market had kept it affordable for low income consumers so far. Apart from its social and cultural impact, the ubiquitous handheld device is now seen as a key tool for the alleviation of healthcare problems. The government of Bangladesh has been quick to seize on the potential of mobile telecom sector as a development enabler. Recently, in collaboration with two major mobile phone operators, government Sub-district health complex introduced mobile healthcare help line.
A recent World Bank study concluded that mobile phones are the most powerful way to reach and deliver public and private services to people in remote rural areas in developing countries. According to Columbia University economist and emerging markets expert Jeffrey Sachs the mobile phone is the single most transformative technology for development. assertion has been echoed in another World Bank study that stipulates, for every 10 percent increase in mobile phone and high speed Internet connections, there is a 1.3 percent increase in economic growth.
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Bangladeshi consumers have acclimatized themselves with wide and varied array of applications of mobile phones. However, until recently, the Value-added Services offered by mobile operators have basically been limited to caller tunes, song dedications, Internet and various alerts. But more innovative applications that could significantly improve people's lives have now emerged with sheer high impact potential, particularly, in healthcare sector. With the advent of mobile penetration rate, the mobile based applications are also increasing rapidly. There were 26.66 million mobile phone subscribers in May 2007 nationwide, but in the month of April 2010,subscribers have reached to 56.36 million. The main application in Bangladesh is still peer-to-peer communication -- voice and SMS. However, the number of subscribers who use their phones to access Internet is steadily growing, which opens up a whole range of new applications and possibilities. Nowadays people are using it for listening FM Radio, internet browsing, utilities bill payment, gather and update information on products prices, soliciting advice from doctor/nursesand many more. In Bangladesh, one imminent revolutionary benefit that mobile phone technology could bring about is its use for the provision of healthcare advisory services. The mobile device is becoming popular in every spheres of socio-economic demography of the people. There are 2,213 public and private hospitals in Bangladesh with a capacity of only 51,684 beds. The ratio between patients and hospitals bed is 1 for every 2,665 people, 1 nurse for 6,342 patients and 1 doctor for 3,012 patients. (BDNEWS24.COM, 2010)
Pic 1. Mobile phone is being popular in every where in Bangladesh, Photo by author at Jattrabari, August
2009.
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At the moment Norwegian telecom giant TeleNor (Brand name adopted- Grameeen Phone in Bangladesh) Centre Limited (T , which is providing distance primitive healthcare advisory services. Another operator BanglaLink (a subsidiary of Egyptian operator Orascom) also introduced telephony voice based healthcare
However, in terms of the tariff rates of such value added services, both are quite expensive for low income market.The Bangladesh government Directorate General of Health Services (DGHS) has introduced inevery Upzilla (sub-district) health complex based telephony advice centres. Any patient can avail this service by calling to a fixed mobile number and could get advice from doctor or nurses. Through this 24 hours service a patient can ask any health related questions and solicit suggestionover mobile phone. The DGHS have distributed approximately 451 mobile handset including SIM card to Upzilla and district health complex centres to spread up mobile based health care packages. The people can avail these services without paying any consultancy fees. However, the looming impediment for the sustainability of such services is none of the above mentioned voice based services reserves a provision of maintaining previous medical records of the patients.This lack in system integration has -the phone advices, whi feasible impact on the service rendered. Also, these services only allow over-the-phone solicitation on primitive cases and a follow-up through SMS are not incorporated. Hence, the patients need to make call to doctor for every advices sought. Due to this constraint, while giving advice even to a repeat patient, the advising doctor is bound to rely on the phone conversation in that instant. Due to the absence of any provision of reviewing past history, the advices from the qualified doctors often may not lead to convalescence for the patient. Eventually, this demeans the envisioned purpose of such value added services. It may also lead to miscommunication, distrust and credibility of such initiatives. Healthcare sector, where Patient-Doctor relationship is crucial to obtain trust, such absence of data mining poses a considerable threat to any rapport building initiatives of the organizations involved.
AIM OF RESEARCHThe main objective of this study is to establish Quality Assurance perimeters for insuring sustainable Mobile telephony based healthcare services in Bangladesh. In this process, a set ofselected guidelines is generated based on analysis of available case studies. The study has also reflected on the preconditions that need to be achieved in order to bridge the loomingcommunicating gap between doctors and patients in terms of rendering mobile based healthcare services.
DISCLAIMERSFor substantial part, this study is primarily based on available literatures, case studies and telephone interviews of key figures in related organizations. To substantiate the secondary data findings extensive surveys and personal interviews were conducted in selected rural areas. Due to the business secrecy and privacy policies, reflection based on internal data on operations and technical infrastructures of organizations under study were kept limited. Researchers have attempted to solicit assistance from the different departments of the government of Bangladesh
sizable response from these bodies. Therefore, in this study, the only accessible data have been processed, analyzed and interpreted. It is worth noting that, an attempt was made to present an overall fundamental framework of existing practices and polices. However, an in-depth reflection of use of technology and issues such as, consumer acceptance, trust, service expectation are kept to be studied by further research on this issue. Decision-making and analysis measurements are restricted by limited scope and knowledge.
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Another potential limitation could arise due to the very nature of technology itself. Since, technology is changing rapidly, the depth of technical implementation, security of mobile based application, users platform and social impact to avail these services are not included in this study. Researchers hope to explore these issues in future initiatives.
METHODOLOGY
The literatures were drawn from cross-cutting subjects, such as Mobile Communications, Socio-economic development and Healthcare auxiliary service support. Sources were predominantly different journals, publications, books, annual scholarly sources.
The empirical data were accumulated through surveys, telephone interviews of ten families and five doctors in the northern district of Rangpur, situated 335 kilometers from the capital city ofDhaka. The Rangpur district has been selected as a sample investigation to guessed overall basic situation in Bangladesh. The interview and informal conversation were conducted with ten families of different occupation in due to time limitations and shortage of funds. There are six mobile phone operators in Bangladesh and only two operators are providing limited mobile based health care services. Many interpretive resources and empirical data have been collected from assigned organizations through their internal reports, annual reports, research papers and from other publicly available sources, namely websites. The interviews have been taken through open ended discussion over telephone. The statistical data have been accumulated from related organization websites, for example different ministries, GSM association, Mobile phone operators etc. A considerable volume of data on latest improvements and updates had also beencollected through electronic mail communications. The most of the data has been collected through interview, reviews, field notes and analysis of materials and journals. In this paper the qualitative research method has been followed.
AN OVERVIEW OF TELECOMMUNICATIONS INDUSTRY IN
BANGLADESH
In this section network infrastructures, Mobile phone subscribers, PSTN penetration; mobile tariffs, Internet connections capacities in Bangladesh have been described briefly.
Mobile phone subscribers
The number of mobile phones subscribers in Bangladesh is rising by geometric proportion. By the end of January 2011 it has reached 70 million users according to Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC). Although in the mid of 2007 the number of mobile penetration was 27 million. The following chart shows the number of mobile users as per the network providers. The increase is significant and the trends show that mobile phonesubscribers will increase substantially in the near future.
Mobile Phone usage Tariff/Charges
The table below shows a comparison in the cost of using mobile phones (Four top operators) without hand set. Note, 1US$ = 68 Bd Tk (Bangladeshi Taka). In this chart shows that to buy a
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new connection is bit expensive, another funny thing is SMS and calling cost is almost the similar costs.
subscribers.
Categories Grameen Phone Aktel Waried Tel Banglalink
Sim Card cost 0-800 Tk 175-400 Tk 0-1200 Tk 0-900 Tk.One minute call cost
0.90-2.00 Tk 0.50-1.19Tk
0.50-1.50Tk
0.50-1.45 Tk
Per SMS 1.50 Tk 1.00 Tk 0.75 Tk 0.75-1.0 TkPer MMS 2.00 Tk 2.00 Tk 5.00 Tk 9.0 TkWAP access per KB
0.020 Tk 0.015 Tk 0.015 Tk N/A
Edge, GPRSInternet connection fees
850-1050 Tk. 750-900 Tk. 650-850 Tk. N/A
Table 1: Chart of Mobile Phone tariff rates in Bangladesh
Source: Grameen Phone, Aktel, Waried Tel, Retrieved at 2010-09-05.
Type of services provided by mobile phones operators
SMS, MMS, voice mail, Internet (Edge, GPRS), Cellbazaar(M-commerce), WAP, telemedicine, Utilities bill payment(Dhaka and Chittagong), remittance transferring, purchasing intercity train ticket, credit transfer to other mobile account, international roaming, message alert, SMS based news, sports update, music and ring tones download, SMS banking(Just account updates, balance check from renowned banks).
elying under their network coverage. Other operators like Aktel, Waridtel, Banglalink and Citycell has the vast network coverage countrywide and they are enhancing services day by day. Bangladesh government mobile operator Teletalk also working increase their network capacity and they are using central fiber optic backbone.
Connected with high speed submarine cable
In 2005 Bangladesh has connected with high speed submarine internet fiber optic network. Bangladesh has joined 13 member consortium is called East Asia-Middle East-West Europe-4(SEA-ME-WE-4). The cable connection has begun from Singapore running through Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan after that few middle eastern countries and ends in France. After have the fiber optic connection Bangladesh getting 10 gigabytes data transfer capacity per second that is 68 times higher data transfer rate then the last time. More than 100 Internet Service Providers (ISP) were connected with Singapore based costly satellite and that time data transfer rate was 150-megabytes capacity with per second only(AsiaMedia, 2004).
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Literacy
According to UNICEF, The literacy rate for male is 50% and female is 31% but UNDP has reported that a total of 56% the people are literate. According to the CIA report, there is average of 43.1% literacy rate in Bangladesh and more than 45% of the people live under poverty line. The amount of computer and internet users are approximately 450,000(ITU, 2007).
Language
In Bangladesh, Bangla is the native and official language whiles English is second language. During the primary (Childhood) education, the language of instructions is Bangla while in the Secondary education Bangla is the major language of instructions but at this stage of the educational system English language is introduced. And few subjects are taught in English language.The Bangla language is made up of 49 alphabets, which completely different with the English alphabets. The use of the Short Message Service (SMS) on mobile phones are quite unmanagablebecause of the difficulty involve in the use of the Bangla alphabets which are the most widely spoken language.
Overall situation of Government Hospitals and Health Center
Bangladesh ministry of health and welfare has connected 800 local health centers through internet on the year of 2009. The health department communicating by electronic mail with different department likes civil surgeons, academics, directors etc. They made also group mail to easy and centrally communicating. The government is trying to utilize ICT based platform in health sector. The health ministry also launched a SMS based pilot project for pregnant woman. This system isbasically keeping the database for pregnant woman and sending different advices through SMS for preventive health care for mother.
Table 2: The government health care networks.Type of Hospital Location Number
of hospital Number of Beds per hospital
Type of facility
Division level All division 6 N/A Medical College Hospital
District All district 64 50-250 All kind of medical care
Sub-district 482 31-50 Medium level health care
Union 4,498 Out patients Outdoor careWard 13,494 Community clinicVillage 87,000 Basic health careTotal Number of
Hospitals 105,544
Source:MIS.DGHS(June, 2010). E-Health Initiatives in Public Sector of Bangladesh.
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EMPIRICAL GROUND
Grameen Phone Telemedicine
In the end of 2006, Grameen Phone jointly launched with Telemedicine Reference Center Limited (TRCL) in Bangladesh named Health Information Service (Health Line). This service isaccessible to only its subscribers as part of their existing Value-added services portfolio. The service operates 24 hours a day throughout the whole week, and it is an interactive teleconference between a Licensed Physician and a caller requesting a health service, by dialing a unique number, 789 to access the service.The following services are available to its subscribers:
Information on Doctor and Medical FacilitiesInformation on Drug or Pharmacy Information on Laboratory Test Report (interpretation)Medical Advice/ Consultation from Doctor (for registered subscribers)Help and advice during Medical Emergency
The service is provided in two forms: registered and non-registered members. The registered beneficiaries get a consultation and treatment advice over mobile phone for both emergency and non-emergency situations. This service attracts a one-time application processing fee of BDT 200and an annual membership fee of BDT 300 (1US$=68 BDT). Other services do not require registration. The service is billed as follows; BDT 15 for the first 3 minutes and BDT 5 per minute subsequently.Laboratory test reports could be delivering through SMS by designated Diagnostic Centers. The actual report can be sent to a subscriber mailing address the following day. The SMS report is charged BB Tk10. The Service has a capacity to accommodate 15 calls simultaneously.
The one of the major mobile operator and market challenger Banglalink has launched telephony based health care services in 2008. The subscribers could make a call anytime for
health related advices. The medical graduates are receiving callsfrom subscribers. Health Link service assigned with simple three
patients could easily remember.
The emergency professional medical advices are provided anytime and anywhere in Bangladesh. To avail this service consumers have to pay BD Tk15 for first three minutes and BD Tk 5 per minutes subsequently.
hone based health service
The Bangladesh health ministry (Directorate General of Health Services) had initiated mobiletelephony based services for citizens. This is an implausible scheme for rural people with having
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limited or no access to decent healthcare advice. The rural people could call anytime from their handsets to local health care complex. The basic, emergency and primitive services are being provided by the government enlisted medical healthcare officers. This service is totally free of cost. The health ministry has sent more than 500 mobile sets including SIM card to local doctors in every thana (sub-district) health complex. The health ministry is paying the bills for outgoing call up to BD TK 500. The fixed service numbers are posted in DGHS official website.
For gathered the actual scenarios in project areas has been talked with seven medical doctors. They are receiving/answering incoming calls from patients under the DGHS scheme. One doctor from Dimla Thana health Complex in the district of Nilphamri has said this is a nice media to interconnect with doctors, many patients come to hospital for trivial problems and trifling conditions that could be attended through mobile phone. Due to the horrid road communications network the patients live in far away from hospital, sometimes have to travel 15 kilometers to getthe government hospital. So in this case people could avail cost effective basic healthcare advice over mobile phone.
SURVEY RESULTSOpinions of 10 families about telephony health services:
I had conducted a survey about 10 families in rural area of Haragach, Kownia thana under district of Rangpur in Bangladesh. The surveys were taken physically based on eight predefined questionnaires. The interview date was 18th and 19th of May, 2010. The synopsis of the questionnaires is as follows:
Do you use mobile phone? Which purposes mainly you are having mobile phone?Do you know about Grameen phone Health care and Thana complex mobile based health services? Did you ever call to GP or Thana complex services?(Yes/No)What kinds of services you receive from there?Does it help to get health services/advice through mobile phone?What kinds of mobile based services you expect as a subscriber?To get health advice where would you go first?Do you believe mobile phone based health care system?
The interviewee were of different age groups (in between 21 to 40 years)Table represents survey results according to questionnaires.
Table 2: The results of first survey
Question category: Number of family member(inter-viewee)*
Percent-ages of said
Percentages of said
Remarks
Yes No
Having Mobile Phone VIIII I 90% 10% Most of the family has mobile phone
Aware of mobile health III VII 30% 70% People are not
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services aware about mobile based services
Rely on mobile based health service
IIII VI 40% 60% More than half
like mobile based health services
Using mobile for communication
VII III 70% 30% The main intention to using mobile for communication
Using mobile for business purpose
III VII 30% 70% Avail business through mobile
Discussion: The majority of the interviewees were house wives, rest of them were small and medium entrepreneurs and day laborers. The initial observation is that the mobile phone is popular and easily accessible to low income villagers. Most of the villagers have mobile for communicating with family and acquaintances. A majority of respondents exhibited strong desire to receive varied value added services through mobile phones. Already mobile phone based FM Radio has become quite popular among the young users as a media of entertainment. On the contrary, our survey shows that most of the villagers are absolutely unaware of the nature and availability of existing mobile based health care services.
Pie chart shows the percentages of the people in rural areas in Bangladesh those are not aware for mobile based health services.
Experienced of local practician Doctors
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A survey has been made with five doctors who are working in different government hospitals in the district of Rangpur. The survey periods were 17th to 20th of May, 2010. The survey sessions were conducted through set of predefined questionnaires. In general, most of the doctors have expressed positive attitudes towards the mobile healthcare services. In particular, they spoke about the convenience of reaching patients over phone without going through the agony of reaching them physically. Here table below shows the feedback/experience of the doctors.
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Table 2: Survey results from related doctors, 2nd
Servey
Survey Questionnaires Doctor
one(Topodhon
Health
Complex,
Rangpur)
Doctor
two(Rangpur
Medical
College
Hospitals)
Doctor
three(Sorai
Health &
family
welfare)
Doctor
four(Haragash
Medical,
Rangpur)
Doctor
five(Baruahat,
Kownia,
Rangpur)
What kinds of mobile based query you are getting from patients?
To get advice on Fever, cough,common cold, bad digestion, and headache.
To get basic/primitive suggestions like cold, food poisoning, fever, diabetics and many more.
For Headache, bad breathing, blood pressure, fever, pregnancy etc.
To get adviceabout toothache, headache, fever, cold, convulsion of muscles, bad digestions etc.
To get advice about stomachproblems,fever, cold, family planning etc.
Which services could be possible to reach patients through mobile?
Basic advice, family planning.
Only simple medical advice possible over mobile.
Only simple suggestion like preventive of delivery, fever and headache achievable through mobile.
The above mentioned basic problem might solve over mobile phone.
Simple health diseases like dysentery, painin chest possible to give advice.
Is it possible to solve all kinds of patients query?
No its difficult, but some basic solutions might take over potentially.
solve big problem through voice.
No its difficult but at least poor people aregetting help without coming to hospitals.
No its difficult to solve allproblems but at least patients are getting instant advices and.
It depends on diseases. But patients getting instant advice from expert.
Advantages/Disadvantages for avail the services
Feasible to provide more services within limited time/Patients call at midnight which is disturbingsometimes.
Really interactive system, possible to save time and can attend to more patients.
Patients could get help rightontime/sometimes I carest.
No need to meet patients for basic health problem. Sometimes patients call me at mid night or 5.00 am at morning. Itsdisturbing at times.
This is interactive communication media so I can help patients any time from home.
How many (average) callsdo you received in a day?
8-10 calls in a day
15-20 calls in a day
10-12 calls15-20 calls per day.
12-15 calls in a day
Your own opinion about mobile based health care services
Need more awareness to avail this services
Its difficult to measure actual symptom.
To increase the number of mobile phone subscribers, feasible to attend to more patients and
Its really nice media to reach the medical services to any place/any time.
Sometimes
explain the actual symptom.
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patients getting advice at the right time.
Over Telephone Interview session with Government Doctors
As a parts of this work, have been called up many government hospitals that are situated in rural areas in Bangladesh (Thana Health Complex) to the DGHS assigned mobilenumbers. I made called eight health centers as a patient thecall, one was busy and remaining five centers received phone and gave some times.Majority doctors were so friendly and tried to find out about the conditions and enquired on symptoms. For example at Daudkandi Thana Health Complex under district of Comilla (on 26th of May, 2 I asked the doctor about chestpain and doctor asked me few questions about; For how long pain keep continued, any existence of fever, gastric ulcer etc and advised a tablet for immediate relief and do ECGtest if chest pain persisted for longer on. The assigned solution, I personally felt was the accurate advices. After that another phone called has made to government health center at Badorgong health complex, Rangpur to explore the actual situation. The doctor was on duty and received the call. I asked about headache and the way of to reduce the headache. The doctor asked many questions to know the actual symptoms and gave some helpful advices. At Chilamari hospitals under the bordering district of Kurigram, one assistant medical officer received the call and he said most patients do not know about the mobile based advisory services. The medical officer from Dimla under the district of Nilphamari said this is really a fantastic and prolific communicating media between doctors and patients. He could foresee its far reaching benefits for the people residing in remotest of villages and appreciated the government initiative. Most of the calls come up at nighttime, he added more. The overall impressions about government mobile based healthcare free services are positive among rural population where we limited our surveys.
Drawbacks of Telephony based health services
The three assigned mobile based health care services are productive initiatives for rural people. However, in order to develop a sustainable customer driven healthcare advisory services, the data or patients case histories needed to be maintained. However, as of now,there has been no provision of such data mining incorporated in any of the three telephony based healthcare service providers. Neither the two private sector providers nor the government DGHS initiative have a policy of maintaining such records. Hence, to a
-added services without long term sustainability. Due to the lack of such Information Systems maintenance, there is a potential possibility of misguiding and misadvising the patients.Many doctors have to receive call from patients during off-duty times. This anomaly adds to the stress level of the doctors which often leads to misunderstanding with patients.
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RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The rapidly increasing mobile subscribers open up an avenue, creating a conducive environment whereby social services such as healthcare may take an advantage of. The number of mobile phone operators and the increase in number of value added servicesoffered to their customers reflects that the society is ready and has accepted technology as a mean to render auxiliary services, such as, healthcare advice.
Link voice based health advice center are awe-inspiring initiative towards the improvement of healthcare services for rural people. These services, if not wholly, may have a positive remedy to bridge the gap between the limited number of doctors, expert nurses and patients who sought healthcare advices. Yet, the present private advisory services of the telecom operators are quite expensive for low income households. One of the impediments is the obligation of registering first time users for such value-added service provided by both the network providers. Other problem is to avail these services patients need to have own mobile phone that is relatively an expensive undertaking for villagers with low per capita income.
However, the government mobile based free healthcare services are free from certain registration bindings of private service providers. The survey, observations and interview results show that this system works and it is possible to get basic help over mobile phone. The survey result illustrates the most of rural people are not aware of mobile based health care services those are provided by either private or public organizer. Due to unavailability of 3G network, the rural health centers send telephony based medical report such as ECG, blood glucose rate to district level hospital. Whereassome developed nations have such facilities.
The literature review shows that Bangladesh has technical infrastructure in telecom sector, just need proper integration to introduce such modern mobile phone based initiative. The government is trying to reach internet connection in every health center. Every month mobile penetration rate are increasing by geometric proportion. So the potency and sustainability of the mobile based healthcare services get good click.
CONCLUSION
The aim of this study was to analyze and observe the existing Mobile Phone Healthcare services in Bangladesh. This is due to the fact that Bangladesh has few community clinics, shortage of doctors compared to its large population of about 150 million people,distance advisory healthcare services can emerge as a feasible and potent option.However, the government initiative to curb the problem by providing incentives to the private sector for providing proper telemedicine packages have not been adequate. Since,private telemedicine (Mobile based value added services) are not affordable for poor and underprivileged people, the government could take steps under Public-Private Partnership program to bring it under the reach of low income population. The study has found that
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there is an utter lack of promotional and awareness campaign of such mobile based health services. Also to achieve sustainability the private telemedicine providers and government health centres must integrate the provision of keeping the patients record.As an attempt to improve accessibility introduction of portable Bluetooth based health identifiers (blood glucose measure, Heartbeats, ECG) in rural health centres can be undertaken, that would assist doctors in making informed decisions. From this study has been gathered knowledges about existing mobile phone based services and this acquaintance will be a good asset for further m-health research and implementation inBangladesh.
References
[1] N.A, (2010, April 10). 32,000 doctors and nurses to be recruited. Bdnews24. Retrieved from http://www.bdnews24.com.
[2] BTRC(n.d).The Mobile Phone Subscribers in Bangladesh. Retrieved 2010-11-11 from http://www.btrc.gov.bd
[3] -10-12, from http://www.banglalinkgsm.com
[4] Grameen Phone (2006). GP Annual Report 2006. retrieved fromwww1.grameenphone.com/assets/annual_reports/pdf[5] AsiaMedia (2004, March). Bangladesh Finally logs on to SEA-ME-WE-4. Retrieved2008-12-10 from http://www.asiamedia.ucla.edu.
[6] World Health Organization. Retrieved date 2010-02-20 from http://www.whoban.org/.
[7] World Bank (2010, March). The world bank in Bangladesh. Retrieved at 2010-05-12from http://siteresources.worldbank.org.
[8] BRTC (2010, May). Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC). Retrieved date 2010-05-20 from http://www.btrc.gov.bd.
[9] BRTC (2007, October). Bangladesh Telecommunication Regulatory Commission (BTRC). Retrieved 2010-04-25 from http://www.btrc.gov.bd.
[10] Grameen Phone(n.d).Grameen Phone press release. Retrieved 2010-04-10 from http://www.grameenphone.com/index.php?id=106.
[11] Central Intelligence Agency (n.d).The World Fact Book Bangladesh. Retrieved on2010-02-10 from https://www.cia.gov.
[12] Banglalink Health Link(n.d).Value added services. Retrieved 2010-05-30 from http://banglalinkgsm.com.
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[13] MIS-DGHS (June, 2010).E-Health Initiatives in Public Sector of Bangladesh.Retrieved from http://www.ictforhealth.ning.com.
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IFIP WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
39
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A Suitable Partner for Development? Philanthrocapitalism and Global IT Outsourcing
Brian NicholsonManchester Business School
Booth Street WestManchester, UK
+44 161 275 [email protected]
Ron BabinRyerson University350 Victoria Street,
Toronto, Ontario, Canada M5B 2K3
(416) 979-5000 [email protected]
Abstract
This paper examines the role and effectiveness of philanthrocapitalism in global IT outsourcing (GITO) arrangements to enable development. Supporters of the philanthrocapitalism discourse believe that business principles can be successfully combined with - GITO in India has experienced phenomenal economic growth over the past two decades but critics have posited that there have been limited poverty alleviation benefits and even increasing inequality. Drawing on Porter and
and interview data from GITO clients and vendors, the paper examines a specific philanthrocapitalist initiative and questions the extent to which it offersdevelopment potential. The paper contributes the first known empirical analysis of development potential of philanthrocapitalism in GITO arrangements. The paper builds on the Porter and Kramer model and has both theoretical and practical implications of relevance to policymakers and practititioners in global IT outsourcing. A central conclusion concerns the need for approaches to philanthrocapitalism to embrace development theory (such as the work of Sen) and perform contextualist institutional and/or systemic analysis to ensure priorities are linked to development imperatives and thus adopt an holistic perspective.
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A Suitable Partner for Development? Philanthrocapitalism and Global IT Outsourcing
1.INTRODUCTION
This paper addresses the philanthrocapitalism in global information technology outsourcing (GITO) relationships. The relatively new discourse of philanthrocapitalism involves the harnessing of pro-market strategies in order to increase returns on philanthropic investment (Bishop and Green 2008).Edwards (2008) describes philanthrocapitalism revolutionizing philanthropy, making non-profit organizations operate like business, and creating new markets for goods and services that benefit society...its supporters believe that business principles can be successfully combined with the search for social transformation . To date there is a paucity of literature that improves our understanding of the development effects of philanthrocapitalist activity that is intermeshed into business activity.
GITO or offshor (Sahay et al 2003, Oshri et al 2008) involves the subcontracting of IT services by a client to a vendor with part or all of the tasks undertaken in a different country. The global GITO industry is recognised as an important enabler of economic development (Heeks and Nicholson 2004). The established GITO vendor clusters in India, Russia and Israel are accompanied by a long tail of follower nations eager to
diverse as Iran, Egypt, Costa Rica, Jordan, Vietnam and Kenya. India is ranked by most independent studies as the leading nation for GITO provision (eg. ATKearney 2010) and indeed the sector has shown remarkable economic growth since the 1980s (Arora et al 2001). However, there is scant evidence of poverty alleviation as a result of the economic growth generated by the Indian GITO industry. Indeed, Payaril (2005) and Madon (1997) posit that the economic growth effect of the GITO sector has accentuated inequality demonstrated in a widening gap between those living in poverty and an enlarged middle class.
In this paper we are interested in the following research question: what is the developmental impact of philanthrocapitalist projects associated with global IT outsourcing firms? GITO is an appropriate and important field to study philanthrocapitalism as it is pervasive and involves the extension of operations and influence across global contexts (Babin and Nicholson 2009). The vast majority of GITO arrangements are explicitly commercially oriented covering a broad spectrum of contractual, profit oriented relationships. There is to date no research analysing the philanthrocapitalist development potential of such global arrangements.
The paper is organised as follows: the first section presents the background debates to GITO and philanthrocapitalism and introduces the conceptual frame of Porter and Kramer (2006). This is followed by the description of the methodology which is based on a qualitative case study of a GITO client and provider. The findings section contains analysis of the French
me in India which is commercially intermeshed into arrangements with their client UK based Co-Operative Financial Services. The benefits to the transacting partners and contribution to development is critically
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examined through the lens of the Porter and Kramer (2006) framework and capability model of Sen (1985, 1999). Finally, we outline the contribution of the paper for theory and practice.
2. CONCEPTUAL FRAME: GITO, SUSTAINABILITY AND
DEVELOPMENT
Our understanding of development goes beyond the limited focus on economic development. We draw on Sen (1985, 1999) who focuses on development as a process that enables the expansion of freedoms and opportunities for people. For Sen, development is the expansion of individual freedoms: "what the person is free to do and achieve in pursuit of whatever goals or values he or she regards as important" (Sen 1985: 203). For Sen, the social context
commodities (goods and services). Social influences affect choices about how to deploy capabilities to create functionings (actual achievement). For Sen, there are five areas of capabilities. Firstly, economic capabilities are related to the freedom offered by wealth and employment. The second is political capability concerned with democratic participation and freedom of speech. The third is social capability which is related to literacy or computer literacy. The fourth capability is informational concerned with access to information. Thefinal capability is security which is concerned with freedom from crime and violence and social security to prevent starvation and unnecessary hardship. Conversion of capabilities into realised functionings is shaped by individual choice which, in turn, is shaped by values and differences. Within the capabilities approach an indicator of positive development is whether people enjoy greater capabilities today than they did in the past.
How are GITO providers and clients involved in development? Optimistic commentators view GITO as a mechanism for sharing wealth on a global basis (economic capabilities). Put simply, spreading work globally offers job prospects for people in developing countries;
GITO sector employment growth where direct employment isexpected to reach nearly 2.54 million and sector revenues are estimated 6.4 per cent of GDP in FY2011 (Nasscom 2011). Another example of GITO and development is shown in Heeks and Arun (2009) who draw on the case of rural Kerala where small enterprises are awarded government contracts for IT training, data entry and hardware assembly. GITO clients and vendors are increasingly under scrutiny following the exposes of practices of sneaker manufacturers such as Nike (Klein 2000). Ethical trading and collective action towards an International Labour Organization fair-work agenda can improve labour conditions and a range of standards such as the UN Global Compact and Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) are routinely applied by large GITO vendors (Babin and Nicholson, 2009, 2011). Optimists stress that global outsourcing has potential for development of economic and social capabilities as it promotes efficiency; helps developing countries by providing jobs where unemployment is
very high, involves transfer of information technology and knowledge and encourages the educational process in less developed countries so that people are trained for new types of
(DeGeorge 2006). Many GITO firms produce sustainability documents downloadable from websites. These tell of generous programs and policies linked to the other capabilities. The Infosys foundation for instance has priorities in healthcare, education, social rehabilitation and the arts.
Considering the pessimist position, Michael (2003) stresses that uptake of philanthropy and corporate social responsibility by business is rational and aims to be profitable because these policies attract product demand and factors of production such as labour and capital.
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Corporate managers walk a thin line between seeking returns from positive consumer, employee and investor perceptions of the company while avoiding the risks of negative government intervention, adverse media exposure, stock market declines and customer boycotts. Should GITO corporations be involved in social policy initiatives when they exist to generate economic return, not solve social problems? In the words of Devinney (2009):
By incorporating philanthropy into branding through the satisfaction of various standards, GITO firms to the market. Pessimists argue that philanthropy and sustainabilityare the output of marketing and public relations in a political act to stave off criticism of job loss associated with GITO. Some authors predict unemployment of millions of white-collar workers with resultant social unrest (Jones 2005). Moreover, GITO philanthropy initiatives are not linked to measures of net positive impact for the poor or held up to benchmarks and frameworks for socioeconomic development such as the Millennium Development Goals
that the overall impact of firm philanthropic ventures on social indicators is at best disappointing and at worst invisible examples of cynical manipulation such as Intel which exited
hical may be interpreted as aimed at protecting the market for higher priced hardware. The sweatshop image of
products are manufactured (Oreskovic 2010). Furthermore, GITO philanthropy projects are on shaky ground and liable to be dislodged by a change of management or a swing in the business cycle especially and where contracts are typically short term (~5 years). For
And 1 Shoe Company had all its social programs cancelled when it was taken over in 2005.
The philanthrocapitalism discourse in the management literature has emerged in the last few years aiming to orientate business and social concerns for win win results. Key contributions include Bishop and Green (2008), Emerson (2003) and Porter and Kramer (2006). The philanthrocapitalist approach is operationalised in Porter and Kramer (2006)who posit that corporations can embrace social concerns and both can benefit in -outcome. However, there has been an associated critique that questions the unrestrained involvement of capitalist organisations whose primary responsibility is to provide dividends to shareholders and/or pre-empt stricter government controls (Edwards 2008).
Porter and Kramer (2006) present a model that they posit enables firms to better focus their efforts by an integration of corporate social responsibility activity into business practices. Theauthors stress the interdependence of business and society and corporate social responsibility to be focussed not on generic concerns bstrategy. They write:
he
fforts to find shared value in operating practices and in the social dimensions of competitive context have the potential not only to foster economic and social development but to change the way companies and society think about each other. NGOs,
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The Porter and Kramer framework has two major components that aim to enable choice of appropriate initiatives. The first is based on the fit of particular initiatives to the three areas of concern (figure 1). Each company must select issues that intersect with its particular business, they write:
presents an opportunity to create shared value that is, a meaningful benefit for society that is also valuable
The frame divides the social issues affecting a company into three categories in order to enable choices to be made that narrow down the set of social issues that are both important and strategic for the business. Generic social issues may be important to society but are
-term competitiveness. Value chain social impacts are those that are significantly affected by
. Social dimensions of competitive
context are factors in the external environment that significantly affect the underlying drivers of competitiveness in those places where the company operates. Candidate social issues should be sorted into these three categories and ranked in terms of potential impact.
The second main component of the Porter and Kramer framework is establishing whether the
, attuned to the evolving social concerns of stakeholders. In GITO, examples would be compliance with UN Global Compact. Strategic projects are aligned initiatives where the social and business benefits are large and distinctive .
Figure 1. Responsive strategic framework from Porter and Kramer (2006)
3.METHODOLOGY
Between 2008-2010, 52 semi-structured interviews were completed with GITO buyers, providers and advisors to examine the role of social responsibility in GITO. The sample included representatives from major banks, consumer product companies, a global mining company, an energy company, global outsourcing vendors and outsourcing advisors. Sixinterviews with vendors were completed in Bangalore and Mysore, India during a field trip in January 2010, including the vice chair of NASSCOM. Drawing on contacts made in these interviews, access was negotiated for a case study of the French GITO vendor Steria and UK
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based Co operative Financial Services and in 2010, 23 semi-structured interviews were completed. Each interview was recorded and transcribed verbatim. Most interviews were conducted in a conference or meeting room where interviewees came to the room during the course of a day. The interviewing followed the guidelines provided by Myers and Newman (2007). Each interview lasted approximately 45 minutes and interviewees were asked to describe their past experience and future expectations regarding sustainability in outsourcing, and how that would be relevant to their business operations. Specific questions were asked about the current and future sustainability challenges and associated capabilities. In the Steria
Co-op case study, we engaged in historical reconstruction of the GITO relationship and a set of semi-structured questions broadly guided by the dimensions of the Porter and Kramer (2006) framework. Detailed notes were taken and these were written up in full as soon as possible along with comments and interpretations of the researcher. The approach to data analysis draws on the grounded approach (Strauss and Corbin 1998). After each interview, the notes were reviewed and the interviewee responses were read. Secondary data such as brochures, company reports and newsletters was also collected and subsequently read and analysed for relevant material. Each interview transcript was reviewed and responses that were not repeated by more than one interviewee were not analysed further but if mentioned in multiple interviews were clustered into categories representing common themes. The themes were colour coded to identify the frequency of mention in the interviews, allowing the researchers to quantify and prioritize the key themes. Intensive discussion between the researchers took place both face to face and using Skype from our respective locations on the themes and theoretical analysis of the data. In addition, a report was written and presented to key stakeholders at Co-operative offering our analysis of the practice of sustainability. This was not part of an explicit action research strategy but was essential to obtaining and maintaining access and acted as a further point of discussion between the researchers and the interviewees.
3.1 Case Description
Steria employ over 19,000 employees across 16 countries and have offices in Europe, India,North Africa and SE Asia. Revenues in 2007 were in Paris, Steria is listed on the Euronext Paris market. The Co-operative Financial Services (CFS) is part of The Co-operative Group, the UK's largest consumer co-operative. The Co-operative Financial Services is the group of businesses that includes The Co-operative Insurance and The Co-operative Bank including Smile and Britannia. CFS revenues are £550million, 12,000 employees, more than 300 branches and 20 corporate banking centres. Ethical, environmental and community matters take a high priority in the CFS marketing literature and website and this was acknowledged when CFS was recognised as the w s most sustainable bank by the Financial Times (2010). Both The Co-operative Insurance and The Co-operative Bank have ethical policies developed in consultation with customers setting out the way they do business.
The relationship between Steria and CFS began in the 1990s. At that time Xansa (originally called FI Group) began to provide IT services to CFS. Xansa was bought by Steria in 2007. At Co-op, Steria is one of the top 14 strategic outsource providers. Co-op identifies strategic providers as those that have a high degree of business criticality (business impact and risk) as well as high level of contract spending, in excess of £1M annually. Overall, Co-op has
maintenance and support of legacy applications.
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4. FINDINGS: GITO SUSTAINABILITY AND DEVELOPMENT
The Steria sustainability strategy has five categories relating to priorities in environment, marketplace, workplace and community, access to IT and education. The Steria One School programme, in the latter category, is offered to selected clients as a route to partnering ininjecting resource into schools located in Indian cities of Chennai, Pune or Noida where Steria centres are located.
Fifteen schools were supported by Steria and their clients at May 2010. According to the Steria corporate presentation given to clients, the arrangement enables the client to involve staff, family and friends in the India project and to publicise the project when visiting Indiaand list involvement in marketing material. The client is presented with a menu of engagement options and a price list (see table 3 below). Steria encourages subscribing clients to communicate with the children in the school through mentorship email,video conferencing and scheduled visits. When visiting Steria centres, client staff (usually high ranking executives) are encouraged to visit the school they have sponsored.
Two schools are sponsored by CFS; the first is Medavakkam high school which has been sponsored since 2007. CFS have supported a computer centre with 10 new computers and alibrary. The Steria involvement is ongoing, for instance in July 2007 Steria volunteers provided 12 days of computer training.
The second school sponsored by CFS is the Shri Ghanshyam Sharma memorial high schoolin Dujana, Noida. This is a private school that charges fees ranging from Rs 100 Rs200 depending on age of the child. It was established in 1999 and has 1035 children aged 5-15years old. Children are from low income groups, farmers, labourers etc. The school has applied for aid from the Government which will take between 1-5 years to materialise tocover the teachers salaries. CFS sponsorship commenced in May 2010 with budget of £15714 covering the activities in table 1 below.
Computer centre with 10 computers
Painting, woodwork, furniture, minor civil works for computer centre & libraryLibrary books, language software and
Sports equipment and coaching sessions for 1 yearEnvironment awareness campaigns 4per yearTheatre workshops including costumes and stage props 4 per yearMentorship sessions, sports day, study trips, other workshops and learning sessions during the year
Table 1. The Steria One School Initiative
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Senior executives from both CFS and Steria participate together in annual visits to the sponsored schools. In the sections to follow we discuss three main themes related to the benefits of the CFS Steria collaboration on One School:
Building stronger personal relationships which aids communicationWorkforce benefitsHalo effect.
Building relationships
Vendor client staff personal relationships became closer in the course of meetings, discussions and visits to the school. We were told that the visits are particularly beneficial in this regard. A Steria executive stated:
you also bring in teamwork and there's so many other things that come into it, other skills,
These trips out to India are where you really get to know your customers,
with them 24 hours a day. And when you share different experiences with them, it puts your
form a very clos
ectly
well. Good relationships get you through on those situations. .. you keep the clients that you
The same interviewee told us that impact on client retention is evident:
rk together, the more effective you are. Then from my point of
Working on projects outside of the direct contractually bound working relationship helps the client and vendor staff to improve mutual understanding. A Steria employee stated:
, working with India enables me to understand what
Another Steria executive concurred:
with our relationship and how we work together, and
You also bring in teamwork and there are so many other things that come into it, other skills
such as communica
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The theme of improved communications between the provider and the buyer, building informal networks and cutting through the formal communications hierarchy was echoed another Steria interviewee who said:
allows more
junior staff to speak directly with seniors on CSR related ac
Workforce benefits
Interviewees from Steria staff told us that collaboration on the one school projects helped to reduce staff turnover:
on the
necessarily see it on my bottom line, but you will see it on the productiveness of that project,
One Steria executive told us that staff turnover was more than 50% lower on the CFS account compared to Steria norms. This provided a positive benefit of approximately 40 people that Steria did not need to hire.
As one CFS executive commented in discussion of the strength of the relationship:
under pressure of getting the tests done against a tight deadline, do you know
what the guys say? Well, time to go home now or do they stay for midnight? These guys stay
le part of
that
bringing new staff in and letting it just start off with new skills which means projects have
more of a success of del
something which fit in with the values of the companies. So I think the staff engagement,
coming back and they write blogs on it. So they write on blogs on what they saw you know
the children that they met, what they are saying
m the next generation into
These interviews indicate the value of cooperating with Steria in the One School project in trust building and even job satisfaction.
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well. Good relationships get you through on those situations. .. you keep the clients that you
A CFS executive concurred:
what the guys say? Well, time to go home now or do they stay for midnight? These guys stay
little part of that
Halo effect
Several interviewees spoke of the need to embrace sustainability as a moral obligation, and not as a commercial positioning exercise. As one CFS interviewee stated
commercial advantage from do
Another stated that he was sceptical of provider sustainability claims: if it is really in your
DNA you would operationalize it on a daily basis, not just one-
Another CFS interviewee discussed the importance of the collaboration with an ethical brand such as Co-op:
We get a much better team from these vendors than we deserve for the size of organization
keen. For the size we are and the money we spend with them, it do
-op as a brand on their list of customers
A theme discussed throughout the interviews is a paradox of sustainability and outsourcing job loss, where CFS seeks to protect its workers and their communities with ongoing employment, while at the same time providing services to its customers at a competitive cost. This theme was not always offered by the interviewees, as one CFS senior executive said:
,.
5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION: WHITHER GLOBAL IT
OUTSOURCING AS PARTNERS FOR DEVELOPMENT?
Applying the Porter and Kramer model to the Steria-CFS One School case shows Value chain
social impacts and clearly fits into Social dimensions of competitive context categories. Educating the next generation of workforce entering into the industry in India is of benefit to both Steria and CFS. Both firms draw on the India human resource for skilled labour and are affected by the high attrition rates which are ameliorated by a greater supply of trained
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labour. Table 2 summarises the findings. This joint activity has benefits to both organisations in partnership over and above what could be achieved individually including staff retention,
also enables a mechanism for client tie in to continue participation on contract renewal.
Sustainability in Global IT
Outsourcing Example
Firm Impact Development Impact
Steria and Cooperative Financial Services
programme
Stronger vendor client relationships and communicationsClient tie inGreater level of staff commitment and lower attrition
2 schools received computer centre from CFSLibrary materials provided by CFS and SteriaTraining from vendor
Table 2. Steria CFS One School Scheme Impacts
These benefits qualify the initiative as strategic in the Porter and Kramer framework as they
the schools have clearly had a much needed injection of resource which they otherwise would not have received which can be linked to the social and informatiterms. However, there are a number of areas of critique.
First is the question of timescales and short termism. The Steria staff volunteers are already hard pressed in their own roles and contracts may not be renewed. Secondly, the initiative is a drop in the bucketimpact, such initiativeslow literacy levels. he essential test that should guide CSR is not whether a cause is worthy but whether it presents an opportunity to create shared valuePorter and Kramer (2006) starting point is business imperatives and not to established frameworks of development (e.g. Sen). They posit that shared value offers meaningful benefit for society and is also valuable to the business. Our evidence shows that the One School programme has certainly benefited the GITO relationship but whither the development target? Edwards (2008) argues that systemic change involves social movements, politics and the state.
Prior research posits that attention to the context of any development intervention is critically important. This may be achieved by taking an institutionalist (eg. Avgerou 2002) or systemic analysis approach to complex problems (eg. Checkland and Scholes 1990). Such a contextualist view to the CFS-Steria One School project reveals that education exists in a complex eco system containing multiple systems, stakeholders and actors with differing interests, related subsystems, internal and external influences that support and hinder educational improvement. Central to the systemic approach is participation and the success of systemic analysis and change programmes are as much political and social problems as
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technical. For Checkland (1981), solutions offered from systemic analysis must be both culturally feasible and technically desirable. Porter and Kramer and the One School initiative ignore these institutional and systemic forces and instead the choice of school reflects Steria-CFS priorities. recommendation of attention to the importance of social movements, politics or the state level influence is not addressed. By adopting a targeted and instrumental app and the One School initiative are unlikely to tackle institutional change in the Indian state for better schooling more generally. consequences of optimising the facilities in a single school which may have detrimental effects such as State funding removal or staff leaving from other schools. Furthermore, systemic analysis reveals that this initiative is not linked to measures of performance such as net positive impact for the poor, or held up to benchmarks and frameworks for sustainable
The contribution of this paper lies in the analysis of the limits of philanthrocapitalism in GITO. Based on this single case study, philanthrocapitalism represented in Porter and
clearly presents a useful means to extract business value out of
development potential in terms of Sen (1999). The addition of renewed emphasis on development and systemic analysis (Checkland and Scholes 1990) reveals systems and subsystems, the dangers of unexpected consequences, the multitude of stakeholders and limits of the instrumental choices firms may make based on restricted commercially oriented priorities without consideration of the development priorities. Future work may focus on the feasibility of explicitly linking extant models of development (Sen 1999) and systemic analysis into philanthrocapitalist approaches such as Porter and Kramer (2006).
Acknowledgments. We are grateful to CFS for financial support for this research. Thanks to CFS and Steria staff for generous cooperation and openness in interviews and to Richard Heeks for comments on a previous draft. Errors and omissions are responsibility of authors alone.
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IFIP WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
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DETERMINANTS TO HANDICRAFT PRODUCTION IN LESS DEVELOPED COUNTRIES:
John Dobson, University of ManchesterRichard Duncombe, University of ManchesterBrian Nicholson, University of Manchester
Abstract: This paper presents a conceptual framework to help development managers working with handicraft producers improve success rates. A theoretical framework is presented outlining some of the causes of underdevelopment based on evidence from the Mexican handicraft industry. Neo-classical economics and Institutional Theory is utilized to discuss market function and factors that undermine market efficiency. Subsequently the merits and limitations of Diamond of Determinants are considered when working at . The paper also examines options for using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to build competitive advantage. A fourth component conceptualises the role of development managers to incorporate the existing comparative advantage, through ICT use and active interventions to build a Diamond. The suggested process uses readily available ICT and non-ICT solutions to address the institutional and economic causes of underdevelopment in the handicraft sector. The paper contributes insights on how to improve incomes at the bottom of the pyramid from the specifics of the Mexican handicraft sector offering potential benefits to similar sectors in other less developed countries.
Keywords: Handicraft Markets, Comparative Advantage, Institutions, Development, Diamonds of Determinants
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1. INTRODUCTIONThe UN, World Bank and other international agencies are advocating for reductions in tariffs and non-tariff barriers as a process in increase economic development for less developed countries (LDCs) (Wall, 1998). This belief continues in spite of anemic growth over the last 25 years since countries began removing trade barriers (Peet, 2003). Free markets appear to have failed to deliver economic development for people living at the bottom of the pyramid . The aim of this paper is to identify and review approaches that
offer potential to improve markets functioning drawing on Competitive Advantage theory and applying it to projects at the bottom of the pyramid , defined as the 4 to 5 billion people living on less than $2.00 a day (Prahalad, 2004). The example of the Mexican handicraft sector is presented.
Handicraft production is often part of a complex survival behavior for marginalized groupsexperiencing chronic poverty (Jenson 2007). Some of the challenges facing development in the handicrafts area lie in poorly functioning markets where factors such as information asymmetry, high information gathering costs, and high transaction costs tend to hinder trade (Leblang, 1996). In economic theory, it is generally accepted that information is key to well functioning markets (Jenson 2007). The high failure rate of handicraft projects leaves development managers, (entrepreneurs, researchers, and other intermediaries), toindentify the causes (Pare, 2003) Seeking to find solutions we posit thatapproach to handicraft sector development is insufficient and an active intervention ( active h ) is required to improve how the market functions for poor people while still acknowledging the role of in a well functioning market. In neo-classical economics, markets efficiently allocate resources because information is readily available and transaction costs are frictionless, permitting people to make rational choices. These market ideals are not present in even the most advanced economies. Unfortunately, in developing economies, institutional barriers and rent seeking behavior actively interferes with these market mechanisms to the detriment of marginalized communities. Handicraft producers face additional obstacles to success, such as elite sabotage or peasant vulnerability to external shocks.
Michael Porter identifiescompetitive advantage (1991). This constellation of elements was referred to as the Diamond of Determinants. Prior research (Heeks, 2007) evaluates the suitability of
advantage in the telecommunications sector. However, there is a gap in the literature that focuses on how to build a competitive advantage at the bottom of the pyramid, in relatively low priority sectors and in the absence of government support. This paper proposes thatdevelopment managers can take an active role at the micro or sectoral level, to create diamonds of determinants that may increase the likelihood of handicraft projects increasing incomes.
This paper is presented in seven sections. The second section presents a theoretical framework drawing on Institutional Theory (North 1990) to make sense of trade liberalisation has failed to deliver development for the bottom of the pyramid . The third section examines the Mexican challenges of pursuing competitive advantage development in marginalised sectors. The fourth section identifies the availability of information through readily available technology, to improve decision making. The fifth section conceptualizes a role for the Development Manager to use ICT and non-ICT approaches to improve artisan income.
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The conclusion summarizes the framework and insights for helping handicraft projects improve incomes.
2. Institutional reasons for the failure of Handicraft productionThis section presents an Institutional theory inspired (North 1990) explanation for why development has failed to reach many handicraft producers at the bottom of the pyramid. In theory, firms in developing economies are able to incorporate best business practices and evolving technologies in pursuit of economic development. Consistent decreases in the cost of acquiring new technologies should help handicraft projects to more successfully incorporate new processes to improve incomes. Yet, neo-classical economics fail to explain why firms do not incorporate readily available technologies into production (Mokyr 2000).
uthKorea and Singapore, it is generally agreed that there are significant obstacles to successful development in other countries. Institutional theory can help explain why some societies appear unable to change from their current course of under-development. Understanding this theory must start with a definition of institutions and their critical role in economic activity. Institutions are broadly defined as the rules of the game (North, 1990). Some of these rules include the protection of property rights through formal and informal mechanisms (North, 1997). Societies create an institutional environment with formal and informal rules that determine levels of economic development. Unfair arbitration of disputes resulting from political allocation of economic resources often leads to path dependency. The process limits upward mobility because of high levels of information asymmetry, transaction costs and market failure. Societies with weak institutions tend to have lower levels of economic development (Leblang 1996).
A tendency to have very little economic and social capital to help build better societal institutions results in industries with a low equilibrium, delayed technological development, low levels of economic activity and barriers to market access (Dorward, et al. 2003). Immisersating growth is the result for many handicraft producers.
In order to successfully work with handicraft producers, Development Managers need to be aware of the historical context that leads to developmental breakdown and understand that once behaviour is institutionalised, it is difficult to change. However, change is not impossible. North argues that resistance to institutional change is weakest at the margins (North, 2010). This observation highlights the possibility that handicraft producers may be more willing to try altering the current rules of the game if there is a better option for development, since they tend not to benefit as much from the current economic system as other sectors of society. The process must actively break down institutional resistance although how this actually happens remains unclear. In other words, what interventions (cause) will produce the desired economic development (effect) still remains mysteriousbut involves building projects that provide the artisan with rational incentives while adhering to the principals of good institutions. However, improved institutions will not enable success unless handicraft producers establish sustainable demand.
Institutions normalise expectations and lead to the formation of property rights. Institutions can evolve to either encourage innovation or create a culture of piracy (North, 1990). Societies that fail to impartially resolve disputes usually result in lower levels of social capital, leading to increased transaction costs. For Handicraft projects to be successful, agents must rely on honesty to resolve disputes (Macaulay 1963).
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Societies where economic resources are politically allocated tend to have low levels of property rights. This tends to undermine entrepreneurship since secure ownership isrequired for innovation to emerge (Leblang 1996). A perceived fairness in how disputes are settled establishes the foundation for good institutions that is one precursor for economic growth (Leblang 1996). This lack of good institutions in many LDCs undermines the necessary human and technical investments (Williamson 2000). With limited economic opportunity individuals often choose to consume rather than invest. Improving institutions is difficult since change is subject to sabotage by beneficiaries of the current system. Further complicating successful development is the low total volume of sales, which may not warrant the creation of better institutions (Suranovic 2007). The Development Manager must find ways of increasing sales volume while overcoming the difficulty of working in a bad institutional environment. North (2010) identifies that institutional resistance is weakest at the margins, but fails to provide insight into how to affect the desired change. In the absence of institutions that support economic development in the handicraft sector, the DM must decide how to form a strategy that will most likely have positive impacts on poverty reduction. Unfortunately, societies with poor quality institutions tend to be less able to respond opportunities for economic development (North 2010). Societies can build opportunities for development by strengthening the factors that determine economic success.
3. Diamonds of DeterminantsThe previous section examined institutional barriers that have undermined development.
Diamonds of Determinants will be used to discuss how societies can build a competitive advantage. We will outline some of the key elements under pinning competitive advantage theory. The second part examines the challenges of attempting to replicate this framework at the bottom of the pyramid.
The competitive advantage framework operates on an assumption that nations are able to benefit by focusing their efforts on the creation of a competitive advantage in a specific
resulted in his well known publications on the Diamonds of Determinants (Porter 1991). The model highlights the role of both private and public sectors in creating rational incentives that are mutually re-with two external influences on success. The first point of the diamond involves the factor endowments available in a country. These may be naturally occurring, such as raw materials. Societies can also create factor endowments with investments in education that build human capital, or infrastructure that help lower transaction costs. The second point requires high levels of domestic rivalry. This forces firms to focus on gaining competitive advantages such as cost reduction, increasing efficiency, or product differentiation. The third point is local demand conditions. Some important aspects of local demand include general economic growth, the number of buyers, and insistence on quality and innovation. Strong demand for high quality innovative products permits firms to more easily tap international markets. A competitive local market will help position firms to become internationally competitive. The final point of the diamond is the nature and quality of supporting industries. The quality and innovative nature of these industries can support entrance into global markets. The four points of the diamond provide re-enforcing mechanisms that create a virtuous cycle of economic activity.
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The four points are complemented by two external elements. The first element is the role the state can play to assist in the creation of a competitive advantage. The state must identify the best development strategy and marshal economic and political resources of society behind the specific development objective. The second element is chance. Information is important to enable the identification of opportunities and support quick action, since firms benefit from being first movers. These factors help build strategic advantages that once accepted in the market, offer the potential of successful development. Execution of development strategy is important in influencing the ultimate success of a competitive strategy.
Technological innovations create business opportunities. Entrepreneurial firms that are ideally situated with both adequate resources and human capital are able to realize profits from being first adopters of new technology. Business opportunities tend to emerge from technological innovations that allow the creation of new products or processes that increase efficiencies. Entrepreneurial arbitrage continues until the window of opportunity closes as more firms enter the market similar product(s) or service(s). The four points of the diamond provide re-enforcing mechanisms that create a virtuous cycle of economic activity.
The competitive advantage framework will tend to face different challenges when applied to initiatives in developing economies. Heeks (2007) examined how the competitive advantage framework was applied to the Information Technology sector in India. The research found that while the Diamonds of Determinants offered insight it did require some
ork is a
similar results and there is gap in our understanding of how to build a Diamond further down the pyramid, the focus of the next section.
4. Finding a Diamond at the Bottom of the PyramidThroughout the world, most artisans live on the fringes of societies, experiencing a marginal and precarious existence (Scarse 2003). Handicraft production has historically been identified as an integral survival pattern for peasant communities (Medina and De Los Santos. 2008). Handicraft production provides peasants with a low cost entry into the market economy to supplement subsistence farming or urban poverty. One of the potential benefits of using handicraft production for marginalised groups is the high profit margins.
institutional and economic weaknesses.
The first point of the Diamond is the consideration of factor endowments that can be used to build a competitive advantage. Societies may have natural factor endowments that have
endowments often have difficulty moving beyond commodity exporting (Karl 1997). High value existing natural factor endowments are subject to elite capture to the detriment of lower levels of society (North, 2010). Complicating future development is the fact that elites are better positioned to identify emerging opportunities. For instance, in Mexico during trade liberalization, Mr. Carlos Slim was able to buy the telecom monopoly with no money(Clifton 2000). This tends to leave most of society and especially marginalised communities without access to the diamond . As a result handicraft production tends to utilize cheap and readily available resources.
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The second point examines the quality of domestic rivalry. In societies where economic resources tend to be politically allocated, there are limits to domestic competition. In the handicraft sector, any attempts to gain innovation rents are quickly undermined by the
om other producers. The process in Mexico
continuously being supplied with cheaper, less well made products which offer the potential for higher profits (Stromberg, 1993). The result is the emergence of a market for lemons . This hinders success since firms may choose inefficient production
methods to overcome insecure property rights (Williamson, 2000). Local competition (or firm strategy), in the handicraft sector, is based on piracy since it offers a higher potential profit, at least in the short term. The nature of the domestic market hinders improvements in quality and design innovation.
The third factor is the quality of local demand. Demand for locally produced products, especially from marginalized communities, is weak (Cook, 1970). Elites within Mexico have traditionally undermined development by purchasing only as acts of charity (Wood 2000) (Cook, 1995). Local demand is motivated by moral obligation and expected utility. The response to the current market is as neo-classical economics would predict. Artisans have adjusted time and effort in an effort to maximize profits. The cheating on inputs coupled with minimal effort is all that is required to satisfy the needs of the current market.
instituted perverse incentives that result in low quality products.
The forth point considers the role of supporting industries. In developing economies supporting industries may be hindering development. A relevant example can be found in the privatizing of the Mexican telecommunications sector where the Mexican government guaranteed a continued monopoly to the buyer. This supporting industry, instead of offering competitive pricing to encourage investments in technologies, has the highest tariff rates of any OECD country (OECD 2007). These higher rates have undermined economic development with all Mexican GDP growth from 1995-2007 coming from labour inputs and not efficiency gains (Jorgenson and Vu 2005). This highlights how elites tend to pursue rent seeking behavior at the expense of economic development, re-directing monies to the top of the pyramid and resulting in Carlos Slim becoming the richest man in the world.
The most significant may be the requirement for a supportive state. Institutional theory views
development as a historically congruent process. Current beneficiaries of the economic system hinder development if it threatens their relative power within society. Establishing a competitive advantage in societies with weak institutions is therefore extremely difficult if the development process threatens to undermine relative elite power in society (Brett 2006). In Mexico, the privatisation of state industries was presented as the emergence of anew neo-liberal competitive market it unfortunately was used to further entrench the corporatist relationship (Clifton, 2000). The state also plays a critical role in impartially arbitrating disputes. Weak contract enforcement results in low levels of property rights which undermine investments which in turn undermines quality. Beyond normative adherence to honesty there are few mechanisms to guarantee quality
Opportunities emerge more readily from societies that encourage entrepreneurship. These chances to develop are not discovered but are created through an interactive process of
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action and interaction (Bruyat and Andre 2001).Windows of opportunities for economic development exist, but societies with a weak diamond structure may not be able to seize the opportunity as other societies respond more quickly. The quality of the diamond may severely limit the number of chances available for development in the handicraft sector. Development managers can play an active role in improving the chances of success by strengthening re-enforcing mechanism in the diamond. Thereby increasing the quality of opportunities and the ability of handicraft producers to successful capitalize.
5. The Role of ICT in Strengthening the DiamondThe previous section identified the benefits the re-enforcing mechanisms in the diamond. This section will present some of the potential benefits of using ICT to strengthen the diamond. The first step is to position the suitability of ICT as a tool to improve development. The second step will demonstrate how ICT can be used to strengthen the re-enforcing mechanism of the Diamond.
With a few clicks of the mouse optimistic writers posited that ICT would allow LDCs to leapfrog economic development (Pare 2003). Technology would reach down to the bottom of pyramid lift billions of people out of poverty. After more than a decade of
ICT investments, there is scant research demonstrating such benefits (Veva 2009). Extensive research done at the micro level failed to find successful application of ICT to development projects (Pare 2003). This raises questions about the suitability of ICT as a viable development option. However research at the macro level on the effects of ICT investments is able to find positive impact (Piatkowski 2006). There appears to be an issue with how success is measured at the micro level. Since we can measure the impact at the national level, we are able to conclude that investments in ICT must be having a positive impact at the micro level. Many aspects of development from improvements in civil society such as capacity building, marginal increases in efficiency or cheaper methods to deliver health or education programs are difficult to measure. The emerging backlash against ICT is that it diverts scarce resources and has failed to deliver development. Thisignores knowledge gained from ICT projects such as improving skill, lowering the cost of information gathering, reducing information asymmetry, and lowering the cost of producing goods and services. The benefits of ICT efficiency gains are spread amongst all firms in a sector, making it difficult to measure success. Ultimately the effect of increased information cannot be understated since it makes achieving development goals more affordable (Jenson 2007). Further, criticism tends to overlook the lag time between investments and increases in productivity. Research shows a 20 year lag between ICT investments and accelerated GDP growth. It takes time for entrepreneurs to learn how to improve organizational efficiency (Jorgenson and Vu 2005). Positive ICT impact on developing economies may take as long or longer because of weaker institutions.
This section examined how the internet can provide a unique opportunity to connect producers to global markets. The internet permits buyers and producers to connect in new ways via the globalization of the supply chain and expansion of market opportunities for handicraft producers. The net section will provide some examples of how development managers can help handicraft producers improve incomes.
6. Conceptualising an Active HandThe section will present approaches to applying Porters diamond with handicraft producers. How can development managers apply the bottom of the pyramid? This paper previously discussed how marginalized groups tend
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to be excluded from the factor endowments of society. Starting from this handicap, artisans have typically used readily available materials to produce handicrafts in an effort to earn an income. There is currently international demand for these products found at tourist resorts and via limited global trade. Development managers can examine the products and identify those best suited for global markets. The current production of a new or novel product that has external attention should be seen as an immediate comparative advantage which provides the foundation to build a Diamond.
Starting with what artisans do best, the development manager can help build a competitive advantage by incorporating technology that they may already have. Research shows that most ICT purchases tend to be for personal and not business use (Humphrey 2003). Development managers can train producers with strategies to utilize ICT to connect with any existing customers.
The first point of the diamond examines to role of factor endowments in creating a competition advantage. We previously discussed how elite tend to capture the obvious diamonds. This leaves development managers to use low valued factor endowments to build a diamond. This second point of the diamond would normally focus on strengthening local demand. However, current local demand has created the conditions for immisersating growth. These perverse incentives have been institutionalized, and are therefore difficult to change. We posit that global demand should replace local demand. Building a global relationship should focus on using ICT tools that already exist in the Mexican handicraft sector. The process involves connecting producers with existing global buyers through email and web based solutions.Smaller producers may need to work with other small producers to provide sufficient products to encourage purchase.
The process should be intent on lowering the information gathering costs and high transaction costs that tend to be adversely associated with international buying. The process should attempt to add value to the consumer so they will either buy more units or pay a higher price. Adding value is ideal since it would increase the value of labordelivering products that have rational market demand.
The current nature of domestic rivalry undermines quality. When buyers fail to credibly commit to repeat business producers maximize profits by pirating designs and cheating on inputs. The result is a tragedy of the commons, as more producers continuously flood the market with cheaper and poorly made items. This further serves to undermine demand as consumers buy products that fail to meet expected utility which leads to demand being stunted and producers remain in poverty. Development managers must encourage competition on innovation and not price. We propose that this be accomplished by structuring a web based portal that channels orders only to actual designers and not whoever will make the most cheaply. This innovation requires that the development manager act as an honest broker for the producers as well as mitigating risk for the buyer. The forth point of the diamond considers the role of supporting industries. Research on Mexico shows how elite capture of new opportunities has made accessing ICT expensive for producers (OECD 2007). This places additional financial burdens for firms when making ICT investment decisions. It has placed Mexico at a digital disadvantage. However, this perspective misses two important aspects of investment decision making. First, many producers already have access to both cell phones and internet which they are using for personal use (Dorward, et al. 2003). Second, while higher tariffs do undermine investments (Jorgenson and Vu 2005), investment decisions are ultimately made on the basis of anticipated profit potential. Artisans are not placing more effort, even with currently owned technology, because of the absence of belief that their efforts will be
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process may include showing artisans how to use open source software, such as shutterbug, to catalog products. Mail Chimp can be used to set-up mass emails lists as part of the Customer Relationship Management process to highlight new products and promotions. Artisans can be trained to ask all customers for emails to establish a customer relationship management system. The process also includes non ICT support industries, like assistance in branding, sales and marketing. Development managers need to help identify gaps in capacity and find low cost solutions.
The state has played a detrimental role in handicraft development. Economic resources are politically allocated and disputes are not settled impartially. The goal of the Development Manager is not to replace the state but to mimic good institutions, such as property rights. Inthe absence of a supportive state, prior research identifies how 3rd parties are able to increase trust in a system by minimising the potential of fraud (Ba 2001). Guaranteeing the protection of property rights will limit competition on price (Stromber-Pellizi 1993). The development manager builds trust by ensuring any orders generated from the portal are directed appropriately. Any training in sales and marketing is available to all and sales leads are open to all to pursue. Artisans must not be permitted to copy designs. The process to be successful must both protect artisan innovation rights while serving the buyers requirements for quality and timely delivery.
Chances to succeed will emerge from a market that functions with rational incentives, by limiting piracy, protecting property rights, and using technology to increase market opportunities. However, there are a number of additional modifications to the diamond that may be required for this framework to succeed with handicraft producers.
Buyers may not align with production capacity. The buyer may require faster delivery or larger quantities then current artisan production capacity can handle. The tendency has been forthe buyer to find others willing to make similar products, thereby undermining institutional change by dismissing artisan property rights. Encouraging buying over the internet will limit this cheating tendency, since the buyer will be unable to easily find a substitute producer, unless they travel back to the handicraft town. Increasing production volume may be difficult since handicraft production is usually a secondary activity to basic survival behavior like subsistence farming. The development manager must align production ability with consumption requirements while attempting to provide artisans with consistent orders. Only when orders are consistent will the artisan adjust time spent on less productive activity to other more profitable activities. Some non-technical issues may cause breakdown. Persistent features of poverty are shocks, like medical emergency or crop failure, that often force artisans to spend working capital to pay for a health emergency or a food crisis. These types of crisis often lease the poor without access to working capital. Micro finance or bridge loans may be required to overcome these shocks to permit artisans to continue producing handicraft. The role is to pursue strategies that expose artisans to the potential benefits of supplying global customers. This approach should not be confused with the promotion of the fair or equitable trade movements. Competitive advantage focuses on Pareto efficient solutions for development. Fair trade tends to be a zero sum gain since it relies on consumers paying a higher price for the same product. Fair Trade does not maximize welfare outcomes for all since producer benefits come at the expense of consumers.
7. Conclusion:This paper attempted to identify approaches to help development managers working in the handicraft sector
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Determinant to the realities at the bottom of the pyramid . While the examples providedcome from the specifics of handicraft production in Mexico, the approaches can be applied to other handicraft sectors. This paper presented an institutional perspective of development failure. Overall a general lack of sales volume undermines the requirement for better institutions. Next the merits and limitations of competitive advantage were presented. When applying the Diamond at the bottom of the pyramid a number of weaknesses were identified. The incentive structure of the handicraft market undermines development. The diamond fails to provide re-enforcing mechanisms but instead provides perverse incentives. Second, an institutional theory perspective questions whether the current beneficiaries would permit development that may undermine their relative power. Third projects with marginalized communities are more prone to breakdown do to external shocks. Research shows that ICT investments are having a positive impact on national measures of economic development in many countries.
It is recommended that development managers working in the handicraft sector should pursue a multi-faceted approach. First, identify the comparative advantage and work to encourage innovation. This is only achieved if the process can sustain increased sales. Artisans may require help in meeting market demands. Special intervention may be required if external shocks re-direct working capital to consumption but there is reason to
quickly moved from micro to meso once benefits are clearly identified by the actors. Reviewing macro research showed that ICT investments do accelerate GDP growth.
This paper has conceptualized a role to work with the marginalized to reduce poverty while building better institutions. This is achieved by using ICT to by-pass the local markets and presenting opportunities for trade in the global market. Our assessment indicates that a ducers offers potential to expand opportunities at the bottom of the pyramid.
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IFIP WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
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Díaz Andrade & Urquhart From Mechanistic Modernisation to Digital Bildung
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
UNDERSTANDING THEIR OWN CONTEXT: FROM MECHANISTIC MODERNISATION TO DIGITAL BILDUNG IN ICT
FOR DEVELOPMENT INITIATIVES
Antonio Díaz AndradeAuckland University of Technology, New Zealand
Cathy UrquhartManchester Metropolitan University, United Kingdom
Abstract: This paper provides a preliminary conceptualisation of how both critical thinking upon the now available computer-mediated information and communicative competence for contextually-based collective action are sine qua non conditions to achieve development. The authors position theirargument within the socio-economic transformative discourse ofinformation and communication technology for development (ICT4D)proposed by Avgerou (2008).authors reject the unreflective, homogenising, dehumanising and alien traits of the usual technocentric approach of ICT4D. Informed by research conducted mainly in the field of education, different types of literacy and their dimensions are analysed. The argument proceeds by claiming that the reflective and holistic characteristics encapsulated in the concept of digital bildung (Søby, 2008) provide a suitable framework for assessing the impact of ICT to achieve an authentic and truly liberating development.
Keywords: Computer literacy, information literacy, critical thinking, information andcommunication technology for development, transformative discourse,Paulo Freire
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1. INTRODUCTION
weakens the said Socrates in Phaedrus (cited by Ong, 1982, p. 79). With these words the Greek philosopher articulated his apprehension to theemergence of the practice of using texts as a means for human communication. Not onlydid Socrates perceive writing as a non-natural activity for human beings but also as anessentially limiting exercise since symbols could not fully capture the immensity of themind.
Twenty-four centuries have elapsed since disquisition and there is no doubt that the contribution of writing communication to civilisation has proved to bebeneficial. Establishing and agreeing on written characters representing ideas andfeelings, has not only made possible to spread the word and transcend time and spacebut also, and most importantly, it allows criticising it (Ong, 1982). On the whole, whenwe read we do not merely decipher characters; we interpret ideas.
The excessive reliance on information and communication (ICT) tools for differentaspects of our everyday lives makes us wonder whether or not concerns arerelevant in these days characterised by pervasive computers. The now ubiquitous ICTdevices make easy the storage, transmission and retrieval of data. Gabriel GarcíaMárquez, the Colombian author and Literature Nobel prize winner, a perfectionistwriter who would trash already typewritten pages because he wanted to insert a commaor change a couple of words, once said, see the computer as a much simple, fast anduseful typewriting Had I had access to a computer 20 years earlier, I wouldhave produced twice the number of books I (cited by Rottman, 2006; authors' translation). Nevertheless how easy manipulating data has become, it does not replacethe need for thinking. Gabriel García Márquez continues, the computer does notwrite the novels for me but makes me more (ibid). Indeed, beingcompetent in the use of text processors does not make an average writer a great novelist.To be sure, computers do not relieve us of the need of thinking, which is intrinsically ahuman activity. This observation at the individual level has major implications if takenat the social domain.
During the last two decades or so, several efforts have been made by governments,international donors and non-governmental organisations to contribute to developmentby providing access to technological tools. Although precise figures on the investmenton the ICT for development (ICT4D) arena are elusive, our observation indicates us thatconsiderable amounts of money are invested in an attempt to contribute to improve
living conditions around the globe by providing access to computers. However,not much reflection on how and to what extent these technological tools may beaffecting understanding of the uniqueness of their own cultural identity in thecontext of globalising forces.
The supporters of ICT4D initiatives might be inadvertently introducing alien elementsby leading the way to development that is strange to local cultures. We argue thatICT4D research focus should be on the scrutiny of how the computer-mediatedinformation ICT interventions make now available is absorbed and contextualised bythe targeted community. The approach we propose here is to examine how users wereject the term beneficiaries because of its dichotomous and downgrading connotation
am the giver and you are the recipient; I know best what your information needsunderstand and act upon the provided computer-mediated information.
We believe that assessing user reflexivity is the first and most important step in devisingthe long-term social effects of ICT4D. The ability to operate a computer and its
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functionalities is secondary. Understanding how users close the information gap torealise the potential of computer-mediated information in their own terms is whatmatters. As Gilster (1997) forcefully reflects, it is about ideas, not
(p. 15).
The discussion that we present in the next few pages comes from two strands ofliterature. The first one is the transformative discourse of ICT4D (Avgerou, 2008). Theideas of the Brazilian educator Paulo Freire (1974, 1977, 2010) on the liberating powerof education inform the second strand. We conclude our paper making a call for conducting research on how ICT can bring development by critically analysing how the provided computer-mediated information contributes to liberating people.
2. REALISING DEVELOPMENT USING ICT
While in the ICT4D circles consensus has been reached in the sense that just theprovision of technological tools is not enough to address developmental problems(Avgerou & Walsham, 2000; Unwin, 2009; Walsham, 2001), how to make an effectivecontribution is still a topic open to discussion. Avgerou (2008) recognises threediscourses that can be identified in the current literature on ICT4D. The first oneassumes the transference of information systems knowledge from developed economiesto developing economies. It echoes the calls to bypass the painful steps in the learningcurve that more advanced societies experienced at some point of their development, bymeans of the so-called (cf. Azad, Erdem, & Saleem, 1998; Davison, Vogel, Harris, & Jones, 2000; Fleming, 2003; Gray & Sanzogni, 2004). The seconddiscourse adopts a social constructionist view and is concerned with the analysis oftechno-organisational change prompted by information systems innovation in thecontext of developing countries. Examples of research conducted within this discourseare (1997) analysis of the mutual interaction between organisational andtechnological aspects in a Guatemalan agribusiness; Walsham & (1999)examination of the implementation of a geographical information system in Indiathrough the lens of actor-network theory and (2007) ethnographic studyrevealing the mismatched understanding of medical practices between healthprofessionals and local people on a telemedicine project in the Peruvian Amazon region.
The third discourse is relevant to the discussion presented in this paper. Itconceptualises the information systems innovation as a transformative socio-economicprocess aiming at improving living conditions. Openly declared or not, thepurpose of ICT4D initiatives are to bring development to disadvantaged communities.For instance, e-Bario (www.ebario.com) in Central Borneo, Malaysia, aims atimproving the average family income by promoting small scale tourism in the area; theHealth Information Systems Programme HISP (www.hisp.org), covering a number ofdeveloping countries, aims at improving the healthcare systems in the southernhemisphere; and the installation of the e-Seva centres (http://esevaonline.com) aims ateliminating, or at least reducing, corruption in the state of Andhra Pradesh in India byproviding government services. By realising their goals, these projects would becontributing to improving living conditions by transforming socio-economicprocesses. In other words, they would be contributing to development.
But in order to make an effective contribution, ICT4D initiatives require clarity on theultimate goals of the intervention. It is possible to conceive ICT, especially computersconnected to the Internet, as a window on to the world. Users might be seeing theinformation that has been elaborated by the project donors according to theassumptions of the former needs. In addition, the users may be accessing to theimmense (and rather chaotic) sources of information that the Internet provides. Therelevant question is what the world the users are seeing looks like to them. Rather than
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being passive receivers of unfamiliar and perhaps appealing information, users need tobe able to find the information that, through critical consciousness, can help themtransform the environmental conditions that cause their deprivation.
The traditional view that development represents living according to Western standardshas been heavily criticised to the point that it has almost become obsolete. Above all,Escobar (2001, 2009) has long been a critic of development which takes capitalism asthe overwhelming hegemony for development, often at the cost of other models andlocal economies. This biased view of development entails the negation of own realityand subtly encourages achieving progress based on imported models.
A more comprehensive and inclusive view conceptualises development as enjoying thesocial opportunities that allow individuals to be the authors of their own lives, wherebyhuman freedom is simultaneously the most important objective and the main way ofdevelopment (Sen, 1999). Contributing to development is about making the socialarrangements to ensure individuals have the same opportunities to live the lives theywant within the norms accepted by the social group they belong to. According to thisview, development is about producing a transformation in the social context thatemancipates individuals. And only individuals can do this transformation; the donor-beneficiary dichotomy serves to perpetuate the dependency cycle.
The key point here is how ICT tools and the information they convey can effectivelycontribute to the liberation of individuals. A technology-oriented approach with anemphasis on making individuals competent users of computers i.e., computer literacy
is not enough. This approach is rather simplistic and of limited advantage. The focusof ICT4D initiatives needs to be on expanding the ability of individuals to assimilatecomputer-mediated information i.e., information literacy. This approach has thepotential of being the catalyst that bestows individuals becoming the authors of theirown lives by having the capacity of making choices. Realising this capacity requiresindividuals having a critical understanding of the accessed computer-mediatedinformation vis-à-vis consciousness of their natural, cultural and historical context.
3. DIFFERENT TYPES OF LITERACY
The traditional definition of literacy tells us that it is the ability to read and write; that is,decoding and encoding symbols either alphabetic characters or logograms. Whilebeing able to read and write allows the individual to transcend the space and time byfreeing the interlocutors of the constraints imposed by face-to-face communication, itdoes not guarantee the ability to gain fully understanding of their own circumstances.
Literacy is more than being able to read and write; it is pivotal in the advancement ofthe different fields of knowledge (Ong, 1982). Yet to be truly liberating literacy requiresthe ability to engage on a critical reflection of the process of reading and writing while
(Freire, 1977; Roberts, 2000). Along this line, Welch (1999)declares that literacy to do with consciousness: how we know what we know and arecognition of the historical, ideological and technological forces that inevitably operatein all human (p. 67). Furthermore, a broader conceptualisation of literacyencompasses transformative capacity, since literacy involves knowledgefor specific purposes in specific contexts of (Scribner & Cole, 1981, p. 236).
In this sense, more than a question of giving access to computers, it is an issue related tomaking sense of the accessed computer-mediated information. Indeed, the binaryconceptualisation of the digital divide and has already beenheavily criticised (Mansell, 2002; Warschauer, 2003). Measuring the number of PCsconnected to the Internet is a relatively straightforward exercise compared tounderstanding the actual benefits in terms of development that accessing computers
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might produce. It is necessary to recognise that there are not one but many types ofliteracy and the value of literacy is contextually bounded and shaped by prevailingsocial practices.
In the context of ICT4D, where computers are the media through which information isprovided, there is no doubt that being competent in the use of computers is essential.However, the relevant question is to what extent ICT4D initiatives really addresscommunity needs in terms of information. ICT4D needs to leave behind thetechnocentric approach and move toward a strategy whereby computer-mediatedinformation facilitates the construction of contextually-based meaning.
3.1. From
The emergence of the Net Generation, a cohort of people (roughly, those born between1977 and 1997) with a high degree of familiarity with computer technologies, wasanticipated more than one decade ago (Tapscott, 1998). For them and many others todayusing a computer has become second nature; creating, saving, modifying files in anumber of formats as well as deleting files are unproblematic activities. Perhaps, theyfind easier typing words on a keyboard than hand-writing notes on a piece of paper anddragging a mouse to create a figure than drawing using their hands. Furthermore, theymight feel more comfortable scanning intermittently through hyperlinks on a screenthan reading a text on its entirety.
The introduction of computers connected to the Internet has put an almost unlimitedamount of information in the hands and heads of computer users. However, theavailability of information has not been necessarily translated into improved knowledgeskills. Some studies suggest that the point-and-click culture of the Internet as well as theintertwining of hyperlinks, audio and images along with the pervasiveness ofmultitasking have dented the ability to deeply understand the massive amount ofinformation we receive. As a case in point, one study has confirmed that theintroduction of home computer technology and broadband in North Carolina, UnitedStates, is associated with modest yet statistically significant and persistent negativeimpacts on student math and reading test scores (Vigdor & Ladd, 2010).
Cursory reading, slim thinking and superficial learning are the characteristics of whatCarr (2010) has named the (p. 115 ff). Indeed, shallow searchinggenerally viewing the first few pages only and in 43% of the cases viewing the firstpage only and promiscuity visiting many sites looking for information and notreturning to them have been identified as the main patterns of online informationseeking (Nicholas, Huntington, Wiliams, & Dobrowolski, 2004). This shallow andpromiscuous behaviour describes an information-seeking pattern of bouncing from onepage to another (Fieldhouse & Nicholas, 2008). And this is not a new phenomenon.Research on web search engines in the pre-Google era had already discovered that usersview just a few result pages (Jansen & Spink, 2006).
It seems that in the pursuit of becoming competent computer users, the importance ofcritically analysing information has been relegated. We have no reason to think that thisnaive approach does not hold also true for the computer users of ICT4D initiatives. Theemphasis in the ICT4D arena has largely been on providing access to computers anddeveloping computer skills. As we have discussed earlier, it is a rather simplistic viewof what computers can do for development, which reduces the debate to the vs.the
To be sure, it is not about rejecting the technological innovation. It is about rejecting a(Freire, 1974), an approach that ignores the relevance of
the computer-mediated information to the social and cultural context where the
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intervention takes place. As Freire (1974) forcefully argues: answer does not lie inrejection of the machine, but rather in the humanisation of (p. 31).
3.2. To
Leaving behind the implies adopting a fresh way ofdealing with literacy. Søby (2008) puts forward the term bildung is aGerman word that suggests intellectual and/or spiritual development. Embracing adigital bildung is to take a holistic strategy on the influence of ICT on different aspectsof human development. It explicitly recognises that computer skills are not enough tosearch and interpret information. Digital bildung entails exercising critical thinkingwhen searching information and applying communicative competence within aparticular time-spatial context (Søby, 2008).
Exercising critical thinking and applying communicative competence involves a set ofinterlinked skills (Bawden, 2008). These skills encompass the ability to search andretrieve information from computers as well as to read and understand non-sequentialinformation i.e., hyperlinks. In addition, the individual should be able to assembly thedifferent pieces of the obtained computer-mediated information and to integrate them toinformation that may be available in other formats (e.g., printed material, oral tradition,images, etc.). Ultimately, since we are living in the Web 2.0 era, the user should be atease with publishing information.
The aforementioned set of interlinked skills has a high degree of similarity with(2004) literacy three-layer framework. Although this framework has been developed inthe field of literary studies, its principles are completely applicable to the ICT4D arenasince it envisages both writing and communication students not only as merely users ofcomputers but also as cognisant essayists in a technological environment. The first layerof this framework, functional literacy, emphasises the ability to operate a computer notas a simple technical artifact but to be mindful of the particular context, which the useris immersed in. In this sense, it is symptomatic the vigorous call made in science education for developing reflective thinking once computers have been introduced in the classroom (Thomas, 2001). The second layer, critical literacy, alert us of thepredominant assumptions embedded in the technological tools see Introna &
(2000) analysis of the inbuilt biases in search engines. The third layer,rhetorical literacy, highlights the need to become producers of material as a result of acritical reflection. The main merit of (2004) model is that it makes explicit theexistence of power structures hidden within and through both obtained and producedcomputer-mediated information.
While being competent in using computers is a sine qua non condition for the effectiveexploitation of the technological tools now available, users need to be able to be fullyaware of the source, connotation and intention of the accessed information (Gurak, 2001). Being passive recipients of computer-mediated information makes the ICT4Dusers merely spectators rather than authors of their own lives. By not being reflective,the ICT4D users put themselves at risk of being easily manipulated and becomingculturally unauthentic by the overwhelming power of force-fed alien information(Freire, 2010).
The notion of digital bildung resonates well with (1974) call for thehumanisation of technology. The humanisation of technology mitigates the risks offalling into technological naivety and fully realises contextualised criticality (Freire, 2010).
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4. LIBERATING ICT4D
As a result of the argument presented so far, we conclude that ICT4D initiatives cannotbring development from outside in. Development can only be realised in the
own terms. A genuine ICT4D effort should aim at cultivating informationsavvy individuals, those who have the to exercise judgement, discernment and
(Fieldhouse & Nicholas, 2008, p. 49). Fostering reflexivity makes ICT4Dusers autonomous decision-makers and contributes to breaking the traditional donor-beneficiary dependency relationship.
When computer-mediated information is made accessible by ICT4D initiatives, it isessential to avoid falling into what Freire (2010) calls the concept (p. 71 ff).The banking concept is a comparison to conventional education, by which themind is treated as an empty account to be filled with data provided by the teacher wehighlight the word data because we think we cannot call it even information, much lessknowledge as we explain next. This type of education is criticised because of its lackingof transforming power. Freire (2010) illustrates the absence of changing effects of the banking approach with the following example: capital of Pará is (p. 70).The statement that the city of Belém is the capital of the state of Pará is a mere assertionin the vacuum if it is not contextualised. This fact is supposed to be memorised bystudents with no thinking on the relevance of the city of Belém on the state of Pará andon Brazil as a whole. Similarly, ICT4D is not about just filling heads withmassive amounts of, yet irrelevant, computer-mediated information. Just providingaccess information in a unidirectional fashion without creating the opportunities to fullyinternalise it and make it relevant to own context only serves to exacerbate thedichotomy beneficiary-donor, where the provided, alien model no matter how far fromthe reality is will be the only one to be emulated. ICT4D is or should be about fostering reflexivity.
Rather than a paternalistic and humanitarian approach, ICT4D donors should adopt apartnership and humanist stance that fosters critical understanding of local contexts andsimultaneously acknowledging the forces of globalisation. Improving livingstandards does not mean providing information that carries an unquestionable, andallegedly superior, worldview. It is the computer-mediated information user, not theinformation supplier, who should execute the information gap-closing action withintheir time-space-bound context. It is the computer-mediated information user, byinterpreting and critically understanding the problematic situation, the one whoeventually realises development through exercise of a profoundly transformingaction upon the determining (Freire, 1977, p. 52). The collection of individualactions can have a multiplier effect facilitated by the ICT tools cf. (2009)discussion on the power of grassroots communication networks to counterbalance thehegemonic discourse of dominant networks.
In order to make ICT4D truly liberating, the users need to understand computer-mediated information and be able to apply it to transform their lives. How obtainedcomputer-mediated information can transform lives is relevant to our presentdiscussion. Our previous research in rural communities has demonstrated that theinformation-seeking effort is not a lonely endeavour, but it entails a collective sense-making exercise (Díaz Andrade & Urquhart, 2010). We propose to follow this lead andanalyse to what extent ICT4D users exercise critical thinking upon the obtainedcomputer-mediated information. This approach poses a methodological challenge.However, we believe that thorough observation would be particularly fruitful.
By the time being, there are a number of ICT4D projects that have transited most of thephases in their life cycle we avoid talking about maturity because this word has the
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connotation of having reached a stage of fully realisation. Rather than judging thedegree of success of those initiatives, future research focus should be on assessingICT4D user ability not only to search, retrieve and interpret but also to apply computer-mediated information. We emphasises that proficiency in the use of computers e.g.,creating, saving, modifying and deleting files in different formats is not enough toperform these activities.
Searching, retrieving and interpreting computer-mediated information entail analyticalabilities. Let us assume a high school student from a major urban centre is required toperform the following exercise: Explain why Italy was alienated from both the United
Kingdom and France and became part of the Axis along with Germany and Japan in the
years leading to the Second World War. In order to find an answer to this question, thestudent is allowed to use whatever resources they have available, including bothelectronic sources of information (e.g., online encyclopaedias, digital databases,discussion fora, etc.) and conventional sources of information (e.g., books, journals,newspapers, magazines, etc.). This is not a shallow question with an easy-to-obtainanswer. Finding an answer to this question requires refined not only search skills but also, and most importantly, deep reading and synthesis abilities.
Once computer-mediated information has been synthesised, in the context of ICT4D, users need to act upon it in order to transform the economic and social conditions that stop them being the authors of their own lives. It represents a major step further. Notonly it does involve understanding the context but also entails the effectuation ofcommunicative competence. Let us assume now that an individual of an impoverishedrural community is required to search, retrieve and interpret information available incomputers and in other sources on pasture improvement in order to enhance milkproduction in a drought-prone region. Besides advanced search skills, the capacity to make a clever interpretation and the ability to combine information from differentsources, the individual needs be able to articulate this information to their fellowvillagers. Ultimately, pasture improvement in a context like the one just described is acooperative enterprise.
We believe that the notion of (Søby, 2008) provides a suitableframework for assessing the impact of ICT4D efforts. As it has been explained,attaining digital bildung implies two elements that can contribute to development bymaking individuals authors of their own lives: contextually-based critical thinking andcommunicative competence. These elements are essential for leaving behind the
that Freire (1974) has strongly criticised for its embeddedalienating and submissive logic. Empirical work needs to be conducted to get deepinsights on how ICT4D users make sense of computer-mediated information toultimately achieve development in their own terms.
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IFIP WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
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‘The Gift of God’: Exploring the Role of a
Digital Diaspora in ICT4D Project Implementation
Sriram Guddireddigari, Centre for Community Networking Research, Monash
University, Australia.
Helena Grunfeld, Centre for Strategic Economic Studies, Victoria University,
Melbourne, Australia.
Graeme Johanson, Director, Centre for Community Networking Research,
Monash University, Australia.
ABSTRACT
The paper explores challenges and opportunities in a project for Information and Communications Technologies for Development (ICT4D) in southern India. The project is the Vicky Standish e-Education Centre (VSeEC) serving five remote south Indian villages. The key project stakeholders are: individual members of the Indian diaspora, Indian diaspora associations, dedicated professionals from other backgrounds, all providing support, knowledge and resources over the Internet; local users and beneficiaries of the digital intervention; potential future users; other villagers deriving indirect benefits from the project; and an Australian-based NGO, The East West Overseas Aid Foundation (TEWOAF). TEWOAF’s founder and supporters mainly comprise members of the Indian diaspora globally, non-diasporan host country nationals, and include local development partners who provide a significant portion of the intellectual and technology capital. The VSeEC is managed through a combination of local employees and overseas volunteer advisers. This unusual way of managing a telecentre operation presents challenges and offers opportunities for all stakeholders to manage and to learn together. Our small case study finds that there are clear advantages of an informal group of experienced experts with multiple ethnicities using ICTs in the service of a small, marginalised rural community. There are other projects where members of a Digital Diaspora (DD) and non-diaspora collaborators contribute to projects in the developing world, but they have not been researched. With access to ICTs becoming more widespread, this form of developed-developing teamwork is likely to increase accordingly. Whether it will always work as smoothly and effectively as the case described in this paper remains to be seen.
Keywords : Diaspora, Digital, ICT4D, Transnational, Telecentre, Developed,
Developing, focus group
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1. RATIONALE AND KEY ISSUES
An Indian charitable foundation describes the educational dilemmas in the rural area under consideration in this paper in this way:
Government schools … are highly under-resourced, suffering from sub-standard infrastructure, large teacher-student ratios, irregular teacher attendance (which has a dramatic impact on teacher motivation), and lack of equipment and teaching materials. This continues to lower motivation among children to attend school and increases the already high level of illiteracy. Statistics reveal that 50 per cent of 5th Grade children in Tamil Nadu cannot read even a paragraph in Tamil, their native language ... Although private schools do exist, the tuition fees are unaffordable for most families, as are costs of additional tuition. For those that do manage to do relatively well in school, the options for higher study are very limited as access to either tertiary institutions or training facilities is very difficult and also unaffordable (The East West Foundation of India 2008).
To begin to counteract these problems, the two first-named authors have been directly involved in the establishment of the Vicky Standish e-Education Centre inthe Alamparai-Kadapakkam area in Tamil Nadu in 2008, the first of its kind in the region, along with a range of various local and overseas contributors. As postgraduate research students in their own right, they perceive that the project lends itself to close contextual analysis, which is summarised as a case study in this paper. Their direct involvement in the project and this reflective analysis of it, in the planning and implementation of the Centre services, enables them to contribute unique insights to this paper, in the form of: understanding of critical issues; awareness of the particular relevance of professional knowledge and skills; identification and selection of topical literature for review; choice of a tried-and-true research design; and a willingness to share the learnings of the team which managed the project.
All participants in the development of the Centre share in the ideal of improving the quality of life of rural Indian children and their families by means of better education. The Centre provides Information Technology (IT) education to the children at the Uluru Children’s Home, as well as to the wider community in the surrounding villages (see Figure 1 below).
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Figure 1: Photo of children mobile classroom
Other non-government organisations assist in the selected project. Ultimately educational and employment opportunities for the children will broaden, and knowledge will be shared about untapped medical and government services. From the outset, the planners were well aware that the ‘one major criterion for success’ of this project was ‘buy-in from the community’ in an ‘open, honest and unbiased’ manner. To this end, local consultation at public meetings, identification of local facilitators and advocates, ongoing commitment from community leaders, local IT business support, and teacher training was arranged (Shekar 2009). The long-term value of these relationships for sustaining the Centre and maintaining social capital will be discussed further in this paper.
Several contributors to the Centre are among the 30 million members of the Indian diaspora in different parts of the world (Government of India 2010). As a long-standing researcher of diasporas, Brinkerhoff (2011:37) helpfully defines their role:
Diasporans are migrants who proactively maintain psychological, communicational, and sometimes material ties to their countries of origin … Diasporan motivation to contribute to development in places of origin is likely to be for identity expression, maintaining or acquiring power or other resources, or both.
There is a strong element of altruism in support from diasporans for the country of origin. It is notable that advantages of many of the successful projects is that they are ‘volunteer-based’ and ‘small-scale’ (Brinkerhoff: 45). The word ‘diaspora’ on its own is 2,000 years old, to refer to migrant groups. The term ‘Digital Diaspora’ is frequently used to mean assistance provided by Information and
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Communications Technologies (ICTs) to any aspect of development of or by a diaspora (Lee 2011). In the project described in this paper the ICTs were both the means to an end, and also part of the end in itself.
There are different ways in which migrants relate to their family and communities in their countries of origin. Factors such as the economic, political, and security situation there, circumstances surrounding the migration, age, duration of migration experience, socio-economic status, and compatriot communities in the ‘host’ country, influence this relationship, which is likely to be dynamic and changing with the circumstances in the host and origin countries. Despite the prominence of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) specialists among the Indian diaspora, there are still many areas in India unserviced by ICTs, and in this paper we explore the role that the diaspora plays in remedying this situation.
The paper is divided into two sections. The first section begins with a brief overview of the various forms of participation of diaspora communities in home country development and builds on this with a description of the enabling effects of ICTs in diaspora involvement and explains the recent, emerging concept of the Digital Diaspora (DD). The second section describes the case study that involved the partnership between a non-DD organisation and the DD. The case study describes the methodology used for data collection and analysis and the results obtained.
One unusual feature of this project is the informal nature of the collaboration, an approach presenting several challenges, some of which are incorporated into the following selected research questions:
� What are the benefits of collaborating in this way?� Are there benefits to all parties involved in this process? � What are the disadvantages?
2. DYNAMICS OF DIASPORAS
The collective influence of diasporans is far greater than any individual migrant alone might have, of course, and policy issues re-align around new power relationships which result from agglomeration. Thus, for instance, the opprobrium attached to the ‘brain drain’ -- the migration of high skilled people away from less to more developed countries -- has long been a critical issue and an unsolved problem for source countries (Lodigiani 2008). The underlying issue is that developing countries, with already low levels of human capital investment, are further affected by the outward migration of highly-skilled professionals. The cumulative ‘brain drain’ since 1990 has been estimated at 15% for Central America, 6% for Africa, 5% for Asia, and 3% for South America, much of it to OECD countries (Commission on the Private Sector and Development 2004).
If a ‘brain drain’ does have a deleterious effect on home-country development, then the DD, as discussed here, holds out the hope that cross-country assistance may overcome the deficit. Several researchers have studied this from the vantage of the
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impact of the flight of human capital on source country economies (Rosenzweig 2005; Wescott 2005). However, as financial remittances flowed from diasporas back to their home countries, and in some cases outstripped official development assistance, and as it became increasingly clear that diasporas were taking an effective and sometimes more strident interest in home country issues, scholars and institutions alike begin to realize that not only was a longer-term view required to more accurately assess the overall impact of migrant outflows on home countries, but that perhaps there was a need for a re-conceptualisation beyond the predominant brain drain label, namely towards a ‘brain gain’.
‘Brain gain’ has been defined as the capacity of members in scientific and technical diasporas to mobilize resources for use by scientific and technical networks in their home countries (Meyer & Wattiaux 2006). It was also suggested that emigration could benefit the sending country through ‘incentive and feedback effects’ (Lodigiani 2008) in the form of remittances, investments, trade relations, new knowledge, innovations, shared attitudes and information (De Haas 2005; Vandenbussche et al. 2006; Findlay & L. Lowell 2002). Emeagwali (2001) contends that one spur for this feedback is that by being in their host countries, professionals are able to enrich their skills and expertise whilst still accessing professional resources in the host country. Case studies also suggest that skilled migration can prompt families to invest more in education, both because of the prospect of securing an overseas job, and because the skill prices are pushed up in the source country as skilled migrants leave (Wescott 2005).
In the spirit of the brain gain, in addressing development concerns of their country of origin, individual migrants as well as migrant communities are becoming important players in transnational civil society, particularly through the flow of funds between family members or between communities, e.g., in the form of funding schools (McIlwaine 2008). Unless migrants come from a well-resourced family, remittances are likely to feature high in the relationship between them and their country of origin. The volume of remittances globally increased from USD52 billion in 1998, when it was at the same level as official development assistance (ODA) (Kapur 2001) to USD316 billion in 2009 (World Bank 2010), exceeding the ODA level of USD119.6 billion (OECD 2010).
This trend is likely to increase as home governments try hard to solicit remittances and offer policy incentives such as dual citizenship and tax-free investment opportunities (Lowell & De la Garza 2000). However in reaction to the uncertain effects of direct financial remittances and also in not having specific members of home-country-based family to whom to contribute financially, a relatively recent development has been the emergence of home town associations (HTAs) or regional clubs, which seek to better channel and co-ordinate remittances for development purposes (Brinkerhoff 2003). While HTAs and regional clubs are not necessarily forms of DD involvement, they constitute an important trend in diaspora involvement beyond a narrower relationship with just country-of-origin family and social circles.
In addition to HTAs, more recent perspectives on remittances draw attention to a broader perspective that includes human capital transfers in the form of social
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remittances. Development of social capital is implicit in the VSeEC project.
Social remittances are usually defined as the ideas, practices, identities and social capital that flow from receiving to sending country communities. Social remittances are transferred by migrants and refugees, or they are exchanged by letter or other forms of communication, including by phone, fax, the internet or video. They may affect family relations, gender roles, class and race identity, as well as have a substantial impact on political, economic and religious participation. Social remittances constitute a so far neglected local-level counterpart to macro-level global monetary and cultural flows, although they are key to understanding how migration modifies the lives of those who remain behind (Danish Institute for International Studies 2005).
Wescott (2005) points out that such social remittances, as opposed to just financial capital remittances, can change social values and cultural practices in a local-level, migration-driven form of cultural diffusion. These resources may play a role in promoting immigrant entrepreneurship, or community and family consolidation, or political integration (Levitt 1998), or the establishment of scientific diaspora networks (Sorensen 2004). Diasporas have helped transform race politics (Everett 2009). Perhaps most significantly, however, diasporas are set to play a key role in development activities within the home country. Brinkerhoff (2003) makes the point that diasporas are in their nascent stage in terms of purposive involvement in development and reconstruction, particularly in co-operation with traditional development actors. Their hybrid identities and diversity mean that they are sufficiently mobile and agile to support international development and reconstructionwell.
A fundamental aim of the external (and diaspora) members of the group that supported the establishment of the school in this study was to improve social and economic conditions of the villagers. This will be explained soon in detail.
It is clear to observers that the incorporation of the large diaspora communities in development planning can bring many benefits to donors as well as to the diaspora communities themselves (Tettey 2002; Martin 2001; Sorensen et al. 2003; USAID 2002; Orozco 2003; Brinkerhoff 2008). Brinkerhoff (2004, 2011) suggests that the most noticeable and formally-recognized contributions of diasporas to their home territories include repatriation for the purpose of capacity building, economic remittances, and international advocacy. In line with these contributions, the Commission on the Private Sector & Development (2004) states the major forms of diaspora involvement are in supporting entrepreneurs in their homelands with remittances, informal financing of small businesses, and business advice and mentorship. This crediting of accelerated skills-building and entrepreneurship-fostering to diaspora involvement is made on the basis that the diaspora in advanced economies is suited to monitoring external changes and to mentoring local entrepreneurs, or becoming investors in home country enterprises, or re-locating as home country entrepreneurs themselves. Meyer (2005) states that diasporas at the very least help to improve networks, to boost and make more buoyant home country markets.
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Sorensen et al. (2003) make the point that from a political standpoint interests and obligations that result from migrants’ simultaneous engagement in countries of origin and destination, drives political activism which results from heightened awareness of cultural identity. Brinkerhoff (2003) suggests that diaspora communities contribute to international development through advocacy activities and that such support may constitute a potential threat to home country governments as diasporas seek to mobilize indigenous civil society and/or solicit political pressure from host country governments and international organizations. Such is the case in the example about to be described in this paper – ‘advertising’ and local promotion ‘to as many people as possible from the community’ of the IT facility was an essential precursor to the start of the VSeEC, as was an alliance with the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation in the area (Shekar 2009). Other researchers have highlighted the role of the diaspora and returning migrants in home country political reform (Brainard & Brinkerhoff 2003; Massey et al. 1998; De Haas 2005). This underscores the fact that the development effects of migration are not limited to financial remittances and investments, and social remittances, but also include an important political dimension. The political empowerment adumbrated by these authors has not yet been encountered in the Alamparai-Kadapakkam area, but can be anticipated.
3. NEED FOR RESEARCH
For some time there have been calls for research into the role of diaspora in development. Much of the literature on diaspora communities has focused solely on remittance-related development and as diaspora remittances are targeted at individuals within the home country, these contributions have generally been at the micro-individual and non-institutional levels. A few researchers have attempted to conceptualise emerging practices of the diaspora, beyond remittances, under a rubric of ‘transnationalism’ (Vertovec 2002; Ammassari & Black 2001; Meyer 2001).Whether the idea of diaspora or transnationalism are used, the development potential of ICTs is worthy of evaluation. In the literature there is scattered reference to a scientific diaspora and ‘brain circulation’ as well ( Saxenian 2002) but there are few detailed analyses of these initiatives, and they are based on a specific nationality only (Wescott 2005).
As with other initiatives for development which depend on ICTs (ICT4Ds), longer-term sustainability of initiatives designed to harness skills and other resources of the diaspora deserve special attention, including how an ICT facility can improve the livelihoods of the community (part of social capital) in addition to fulfilling needs associated with infrastructure, hardware, software, and on-going maintenance (Steyn 2010). It is unlikely that separate members of a migrant community will have all the skills and resources required to attend to all facets of ICT4D. This is where partnerships become critical. Brinkerhoff (2008) suggested that successful partnerships facilitate co-ordination and responsiveness and that effective structures depend on both formal structures and informal processes, prominent in the interventions in this case study.
Perhaps the most significant call for research relevant to this paper revolves around
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the benefits that diasporas bring in the field of international development, particularly in partnerships with donors, and international and local NGOs, including roles in recruiting expertise, disseminating information, acting as intermediaries between international NGOs, local NGOs and local communities, and potentially as implementing partners (Wescott 2005). Brinkerhoff (2009, 2011) comments pointedly that future research will need to corroborate any potential identified, to determine how widespread collaboration can be, and to test its sustainability.
4. THE EMERGENT CONCEPT OF THE DIGITAL DIASPORA
Diasporas generally rely heavily on ICTs for function and well-being, but the nexus of diaspora activity and ICTs draws special attention to the technologies. We need to devote some attention in this paper to the functions of the DD, because it is at the heart of the VSeEC endeavour.
The best-known example of a particular form of ICT4D is the Short Messaging Service (SMS) which is essential for the financial remittance to occur. Communication about remittances is an important part of ICT usage in many developing countries, as is mobile banking which enables direct funds transfer.Further, over 40% of Grameen Bank member phone users indicated that communication about financial matters in general and remittances in particular, with family members were the main reasons for using the telephone (Dagron 2001). For all their benefits, however, remittances may not necessarily contribute to development in the form of empowerment or capabilities (Sen 1999). They can be used for conspicuous consumption rather than investment for the future.
In addition to acting as a direct enabler of the diaspora-induced financial development of the home country, ICTs function as a means to mobilize diaspora activity in other ways. Successful mobilization is dependent on a number of factors, ranging from building a shared social identity (Pratkanis & Turner 1996) and providing an organisational or networking platform (Klandermans & Oegema 1987), to generating a sense of efficacy and subsequent benefits (Kelly & Kelly 1994; Hinkle et al. 1996).Further, development issues that drive mobilization need to be appropriately framed in order to focus individuals’ attention and energy on effective co-ordination of their efforts (Snow et al. 1986). ICTs assist with this.
Three broad factors influence diasporans’ contributions to homelands -- their personal or collective ability, the enabling environment overseas and locally, and their motivations (Esman 1986). ICTs can contribute to each of these. ICTs facilitate diaspora mobilization especially through the organisational and networking resources which they proffer (e.g., bridging social capital), as well as providing a forum for solidarity and collective identity, which results in valued experiences that produce positive emotions and psychological empowerment (Brinkerhoff 2011: 42). ICTs facilitate access to other economic, political, and informational resources; enable efficient and sometimes enforceable agenda-setting within groups; and assist in cultivating a sense of efficacy through information dissemination about progress and success in achieving collective improvements (Brinkerhoff 2009).
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DDs are potentially set to play a most significant role in involvement with home country poverty-alleviation development initiatives. Diasporas form into associations and organizations, and as a result of transnational networks, cultivate bonding, bridging, and bridging-to-bond social capital (Claridge 2004; Putnam 1993; Anheier & Kendall 2002). Those diaspora organizations that are able to extend this social capital to their home communities organized over the Internet (by websites, email, voice over Internet protocol) do so as digital diasporas (Brinkerhoff 2009).
ICTs can also assist in joint economic and entrepreneurship initiatives between diaspora and their country brethren, such as those being undertaken by the Ghana Cyber Group (Tettey 2002) and the Digital Diaspora Initiative,1 launched to build strategic partnerships between African IT entrepreneurs in the diaspora and women's organisations and business associations in Africa (Brinkerhoff 2009). ICTs also play an important role in the formation of scientific diaspora networks which aim to build scientific capacity within developing countries by linking expatriate scientists with their local counterparts. As Schlegel and Wiedemeier (1994:2) point out:
computer mediated communication could provide a missing link needed to bring together 'virtual’ scientific communities, based on fields of activity and interests, rather than on the mere coincidence of vicinity.
A pioneering example of such a network is the UNESCO-led Digital Knowledge Networks initiative (Meyer & Wattiaux 2006).
Brinkerhoff (2004) suggests that there is the potential for a synergistic relationship in a partnership between development NGOs and DDs. Within them DDs not only channel a wealth of information, human resources, skills, and networks which can be mobilized in support of existing donor programs and for the initiation of new ones, but also provide a ready-structured network for reaching out to other dispersed, heterogeneous diaspora groups for information dissemination, public relations, and marketing of donor programming (Brinkerhoff 2009). In addition to these, diaspora organisations also provide several unique advantages (Brinkerhoff 2003), derived from the absence of language and culture barriers and their ability to better understand how to adapt foreign approaches and technology to the homeland context (Wescott & Brinkerhoff 2006). DDs are also better placed to involve local professionals and local development partners (Brinkerhoff 2009). Lest we forget the role that ICTs can play for the primary stakeholders in the development process, that is, its direct beneficiaries, the Internet offers the means to make their voice heard, provides hard-to-reach populations access to information and resources beyond their physical location, and includes access to all the knowledge and influence of diaspora networks (Mele 1999:305).
Diaspora organisations and DDs are increasingly active transnational actors using
1 See http://www.wougnet.org/Events/UNIFEM/ddi_ug.html for more information
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ICTs effectively (Brinkerhoff 2004). While not a panacea or a ‘magic bullet’, Edwards and Hulme (1996) make the point that DDs do offer promise to the international development sector as a whole by expanding access to global networks and resources and improving relevance, representativeness, and responsiveness to local needs. DDs play an increasingly important role (Casabrui et al. 2000; Cerny 2001) as the means to share international and local resources, to garner personal and organizational support, to publicise the benefits of improved social capital, and to encourage online collaboration, as our case study shows.
5. CASE STUDY: THE VICKY STANDISH E-EDUCATION CENTRE
By turning to a specific case we demonstrate first-hand experiences of features of diaspora contributions to home-country programs. It represents an example of the leverage of bridging social capital developed by diasporas within host countries. The East West Overseas Aid Foundation (TEWOAF), an Australian-based NGO, and its Indian partner organisation, the East West Foundation of India (TEWFI), fund and operate the not-for-profit ICT4D initiative, the Vicky Standish e-Education Centre (VSeEC) (see figure 2 below), named after an Australian who donated funds for the computers. Vicky Standish herself was introduced to the concept of the VSeEC by the founder of TEWOAF and TEWFI, Dr.Natteri Chandran, a member of the Indian diaspora based in Melbourne, Australia.
The VSeEC forms part of a range of activities by these organisations in the Alamparai-Kadapakkam area in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu, dating back to 1998, with the establishment of the Uluru Health Care Centre, providing free primary health care, followed in 2003 with the Uluru Children’s Home (UCH).
Figure 2: Photo of the Vicky Standish e-Education Centre (VSeEC)
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The VSeEC has a purpose-built computer centre adjacent to the UCH and this is where its activities started in 2008. TEWOAF and TEWFI also operate a range of community development activities in the area.
The physical infrastructure of TEWFI is located at the backwaters of the Bay of Bengal, in a relatively isolated rural coastal community, five km east of the East Coast Road, between Chennai (125km) and Pondicherry (46km). The catchment area of TEWFI’s activities is within a radius of approximately five km from its complex, incorporating seven villages, three of which are defined as fishing villages and the others as farming villages. The main village of Kadapakkam, on the East Coast Road and the market one km further inland are included within this radius. Administratively, the area is in the Edakalinadu Panchayat, Cheyyur Taluk, Kancheepuram district. There are informal leadership structures within the villages. The 2001 census showed a population of 25,793 in Edakalinadu, the lowest administrative level for which census data can be found.
When VSeEC was established in 2008, the area lacked broadband connectivity, and with the centre serviced by a wireless local loop service without data capability, dial-up Internet access was not an option. The Internet could only be accessed via GPRS and CDMA of questionable quality, but as these services were quite expensive, they were only used for administrative purposes and had on special occasions provided villagers with information, e.g., of examination results. The local telephone exchange in Kadapakkam, despite being located along a main road and serving a reasonable population size, was not equipped with DSL until late 2009. There are, however, public Internet facilities in the area which provide services such as computer courses, access to computers for typing, and similar functions on a commercial basis.
5.1. THE VSeEC
When TEWOAF decided to expand its activities, it approached ‘Engineers Without Borders’ Australia (EWB) to partner on this project and EWB became responsible for designing and has been instrumental in operating the VSeEC through its volunteers. But staff (one full-time systems administrator and one part-time employee) and other operating expenses are funded by TEWOAF and TEWFI. Following the inauguration of the VSeEC in early 2008, other overseas volunteers, some of whom are of Indian origin, in different countries, have formed a loose network in support of VSeEC. This network has no formal role to play and no formal membership, but has been extremely effective. As inscribed on the inauguration plaque at the entrance of the VSeEC building, ‘… with intent to serve the local community’, the aim of this initiative is to serve as a resource for the local communities as well as for the children living at UCH.
Volunteers serve for a variety of reasons, most (but not all) of them selfless. A study on volunteering by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (2007) identified the main reasons for volunteering as: ‘help others/community’, ‘personal satisfaction’, ‘personal/family involvement’, ‘to do something worthwhile’ and ‘social contact’. Other studies have found that volunteers performing the same activities can have different motivations which can be complex (Musick and Wilson 2008). In her study on cyber-volunteering related to involvement in applied distributed networking, Krebs
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(2010) ranked solidarity the highest, followed by involvement in a cause. Other motivations include personal reasons, professional experience, networking, learning and knowledge, self-expression, and empowerment.
In preparation for the establishment of services, focus groups were arranged to determine what the villagers needed. Focus group discussions in late 2008, managed by the second-named author (Grunfeld 2011), involved participants from specific stakeholder groups, including leaders from fishing and farming villages, parents from fishing and farming villages, a women’s self-help group including members from fishing and farming communities, a youth group, and employees of an NGO which indicated that there was enthusiasm for the use of computers by children at a centre. The words expressed in the session with village leaders that the VSeEC is ‘the Gift of God’ reflected a widespread perception. Education was a recurring and the dominant theme throughout the sessions and there was general agreement that VSeEC had boosted the prospects for good education outcomes for children (ibid.).
Shortly after the completion of this data analysis, Vicky Standish made another donation, earmarked for computers for the VSeEC. The informal network entered into an extensive, at times fiery, email debate on how to make the best use of this donation and various parties in this debate obtained quotes for a range of options from various suppliers. Stand-alone PCs were compared with thin client systems on capital costs and total cost of operation, taking into account software and maintenance expenses, as well as power consumption.
Considering the relative isolation and heat emissions from personal computers, which would have necessitated air-conditioning, it was decided to adopt a novel approach to a computer centre, the ‘computer wallah’. Named after the driver cabin in auto-rickshaws, this project consist of taking laptops to schools, visiting each of four secondary school once a week, following a program agreed with teachers and principals. This innovative project complements the often inadequate formal education system, providing support for students from marginalised families, who would not have been able to afford computer training for their children. The stationary VSeEC continues providing computer access and training for children living at UCH and for other children coming to the centre, primarily on week-ends and school holidays. The computers at the centre are also used by some adolescents and adults for typing.
A further initiative is planned. Through a partnership with M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation (MSSRF), VSeEC has received information on compact discs relating to agriculture, health and other practices that can enhance livelihoods of villagers. VSeEC is in the process of considering the best ways in which this information can be made available to villagers, using the MSSRF concept of village knowledge centres from MSSRF. Similar to the computer wallah, the village knowledge centres are likely to be of a mobile nature to make its services more accessible to the local population. As much information is available off-line, Internet connectivity is not necessary for all the operations of the village knowledge centres and applications providing real-time access can be accessed at the centre. As this project was about to be deployed in late 2009, inter-village tensions broke out in the
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area and local staff considered this not to be a suitable time to launch a service of this nature. In the meantime, VSeEC has used its ICT infrastructure for assisting villagers with miscellaneous tasks, such as filling out application forms, retrieving information on vacancies, typing and emailing applications, purchasing railway tickets, and viewing passport application status.
5.2. MANAGEMENT OF VSeEC
In this section we focus on the management of VSeEC, particularly on the role of the informal ICT-based support network. Formally, the VSeEC staff members report to the manager of UCH, who together with the foundation members of TEWOAF and TEWI, is responsible for decisions affecting the VSeEC, particularly those relating to funding and decisions that can affect relations between UCH and the surrounding villages, the latter being a very sensitive issue.
The lead-author of this paper, who is also the original EWB representative on this project, convenes the informal network, but is no longer representing EWB, as this NGO ceased its involvement in the project, consistent with its policy of handing over projects of this nature to local organisations. Although there was no formal hand-over process, it was implied that its original representative would continue supporting the project on an informal basis. The other members of the informal network have at some time volunteered at UCH in different roles and most of them are members of the Indian diaspora, even if they themselves were not born in India.
A key difference between this and other DD projects is the involvement of individuals who are not part of that particular diaspora. An Australian national inspired by the cause that TEWOAF represented, entirely funded the construction of the VSeEC and much of its ICT equipment. Further, several other non-diaspora supporters have contributed not only financially but also through social contact and knowledge transmission.
The mutual trust within this informal group of volunteers is striking. There is a sub-network of more active people within the wider network. It comprises five members, three of Indian origin, but living overseas, and two Australian researchers, with prior volunteer engagements. The team had not worked together before; some of them knew each other well already. All of them have business and research experience in a number of contexts. At least two other Indians have been called in to help at one time or another. The group has experienced only one change in personnel during its lifetime, i.e., since 2008. All the team members have met the others, but the group has never met face-to-face in its entirety. If they happen to be in the same place, they make a point of getting together.
The means of communication between members of the network is emails, phone, skype-conferences, and Google documents. Emails tend to be used to reach a larger number of people, e.g., for major decisions and the distribution of major reports, while regular audio skype-meetings are arranged for the smaller, more active group. These meetings tend to follow an agenda, consisting of different activities related to the projects.
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Some of the challenges faced in this collaboration include:
� Lacking terms of reference and authority, there is some ambiguity regarding the role and purpose of this network, which has mainly an advisory role.
� As the role and functions of this network are not explicit, this ambiguity can lead to possible suspicions by local staff of motives of foreign staff, especially if they happen to be seen as threatening.
� Different approaches to reporting. Whereas the external group expects to see regular reports, only sporadic reports are disseminated, making it difficult to understand what is really going on. This is a reflection of different priorities.
� Scheduling difficulties for Skype conferences with different time zones.
� Problems with local ICT infrastructure, so even when it has been possible to arrange mutually acceptable times, the Internet connection may be out of order or of insufficient quality. Where Skype-out to mobiles in India is used, the quality of the connection makes it difficult to understand conversations.
� Mutual difficulties of understanding English accents compound the technical quality problems.
These observations derive not only from the intimate knowledge of the first-two-named authors, but also from the discussion in the later focus group, soon to be described
6. RESEARCH DESIGN
The project is in its early days, so research into it has just begun (Babbie 1989). In this section, we describe the main elements of the research design so far.
Shields, Patricia and Tajalli (2006) suggest that a case study is often used in exploratory research. It is based on an in-depth investigation of a single individual, group, activity, or event – in this study it is the involvement of the DD in the management and operations of the ICT4D initiative (Shepard 2001; Yin 2008). Case studies provide a systematic, purposive way of identifying and examining key events, trends and changes, of collecting data, of analyzing information, and of reporting the results (Klein et al 1999). Case study places high value on the real-life context under scrutiny.
The focus group in this project provided a convenient means to collect evidence from participants, framed around semi-structured questions (Basch 1987; Byers 1991; Flores and Alonso 1995). The aim of the 2010 focus group was to explore openly and without preconception what were concerns about the project. It also affirmed common understandings of key concepts. Focus groups are useful when a range of opinions around a topic are expected (Basch 1987). The relaxed atmosphere and mutual reinforcement of shared experience allow for rich data to emerge (Flores and Alonso 1995) and they are generally low in cost. One can get results relatively quickly (Marshall 1999).
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Our group provided a rich understanding of the development of the VSeEC (Ellis & Berger 2003). Our methods assume that the researchers develop concepts, insights and understandings from the subject of the research, that is, from the ground up, as it had done in the earlier (2008) focus groups. It is intended that participants impart much useful knowledge themselves to the extent that it can be elicited gradually, equitably and sensitively. The researcher is not always at arm’s length, but integral to the identification of and induction from the focus group data (Charmaz, 2001). Broad topics for discussion were suggested – about the benefits of the team collaboration, the usefulness of the nature of the support offered, or otherwise, the pressure for short-term decision-making in contrast to longer-term strategy, and difficulties posed for the team by distance – but additional discussion was encouraged. The focus group provided the opportunity to find out how the participants constructed meaning about the diaspora elements of the project, and to attribute their own perspectives to the significance of its implementation (Feldman 1995).
Content analysis is a simple and popular qualitative method that attempts a systematic description of discussions in focus groups and interviews. In our case, data analysis depended on transcription of the focus group discussion and written information provided by organizations and participants. The use of thematic content analysis is outlined by Braun and Clarke (2006). This method involves repeated cycles of analysis (Creswell, 2007) leading to an abstract, rather than descriptive, account of participant experiences, and it constitutes a rigorous qualitative method in its own right (Braun and Clarke 2006).First, the focus group transcripts and the written information (mostly group emails) were read so that the authors become familiar with their contents. Detailed analysis of the transcripts was undertaken to identify discrete ideas, incidents, and issues in the data which were assigned preliminary codes. Similar and related codes were then grouped into potential categories, from which themes emerged. Finally, each theme was systematically assessed to determine the extent to which it accounted for the participants’ experiences overall.
7. FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS
The focus group in 2010 was held at the Uluru Children’s Home with the three key project stakeholders, Seshachalam Subramanian, Vijay Kumar, and John Peter (see figure 3 below), who have been involved with VSeEC from the outset, and was facilitated by the first-named author, who is also a member of the DD.
Seshachalam Subramanian is the overall manager of the Uluru Children’s Home, whilst Vijay Kumar is the system administrator of the VSeEC and most directly involved with its day-to-day operations, including programs implementation. John Peter leads several of the non-technology based community programs and serves as overall community liaison.
We present empirical evidence in the form of the main themes which emerged from the focus group discussion, derived from content analysis of a transcription of the discussion. Three primary themes were expressed: the whole range of support of the project by the DD was very much appreciated by all participants; the channels of communication provided an essential (if disrupted) knowledge sharing; and many long-term benefits of
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the project were enthusiastically anticipated.
Figure 3: Photo of John Peter and Vijay Kumar (seated)
In the realm of support, the most common observation was that ‘there is someone to turn to’ always when needed. This applies even when the participant is unsure about whom to ask for help – the group is sure to know someone who can provide reliable advice. Reassurance may be all that is required often – an expression of moral support. Mutual understanding and learning are shared frequently:
When I have a chat with them, we get to understand how to make good preparations for all the activities, and how to make them ourselves (Vijay).
We are getting educated also through this process (Seshachalam).
The progress of the project itself helps the local participants to understand how and why to make decisions. Specific technical advice was often demanded of the collaborative group:
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It is very useful for the technical issues. To get a solution is very complicated locally. When we bring the issues to each other, we will get more support (Vijay).
You people are there [at a high level of technological proficiency] already, you know what is the latest development. So when you are there, the latest technology you are able to tell us this is the thing that we can follow. That isthe advantage we take from you … you understand what is the problem here. You understand the feasibility also which makes it easier for us (Seshachalam).
Another valued contribution related to the provision of business contacts, for example for providing notebooks and a trustworthy uninterrupted power supply. At least three other business contacts were cited.
The chosen channel of regular communication for the group, viz., Skype, was convenient and effective, except when the connections dropped out. At those times, email and telephones were resorted to. Chat still continues on a regular basis:
Skype and email are very useful. We did some implementation through email, some hardware and technical issues that I was able to send … Dropout of the connection is the biggest difficulty. We don’t have broadband connectivity here. So it doesn’t give us a good connection … I can’t hear properly. So sometimes you guys call me on the telephone … It is better than the Internet (Vijay).
It is hard to imagine the diaspora and overseas participants contributing in any significant way without ICTs.
The third emergent theme relates to the potential of the project to assist in future, to expand and progress. In this respect, ICTs are part of the solution for local expectations. Participants strongly advocated the benefits of the current arrangement as: provision of up-to-date knowledge and techniques from the external advisers, the acknowledgement by all stakeholders of the necessity for full local engagement, and the learning that the local project workers benefitted from, not just about trouble-shooting, or project management, but understanding of the broader values of their activities. The DD network involves local professionals and local development partners alongside overseas champions. Specifically there were six points that the focus group participants wanted help with in future, from the DD. The profusion of suggestions in itself shows a genuine enthusiasm:
• Finding volunteers from the local community to help expand to other projects. Children are teaching other children already.
• Liaison with the government, especially in seeking educational support.
• Development of useful curriculum content.
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• Extension of the program to 25 villages.
• Encouragement of students to apply their newly-learnt skills to local micro-businesses.
• To convert the VSeEC into a diploma-granting polytechnic, in order to acquire more income and improve training.
CONCLUSIONS
There is no doubt scope for further research into the long-term benefits of the VSeEC, as there is into the efficacy of DDs in general. This paper presents one case study. The achievements to date are remarkable. From non-diaspora individuals such as host country (Australian) nationals, like Vicky Standish, through to host-country based international NGOs such as ‘Engineers Without Borders’, have played a significant role in the project’s continued funding and operation. We need to understand better how diaspora organisations are able to involve non-diaspora successfully in DD activities in future. Informality has been proven to be a striking advantage in the current case study, and informal networks will probably continue to provide agile non-diaspora input.
The experience described in this paper offers considerable potential benefits. If common, well-functioning practices and procedures can be isolated, an appreciation of these would be of wide-ranging benefit in the entire field of international-domestic collaboration. Future analysis might cover a comparative study of a number of development cases involving informal networking between projects in developing countries, the DD, and its supporters in developed countries.
An important aspect of future research that has been alluded to, but may not have been adequately stressed, is the belief that the DD’s involvement in development initiatives helps to minimize environmental impact.
This paper has summarized the literature relating to the background, opportunities, and benefits of the involvement of diasporas in local on-the-ground home country development initiatives, leading to a key role for a Digital Diaspora. It has also presented a case study involving the Digital Diaspora in a globally dispersed, multi-layered partnership model that includes non-diaspora, an international NGO, and local NGOs bound by a common development ethos. Whether this type of informal grouping is likely to be more successful than formal arrangements is a moot point (Brinkerhoff 2011: 42); it has succeeded in this instance. It was characterised by a strong willingness to assist the villagers in helping themselves, and by a ready availability to provide advice on call.
The short-term and long-term benefits of DD collaboration are numerous. The level of satisfaction of the stakeholders in this study is shown to be high. ICTs play a key implementing role in development partnerships via informal support networks, should the local motivation exist. There are undoubtedly disadvantages to the DD modus
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operandi, and a few of them have been raised in this paper. Brinkerhoff enumerates others which were not encountered in this study (2011: 48-49). What is clear is that there will continue to be several models of diaspora involvement, some sector-specific, some more general, as diaspora and Digital Diaspora in particular, gain in force and make effective use of advancing ICTs. There is a role for all of them. In this paper the advantages of informal grouping of experienced experts, with multiple ethnic backgrounds, from home or abroad, using ICTs in the service of a small, remote rural community, have been clearly articulated.
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Guddireddigari et al. Digital Diaspora in ICT4D Project Implementation
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu,
Nepal, May 201125
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IFIP WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
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FACTORS IMPACTING SUCCESSFUL ICT PROJECT DELIVERY IN A LARGE ORGANISATION IN THE WESTERN CAPE
Prof Kevin JohnstonDepartment of Information SystemsUniversity of Cape [email protected]
Maureen TannerDepartment of Information SystemsUniversity of Cape [email protected]
Salah KabandaDepartment of Information SystemsUniversity of Cape [email protected]
Wasfi AdamsDepartment of Information SystemsUniversity of Cape [email protected]
Abstract: This research paper was aimed at identifying whether culture which incorporates race and gender has an impact on IT project delivery within a large organisation based in the Western Cape, South Africa. The research approach was in the form of a case study using qualitative open-ended interviews with staff on various levels within an organisation. The study commenced with a review of literature pertaining to project delivery, project management, critical success factors, culture, gender and race. The study then provided insights into the gender and race demographics within the organisation relative to the national population estimates for South Africa. The study revealed an imbalance within the organisation based on race and gender and this imbalance affected the organisational environment.
Keywords: Project delivery, Project Management, Information Systems, Culture, Race, Gender.
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FACTORS IMPACTING SUCCESSFUL ICT PROJECT DELIVERY IN A LARGE ORGANISATION IN THE WESTERN
1. INTRODUCTION
A project can be a temporary endeavour undertaken to create a unique product or dates and are governed by the
attributes of time, defined goal, business ownership, available resources, dependencies, sponsorship, organisational change (Marchewka, 2010). Projects and project management have become key components of businesses on a strategic and operational level and organisations make large investments in Information Technology (IT) projects. This investment comprises time, finance and resources in anticipation of a significant return on investment (Marchewka, 2010).While organisations are becoming increasingly dependent on IT projects for business innovation and strategic advances, the reality is that IT projects remain a challenge for most organisations (Marchewka, 2010).
The lack of successful IT project delivery is a reality within organisations from a developingcountry like South Africa (The Standish Group, 2009). Therefore, this study investigates the reasons behind the lack of delivery by determining the impact of culture, gender and race on the success of IT projects. The study of culture, race, and gender in a developing country like South Africa is particularly important due its historical and cultural background. In essence, South Africa comprises one of the most complex and culturally diverse populations in the world.
Of the 49 million South Africans, 79.2% are African (Black), 9.2% are White, 9% are Coloured and 2.6% are Indian/Asian (Statistics South Africa, 2010). The Black population is further divided into four major ethnic groups: namely, Nguni, Sotho, Shangaan-Tsonga, and Venda. On the other hand, the White population is of the Afrikaans (Dutch) (60%) and British descent (40%). There are also 11 official languages in South Africa (Explore South Africa, n.d.). South Africans were also governed by apartheid laws from 1984 to 1994. According to that legal system, people were classified into racial groups (White, Black, Indian, and Coloured) and separate geographic areas
The first multi-racial democratic elections were held in 1994 and the apartheid regime was subsequently abolished. However, in spite of the elimination of the apartheid regime, the big gap between the haves and the have-nots based on racial lines still prevails in the country (Adato, Carter, & May, 2004). Due to the diverse cultural heritage of South Africa, a study within this particular context could provide interesting insights on the impact of culture, race, and gender on IT project success in a developing country.
The findings of the study could assist similar large South African organisations by revealing the key factors affecting successful IT project delivery. By providing visibility on these key factors, measures could be taken to address them. The findings also contribute to the body of knowledge by providing a better understanding of the impacts of culture, race and gender issues within ICT environments within the context of a developing country like South Africa.
In the next section, a review of literature is provided on IT project success factors, culture, race and gender. The research methodology is then detailed followed by an analysis and discussion of the empirical findings. The model based on the findings is then detailed and the paper is concluded the identification of opportunities for future research.
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2. LITERATURE REVIEW
The IT project success rate when measured against scope, time and budget is considerably low (The Standish Group, 2009). For instance, the 2009 Standish Chaos Report which displays the highest project failure rate in over 10 years demonstrate that between 1994 and 2009, the percentage of IT projects being challenged and failed has always been higher than successful ones (see Figure 1). This implies that studies investigating IT project failures are highly relevant and demand further attention. In the following sections, factors pertaining to culture, gender and race in relation to ICT project delivery will be discussed.
Figure 1. Standish Chaos Study (Dominguez, 2009)
2.1. Culture and IT project delivery
Culture refers to the way people think, feel, and act (Hofstede, 2010). All cultures have four common elements; technology (e.g. tools, food, and attitude to work), institutions (e.g. government, religious institutions, and educational institution), language, and arts (Meredith & Mantel, 2010). Therefore, projects spanning across different cultures, (i.e. different countries, different cultural groups within countries or simply across industries or departments with different environments) are often the most difficult to manage (Meredith & Mantel, 2010).
In a study conducted by Hall and Surtee (2009, p. 8ral
barrier was raised. Though the study was not specifically related to projects, it did cover a range of industries within the Western Cape and the findings would most likely impact on projects within the Western Cape. The study was conducted from the standpoint of African employees and the authors pointed out that staff from different race / culture would describe their work experience differently (Hall & Surtee, 2009). The language issue highlighted by Africans related to the use of Afrikaans in the workplace (Hall & Surtee, 2009, p. 24). This was perceived as deliberate exclusion of black African people by predominantly white people (Hall & Surtee, 2009). The study further showed that in order to survive the corporate world in the Western Cape, black African people have to adopt the culture of the organisation. Based on the findings of Hall andSurtee (2009), there is an opportunity to further research the impact of cultural differences between the race groups and its impact on IT project delivery specifically.
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2.2. Race and IT project delivery
None of the reviewed literature on ICT project success factors mentioned race as an enabler or inhibitor to ICT project success. Race does however impact on individuals working in industries in the Western Cape (Hall & Surtee, 2009) and cannot be ignored as a potential factor.
There have been many efforts towards racial reconciliation in South Africa but socio-economic inequalities between race groups are still pervasive in everyday life (Burns, 2004). These inequalities might also prevail in project teams and have subsequent impacts on project success. Burns (2004) studied the interactions of racially diverse groups and revealed that these interactions are impacted by race. For instance, there appeared to be a systematic pattern of distrust towards Black participants, even by Black participants. This was attributed to mistaken expectations. White participants were less likely to strategically interact with Black participants, while Coloured and Black participants engaged in exchanges but at lower levels than when paired with non-Blacks. These interactions show that racial lines do come into play in group dynamics and might consequently impact on project success.
This racial discrimination might be due to negative group stereotypes which may affect performance of those groups about whom the stereotypes exists (Hoff & Pandey, 2003). For instance, in a study on caste identity conducted in India by Hoff and Pandey (2003), it was found when caste identity was publicly revealed, the motivation of low-caste subjects were decreased during maze-solving experiments. This was because they expected their reward to be poor because of their caste.
% went to whites with only 10% going to blacks (Hall & Surtee, 2009). In 2004, 67.4% of top managers were white males followed by 10.7% black African males and 2.9% coloured males (Department of Labour, 2004). Table 1 gives a breakdown of the occupational levels per gender and race. It reveals the bias based on race and the gap based on gender.
Table 1. Occupational levels by gender and population group (Source: Employment Equity
Analysis Report 2004)
Though the vast majority of executive appointments are white males, it is interesting to note that whites only account for 9.2% of the total South African population as opposed to Africans with 79.4% (Statistics South Africa, 2010). Table 2 provides a detailed statistical analysis based on the midyear estimates for 2010.
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Table 2. Midyear population estimates for South Africa by population group and gender
2010 (Source: www.statssa.gov.za)
The issue of black discomfort in Cape Town is often discussed with great emotions by Blacks and is rebutted by most white Capetonians. Behind the emotions and the defensiveness lies a deep undercurrent of racial discords which requires actions (Makhanya, 2011). Due to the marginalisation of black employees, racial cliques (exclusive groups) are formed in most organisations.
2.3. Gender and IT project delivery
The study by Muller and Turner (2007) reveals that gender does not play a role on ICT project successHofstede (1997) indicates that though males and females are technically capable of performing the same jobs, the difference is how they respond to the symbols and the environment and also the female acceptance in a male dominated environment and vice versa. Though women can be quite successful in the ICT industry, there is evidently still a huge gender gap in terms of access to ICT (Hafkin, 2002). Gender issues are largely ignored within ICT.
There is also a huge bias in women gaining access to educational institutions to study IT. This problem is considerably worse in developing countries (Hafkin, 2002). This is an increasingly issue for concern especially seeing that females account for more than 50% of the population.Within the Western Cape where this research will be conducted, the mid-year population estimates revealed that there are just over 2.7 million females which account for about 52% of thepopulation in the Western Cape (Statistics South Africa, 2010). Not only are women struggling to gain access to the world of IT (Trauth, 2002), but those that are in the field find themselves discriminated against when it comes to remuneration as well (Jovanovic, 2010). This is pointed out by Jansen (2009, p166) who stated there is a that weighs down the struggle for transformation. Yet it must be named to be rendered impotent, for it is the silent and unchallenged operation of patriarchy, its normality of posture and its taken-for-grantedness, that makes change difficultwomen have been included in the range of senior occupational categories that favour them as designated groups in terms of South Africa
In order to redress the inequity of the past, many South African organisations have implemented transformation programs which focus on race, gender, and class (Herman, 2010; Ismail, 2011). Currently there appears to be a gap in the literature in terms of the impact of gender on ICT project delivery and would be an area worth investigating.
3. METHODOLOGY
The underlying philosophy selected for this research was interpretive as it attempted to gain an understanding of the critical success factors within an organisation from a people perspective. The research also investigated the social impact of the issues of race, culture and gender within the organisation and the influence these factors potentially have on successful project delivery.
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The research strategy employed for this research was that of a single case study. The approach to theory was inductive and the timeframe was cross-sectional as the data gathering was done at a certain point in time. The single case study was conducted at a large corporate in the Western Cape. 8 semi-structured face-to-face interviews were conducted on individuals from various levels of the organisation as well as observations of the project management forums held within the organisation. The purpose of the forums was to allow the project managers to collectively address key inhibitors in the organization.
The researcher assigned fictitious names to the participants based on their race and gender in order to make it easy for analysis and discussion purposes. The details of the eight participants are shown in Table 3 (names starting with B=black, C=coloured, W=white)
Name Gender Race Job Title
Bongi Black African Female Functional Management / Senior Specialist
Candice Coloured Female Functional Management / Senior Specialist
Colin Coloured Male Functional Management / Senior Specialist
Craig Coloured Male Functional Management / Senior Specialist
Wayne White Male Project Manager
Wendy White Female Project Manager
William White Male Project Manager
Winston White Male Executive Manager
Table 3. Participants Details
One bias of the study might be that the sample consisted of only one Black person. However, such is the case because he was the only Black person in the team. The individuals were selected based on their impact on projects within the environment and were broad enough to counter any elitebias as indicated by Myers and Newman (2006). Open-ended questions were asked and the interviews did not last more than 1 hour. All interviews were voice recorded and later transcribed.The interview questions were centered on the following:
The role played by the respondent in the organization
The critical success factors for projects in the organization
The inhibitors in the environment (if any)
The key skills and competencies required by the project manager in ensuring success
The organizational culture (technology, attitude, beliefs, language, learning etc.) and its impact on project delivery
A general inductive approach (Thomas, 2003) was chosen to facilitate the analysis process. The approach was useful as it allowed for varied and raw text to be condensed into a summary format (Thomas, 2003). It also facilitated the emergence of significant, frequent and dominant themes from raw data (Thomas, 2003).
Each interview transcript was thoroughly read and multiple meanings inherent to the text were considered. Specific segments of information was then identified and labeled as categories. The categories were later regrouped to reduce redundancy. A spreadsheet containing 5 columns was used to facilitate the analysis process: (1) Participants name, (2) Tag / identifier, (3) Category, (4)
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Sub-category and (5) comments. A detailed description of the case study is provided in the next section.
4. CASE STUDY DESCRIPTION
In the organization chosen for the case study, management had raised concerns about their lack of successful project delivery. These concerns alerted the researcher about the need for further research to investigate the reasons behind this lack of delivery by determining the critical factors affecting successful delivery of projects at this organisation. The case sampling was thus opportunistic. The approach followed to undertake the case study is shown in Figure 1 (Yin, 2003).
Figure 2 - Case Study Approach
4.1 Role of the researcher
roles namely that of the outside observer and that of the involved researcher. The latter can be carried out through participant observation or action research (Walsham, 2002). In this study, the researchers played the role of the outside observers. Such a role was chosen as it best preserves distance between the researchers and the participants in the field organisation. As a result, the researchers were not seen as having a direct personal stake in various interpretations and outcomes, which further encourages personnel to frankly express their views (Walsham, 2002).
4.2 Case study context
The case study was conducted in a leading African telecoms group. The group provide mobile communications and related services including voice, messaging, broadband and data connectivity and converged services. They have about 40 million customers spread across five countries in Africa; South Africa, Tanzania, the DRC, Lesotho and Mozambique.
4.5. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS
Quantitative demographic analysis made through observations within the organisation is first presented. The impact culture, race, and gender have on project delivery within the organisation isthen detailed.
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4.1.5.1. Demographic Analysis
Demographics of the project managers within the organisation were observed during the project management forums and broken down by race, gender and status, i.e. whether permanently employed or contractually employed. The results are depicted using pie charts.
Of the 19 project managers in the organisation, 63% were contractors and the remaining were permanently employed. Females accounted for 21% of the project managers in the organisation (Figure 32). This statistic is not surprising, because even though females are in majority in the Western Cape, i.e. 52% of the population according to the mid-year population estimates in the Western Cape by Statistics South Africa (2010), they are underrepresented within ICT environments. For instance, Hafkin (2002) indicated that there is gender gap in ICT. In a study conducted by Nielsen, Trauth and von Hellens (2003) on the IT gender gap in Australia, they indicate that there is evidence of a decline in some countries of female participation in the IT sector.
Figure 332. Project Mangers by Gender
From a race perspective the results suggest that the environment is still white-male (WM) dominated. In the organization being studied, white males accounted for 53% of the project managers (Figure 43). The next largest group was black males (BM) with 26%, followed by black females (BF), 11% and the least represented are white females (WF) with 10%. Black in this sense refers to all previously disadvantaged groups with South Africa, i.e. black African, coloured and Indian.
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Figure 443. Project Managers by race & gender
By excluding gender and breaking down the general classificatiand Indian, Figure 45 shows that Whites (63%) and Coloureds (37%) were the only groups represented in terms of project managers within the organisation.
Figure 554. Project Managers by race
On the executive management level (Figure 56), the gap is even more significant with 67% of executive being white males followed by an even spread of black male and female of about 17%. There are no white female executives within the organisation.
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Figure 665. Executive management by race & gender within the organization
4.2.5.2. Analysis and Discussion
This section discusses the impact culture has on project delivery within the organisation. Participants were questioned on the following elements of culture, i.e. gender, race and language. The participants also raised issues and concerns around the culture of the organisation. Due to the sensitivity of the topic especially when questioned on the impacts of race, it was interesting to note the body language of the participants while they answered the questions posed to them. The literature mentioned certain aspects of culture as contributing factors to project delivery. These mainly revolve around the culture of the organisation. The researcher found a gap when trying to determine the impact of gender and race on project delivery. The aim was therefore to gain a better understanding of how these could possibly impact delivery of projects. This section will analyseand discuss the findings of the research and aim to address the gap identified.
4.2.1.5.2.1. Culture within the Organisation
Whilst discussing culture within the organisation especially when referring to behaviour of top management, participants spoke softer and looked slightly uneasy. The researcher often had to remind them that the interview and research data was strictly confidential. What emerged was that there appears to be a lack of cohesion across functional areas within the organisation. The phrase
. William said that cooperation is poor, even though they all work for the same company.
constant sort of battle to get cooperation, to get assistance really in some ways you know.
There is a lack of team across functional areas. Not being seen as working for the same
(William).
This implies that projects spanning across functional areas might require more political persuasion and relationship building to be successful. However, Wayne disagreed and stated that:
i
Executive management seemed quite taken aback when the term silo mentality was used to describe some functional areas within the organisation. Winston commented:
different. A project is a silo. The project forms a virtual silo, because silos are good for once
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Participants also mentioned that many managers and senior staff have been within the organisation for too long. The cause of this is that old habits remain.
people in. To inject different ideas,
(William).
The culture of not communicating efficiently between senior management and lower management was also mentioned. All these factors need to be considered for an environment conducive to project delivery to be created. As mentioned by Craig:
eam to
4.2.2.5.2.2. Language as an Exclusion Factor in the Organisation
The use of Afrikaans was discussed with the participants as a cultural exclusion factor. This discussion was based on the study by Hall and Surtee (2009) in which black African people highlighted the deliberate use of Afrikaans as a medium for communicating in the workplace in the Western Cape. The researcher found that most of the participants were fully bilingual and hence had no issue with the use of Afrikaans. However, one participant, who is of English decent, relayed his experience in the organisation where the senior manager in the room conversed with a manager and a project manager for forty minutes in Afrikaans in a meeting that he was part of (William). He expressed that he understands Afrikaans but he is not comfortbale conversing in it and hence was not able to contribute to the meeting. He felt it was disrespectful (William). Afrikaans or the use of any other language does not appear to be an issue in the organisation as most meetings are conducted in english. The analysis and findings of race will now be discussed.
4.2.3.5.2.3. Race as an Exclusion Factor in the Organisation
When the question of whether race played a role in the environment and project delivery was posed to the participants, the responses were mixed. Most of the white participants did not think it played a role, whereas the majority of coloured and black African participants believed it was an issue either directly or indirectly (see Table 4). The responses are in line with the expectation that, with regards the factors of race and inherently culture, staff from various races would view the work situation and the workplace differently (Hall & Surtee, 2009).
Participant Race of participant Race an issue?
Bongi Black African Yes
Candice Coloured No
Colin Coloured Yes
Craig Coloured Yes
Wayne White No
Wendy White No
William White Not sure
Winston White No
Figure 776. Participant's response on race affecting project delivery
Bongi, who was the most passionate about transformation and the lack of it within the organisation indicated that she was surprised that there was so few project managers of colour within the organisation.
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pe Town is sort of a coloured area and by Black Economic
Empowerment (BEE) standards they are 2nd grade after black (African) but they do fall within
the black fold. For me I am amazed that there are not many (coloureds) in project
believe that there are not sufficient qualified coloured PMs to fulfill
(Bongi)
In the same token, she however also indicated that if it came down to delivery and she had to choose between an inexperienced black Project Manager and an experienced white Project Manager, then in order to get the job done she would employ the experienced white Project Manager.
4.2.4.5.2.4. Racial Imbalance within the organization
Most of the participants agreed that racial imbalance within the organisation was an issue and needed to be addressed:
-
are no black African (Colin).
This trend is also evident in South African society in general where the bulk of semi-skilled (65%) and unskilled (80%) are black Africans (Department of Labour, 2004). South Africa is one of the most unequal countries in the world, and inequality continues to rise (Hall, 2007). When the researcher posed the question of racial imbalance to William, he did not answer the question directly. He appeared to be avoiding the question initially and made a comment that the organisation would struggle to employ permanent white project managers today. Candice brushed away the question of racial imbalance by stating:
you must just be able to do the job because that is going to determine the success of my
(Candice).
Bongi alluded that the lack of black project managers might be related to the fact that management is predominantly white:
people that they are comfortable with. So if I am black
Afrikaners because she is an Afrikaner and another who mostly hires coloured because he is
Craig indicated that the racial imbalance is historical and that it will correct itself over time. He highlighted an interesting issue regarding contractors:
Contractors and labour brokers were never tied to affirmative action. If that comes to play it
will open up a whole new ball game because I do believe we have competent project managers
.
William hinted at the contractors were excluded from BEE restrictions. He stated:
employ whoever they like. Why there are mo
.
4.2.5.5.2.5. Race impact on project delivery
Does race play a role in the delivery of projects? Responses to this question were mixed. Colin indicated it did and he justified his answer by indicating that white project managers had more clout and authority in a white dominated environment:
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.
Wayne indicated that an indivi one will be a good project manager or not. He further hinted at that if one grew up as an African person in a township, thevalue system would be lacking but that you can work on it and possibly change. You could thenstill be a good project manager and deliver projects. Winston made it clear that race did not matter when he stated:
religion or sex or sexual preference means nothin
The attributes mentioned by Winston is similar to the value system mentioned by Wayne. Craig was more direct and indicated that it does sometimes play a role as (Craig):
approach it will force people to shape up or ship out. People need to decide if they are willing
to change their way of thinking because if they set in their ways then going forward this will
(Craig).
The research findings on the issue of race support the assumption that it does play some role in the delivery of projects within the organisation. It does so indirectly as a contributing factor to our society as a whole and also to the culture within organisations. It cannot be ignored and it does not have to be all negative, but it has to be considered.
4.2.6.5.2.6. Gender impact on project delivery
All, except one, of the participants were not overly concerned about the lack of female project managers within the organisation. The imbalance did not appear to affect them or concern them (Colin; Candice; Wendy). Even the female participants did not
:
think of it like that. If you
A study conducted by Muller and Turner (2007), also supports the view that gender of the project manager does not influence the project. Based on this it is likely that side by side a male and female could manage a project equally good, however the question that needs to be asked is;
4.2.7.5.2.7. Challenges faced by women in the organisation
Craig indicated that the opportunities given to males as opposed to females were skewed. This poses additional challenges for females as the playing fields are not level. The views expressed by the participants with regards to the challenges faced by women in the organisation were quite varied even amongst the females. Candice held the view that she did not feel like she was being treated differently because she was a female and she did not think there was unfairness. Bongi on the other hand held a totally different view. She indicated that when she first started at the organisation she felt as though she did not have much of a voice (Bongi):
would even think what language I am speaking. Am I even speaking English? It was a form of
disresp
h
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The two contrasting views by two black women (one coloured and one African) were quite surprising. The difference between the two which probably makes a difference is their style and character. Both are Muslim, though Candice was dressed very modern, whereas Bongi was dressed more islamically and wore a head scarf. This could imply that Candice manages to fit in more with the Western culture of the organisation. Bongi probably felt more socially excluded. Bongi remarked further:
find that percept
Another perception that emerged in the study is that generally for women to be successful in the
and almost become one of the boys (Bongi). Often, women who become defiant and take on male behaviour, introduce feelings of fear in their male counterparts (Hofstede, 1997). The finding by Hofstede describes the experience Winston had when dealing with a fellow female executive manager. He remarked:
and abrupt and very straight forward. In fact she is the most combative person that I dealt with
on the executive level. She backs off eventually but she will as a matter of principle challenge
(Winston).
The findings are in line with Trauth (2002) who stated that
women also (Trauth, 2002, p. 6). Thisimplies that women as a group in the IT profession are different from men more because of sociological rather than biological or psychological reasons (Trauth, 2002).
5.6. CONCLUSION
This study investigated the reasons behind the lack of delivery by determining the impact of culture, gender and race on the success of IT projects. Pertaining to culture, there appears to be a lack of cohesion across functional areas within the organisation
munication between senior management and lower management was also reported by employees. However, management people seemed unaware of this perception among the employees. Language did not have a major impact on project delivery as all participants understood the languages being spoken within the organisation.
Staff from various races would view the work situation and the workplace differently. Black and coloured staff perceived racial discriminations while white staff did not. There was also an issue of racial imbalance within the organisation. Some people were reluctant to talk about it while others stated that racial imbalance is historical in South Africa. The findings suggest that race plays an indirect role on the delivery of projects. Race plays a several roles in South African society and in the culture of the organisation and should thus not be ignored. Management tends to be White males and they afford to the white males more opportunities and authority in the work place in South Africa.
As far as gender was concerned, there were mixed feelings about the challenges faced by women. Some felt that they were not given equal chances while others did not feel like so. However, there was consensus that in a male dominated environment, women have to adopt male behaviour as a means to be accepted and be treated as equal. Women are offered fewer opportunities in South African organisations and have less influence.
The analysis of the data on culture, race and gender highlighted various issues related to the environment; how culture, race and gender impact on the way we business is conducted business.The findings could not show a direct link between these factors and project delivery. It did show
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however that theose factors affect the environment in which projects are delivered and hence indirectly affects project delivery. Further research is thus required on a larger sample and through a wider number of South African organisations to validate the findings.
The study however shows how culture impacts on the environment we deliver projects in, and as such cannot be ignored. Culture impacts how we communicate, interact with users, the project team and also leadership and style of management and project managers. Race and gender affect or is affected by the culture.
6.7. REFERENCES
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Jovanovic, R. (2010, August 1). IT Salary Survey 2009. Retrieved September 5, 2010, from ITWeb: http://www.itweb.co.za
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Marchewka, J. T. (2010). Information Technology Project Management. Asia: John Wiley & Sons.
Makhanya, M. (2011). Healing its racial scars remains the Western Cape's biggest problem.Available at http://www.timeslive.co.za/opinion/columnists/article923790.ece/Healing-its-racial-
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Formatert: Mellomrom Etter: 12 pkt
Formatert: Skrift: (Standard) TimesNew Roman, 12 pkt, Ikke Fet,Skriftfarge: Automatisk, Engelsk (USA)
Formatert: Skrift: (Standard) TimesNew Roman, 12 pkt, Kursiv
Formatert: Skrift: 10 pkt
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McKune, C. (2009, October 22). Cape Town a racist city - study. Retrieved May 5, 2010, from Sunday Independent: http://www.sundayindependent.co.za/?fSectionId=&fArticleId=vn20091022043211281C843507
Meredith, J. R., & Mantel, S. J. (2010). Project Management: A Managerial Approach. Asia: John Wiley & Sons.
Muller, R., & Turner, R. (2007). The Influence of Project Managers on Project Success Criteria and Project Success by Type of Project. European Management Journal 25 No. 4 , 298-309.
Nielsen, S. H., Trauth, E. M., & von Hellens, L. A. (2003). Explaining the IT Gender Gap: Australian Stories for the New Millenium. Journal of Research and Practice in Information Technology, Vol. 35, No. 1 .
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IFIP WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
48
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Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
CORRUPTION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AND ICT: THE URGENT NEED FOR WORK SYSTEMS TO PRECEDE E-GOVERNMENT
Hossana Twinomurinzi* Kow Bondzie Ghartey-Tagoe
Department of Informatics, University of Pretoria
[email protected] [email protected]
* Corresponding author
Abstract: As governments in developing countries (DC) come under increasing pressure to deal with corruption, Information and Communications Technology (ICT) has become an important strategic resource. Although the use of ICT in DCs is not new, its use to deal with corruption is a challenge. This paper reports on an interpretive investigation into understanding the underlying principles common to the successful use of ICT to deal with corruption in DCs. The underlying principles are examined against official ICT agency as a case study. The findings reveal that whilst there are many DCe-government successful efforts to deal with corruption, a most important challenge in DCs is the absence and lack of clarity of government work processes. Key to dealing with corruption is the existence of clear and complete work processes. Although many articles have appeared on the use of ICT to fight corruption, few have extended the discussion to the common underlying principles that lead to the successful e-government systems that deal with corruption. Methods that have the potential to provide governments in developing countries with a strategy, method and techniques for analyzing some of their work processes are required prior to implementing e-government to deal with corruption.
Keywords: Corruption, E-government, Developing Countries, Work Systems Method
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CORRUPTION IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES AND ICT: THE URGENT NEED FOR WORK SYSTEMS TO PRECEDE E-GOVERNMENT
1. INTRODUCTION
Corruption exists in all societies. It is predominantly a public-sector phenomenon in which entrusted public power is abused for private gain largely taking the form of bribery, nepotism, fraud and embezzlement. There are two types of corruption in the public sector, political corruption and bureaucratic corruption. Political corruption occurs when political coalitions and elites influence the formulation of national laws, policies and regulations to serve their interest. For example vote-rigging, registration of unqualified, dead or non-existent voters, buying and selling of votes, and the alteration or outright falsification of election results. Bureaucratic corruption is when government bureaucrats alter the enforcement of laws, policies and regulations to their advantage (Mbaku, 1996). Some of the easier ways to identify that bureaucratic corruption has taken place are false or incomplete entries in accounts and/records, faked reconciliations, inferior items substituting genuine items and missing crucial documents (Jones, 2004, p. 4). This paper investigates the role of ICT in the public sector in dealing with bureaucratic corruption, particularly in developing countries.
There is a strong negative correlation between corruption and the development status of a country. The lower the development status, the higher the prevalence of corruption (Haque & Kneller, 2005). The motivation for corruption includes personal financial gain, cultural values which are tolerant of corruption, peer pressure, disgruntlement and malice (Jones, 2004). For corruption to occur, there must be intent on the side of the perpetrator and an opportunity (Jones, 2004). The perpetrators of corruption are typically entrepreneurs, individuals and groups seeking a favorabledecision in exchange for bribes (Mbaku, 1996). Government officials can similarly be perpetrators with intent in seeking for a bribe in exchange for a favorable decision. The opportunity for corruption is created in an environment where government officials enjoy a monopoly of power and when their discretionary power is not properly checked (Klitgaard, 1987). Typically, there is a monopoly of power when one official controls a public good or service and is hence able to create artificial shortages. Having more than one official is designed to limit the monopoly of power. Discretionary power refers to the ability of an official to legally exercise power without the approval of other officials. Rules put into place to curb discretionary power are problematic when they are rigid and unrealistic, as such creating an environment for non-compliance and misinterpretation (Tanzi, 1998).
It is difficult to manage the intent of those who perpetrate corruption. The intent of corruption is rooted in the cultural, political, and economic circumstances of those involved in it (Zhang & Zhang, 2009). The emphasis is therefore placed on limiting the environments that nourish the opportunities for corruption (Jones, 2004). Transparency has been shown to be the best approach to limiting the environment for corruption (John Carlo Bertot, Paul T. Jaeger, & Justin M. Grimes, 2010).
A classical theory used to emphasize transparency as an antidote is the principal-agent theory (Zhang & Zhang, 2009). The principal-agent theory emerged from two independent yet similar theories of agency by Stephen Ross and Barry Mitnick (Mitnick, 2006). Ross presented agency from an economic perspective to explain agency as a problem of incentives whereby incentives areused to induce agents do what the principle intends (Ross, 1973). Mitnick on the other hand considered agency from an institutional perspective as how institutions evolve around agency to
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deal with the imperfections that arise between what an agent does and what the principal intends(Mitnick, 1973). The principal-agent theory has since been used in law, economics and the public-sector to understand the relationship between agents and principals especially in contract (Dobson& Stokes, 2008; Elgström & Smith, 2006; Lane, 2005).
The essential premise of the principal-agent theory from a government perspective is that citizens are principals and governments are agents who work for the principals. Since principals are paying, they have a right to know what the government work processes are as well as the work outputs. The government agent however always knows more than the principal. The greater the disparity of knowledge between the principal and agent, the greater the risk of corruption (Smith & Bertozzi, 1998). In terms of the principal-agent theory, it is on the basis of giving citizens the ability to reduce the information gap with government that ICT can play a central role in the fight against corruption. ICT also provides the ability to reduce contact between government officials and citizens, which contact further creates an opportunity for corruption (Tanzi, 1998).
The use of ICT in government, broadly defined as e-government, promises to make government smarter and smaller, improve service delivery, and enable citizens to interactively relate with government. Almost all countries in the world have embraced e-government with many of them intentionally using ICT as a superior tool for opening up the government processes to the publicand reduce corruption (John C. Bertot, Paul T. Jaeger, & Justin M. Grimes, 2010). The examples of e-government as a success story in developed countries has DCs enthusiastically embracing ICT, or having it pressed upon them, citing the perceived benefits that ICT will bring. High on the list of these example benefits have been the promise of better governance, corruption prevention through transparency, cost reduction and improved efficiency of service delivery (UNCTAD, 2006). E-government literature suggests that as countries transition into e-government, possibilities for improvement through government process redesigns are created (Davison, Wagner, & Ma, 2005). DC governments in adopting the utopian view have been drawn into the e-government frenzy and invested enormous amounts of the little financial resources and human capital in striving for the online utopia. The results have unfortunately been dismal.
1.1. Problem Statement and research question
There are exemplary case-studies from DCs such as India, South Africa and Chile where ICT has been successfully used as an e-government tool to limit bureaucratic corruption. Despite these case studies, many DCs still struggle to harness ICT to limit bureaucratic corruption. This paper sought to analyze the DC success stories, find commonalities and infer a set of guidelines on how DCs might effectively deal with bureaucratic corruption. The research question was; what are the common underlying principles between the successful use of e-government in DCs to fight bureaucratic corruption, and can a set of guidelines be drawn that can guide other DCs in the fight against corruption?
The remainder of the paper is structured as follows. Section 2 briefly reviews the literature on corruption and e-government. Section 3 takes a look at three DC success stories in their use of e-government to deal with corruption, finally coming up with a set of common elements between the case studies. Section 4 presents the interpretive research approach used to investigate the created set of guidelines against the agency tasked with consolidating and coordinating Souresources in government, the State IT Agency (SITA). Section 5 presents an analysis and discussion of the findings. Section 6 presents the conclusion of the investigation, later giving suggestions for further research and some of the limitations.
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2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1. Corruption in Developing Countries
Corruption has some merit; it improves the economic efficiency for its recipients and their immediate and extended families (Bardhan, 1997). As such corruption is reported to be a way of life in DCs such as the Democratic Republic of Congo and Nigeria (Gould & Mukendi, 1989). In these countries, working in government places great expectation on the government official to
ilies. The unwritten entitlement places undue pressure on family members working in government to resort to corruption. Nonetheless, corruption is regarded within DCs as destructive. Citizens within DCs recognize thatcorruption increases government inefficiency, escalates the cost of basic transactions, redirects talent, and increases poverty as a result of the distorted distribution of income and wealth (Jain, 2001).
Colonialism, as the legal occupation and political/social control of a territory by people from another territory (Kohn, 2006), is for the most part blamed for damaging DC institutional structures, attempting to impose a foreign culture and then failing to flexibly re-create the institutions at allowing DC independence (Acemoglu, 2008, p. 67; Rodrick & Subramanian, 2008, p. 79).
The recent independence of most DCs and the resultant transition from a culture influenced by collectiveness and the attending sense of entitlement, to another culture driven by individualism and the associated belief in individual merit (Hofstede, 1980) is primarily cited as the main source of corruption in DCs (Mbaku, 1996). At independence, governments were suddenly thrust upon the responsibility for managing their countries according to a new set of laws and regulations. The regulations often turn out to be rigid, cumbersome and hard to interpret making their translation into practice very subjective. The subjectivity in the translation of rules and regulations results in considerable discretionary power (Gould & Mukendi, 1989).
As another result of colonialism, DCs acquired a complex of dependency effects (Cypher & Dietz, 2009, p. 102) whose susceptibility was further worsened by debt and foreign aid. While foreign aid and debt appears timely in quickly filling a badly needed gap, the money usually ends up doing more harm than good for example, it ends up in the hands of corrupt government officials or is used for unproductive efforts such as purchasing weapons (W Easterly, 2006). Foreign aid and debt arguably only serves to stifle self-reliance and increase corruption (Perkins, Radelet, & Lindauer, 2006). The suggestion therefore to eliminate the problem of an unrealistic debt burden for DCs through debt relief (Sachs, 2008) is countered by others who say it sends the wrong signal; that corruption is acceptable (William Easterly, 2008).
There are three traditional methods to creating transparency in the public sector; establish professionalism using administrative reform, support law enforcement in society, and enhance bureaucratic quality using social capital (Andersen, 2009; Shim & Eom, 2009). In establishing professionalism through administrative reform, public administrators are employed based on their professional knowledge. Professionalism protects against unjust political influence by ensuringhigh standards of competence. However professionalism according to the principle-agent theory means that government officials have information and knowledge that is not easily understood by the public which if unchecked is a source of corruption. Law enforcement focuses on making corruption risky by making the legal consequences very high. Regardless, with poor law enforcement systems in DCs government officials are inclined not to consider the consequences of corruption. In countries where law enforcement is well-established, intensive external surveillance is adopted to increase the risk of corruption detection. Law enforcement can nonetheless be limiting when its activities delay service and even worsen red tape, for example investigative
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auditing, internal surveillance and performance auditing (Anechiarico & Jacobs, 1994). Enhancing bureaucratic quality involves standardizing work as much as possible to reduce human intervention and to create a society where moral norms are elevated. Nevertheless, governments in DCs are plagued by cronyism and nepotism which create elite groups that determine how policies are implemented.
2.2. The role of ICT in fighting corruption: E-government
The role of ICT in dealing with corruption is perceived mainly in increasing transparency through reducing unnecessary human intervention in government work processes (Shim & Eom, 2009),monitoring the behaviors of officials at a reduced cost (Shim & Eom, 2009), in making government decisions, work processes and rules transparent and traceable to the public (John Carlo Bertot, et al., 2010; Shim & Eom, 2009) and by increasing public participation amongst the public and in their interaction with the government at a lower cost (OECD, 2001).
E-government literature suggests that the transition from government to e-government exposes governments to opportunities to improve their practices through process redesigns (Davison, et al., 2005). Many governments, in adopting the utopian view of what ICT can offer through e-government, have overlooked the fact that the strategies such as business process re-design used in the private sector cannot be directly applied to government. They quickly fall into the trap that many governments fall into, treating citizens as business clients. The business client concept borrowed from the private sector is a misnomer that suggests that citizens have a choice. The reality is that government is a monopoly and citizens do not have a choice when dealing with it (Jones, 2004). Citizens have rights from government and duties to government; business clients have a choice (Belanger & Hiller, 2006). Governments have a legal and moral responsibility to serve all the citizens and the different constituents within the country (Davison, et al., 2005).
2.3. Measuring E-government
Government has three constituents that ICT is targeted at improving as part of e-government; government itself, the business sector and citizens (Lee, 2010). All three constituents place high demands to employ ICT to increase their participation with government so as to make more effective and efficient the way in which they interact with government. The most commonly agreed upon means of measuring e-government is through the use of maturity models. Maturity models are conceptual reference models that are used as benchmarks to measure the maturity of an organisation and to provide for an evolution to higher levels of maturity (Becker, Niehaves, Poeppelbuss, & Simons, 2010). There are a number of e-government maturity models many of which are not congruent with each other (Nour, AbdelRahman, & Fadlalla, 2008). Lee (2010, p. 5) compared and contrasted the 12 most distinctive e-government maturity models created over the period 2000-2010 into a common frame of reference with five metaphors and two themes (Table 1 and Figure 1).
Table 1: Metaphors, their definitions, related stages, and themes (Lee, 2010, p. 5)
Metaphors Descriptions
Stages/concepts
Citizen and service
Operation and technology
Presenting Present information in the information space Information
Assimilating Assimilates (or replicates) processes and services in the information space with the ones in the real world
Interaction Integration
Reforming Reform the processes and services in the real world to match the information space requirements, fitting for efficiency
Transaction Streamlining
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MorphingChange the shape and scope of processes and services in the information space as well as the ones in the real world, fitting for effectiveness
Participation Transformation
e-Governance Processes and service in both worlds are synchronously managed, reflecting citizen involved changes with reconfigurable processes and services
InvolvementProcess management
Figure 1: A common frame of reference for e-government stage models (Lee, 2010, p. 10)
The metaphors are described in Table 5.1. The citizen and service theme relates to the services of government towards its constituencies (information, transaction, interaction, participation and involvement), and the operations/technology theme relates to the technology and/or operational characteristics of government (integration, streamlining, transformation and process management). Whilst certain technology/operations stages can be skipped over without much consequence, there are likely negative repercussions from skipping over some progressive stages in terms of the services. Governments do not necessarily mature progressively from one stage to the next stage.
2.4. E-government Maturity in DC
The greatest success of ICT in the fight against corruption has been in the area of taxes and government contracts where the focus is predominantly on the controlling the behaviour of officials and not on the citizens who offer the bribes (Brown & Cloke, 2004; Mukabeta Maumbe, Owei, & Alexander, 2008; Sibanda Sr, 2009). The greater majority of e-government initiatives in DCs are nonetheless at the bottom-end and struggle to keep their sites updated (Mphidi, 2009). In DCs there is high level of (ICT) illiteracy and the success of e-government initiatives will often also face the ethical dilemma of progressing at the expense of more important development priorities such as illiteracy, poverty and unemployment (Mukabeta Maumbe, et al., 2008). The next section reflects on four cases of e-government anti-corruption initiatives in DCs to glean some key corresponding issues that led to their successes.
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3. E-GOVERNMENT ANTI-CORRUPTION INITIATIVES IN DCs
We focus on four well-documented DC e-government systems in the three continents with the highest number of DCs; Africa, Asia and South America. The e-government systems all enabled a reduction in corruption:
BHOOMI in India (Asia)BKMS in Kenya (Africa)GCNet in Ghana (Africa)COMPRA in Chile (South America)
3.1. The BHOOMI project of India
The BHOOMI project is an on- -six (26) states called Karnataka. BHOOMI was built by the Revenue Department in Karnataka, with technical assistance from the National Informatics Centre (NIC) in Bangalore. Through BHOOMI, twenty (20) million records of land ownership of 6.7 million farmers in Karnataka were computerized.BHOOMI reduced the discretion of civil servants by making provision for recording a land registration online. Citizens are now able to monitor the progress of a transaction and raise complaints if necessary. The success of BHOOMI is attributed to two things (Zhang & Zhang, 2009);
Strong and intentional political leadership by the departmental head in chargeActive citizen participation
3.2. GCNet
As part of an effort to provide better customs services to its land-locked neighbors, Ghana decided to change the bureaucratic procedures of imports and exports which previously took up to four weeks to process. The excessively rigid procedures to register at customs were a source of corruption. The creation of the Ghana Community Network (GCNet) enabled largely all custom procedures for imports and exports to be performed electronically. The literature notes that the three things that led to its success were (Schuppan, 2009):
There was personal and active political support by the Minister of Trade and Industry
GCNet was based on a similar system already working in Mauritius
Active financial collaboration between key government agencies and the business community
3.3. The Business Keeper Monitoring System of Kenya
In the fight against corruption, Kenya created an independent agency, the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission (KACC). KACC however lacked the anonymity feature as reporting of corruption incidences could only be done by mail, phone and fax. To enable anonymity, a new system was created which allowed whistle-blowers to interact with KACC and other corruption investigators anonymously. The literature notes that the three things that enabled its success were (Schuppan, 2009):
Donor funding by the German Development Cooperation (GTZ)
Bypassed government political authorities
Active citizen participation in reporting
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3.4. COMPRA in CHILE
The COMPRA e-procurement system is internet-based. By a presidential act, it is a replacement of a previous manual system (DAE), and it is mandatory that all public organizations use it in all their procurements. Companies that choose to do business with the public sector in Chile under
-procurement system only need to register once in areas of their business interests. Whenever an opportunity comes for a government agency to buy goods or services, the agency will have to do a request in the electronic system, specifying in detail the kind of goods or services and all the documentations and information associated with the request. The system thenautomatically sends an email to all the private companies registered in that business area on the procurement system with optimum response time, and an equal opportunity for all the registered private companies. At the end of the stated response time, a bidding process takes place in the system at the end of which results are provided online, including standard details on the participants and their respective proposals, the financial and technical scores, and the winning (preferred) bidder. The key factors that led to the success of COMPRA are (Orrego, Osorio, & Mardones, 2001):
Very strong political leadership in the fight against corruption by the PresidentRegulatory compliance in forcing procurement through COMPRA
Taking from the above four cases from DCs, the following three common underlying factors emerged.
3.4.1. Strong political leadership
The highest common denominator for success in fighting corruption is clearly strong political leadership. The use of digital means to fight corruption requires a special political effort where a prominent political figure is actively involved in promoting the digital means. Despite bypassing political authority the legal mandate given by the president is enough to enable external agencies to assist where the efforts to add value to the fight against corruption are falling short.
3.4.2. Active community participation
Active citizen and business participation is necessary. The participation may be forced, as seen in Chile and India, or could be voluntary. In either case, it is necessary to create a critical mass that uses the system. This means there must be active efforts to aggressively market digital anti-corruption efforts if they are not forced. Citizens should be able to monitor the progress of what has been reported and is under investigation.
3.4.3. Funding for digital anti-corruption efforts
A critical element of implementing policy is putting a budget in place to enable the policy to be implemented (Barrett & Fudge, 1981). However well-meaning the political intention to fight corruption through creating laws and policies, if money is not attached it is a useless effort. In DCs, the perpetual lack of money, the dependence on donor funding means that certain projects which are not directly related to political gains will not be prioritized. The fight against corruption will therefore remain rhetoric. The example of GTZ funding shows the necessity of donor funding to support anti-corruption efforts that do not have a government budget attached to them. The participation of the public sector in making funds available can also be an important source of funding. Funds from the public may however raise the question of the objectivity necessary to create a system that will not serve the creators of it or undue influence by funding agencies to do things in ways which are not conducive to the context.
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4. RESEARCH APPROACH
The principal-agent theory is flexible for use using different research paradigms but has predominantly been used from a positivist perspective using a-priori measures derived from contracts in seeking to balance the asymmetric relationship between principals and agents (Lane, 2005, p. 39). The contextual nature of this study is slanted towards the interpretive paradigm to empirically assess the three guidelines that emerged about the use of e-government in the fight against corruption in DCs. The interpretive approach falls under the qualitative approach which seeks to make sense of reality through the contextuality of human experience (Klein & Myers, 1999). The interpretive paradigm focuses on the research questions to be answered, the purposes of the study, and the strategies and information that can best answer the research questions.
consolidate and coordinate all government ICT efforts, the State IT Agency (SITA). The unit of analysis was ICT systems created with an intentional effort to deal with corruption. The data was collected using semi-structured interviews with two very senior SITA officials. Only two could be interviewed because they were the only two who made themselves available and their high level of seniority allowed them to shed light on their interactions with government agencies when contracted to build their ICT systems. Walsham (1995, p. 78) indicates the acceptableness of a low number of respondents on condition that interviews are used as the primary means of accessing data since they are an ideal means of accessing the interpretations that respondents have of events and their actions. The three over-arching questions that guided the interviews were:
government?How do you go about in implementing such systems? What are your comments/recommendation concerning implementing such e-government anti-corruption systems?
The researchers are both academics independent from SITA and government.
4.1. T Agency (SITA)
SITA was established in 1999 with a mandate to consolidate and coordinate the ICT resources of is required to leverage ICT as a strategic resource to deliver e-
to use ICT to overhaul internal and external government processes to improve transparency in
-government resource to fight corruption in South Africa. It follows therefore that SITA is an ideal agency to assess the three elicited critical motivators for using e-government in the fight against corruption.
5. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS
The data collected was analyzed using hermeneutics. Hermeneutics is an approach to unearthing the meaning that humans assign to text (the parts) from within the context (the whole) in which they live. The hermeneutic circle is the fundamental principle of hermeneutics which posits thenecessity to move back and forth between the parts and the whole in order to open up the researcher to new possibilities of interpretation and meaning (Gadamer, 1994). Subjectivity is an important part of the hermeneutic process and needs to be made as explicit as possible rather than avoided (Klein & Myers, 1999).
5.1. Political interest in ICT anti-corruption solutions
There is political interest in dealing with corruption in South Africa at the highest level as well as at departmental level. The most recent political interest is shown in the creation of a well-received
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Special Anti-Corruption Unit within the Department of Public Service and Administration. Its primary task will be to investigate corruption in the public sector. Previous to this new unit,
-compliance and integration was (SA - Good News,
2010b). Being a new unit, it is too early to assess how the anti-corruption unit will deal with corruption in practice.
The only evidence of political interest in using ICT to deal with corruption is the national anti-corruption hotline. It was recently revealed that in one year of creating the hotline, 235 officials had been found guilty of corruption (SA - Good News, 2010a). The main limitation of telephonic communication is that it is hard for other citizens to participate in what has been reported or for those who have reported to monitor the status on what has been reported. Though telephonic communication strictly falls under the general definition of ICT, it is not managed or supported by SITA.
5.2. An efficiency and effectiveness approach to ICT to deal with corruption
There is no ICT system that SITA has as yet developed to specifically allow external community participation to interact with government to deal with corruption. SITAs approach to corruption has been to develop and manage ICT systems that will make government work processes as efficient and effective as possible using good project management and governance principles. All projects are monitored using an ERP system that can track progress on every implementation. For each project, there is an account manager from SITA and another from the department. SITA has delivered on a number of its ICT implementations yet struggles for a number of others. The three main challenges it meets in achieving its mandate of coordinating and consolidating ICT across all government sectors are:
1. The work processes are in many cases not defined at the department side2. A silo mentality across departments. Departments are very slow and almost seemingly
unwilling to share information with each other3. Funding for the implementation of the ICT system dries up midway ICT systems
implementations
5.3. The work processes
The conditions for the creation of an ICT system for a department are determined by the requesting department. For each department, there is a different ICT strategy (Meerman, 2010).SITA has the technical resources to create ICT systems and can outsource the skills if they are not available in-house. The biggest stumbling block is that the sub-routines of work processes are rarely well defined within the departments which require an ICT to be developed.
A critical element before creating any ICT system is understanding what the client desires down to the detailed sub-routines (Bentley, Whitten, & Randolph, 2007). The need for detailed information is similarly the single most critical factor to dealing with corruption in terms of the principal-agent theory (Section 1). The lack of detailed comprehensive policies and the sub-routines creates an environment of discretionary power where officials can misinterpret the policies to their advantage. The reality is that the policies of DCs are often sponsored by donors, and the urgency that accompanies donor-sponsored documents means they are usually not detailed (Duncan-Howell & Lee, 2008).
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5.4. Community participation internally and externally
The other danger of a lack of work processes down to the detailed level is that the ICT systems cannot be designed to provide clear information that enables external community participation. If citizens have less information than officials, they have little ground to challenge or monitor government decisions.
SITA has developed and supports an ICT system internal to government, a virtual discussion forum, for the Department of Public Service and Administration (DPSA). The forum only allows officials to discuss issues that relate to government amongst which could be corruption. Nonetheless, the lack of clarity of detailed work processes also affects the extent to which departments are able to collaborate and share information with each other. At the heart of collaboration is that participants share similar interests (Wood & Gray, 1991) and have the necessary information to enable them to work together (Kolfschoten, 2007).
5.5. Funding dries up
SITA has on many occasions found that funds set aside for ICT systems are often redirected to other priority departmental efforts midway development.
away fro
The withdrawal and redirection of funds is a typical indication of the strategic importance attached to ICT systems by departments. It is possibly understandable in the context of DCs which have to grapple with greater basic livelihood concerns such as poverty, disease, unemployment, sanitation and housing. Regardless, corruption affects even the provision of those basic needs and creates even worse conditions of deprivation. A balance between development needs and creating an environment for transparency needs to be considered.
6. CONCLUSION
In conclusion, we reflect on the primary research questions on the common underlying principles between the successful use of e-government in DCs to fight bureaucratic corruption, and whether a set of guidelines can be drawn that can enable other DCs in the fight against corruption.
The three common underlying and interrelated factors are strong political leadership for anti-corruption, active community participation and available funding for the creation of dedicated ICT systems that target corruption. The strong political leadership needs to go beyond creating policies for anti-corruption to an active interest in ICT systems that deal with corruption. It is ideal if the political leadership makes funds available for the creation of such a system but this is not to be expected in DCs as the norm. There are other critical development needs that supersede ICT systems. Hence, it is advisable that DCs additionally source donor funds to create ICT systems that target corruption. A number of models are available that can easily be transferred and made available to the community. An example is the famous WikiLeaks (www.wikileaks.org). ICT systems that enable active participation from the community have a clear advantage over those that provide one-way communications. Participation enables the community to monitor progress and have more information with which to participate in reporting and monitoring corruption.
The empirical evidence of the three guidelines when tested against South Africa portrays a different reality. Whilst there is active and strong political leadership for anti-corruption, the political interest in an anti-agency, the State IT Agency (SITA) mandated to consolidate and coordinate the creation of ICT systems, amongst which mandate include ICT systems that enable transparency, has a different
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approach to dealing with corruption. SITA focuses on creating effective and efficient ICT systems its departments.
The effectiveness and efficiency route that SITA has adopted is underpinned by the best-practice literature which recommends that ICT systems can be designed based on models that have worked in developed countries. It is a danger for DCs to attempt to adopt the hyped best-practice approaches from developed countries because of the dire fact that developed countries have matured policies that have been established and iterated over many centuries, hence having detailed work processes down to the sub-routine level. Most DC countries, such as South Africa, rarely have such level of detail in the sub-routines of the departmental policies. It is therefore necessary that if ICT systems are to be designed to enable effectiveness and efficiency, thedetailed sub-routines need to be determined before embarking on the development of the ICT systems. An approach fast gaining appeal in the Information Systems and in organizations is the Work System Method by Steven Alter. Work systems are systems in which people and/ormachines perform work using information, technology and other resources to produce products and/or services for internal and external customers (Alter, 2006).
The two fold impact of detailing the sub-routines is that it enables the easy creation of ICT systems, and the sub-routine information can be made easily available for community observation
the internal government community and the external citizen community. Without clear work process, the risk of using ICT to even perpetrate greater corruption can be higher for example by using ICT to conceal transactions or records even more efficiently (Jones, 2004).
dealing with corruption as is seen from the limited telephonic hotlines and the success achieved within only a year. Regardless, the creation of such ICT systems specifically targeted at anti-corruption efforts need to be funded. Because there are other higher competing development priorities, it may be necessary for DCs to find donors who will fund such ICT systems that enable community participation. An example is the crowd-sourcing participation of WikiLeaks that uses social media to encourage community participation.
There are two limitations of the paper; the low number of interviewed agents (government officials) and the lack of data from the principals (the public). This is an area for further researchbefore the creation of a model that would aid in strategizing, organizing and analyzing the use of ICT in the fight against corruption in DCs.
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Perkins, D. H., Radelet, S., & Lindauer, D. (2006). Economics of Development (6th ed.). New York, United States of America: W W Norton.
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11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
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The Impact of stakeholders relations on sustainability and scalability of mHealth projects in developing countries
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
SUSTAINABILITY AND SCALABILITY OF MHEALTH PROJECTS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Boroto Hwabamungu ([email protected])CSIR Meraka Institute and University of Cape Town
Quentin Williams ([email protected])CSIR Meraka Institute
Abstract: Various innovative mobile phone-based applications have already been developed to address some of the many health care service delivery challenges faced by developing countries. These innovative solutions have proven the potential mobile technologies and mobile health (mHealth) have in enabling and enhancing health care service delivery in such countries. However, the majority of these applications are notsustained and/or scalable. The interrelations between the various stakeholders involved in mHealth projects in developing countries can have an impact on the projectdynamics and the extent to which the project becomes sustainable and scalable. Using stakeholder technologies-in-practice model, this paper explores four mobile phone-based applications for HIV/AIDS care in three developing countries. The aim of the exploration has been to form an understanding of the impact
sustainability and scalability of these initiatives. The findings indicate that there is a connectionproject sustainability and scalability objectives. The findings also indicate that
relations influence res dynamics and the extent to which a project becomes sustainable and scalable.
Keywords: Developing countries, HIV/AIDS, mHealth, relations, sustainability,scalability, stakeholder theory.
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THE IMPACT OF THE SUSTAINABILITY AND SCALABILITY OF MHEALTH PROJECTS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
1. INTRODUCTION
Mobile phones and mobile technologies continue to penetrate the markets of developing countries(ITU, 2009). The use of these technologies for improved health care has also been explored and several mobile health (mHealth) initiatives have emerged (Istepanian and Zhang, 2004; Vital Wave Consulting, 2009). The mHealth concept is progressively being put forward as a potential and appropriate solution in environments where access to other information and communication technologies (ICTs), such as the Internet, and land line telephones is still problematic (Vital Wave Consulting, 2009). However, to sustain and scaling up these existing mHealth applications, suchas mobile phone-based applications for HIV/AIDS care, remains a challenge (Mechael et al., 2010; Vital Wave Consulting, 2009). According to Wickramasinghe and Goldberg (2005) there are various stakeholders involved in health care service provision. They suggest that these stakeholders, their perspectives, and their interactions should be taken into consideration when any ICT for health care intervention (wired or wireless) is envisaged. Kaplan (2006) argues that the same applies to the use of mobile phones as a health intervention in developing countries.
General research concerns regarding the use of ICT in organizations are also important to the health care sector, but as with any other domain, have to be adapted to the particular and complex context of the health care environment (Atkinson et al. (2002). Having its roots in the field of organisational management, stakeholder theory has been extensively used by researchers as well as policymakers (Friedman and Miles, 2006). Stakeholder theory argues for the focus on the values and interests of the different actors who can positively or negatively affect the attainment of
003). This concept and the relationships be applied to the study the use of ICT
and organisation and particularly to the use of mobile technologies in the health care sector in developing countries.
The aim of this paper is the sustainability and scaling up of mobile phone-based projects aimed at HIV/AIDS care in three developing countries.
-in-practice model is used to investigate the role of key stakeholders in mobilising resources, developing norms and interpretive schemas, and exploring the implications for the sustainability and scaling of these mobile phone applications. Stakeholders from four projects in Rwanda, Botswana and South Africa were interviewed to gather data. The
sinfluence resource availability, the project dynamics and the extent to which a project becomes sustainable and scalable.
The rest of this paper is structured as follow: section two provides the background and theoretical foundation to the study, section three describes the four projects that were studies, section four discusses the research methodology, section five presents and discusses the findings, and section six provides a conclusive summary of the study.
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2. BACKGROUND
2.1. mHealth in developing countries
ICT, including mobile technologies, play an enabling role in areas such as the banking sector (Barnes & Corbitt, 2003; Laukkanen & Lauronen, 2005), distance learning and mobile learning (Sharples et al., 2002; Seppala & Alamaki, 2003), the marketing sector (Barnes & Scornavacca, 2004; Bauer et al., 2005), and the health sector (Kaplan, 2006; Korhonnen et al., 2003). In the health care sector, the use of mobile technologies has led to the emergence and development of the mHealth concept (Mechael et al., 2010).
In developing countries access to, or delivery of, health care services is hindered by various challenges that can be innovatively addressed by the use of appropriate ICT (Lippeveld et al.,2000; Info Dev 2006; Wu et al., 2007). In these countries the penetration of mobile technologies is much higher than other ICTs such as the Internet and land line telephones (Donner, 2008, Vital Wave Consulting, 2009). Due to the proliferation of these technologies, it is argued that mHealth can play a major role in addressing some of the health care service delivery challenges in thesecountries and positively impact or change such health care services (Istepanian et al., 2004; Kaplan, 2006; Kwankam et al., 2009; WHO, 2007).
The potential that mobile phones present for developing countries has been explored in the fight against HIV/AIDS in countries such as South Africa, India, Rwanda, Peru, Uganda, etc. (Infodev, 2006; Vital wave consulting, 2009). In these countries, various mobile phone-based applications for HIV/AIDS care were developed. Some to these were implemented as pilot studies, whilst others were implemented at various sites. Although this potential has been demonstrated by these initiatives, sustaining and scaling up these projects is still a major challenge (Mechael et al., 2010;Vital Wave Consulting, 2009).
This paper investigates the impact of stakeholder relations on the sustainability and scaling of mHealth initiatives aimed at the prevention and treatment of HIV/AIDS in a number of developing countries in Southern Africa. Section 2.2 elaborates on the stakeholder concept.
2.2. Stakeholders
The stakeholder02; Rowlew, 1997). The
concept has consequently been widely explored by researchers from various fields, including information systems, and has led to the development of stakeholder theory (Friedman and Miles, 2002, Carroll and Rosson, 2007).
According to Freeman (1984: 46. Mitchell et al. (1997) suggest the
following seven types of stakeholders: definitive stakeholders, demanding stakeholders, dormant stakeholders, dependent stakeholders, dominant stakeholders, discretionary stakeholders, dangerous stakeholders, and non-stakeholders. Figure 1 illustrates these types of stakeholders based on their power, legitimacy and urgency attributes. Savage et al. (1991) potential for cooperation and threat to an organization in an alternative classification, and argue for an appropriate strategy for each type: supportive, marginal, non-supportive and mixed blessing.This classification is illustrated in Figure 2.
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URGENCY
POWER
7 Definitive
Stakeholders
4 Dominant
Stakeholders
5 Dangerous
Stakeholders
2 Discretionary Stakeholders
1 Dormant
Stakeholders
3 Demanding
Stakeholders
4 Dominant
Stakeholders
LEGITIMACY
Figure 1: Stakeholder Typology (Mitchell et al., 1997)
Stakeholder type 2:
MARGINAL
Strategy:
MONITOR
Stakeholder type 3:
NONSUPPORTIVE
Strategy:
DEFEND
Stakeholder type 1:
SUPPORTIVE
Strategy:
INVOLVE
Stakeholder type 4:
MIXED BLESSING
Strategy:
COLLABORATE
LOW
LOW
HIGH
HIGH
Stakeholder s potential for cooperation with the
organisation
Stakeholder s potential for threat to the organisation
The health care environment has distinctive characteristics including
having various stakeholders with differing values, interests, professional backgrounds and (Atkinson et al., 2002: 41). Atkinson et al. argue that the various stakeholders in a
health care setting should be a key consideration for any health information systems intervention.
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Norris et al. (2009) note that it is important that there is a multi-level interaction between these stakeholders.
In the case of mHealth the following key stakeholders can be identified: suppliers (e.g. mobile phone companies), funders, health care organisations, the clinical workforce, policy makers or regulators, system developers and vendors, and patients (Kaplan, 2006; Norris et al., 2009; Wickramasinghe and Goldberg, 2005).
Creating sustainable and scalable mobile phone-based application for improved health care in developing countries necessitates agreement among different stakeholders with varying objectives and expectations (Kaplan, 2006). It has for example been reported that the withdrawal and/or lack of commitment of some key stakeholders involved in mHealth in general, and mobile phone-based applications for HIV/AIDS care in developing countries in particular, has implications on such
(White, 2005). The implications of the interactions among stakeholders in achieving sustainability and scalability of mHealth projects are in general not investigated.
As argued by Atkinson et al. (2002), the complexity of the health care environment requires that the focus is taken beyond the technical and technological aspects alone to take into account additional factors such as the interplay between technology and the various stakeholders, clinicaland managerial processes and practices, as well as the organizational cultures and politics. Thus this paper explores the impact of stakeholder relations on sustaining and sustainability and scalability of mobile phone-based applications for HIV/AIDS care in developing countries.
Orlikowski -in-practice model (Orlikowski, 2000) is used to inform this exploration. Section 2.3 discusses Orlikowski
2.3. Technologies-in-practice Model
Orlikowski -in-practice model, an adaptation of structuration theory
(Giddens, 1984), describes the interactions between the users, the technology and the rules that guide technology use in an internal structure. Atechnology becomes structured by the experiences, knowledge, meaning, habits, power relations, norms and the technological artefact that are associated with the interaction between users and the technologiesmodel that consists of two main components of the interaction between users and the technology.The components, as illustrated in Figure 3 are:
Agency: The agency components consisting of the ongoing situated use of technology, and the facilities, norms and interpretive schemes that guide technology use in general.
Structure: The structure component or technologies-in practice component includes the developed patterns of use of technology that have resulted from regular interactions.
The technologies-in-practices model asserts that technology use is influenced by the characteristics ell as
expectations about the technology and its use. Orlikowski (2000: 410) states that through the ongoing use of technology, the use of technology becomes structured by experiences, knowledge, meanings, habits, power relations, norms and the technology artethat the structuring endorses a specific set of rules and resources, which then serves to structure future use of the technology as people continue to interact with the technology. The concepts interpretive schemes, f knowledge and capabilities (including resources) (Giddens, 1974, cited in Byrant and Jary, 1991: 10). Figure 3 below provides an illustration of the technologies-in-practice model.
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s-in-practice model (Orlikowski, 2000)
2.4. Technologies-in-practice Model Applied to the Sustainability and
Scalability of mHealth in Developing Countries
The premise for this paper structure components and consequently influence how mobile phone-based applications for HIV/AIDS care become sustainable and scalable. While Mitchell et al. (1997) and Savage et al.
assist in understanding the different types of stakeholders involved in mobile phone-based applications for HIV/AIDS care in developing countries,
interpretative schemes, norms and facilities which guide mobile phone based applications for HIV/AIDS care use at pilot level and how these applications/projects becomes sustainable and scalable.
ies-in-practice model was used as conceptual framework for our exploration. Figure 4 illustrates the adaptation -in-practice model for
the sustainability and scalability of mobile phone-
Ongoing, situated use of technology
Technologies-in-practice
(Rules and resources instantiated in use of technology)
Str
uct
ure
Ag
ency
Facilities
Example:
Hardware
Software
Norms
Example:
Protocols
Etiquettes
Interpretive schemes
Example:
Assumptions
Knowledge
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Figure 4: Orlikowski technologies-in-practice model adapted to address the impact of
stakeholders relations on scalability and sustainability of mobile phone-based projects for
HIV/AIDS care
Figure 4 has been used to frame the investigation and the questions for the interviews with the various stakeholders involved in the projects we studied. Section 3 discusses the projects used, whilst section 4 focuses on the research methodology used to investigate the impact of stakeholder relations on the sustainability and scalability of the projects.
3. MOBILE PHONE PROJECTS STUDIED
Four mobile phone-based projects for HIV/AIDS care were used our study two from South Africa, one in Botswana and One in Rwanda:
Dokoza project South Africa: The Dokoza project objective is to provide remote HIV/AIDS data collection capabilities through mobile phones.
Cell-Life South Africa: The Cell-Life pro remote patient monitoring through
adherence, and patient health conditions remote data collection.
OpenPhone Botswana: The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) MerakaInstitute projects is aimed at providing HIV educational information to nurses through a dial-in toll free number telephony-based system.
TRACnet Rwanda: TRACnet provides mobile phone-supported remote data collection capabilities for national monitoring of the HIV/AIDS pandemic and ARV distribution.
These projects were selected based on the following criteria: location in a developing country, usage of mobile phones and mobile technologies, having been implemented and tested in at least one site, availability of and accessibility to project-related information, and exploration/evaluation
Ongoing, situated use of technology
How are mobile phone-based applications for HIV/AIDS used at pilot projects level?
Technologies-in-practice
What rules and resources are applicable for sustaining and scaling up mobile phone-basedapplication for HIV/AIDS in developing countries?
Facilities
What are the functionalities of the
system and what resources are available
for the system use?
Norms
What norms guide the use and utilisation of mobile phone-based
application for HIV/AIDS?
Interpretive schemes
What are the means by which perception about
the technology is created?
so
n t
hes
e
qu
esti
on
s?
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affordability. Table 1 provides a short summary of the case studies and the reasons for their inclusion.
Project Description Reason
Cell-Life Cell-Life is a non profit organization (NPO) that started in 2001 as a research project at the University of Cape Town, South Africa. Cell life has developed a number of open source applications, for example Aftercare and iDART. In 2007 Cell-Life has also initiated the Cellphone for HIV project. Cell-Life sponsors include the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, The University of Cape Town, Vodacom, The Desmond Tutu HIV/AIDS Research Center, and the Vodacom Foundation. (Cell-Life, 2009)
The Cell-Life case provides a multiple exploration perspective: being a NPO and having developed more than one solution.
Dokoza project
A South African based project, Dokoza was initiated by the South African government, its technology partner the State Information Technology Agency (SITA), and the Center for Public Service Innovation (CPSI) to exploit the potential use of mobile and wireless technologies for improved health care service. The project aimed to provide a cost effective system for ARV and TB treatment, real time data collection and
CPSI, CSIR Meraka Institute, Department of Health, and the Open Society Foundation for Southern Africa (White, 2005).
Initiated by the government to take advantage of mobile technology to address a national health need, the project provides a good case for exploring a typical government initiated project.
TRACnet
Rwandaphone-based application for HIV/AIDS care in Rwanda. The system is bilingual (French and English) and has been designed to collect, store, disseminate, and retrieve HIV/AIDS care and treatment related information (Frasier et al., 2008). The project is sponsored by: the Rwandan Government Ministry of Health, the Treatment and Research AIDS Center (TRAC) (an Institution of the Ministry of Health in Rwanda), Voxiva, the US Center for Disease Control and prevention (CDC), the US
elief (PEPFAR),Accenture Development Partnerships, Motorola and MTN. (Vital Vave Consulting, 2009)
The project has been widely implemented at a national level. It is a good example of a project that has been scaled and sustained
CSIR Meraka
Botswana OpenPhone project
The OpenPhone project is a telephony-based system (mobile
Human Language Technology (HLT) Research Group. The system is aimed at providing HIV/AIDS related information viaa toll free number to support care givers in their day to day activities. The system provides information on hygiene and cleanliness, nutrition, common sicknesses, ARV medication and facts about HIV/AIDS. The project is aimed at assisting communities in rural Botswana to address HIV/AIDS information availability and accessibility challenges.
The project was initiated by a research group. The dynamic and context of the project add a different perspective to the governmental approach of the Rwanda en Dokozaprojects.
Table 1: Summarised description of case studies
All these projects make innovative use of mobile technologies to address health improvement service challenges in developing countries. They have been implemented in at least one pilot
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Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
centre. In all cases there are various stakeholders involved and whose relations influenced the extent to which the project became sustainable and scalable.
The projects also vary in the extent to which it was rolled out: OpenPhone at a single pilot site, Dokoza and Cell Life at more than one site, and TRACnet nationally at various sites.
4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The exploration followed an interpretive approach using interviews and document analysis as data gathering methods. Interviews, the most common data collection tool in interpretive studies (Myers and Newman, 2007; Walsham, 2006) were conducted. The participants were selected for diversity of perspectives. They included project managers, an developers, training managers and users of a system. Interviews were semi-structured to allow for gathering of richer data depending on the outcome of answers to certain guiding questions. Table 2 provides an overview of the interviews that were conducted.
Interviewed People Place Reason for inclusion
Chief Executive Officer - CEO (1)
Johannesburg Main project coordinator, Provide a high level perspective
Project managers (3) Pretoria, Johannesburg and Cape Town
Awareness about key challenges
Developers (2) Kigali and Pretoria Provide a technical perspective
Training managers (3) Kigali and Pretoria Get a perspective from
Users (2) Kigali
Total: 11 Interviewees
Table 2: Summary of conducted interviews
s technologies-in-practice model following components as illustrated in Figure 4:
Ongoing situated use of technology: Stakeholders relations and mobile phone-based applications for HIV/AIDS care use at pilot level
Facilities: Stakeholders relations influenavailability for system use
Norms:
mobile phone-based for HIV/AIDS care.
Interpretive schemes: the ways and means by which perception about mobile phone-based applications for HIV/AIDS care is created.
Technologies-in-practice:
mobilization of resources necessary for sustaining and scaling mobile phone based applications for HIV/AIDS care.
Using these issues Figure 5 summarizes the guiding questions used in the semi-structured interviews to explore the role of the different stakeholders in mobilizing resources, norms, and interpretive schemes and the implications for sustaining and scaling mHealth in developing countries.
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Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
Figure 5: Questions guiding semi-structured interviews
Apart from the interviews, document analysis was used as a complementary data collection technique. This provided key information such as the objectives of the projects, key project partners, etc. which could not be gathered through the interviews. Documents that were analysed include the following: project reports, conference proceedings and journal papers, public domain published documents, media releases, and newspaper reports. Further interviews and investigation will be conducted in the future to depending on funding availability.
The analysis of the collected data has been informed by thematic analysis (Oates, 2006: 269; Ritchie and Lewis, 2003). This approach entails the categorization and coding of observations from the collected data, the development of themes in an iterative process of continuous data revision and patterns of data identification.
Some of the challenges encountered during this study include securing interviews with some key stakeholders, locating stakeholders who were involved in the projects, and difficulty in accessing projects reports.
5. DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS
5.1. Stakeholders
It has been noted that there were key stakeholders who were very critical to these projects from their inception to their current state. These included: the sponsors, the government, the systems developers, mobile service providers, other technology partners, and researchers. However these were not the only relevant stakeholders. There were other stakeholders who were not always taken into consideration such as the potential system users, the communities where the system has to be used, future implementation partners, and other actors relevant for sustaining and scaling the initiative whose roles and involvement were later considered. These stakeholders can be classified based on both Mitchell et al. (1997) and Savage et al. (1991) stakeholder
Ongoing, situated use of technology
obile phone-based applications for HIV/AIDS use at Pilot projects level?
Technologies-in-practice
Mobile phone-based application for HIV/AIDS in developing countries?
Str
uct
ure
Ag
ency
Facilities
What influence do
have on functionalities of the system and resources available for the system use?
Norms
How are the norms that guide the use and
utilisation of mobile phone-based application for HIV/AIDS affected
relations?
Interpretive schemes
relations impact on ways and mean by
which perception about the technology is
created?
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5.2. Sustainability and Scalability of Projects
Sustaining and scaling up the projects has been identified as a major challenge. It has been noted that the projects were initiated by different stakeholders with different roles, different interests,different agendas and varying levels of commitments. Additionally the stakeholders who initiated the projects defined the projects short and long term objectives. When sustainability and scalability were considered as long term objectives, the project was most likely to run for a longertime period, its benefit maintained, and the project being implemented in other sites. Henceprojects would either have or not have any direct sustainability and scalability objectives. Accordingly, these projects have been classified in three categories (see table 3):
Project with no direct scalability objectives: stakeholders are more interested in the technology proof of concept and less on the long term viability of the project.
Project with direct scalability and sustainability objectives where there is lack of commitment of stakeholders and/or lack of implementation partner
Project with direct scalability and sustainability objectives where there is a strong commitment of stakeholder and implementation partner.
Project type and
Example
Description and Characteristics Extent to which project is
sustainable and scalable
Type 1
Open Phone
Project with an indirect scalability and sustainability objectives
(Technology and proof of concept focus)
No site (Pilot project struggling or closed)
Type 2
Dokoza project
and
Cell-Life project
Project with direct scalability and sustainability objectives and lack or poor of commitment of stakeholders and/or lack of implementation partner
(Technology and social issue focus)
Few sites (Including or not including pilot site)
Type 3 TRACnet project
Project with direct scalability and sustainability objectives and strong commitment of stakeholder and implementation partner
(Technology, social issue and technological impact focus)
Wide implementation in all planned sites
Table 3: Types of projects according to their extent of scalability and sustainability
5.3. The Impact of Stakeholder Relations on Sustainability and Scalability of Projects
It emerged that government and sponsors are dominant stakeholders and definitive stakeholders.Their influence can be annotated in the following interview exert:
However it should be noted that sometimes dominant or definitive stakeholders such as the government and sponsors can have a negative impact on a project life span especially when they
comments:
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e beginning of the project, there was excitement about the project but later on some
actors like the government got cold feet and it became difficult to continue with the
nvolved.
These politics block resources/fund transfer, slow down the process of wide
It also emerged that the agreement between stakeholders such as government, sponsor and technology development partners on their role and the commitment of each stakeholder were
allocation of resources necessary for the system pilot implementation, for sustaining, and scaling up the project.
It also emerged that it is possible that some key stakeholders are not taken into account at the earlier stage of the project. Later this leads to problems in keeping the project running and/or in envisaging wide implementation of the project. One of the interviewee mentioned that
later stage of the project, we realized that we will need the support of key actors if
At this stage of the study, it has been noted that the relations among the stakeholders were not welldefined and it was difficult to get some stakeholders buy-in due to the fact that they were not aware of the benefit of mHealth initiatives. This confirms Maglaveras et al. (2002) observation that there is little awareness about the use of IT and IT based health delivery solutions among the citizens, medical practitioners and governmental officials (politicians). The overreliance on sponsors and government support suggests that there is a power-based relationship between the donor and the receiver where either side are most likely to have conflicting expectations on how
benefits should be maintained and deployed widely. The observed lack of involvement of key stakeholders and the late identificationand enrolment of these stakeholders brings up the notion of non-trust relationship with implications on the extent to which stakeholders become committed to a negotiated role. A non-less relationship would hence lead to uncommitted stakeholders, difficulties in mobilising resources and difficulties in achieving sustainability and scalability of mHealth projects indeveloping countries.
6. CONCLUSION
The investigation reveals that different types of stakeholders are involved in mHealth projects indeveloping countries. These stakeholders have different levels of influence in sustaining and scaling mobile phone-based applications for HIV/AIDS care in developing countries. Some of there influences are the result of power-based structures like legislation, government, and sponsors. Non- Not only do these stakeholders relations influence the projects dynamics, objectives and direction, they also influence resources availability, which in turn dictates the extent to which a project becomes sustainable and scalable. Some stakeholders (e.g. government and sponsor) are dominant and definitive stakeholders. They have a huge influence on availing the resources necessary forsustaining and scaling up mobile phone-based projects for HIV/AIDS care in developing countries.
This study has been an initial investigationsustaining and scaling up mHealth initiatives in developing countries. Although some insights were gained, the findings cannot be generalised at this stage.
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This study has already made contribution to:
The literature on sustainability and scalability of mHealth in developing countries: highlighting the implications between stakeholders a .
T -in-practice in the exploration of a complex IS phenomenon.
Addressing the challenge of sustaining and scaling up ICT projects in developing countrycontexts: the findings from this study would assist ICT for development managers, government officials, sponsors, ICT developers, Health professional, and researchers in understanding the complexity of mHealth, ICT for development, the inresources mobilization for successful sustainable and scalable ICT projects in developing countries.
There is still need for further investigations that will focus on identifying the types of stakeholders involved, their influence and roles, and the implication of their interrelations on the mobilization of resources, the formation of norms and interpretive schemes.
7. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The authors would like to express their gratitude to Professor Paula Kotze for her invaluable guidance. We would also like to thank the reviewers for their criticism and their constructive comments. We are indebted to Dr Elaine Byrne for her continuous motivation and academic support. We are very grateful to all the individuals who agreed to be interviewed. This study has been supported by the CSIR Meraka Institute.
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Friedman, A.L., & Miles, S. (2002). Developing stakeholder theory. Journal of management studies 39, 1-21.
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Korhonnen, I., Parkka, J., Van Gils, M. (2003). Health monitoring in the home of the future.Engineering in medical biology magazine, IEEE, 22, 66-73.
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Laukkanen, T., & Lauronen, J. (2005). Consumer value creation in mobile banking services.International journal of mobile communications 3, 325-338.
Lippeveld, T., Sauerborn, R., Bodart, C. (2000). Design and implementation of Health Information Systems. WHO, Geneva.
Maglaveras, N., Koutkias, I., Chouvarda, I., Goulis, D.G., Avramides, A., Adamidis, D., Lourida,G., Balas, E.A. (2002). Home care delivery through the mobile telecommunications platform: the citizen health systems (CHS) perspective. International Journal of Medical Informatics 68: 99-111.
Mechael P, Batavia H, Kaonga N, Searle S, Kwan A, Goldberger A, Fu L, and Ossman J. (2010). Barriers and gaps affecting mHealth in low income and middle income countries: Policywhite paper. Center for global health and economic development earth Institute, ColumbiaUniversity.
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Myers, M.D., Newman, M. (2007). The qualitative interview in IS research: examining the craft. Information and organisation 17, 2-26.
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Oates, B.J. (2006). Researching information systems and computing. London: Sage publications.
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Panteli, N., Pitsillides, B., Pitsillides, A., Samaras, G. (2007). An E-health care mobile application:
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Phillips, R., Freeman, R.E., Wicks, A.C. (2003). What stakeholder theory is not. Business ethicsquarterly 13, 479 502.
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Rowley, T.J. (1997). Moving beyond dyadic ties: a network theory of stakeholder influences. Academy of Management Review 22, 887-910.
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Sharples, M., Corlett, D., Westmancott, O. (2002). The design and implementation of mobile learning resources. Personal and ubiquitous computing 6, 220 - 234.
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Wickramasinghe, N., & Goldberg, S. (2005). A framework for delivering M-Health excellence.18th Bled eConference, eIntegration in action. Slovania June 6-8.
Walsham, G. (2006). Doing interpretive research. European journal of Information Systems 15, 320-330.
White, G. (2005). Demonstrating the power of mobile technology in enhancing service delivery. A case study of the Dokoza project.
WHO (2007) Building foundations for e-health: progress of member states. Geneva: WHO, Global observatory for health. Retrieved 23 October 2010 from http://www.who.int/entity/goe/publications/bf_FINAL.pdf).
Wu, J.H., Wang, S.C., Lin, L.M. (2007). Mobile computing acceptance factors in the health careindustry: A structural equation model. Journal of medical informatics 76, 66-77.
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IFIP WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
51
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Kabanda and Brown SMEs perception of E-Commerce in Tanzania
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
EXPLORING SMES PERCEPTION OF E-COMMERCE IN TANZANIA
Abstract: E-Commerce in least developing countries (LDCs) is widely believed to be non-existent as a result of poor infrastructure, an immature legal and regulatory environment and a lack of human resources (experts). Limited attention however has been paid to what SMEs think E-Commerce is all about. This study, using structuration theory as a lens of inquiry, is a move towards understanding Tanzanian SMEs perspectives of E-Commerce. The results from a sample of SMEs in Tanzania indicate that several of these SMEs have adopted some basic form of E-Commerce (a static website), but do not intend to fully integrate E-Commerce transactional capability into their businesses, and across their supply chains (i.e., institutionalized e-commerce). They seemed unconvinced of the need to institutionalize E-Commerce intheir context. As such, institutionalised E-Commerce did not form part of any of the SMEs strategies. This is not because of a lack of technological, financial or human resources on their part, but because this form of E-Commerce was seen as not being socially compatible with their local target market. Rather, they saw mobile based payments systems and e-money as the means for providing transactional capability to customers and suppliers. This hybrid view of e-commerce as being made up of a static website, with transactional capability being taken care of through mobile-based systems is a unique perspective, which is a product of the LDC environment.
Keywords: E-Commerce, SMEs, LDC, Tanzania.
Salah Kabanda University of Cape Town
Private Bag X3 Rondebosch 7701, South Africa
Irwin Brown University of Cape Town
Private Bag X3 Rondebosch 7701, South Africa
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Kabanda and Brown SMEs perception of E-Commerce in Tanzania
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EXPLORING SMES PERCEPTIONS OF E-COMMERCE IN TANZANIA
1. INTRODUCTION
The contribution of E-Commerce towards social development, especially through business advancement in developing countries has been fairly well researched (Molla and Licker, 2005).However, this is not the case for Least Developing Countries (LDCs) contexts. The discussion so far in LDCs has been techno-centric thereby neglecting the larger world of consciousness and humanly created meaning related to E-Commerce (Kabanda and Brown, 2010; Ngwenyama and Lee, 1997). As a result, E-Commerce studies in LDCs are often conceptualized around ICT challenges and specifically technological challenges (UNCTD, 2001a). LDCs lag with respect toE-Commerce and specifically business-to-business (B2B) E-Commerce, which is seen in some quarters as a concern because B2B is regarded as the future of most E-Commerce activities (UNCTD, 2001b). The state of affairs in LDCs is partly because Internet activities are relatively new and not yet pervasive. The Internet has not yet penetrated businesses, specifically Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) who are the vanguard of the LDC private sector.
Research on E-Commerce in LDCs and in Tanzania has tended to overlook the SMEsperspective, and paid more attention to the national and local technical infrastructure. From such studies, there is minimal understanding of how E-Commerce is conceptualized from an SME perspective. This study aims to fill this gap by exploring what E-Commerce means to Tanzanian SMEs. The focus is not on the challenges SMEs face with regard to E-Commerce implementation,but on the SMEs socially constructed meanings attributed to E-Commerce. In so doing, the study seeks to shed some light on a question raised by the Tanzanian government concerning -
(TZonline, 2002). As a guiding lens, we adopt structuration theory to explore the structures within which the meanings are formed, and the process of this meaning formation which leads to various behaviors and understanding (Kabanda and Brown, 2010; Alvarez, 2002). The theory was chosen because it encompasses the whole arena of human action and interaction thereby making it possible to explore the social construction of meaning (Karsten, 1995). Although structuration theory identifies structures of signification, domination, and legitimation, this paper focuses on the structure of signification which specificallyrelate to background assumptions, meanings, and sense-making practices that inform mutual understanding (Giddens, 1982). The next section describes E-Commerce developments in LDCs, followed by structuration theory which is discussed in greater detail. The research methodology follows next and after which is the data analysis and results section. The discussion of the results is presented next and then the conclusion of the paper.
2. E-COMMERCE AND LDCs
Electronic commerce is traditionally defined as the process of conducting business transactions(e.g. distribution, buying, selling and servicing) electronically over computer networks, primarily the Internet but also using corporate networks and extranets. E-commerce is spreading rapidly across the world and yet developing countries and LDCs in particular are still lagging behind. Thisis not to say there have not been E-Commerce initiatives in LDCs. There have been developments, but most remain at the initial adoption phase, failing to reach institutionalization phase. According to Molla and Licker (2005), there are different maturity levels which a business may undergo whilst adopting E-Commerce. At the initial stage organizations are either connected (e.g., have email), or have static E-Commerce (e.g., have a website). The institutionalization phase includes organizations that have interactive, transactive or integrated E-Commerce capabilities. There are various barriers both internal and external to the organization that hinders E-Commerce adoption and institutionalization. Internal barriers include lack of access to computers, software, other
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Kabanda and Brown SMEs perception of E-Commerce in Tanzania
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hardware, and telecommunications at a reasonable cost; low e-commerce use by competitors and supply chain partners; concerns with security and legal issues; low knowledge level of management and employees; and unclear benefits from E-Commerce (Cloete et al, 2002). Oxley and Yeung (2001)become active E-Commerce participants unless they have reasonable confidence in the integrity of
(Jennex et al. 2004). There have been a number of studies that have highlighted that LDCs do not have the right conditions for E-Commerce, particularly Business to Customer (B2C) because they lack institutional trust, especially customer protection laws necessary to erase issues of privacy and security fears (Kenny, 2003). The institutions include the government, responsible for setting down ICT and e-commerce related policies, regulations and laws; financial institutions that ensure that banks are electronically interlinked, making it easier to perform online related transactions anywhere without fraud related problems and that there is local credit management infrastructure to allow for usage of credit cards (Li, 2002; Hawk,2004; Uzoka and Seleka, 2006). In addition, the local market forces, that support consumption of
-Commerce (Gibbs et al, 2002). For example, the size of the potential market and the ability of an organization to convert habitual users of the Internet to customers is particularly important since the size positively influences the development of E-Commerce (Rodriguez-Ardura et al, 2008).One of the factors known to act as a stumbling block for the progression of E-commerce in developing countries is cultural differences. The role of culture in the adoption of technology has been widely studied to reveal that many aspects of technology are not culturally neutral and providers of technology products should bear this in mind (Sagi et al, 2004).
These challenges however do not fully explain how E-Commerce is understood and conceptualized by SMEs. The meaning attributed to E-Commerce by SMEs can provide some understanding as to why they fail to institutionalize E-Commerce but tend to rather end at the initial adoption phase. We adopt structuration theory as a lens to explore the meaning attributed to E-Commerce because meanings provide regulative and interpretative rules constituted in social conduct, and resources that give power and control, which can enable and constrain communication (Giddens, 1984). Social structures are a set of rules and resources that people use to draw out their understanding of a given phenomenon (Lyytinen and Ngwenyama, 1992). The rules and resources are not static but change with time as the people themselves enact new meaning to the phenomena. In this regard, the point of departure for this study is that E-Commerce applications are social structures in their own right that constrain SMEs practices and are recursively reproduced by SMEs interactions. That is, E-Commerce consists of a set of rules and resources which condition certain behavior or practices. In uncovering these rules and resources, we adopt structuration theory as a guiding lens.
3. STRUCTURATION THEORY
Structuration theory has been used in the study of Information Systems for some time, and specifically (1992) structurational model of technology which, derived from Giddens (1984), relates institutional properties, human agents and technology. According to Orlikowski (1992) technology is both constituted by human agency, and helps constitute institutional practice(Rose and Hackney, 2002). Based on this model, it is possible to explore how people produce the systems and structures that shape their practice and specifically, their technology practices. E-commerce as an information system therefore can be studied using structuration theory to explore how SMEs produce their systems and structures that shape their practices.
Structuration theory as a theoretical lens allows for the study of social phenomena via three structural dimensions - signification, domination and legitimation as shown in Figure 1. These structural dimensions are linked with corresponding interactive dimensions of communication,
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power and sanctions through the modalities of interpretive schemes, facilities and normsrespectively. These modalities represent the locus of interaction between knowledgeable social actors on one hand and the structural dimensions of social systems.
Figure 1. The dimensions of duality of structure (Giddens, 1984)
Structures of signification inform our understanding of a given phenomenon through interpretive schemes. Structures of signification in Information Systems describ
(Scheepers and Damsgaard, 1997).Once created, structures of signification are communicated via interpretive schemes or stocks of knowledge that provide meaning of what people think and promote understanding, and serve as cognitive guides for individual action and behaviour (Rai et al, 2009; Sydow and Windeler, 1998;Chu and Smithson; 2003; Willmott, 1981; Wu and Kersten, 2008). Once institutionalized, structures of signification become the common and agreed rules of what constitutes meaning and actors use them to rationalize their actions.
Actors also possess , that is change structures of signification depending on the power they have acquired (Giddens, 1984). Power involves the exploitation of available resources which are of two kinds: authoritative resources, which derive from the co-ordination of the activity of human agents; and allocative resources, which stem from control of material products or aspects of the natural (Giddens, 1984). The ability to use the resources
structures of domination, which are drawn on and reproduced by knowledgeable individuals during their series of interaction (Giddens, 1984; Brooks, 1997). The use of resources is constrained within a particular set of rules relating to social conduct, which when interpreted and verbalized by actors, become rights and obligations that are accompanied by sanctions and rewards (Dillard and Yuthas, 1997). These rules are norms which are techniques or generalizable procedures applied in the enactment/reproduction of social practices, giving rise to structures of legitimation (Jones and Karsten, 2008). They tend to constrain behaviour within acceptable limits and emerge from patterns of recurrent interaction between actors based on personal notions of what is sanctioned (Pozzebon and Pinsonneault, 2001).
The three dimensions of signification, domination and legitimation are only separable analytically or construction
of interpretive schemes ( Karsten,1995). Although this study focuses on structures of signification (sense-making), the other structures will still be drawn on to provide a richer understanding on how the meaning of E-Commerce is constructed.
4. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
The corpus of data used for empirical analysis was derived from the semi-structured interviews which were designed to elicit open ended descriptions about E-Commerce understanding from SMEs in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania. Dar-es-Salaam was selected as it is the centre of commercial
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activity in Tanzania, and hence E-Commerce would be a familiar term. A preliminary visit to Dar-es-Salaam was done in 2009 with an aim of firstly identifying and contacting SMEs via the database of the Bureau of Statistics in Dar-es-Salaam as an initial sampling frame; and secondly establishing a solid trusting relationship between the researcher and these SMEs. SMEs not registered were also contacted through a snowballing technique. 104 SMEs were contacted but atotal of 33 SMEs were deemed relevant (had some form of electronic business) and agreed to partake in the study. Sampling for heterogeneity required the inclusion of SMEs in various sectors as shown in Table 1. All SMEs contacted met the SME criteria of the size criterion depending only on employment as postulated by the SMEs Development Policy of Tanzania. The policy classifies SMEs as comprising of 5-49 employees and 50-99 employees respectively (Ministry of Industry and Trade, Small and Medium Development Policy, DSM, 2002, p.3). The 104 SMEs contacted had 5-49 of employees.
E-Commerce adoption level Industry
No web based E-Commerce (mobile device usage)
1. Loans and Finance
2. Transportation
3. Port and Cargo
4. Insurance
5. Agriculture forestry, fishing
Early web based E-Commerce 1. Tourism and Entertainment
2. Communication Electronics and Computer
3. Arts, Craft and Curios
4. Manufacturing
5. Safety and Protection
6. Media, and consulting
Institutionalized web based E-Commerce
1. Manufacturing
2. Service provider (ISP)
Table 1. SME Industry category
As a follow up to the preliminary study, the 33 SMEs were revisited in 2010. However, only 22 were interviewed because some of the SMEs that had not institutionalized or adopted web based E-Commerce were no longer in operation. There were two cases in which two people from different companies were interviewed, thereby bringing the total interviews to 24. Targeted participants for the interview included SME owners, managers and IT executives as they are most familiar with E-commerce in their firms and environment. Participants were contacted through personal visits and electronic mail (Email) for a commitment to an interview date. Subsequent interviews lasted between an hour and two. Audio recording and note taking during interviews served as data collecting tools for examining the situated production of social action. We further
, such as the way they talked, their voice pitch,intonation, pause, eye gaze and their bodily activity. We believe this contextualisation assists not only in understanding stakeholder perceptions towards E-Commerce but also identifies social
each interview scenario were considered and noted in the interview process. To further understand the socio-cultural background, in which SMEs operate, we supplemented interview data with other data that define the SME operating context in Tanzania. These included the Tanzanian ICT policy, telecommunication policies and SME policy.
5. DATA ANALYSIS AND RESULTS
Interview scripts were analyzed and specific themes identified. The themes depicted in Table 2 are discussed below and all text or quotes from SMEs are based on the theoretical lens used in this study. Not all texts could be documented but Table 2 provides some of the most interesting quotes.
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Themes SME Quotes
Aw
aren
ess
customers are not yet ready for E-
;
Iam not fully aware of the full content of the ICT policy to be honest... (SME R)
Our people even those educated such as doctors not used to ICTs.....so now to make them accept a software that will assist in their work is a problem. Many people still prefer traditional methods
and feel they work better that way.(SME N)
Man
agem
ent
supp
ort
The website was developed inhouse....this is not to say that we cannot develop a transactive
website.....we can its just that for our purposes, a static website suits us fine...its a choice of
about (SME K)
I have an office internet facilities...the office has given me internet facilities for my marketing role....all communications are via email with internet buyers.... (SME E)
We currently do not have a website because that is not the priority right now and the capital to
exposure of what technology can do, top management would do a better job in investing (SME P)
Com
pati
bili
ty
see no
point of going online given our home clients....we supply locally in Tanzanian .... the client base has a bargain oriented view when transacting (SME G).
Local customers fail to utilise our online products and we would prefer them to...they have this
perception that once you have an office or operate your business through an office in town, then
you must be very expensive and do not understand their needs.....they classify you as one of the
(SME H)
Com
mun
icat
ion
sometimes I call them to build the trust with them.....but once I build the trust, I use emails (SME I)
All communications with business partners is via emails, phones.....nothing is done via the
website. the website is there for informational purposes. It is static and h
transactional level. (SME Q).
Table 2: Emergent themes and quotes
5.1. Awareness
All SMEs interviewed understood E-Commerce as referring to a website in static mode and not the different E-Commerce adoption stages as defined in literature and in the ICT policy of Tanzania.With this understanding in mind, most indicated that they had adopted and integrated E-Commerce (i.e. a static website) into their business because they are able to provide information to their customers online. The adoption was highly influenced by competitive pressure. All SMEs
reflectedsophistication and being up-to-date with the trends (SME B).There was agreement that despite having implemented E-Commerce (a static website), there was lack of customer readiness. As
customers are not yet ready for E-
e reason is
because technology moves at a very fast pace and [Tanzanians] are catching up at a snail pace
(SME D). The most criticized entity was the government. It was stated that: most of us [SMEs]
depend on the government as the biggest client. You see they have the biggest infrastructure and
therefore tend to use and need ICTs. But unfortunately they lack the interest, the know how to use
and implement the new technologies and are lazy in checking their emails (SME A).
5.2. Management Support/Attitude
Most SME management provided ICT related training to their employees (all SMEs except two SME C and H); others provided employees with Blackberries loaded with Internet airtime (SME
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E) and others gave their employees free airtime for their personal phones to enable marketing of the businesses (SME B). There was clear management support in all SMEs for ICT developmentand use, but not for transactive or fully integrated web-based E-commerce. When these managers were asked why E-Commerce was not being institutionalized to the extent of having full web-based transactive capability across the supply chain, they responded that it was not necessary. As stated: -Commerce using
MPESA, so why invest heavily in institutionalizing [web-based] E-Commerce when I am [al]ready
benefiting from it. We have just started with mobile activities such as payments, e-money
transfer...now that is e-commerce actually....we got MPESA and Z-PESA going on (SME B).MPESA and ZPESA are mobile-phone based money transfer services designed to enable users to complete basic banking transactions without the need to visit a bank branch. There was a clear assertion from most SMEs that E-Commerce to them was synonymous with mobile transactions such as payments, e-money transfer. As a result web-based transactive E-Commerce was not seen as being part of their strategy.
5.3. Compatibility
Another strong theme that emerged was E-strategic objectives, values, norms, and needs. SME owners indicated that although they have adopted web-based E-Commerce (at a static website stage), their websites do not provide them with the necessary recognition they need because consumers are not e-ready (SME D). To now move to the stage of transactive, integrated web-based E-commerce, was not perceived as being beneficial which, as stated, is why we have not thought about E-Commerce changes (SME E). An oft-repeated statement was that web-based transactive, integrated E-Commerce was not compatible with their target market which relied highly on the face to face bargaining system,which, it was stated, we hold dearly to heart (SME F). It was also perceived as incompatible with in-house skills and expertise. SMEs (SME A and T) who had a sophisticated technology infrastructure, indicated that even if they were to have employees with adequate experience, expertise and exposure in order to implement and maintain web-based transactional E-Commerce; and had all the technology resources required to implement it, they would still not institutionalize E-Commerce because the benefits would not outweigh what you put in As stated: the
biggest consumer of ICTs here is still government and not the individual or other businesses. The
how can you expect me to institutionalize E-
the government? (SME A)
5.4. Communication
The meaning attributed to E-Commerce by SMEs was highly synonymous to firstly a static website; and secondly to mobile technology activities such as payments and e-money transfer. When asked why they likened E-Commerce to just having a static website, one SME responded that the government and the vendors always tell us to have a website and we would be able to do
anything
it because they have it . A hint of skepticism yielding doubts about these benefits was quite evident in several SMEs as far as I am concerned, we have not really
benefited from our website. This is because very few people are aware of our website and even
take it seriously (SME F). Another reason for most SMEs not taking their website seriously was because a website was seen to be alien and did not present the true business identity (SME F). A respondent indicated that that lack of trust is a major problem in Tanzania, as businesses spring
up in the morning and die in the afternoon . Another possible reason for lack of commitment to web-based e-commerce was language. According to the marketing manager of a tourist SME (SME A), even if we communicate info online, most people can t read English here and what is
irritating is that they are in denial that language is not a problem, when in fact it is part of the
problem there is this fear to use a website . It was evident that although the website was meant
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for communication purposes with existing and potential clients, the desired and expected benefits were not realized. All communication with clients, suppliers and even within their organization was mainly through face to face meetings; or through mobile communications. Email communication, Skype and Yahoo Messenger were also used, but more specifically with foreign clients, partners and suppliers. Only two SMEs in the sample used Skype and Yahoo Messenger for communication purposes.
6. DISCUSSION
The primary aim of this paper was to examine specifically structures of signification with respect to E-Commerce in SMEs in Tanzania. It is recognized, nevertheless, that structures of domination and legitimation are also closely interrelated with signification. Hence, the nature of these interrelationships will be explored in this section, but with a focus on how structures of domination and legitimation give rise to the structures of signification.
6.1. Structures of Signification
In this study it was found that SMEs used their social context to create symbolic interpretive schemes that facilitated their shared understanding of E-Commerce. Their understanding of e-commerce is different from the common textbook definitions. Tanzanian SMEs that were sampled view E-Commerce as simply having a web presence (i.e. a static website) rather than the popular view of interactive, transactive and fully integrated supply chain e-commerce. When asked whether they had a transactive website, some responded in the affirmative. When probed further itwas revealed that we , it s just for
information purposes (SME A). In order to validate these findings the researchers physically visited each of the websites, where it was confirmed that they were only static, with no interactive or transactive capability. When they were notified of the different levels of E-Commerce (static, interactive, transactive and integrative) as per the definition of Molla and Licker (2005) most SMEs indicated that they would not be interested in institutionalizing E-Commerce in their organization because this form of E-Commerce did not form part of their strategic venture
(SME X). I (SME U) and not my cup of tea right now (SME V) were some of the responses. The findings resonate with research done in some developing countries that indicate that most E-Commerce activities in less developed countries are still in the initial adoption phase, that is, organisations have email communication, and/or have a static website(Molla and Licker, (2005).
Signification is also used during an interaction for communication purposes (Callahan, 2004). In this study it was found that the mobile device had or language associated with E-Commerce. AllSMEs used the device, and were willing to provide the necessary investment into mobile communications for their employees, such as giving them airtime credits and giving them access to Internet facilities on their mobile phone. The impact of mobile communication on SMEs is now recognized in Tanzania because SMEs have claimed to have improved their economic efficiency in business operations due to the subsequent free flows of business information (Melchioly and Sæbø, 2010). The conceptual power of the mobile device is that it recursively links the SME to the wider, changing social world.
In summary, E-Commerce was perceived by the Tanzanian SMEs as being a hybrid made up of a static website, which provides minimal benefit, and mobile-based payment and e-money transaction system, such as the M-PESA system.
6.2. Structures of domination
Structures of domination are created when actors use power in interaction by drawing on either or both allocative resources (control of material products or aspects of the natural world) and
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authoritative resources (give the actor power over the actions of others) (Giddens, 1984;Montealegre, 1997). In this study, SMEs perceived the government to possess both allocative andauthoritative resources because they are the biggest single buyer and employer in the country of ICT services; and ideally should be more engaged in the procurement, and delivering services.
failure to partake in online related transactions, acceptance of credit payment, and their decision to simply be lazy in checking their emails (SME A) contributes to SMEs failure to institutionalize E-Commerce. SMEs showed disappointment in silence on E-Commerce adoption. The government unconsciously and recursively createsstructures of domination by the power they possess. Consequently they shape structures of signification by constraining the meaning that SMEs attach to E-Commerce and its success. SME understanding of E-Commerce has become strongly linkeduse and adoption of E-Commerce. This assertion is fully supported by the UNDP (2001b) whoindicate that first, governments themselves can and should engage in e-commerce ; and should make sure to buy a share of their goods and services from domestic SMEs . It is projected that if
governments begin using E-Commerce, for example e-procurement techniques, they could provide an important incentive for SMEs to begin using E-Commerce as well. These findings reflect the views of the environmental determinism literature which points to the fact that conditions in the external environment of organizations shape aspects of their internal environment, including technology and worker (Montealegre, 1997).
6.3. Structures of Legitimation
Structures of legitimation are communicated through norms which provide the concrete means agents use in a situated action context and characterize how agents make use of rules and resources therein (Sydow and Windeler, 1998). The norms as interpreted by the actor form the boundaries for meaning construction (Karsten, 1995). In this study, social compatibility,government adoption of E-Commerce, and competitive pressure describe the boundaries for the meaning construction about E-Commerce. With regard to social compatibility, SMEs felt that the consumers are not ready (SME D) for Internet related transactions because not only are they used to cash transactions (The United Republic Of Tanzania Ministry Of Communications And
Transport, 2002), but also they are used to the face to face bargaining system the actual physical process of buying and selling (SME B). E-Commerce is not seen to be compatible with howpeople buy and sell and therefore there was no reason to substantiate institutionalizing E-Commerce.
perceive and understand E-Commerce and subsequently their operations. This is done by the government when they exercise power by refusing to adopt electronic means of transactions.Competitive pressure has also resulted in many SMEs having websites; even when they do not fully believe in the espoused benefits. Many SMEs indicated that they had a website not because it presented significant returns but because their competitors had it. It was regarded the norm even
though it does not contribute much (SME F).
7. CONCLUSION
E-Commerce studies in least developing countries have tended to paint a generally bleak picture. They however fail to explain what E-Commerce means to SMEs and to what extent E-Commerce is taken as a crucial element in strategies. The latter are important and resourceful considerations,which a government can then use for both planning and resource mobilization purposes. This study contributes to this understanding by investigating how E-Commerce is conceptualized by SMEs in a least developing country, Tanzania. The results indicate that SMEs understand E-Commerce as merely having a web presence, but not necessary being able to do typical E-Commerce transaction such as buying and selling online. They seemed unimpressed and unchanged by the perceived benefits of institutionalizing E-Commerce. As such, institutionalization of E-Commerce did not form part of any of the SMEs strategies. The reasons
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given were not because of a lack of technological, financial or human resources on their part but because (1) institutionalized E-Commerce was seen as not being socially compatible with the target market; and (2) the failure of government to institutionalize E-Commerce. These factors,together with competitive pressure constrained the way SMEs think about E-Commerce. Although the environment places constrain on SMEs, they have devised effective mechanisms to react towards this stimuli. Their reaction has widely been in the form of mobile communication which has made it possible for SMEs to transact effectively amongst themselves and with their clients.Mobile communication and mobile payment systems mitigated against the need for E-Commerce institutionalization in their view. This hybrid view of E-Commerce as being a mix of static website and mobile payment transactional capability is a unique perspective, which arises out of the LDC context. Future research can build on these findings to identify potential opportunities to integrate these apparently disparate elements of E-Commerce.
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by UNCTAD, 62-64. Retrieved March, 2008 from http://www.tanzaniagateway.org/docs/E-commerce_business_models.pdf
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Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
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Does ICT transform China?
Yingqin Zheng, Center of Computing and Social Responsibility, Department of Informatics, Faculty of Technology, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK
Abstract: This paper provides a historical and multidisciplinary overview of the development and applications of information and communication technologies (ICT), such as the Internet and mobile phones, in China. Drawing upon research from information systems and other disciplines, the
tension between diverse interests and rationalities, represented by the authority, the business sector, the citizenry, and technologies. The paper constitutes an attempt to provide a deeper and multi-dimensional description
ICT in developing countries in general.
Key words: China, informatization, Information Society, development
1. Introduction
There has been limited research in the field of information systems on how the development and diffusion of ICT has transformed China (Davison et al. 2005; Martinsons 2005). More importantly, the transformative effect of ICT in any society is inevitably contingent upon the structurational processes of ICT applications embedded within highly complex social, cultural and institutional settings. To reflect such complexities, this paper draws upon research from both the IS discipline and other social science disciplines, in an attempt to provide a more up-to-date, comprehensive
implications for other developing countries that are going through similar socio-economic transitions with the information era.
The construction of an information society of China is very much driven by a
he National Informatization Steering Committee was set up to provide central planning and coordination for the program. The informatization strategy drove the development of the national information infrastructure and high-technology industry, and played apolicies throughout the 1990s.
This industry-driven view of the information society is still dominant in China today.
commodification of information and communication services as a means to catch up with the West - a new dimension of industrialization. Such a focus is reported by extant research about the ICT industries in China (Baark 1990; Mingzhi Li & Ming Gao 2003; Wilson III et al. 2003; Gao & Yu 2010; Q. Lu 2000)industries have been surging and expanding their global presence, and more recently China emerged as one of the most important destinations for IT service and business process outsourcing (Chan 2005; Jarvenpaa & Mao 2008; Lacity et al. 2010; Qu & Brocklehurst 2003).
Another aspect of the informatization program is to build a national information infrastructure to improve economic efficiency and facilitate economic growth. This required a series of telecommunication reforms, i.e. introducing competition to the state-
ition from a
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planned economy to a market economy starting three decades ago. In this transitional process, the monopoly power of government bureaucracies was entangled with
telecommunication market among various stakeholders - -planned and coordinated telecommunications build-up, which, albeit provides a level of information infrastructure in the country, may not necessarily serve a balanced social development stra
The information society emerging as a result of the informatization initiative also started to pose new challenges for the authorities. Ma and associates (2005) suggest that there are two opposing political views of ICTs in China as revealed in government policies. One sees the Internet and related technologies are vital to the long-term health
cyberspace, as an unparalleled threat to state security. The paradox exists in every aspect of ICT development in China, with underlying tension between the state versus the market on the one hand, and retaining control versus fulfilling the evolving needs of the public on the other. The rest of the paper is underlined by an investigation of this
digital inclusion, e-business, e-government, and civic activism via the Internet and mobile phones. Section 6 briefly reflects on various roles of actors in this Information Society, and concludes the paper.
2. The Internet: Connected and Fragmented?
ICT infrastructure and applications have diffused at a fast speed in China during the last 2 decades, especially in the 21st century. Press et al. (2003) demonstrated China led India in Internet diffusion across the dimensions of pervasiveness, geographic dispersion, organizational infrastructure, connectivity infrastructure, and sectoral absorption (although the differences may be much smaller today and India is more successful in building globally competitive ICT and outsourcing industries).
According to the most recent national survey, by June 2010, there were 420 million internet users in China, compared to 130 million 5 years ago. In other words, nearly one third of the population are currently online, higher than the global penetration rate of28.7% (www.internetworldstats.com), among whom almost 364 million users have access to broadband Internet, and 277 million use mobile Internet (CNNIC 2010).
Figure 1. Diffusion of the Internet in China (Source: CNNIC 2010)
The numbers at first glance tells an uplifting story, as is usually the case with official statistics from China. It is less clear what hides behind those numbers. First of all, there
NNIC report shows that 27.4% of the Internet users are based in rural areas, accounting for less than
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15% of the rural population. In comparison, nearly half of the urban population is online. Despite enhanced accessibility to the Internet through mobile phones in both urban and rural areas, the gap has been widening rather than closing1.
Figure 2. Number of urban and rural Internet users
Fong (2009) argues that affordability and ICT literacy are the two contributing factors to the widening digital gap between rural and urban populations. Drawing from data from the World Bank in 2005, Fong compares the price basket for ICTs, including mobile phones, Internet and fixed telephone line, as a percentage of per capita GDP between rural and urban areas, and the former is about 3-4 times that of the latter. Various programs were launched to enhance IT infrastructures in rural areas. For example, Fong gave the examples of China Mobile investing 9 billion yuan (USD 1.13billion) in establishing a mobile infrastructure for about 16,000 rural villages to enable farmers to keep track of weather conditions and commodity prices of agricultural products. Another example is that China Unicom launched in 2006 an agricultural wireless information project in 26 district cities, which enabled rural residents to receive and send agricultural-related information at a very low subscription rate. It also lowered the rate of making mobile calls, and waved the charge to receive calls.
Telecenters projects are often seen as a way to extend digital inclusion to people living in rural poverty. Studies on telecenters indicate the need to strengthen the deployment of information infrastructure to reach the poorest and remotest areas, to develop relevant content attuned to the needs of the specific communities, and provide basic skills development through better education facilities and capacity building mechanisms. Survey res
that the majority of respondents have benefited from better price information and improved farming practices, about half indicate better learning opportunities.
Soriano (2007) looks more in detail into two villages under the project. Echoing findings from other countries, the study finds that telecenters serve as a common space for community youth and women, and highlights the critical role played by staff, teachers and community infomediaries in interpreting and helping to access online information for illiterate farmers. Ulrich (2004) points out that successful projects often rely on local champions, and observes that there is a slight bias against women in terms
1 Nevertheless, the proportions of Internet users with lower income, lower education level and of above the age of 30 have slightly increased.
Urban users rural users
Unit 10,000
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of awareness and use of the facilities, whereas the centers are more utilized by better-off members of the communities.
Zhang (2008) observes that telecenter projects are mostly implemented in a top-downmanner, although a certain level of autonomy is given to county agencies in terms ofbudgeting, selection of pilot location, staff appointments and collaboration with other local government agencies. While the telecenters significantly enhance access to information via a combination of communication channels, it is pointed out that villagers remain passive recipients of information instead of participatory deliberators in the policy making process. This raises question about sustainability of the projects.
While the urban-rural divide is evident, Cartier vast -recognised
-millions of rural-to-urban migrants, laid-off workers and other local income and marginalised groups who reside at the edge of the information network. These groups rely on inexpensive ICT services such as Internet cafes, prepaid phone cards and Little Smart mobile phones (restricted to local areas) which contribute to the formation of
industrial structure renders low- -conflicting commercial interests of telecom oligopolies and government crackdown, further compounding the information inequality in the Chinese society. Similarly, Zhao (2000) argues that the entire informatization initiative is elite-driven.
3. MIS and e-Business: Culture or more?
The prevalent explanation of ICT success and failures in developing countries often rests on culture (Martin et al. 2003; Maris G. Martinsons & Hempel 1998; Ou & Davison 2009) (1980)
which he defines as power distance, masculinity, individualism, and uncertainty avoidance. Later one more dimension is added by Hofstede and Bond (1988), based on their research on the Chinese cultu
represented by Redding (1990) who argues that the roots of Chinese capitalistic enterprise differ from those which Weber indicated as instrumental to the development of Western capitalism. He suggests that overseas Chinese business is distinguished by paternalism, personalism and a sense of systemic insecurity which fosters hard work and wealth accumulation.
Martinsons and Westwood (1997) argue that high power distances and paternalistic tendencies of the Chinese have resulted in very centralized and directive management systems, which combine discipline and benevolence. Also information is seen as a key source of power in Chinese business culture. They emphasize that even as a society modernizes, it will incorporate and assimilate innovations onto the existing management system rather than effectively integrating the two. Table 1 extracted from Martinsons and Westwood (1997) shows how Chinese cultural characteristics are believed to constrain MIS use in China.
However, a cultural explanation seems to fall short when Martinsons and Hempel (2004) compare ERP implementations in State owned enterprises and private ventures, and find two very different profiles. The private ventures are found to be more able to implement broader and more cross-functional ERP applications at a faster pace, while there is a poor fit between ERP and Chinese SOEs, which the authors again suggest boils down to the misfit between western business practices and traditional Chinese
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mindset. No theoretical explanation was offered to account for the departure of private
future for Chinese SOEs. One sees that ERP implementations under external pressures will dramatically formalize and standardize and automate their business processes,leading to enhanced competitiveness and economic development. The other view supposes that traditional Chinese organizations would continue to rely upon personal relationships and actively resist change.
While cultural factors are certainly very impthe dynamic changes of ICT adoption in various sectors of a society. Moreover, a culture-deterministic perspective is certainly not able to explain why areas with similar cultural traditions follow very different development paths. For example, mainland China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and even Korea can all be said to share dominantly Confucius cultural values, yet these areas have distinct social dynamics and development patterns. As Westrup and associates (2002)be seen as an ultimate form of explanation but one that is intimately linked to what we call the social, political and economic aspects of peoples lives and their relations with
(2008) recent paper on relationship-based e-commerce, he explicitly e insists that social
and institutional theory are more important at an inter-organizational level than individual, group and organizational level. Rather than totally attributing the relationship-based business practices to culture, Martinsons clearly states that reliance on relationship-based e-commerce is not a preferred behaviour or a cultural choice:
a rule based system. This is a forced behaviour due to deficiencies in institutions or
to essentialist cultural explanations, such an observation provides a more sophistic insight into the dynamics of how ICT adoption entangles with the social and institutional realities of China.
4. e-Government: who does it serve?
building e-government in China (Dai 2002), which aim to build a national information Chinese cultural characteristic Nature of constraint on MIS use
Personal relationships are the preferred sources of business information
Centralized decision making
Information is a major instrument of personal power
High context communication
Decision making based on intuition and experience
People should adapt to the environment rather than attempting to control it in order to maintain harmony
Reliance on informal (primarily verbal) rather than formal (written) communications
Reduced need to exchange information between managers
Relatively little information is broadcast or made accessible
Data and messages are perceived to lose much of their meaning if they are encoded
Reduced need for data collection and analysis
Reduced need for business planning and scenario development/analysis
Table 1. Chinese culture and MIS use. Source: Martinsons and Westwood (1997)
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highway as a path to modernization and economic development; to drive development of information technology in China; and to unify the country by tying the center to the provinces and by allowing the government to act across ministerial and industrial demarcation lines.
- Golden Bridge, the national-wide telecommunication and information infrastructure; Golden Pass, the economic and industrial information network; and Golden Card, including credit cards, ID cards, and
projects, such as Golden Transportation, Golden Tax, Golden Education, Golden Shield
(police), and Golden Health. These projects are dedicated to implementing information systems in each of these public sectors.
the objectives to post government information online; make government documents, archives and databases available online; and to implement online administration to increase administrative efficiency (Zhang 2002). It should be noted that providing direct public service is not included in these objectives. As a result, evaluating e-
Why e-government? (Purpose)
United States-Management reform China Administrative reform
1. Improve efficiency of government agencies-reduce costs and layers of
organizational process
-restructuring the relationship among state, business, and citizens (more transactions among them)
- -
2. Improving government to business (G2B)
- reducing friction of G2B interactions
-procurement
-streamline compliance practices
3. Improving service to citizens and enhancing governance
-citizen-centric e-government
-empowers individual citizens
-increase social inclusion and citizen participation
-enhance open communication, transparency and democratic accountability
1. Accelerating administrative reform
- transformation of government functions
-reengineering government processes
-enhancing transparency
2. Promoting economic development
-stimulate economic progress
- attracting more foreign direct investment (FDI)
3. Increasing the supervising capacity of the Central Government
-strengthening surveillance and monitoring
-putting the local government under the central authority
Table 2. Comparing functions of e-government in the US and China.
Source: Ma et al. (2005)
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government in China often becomes an exercise of evaluating government websites, as shown in Holliday and Yep (2005). Evidence of local applications of e-government directly improving services to the public is sporadic. For example, a district government in Beijing (district is a sub-unit under cities or counties in China) manages to reduce the time length of procedure to examine and approve investment applications from 2 months to 2 hours. The Beijing Local Taxation Bureau allows enterprises to pay their taxes online (Ma et al. 2005).
In general, it has been often pointed out that e-government in China serves very different purposes compared to what is usually assumed, i.e. improved public service. In the architecture that has been implemented, e-government projects in China have done little to improve transparency of governmental processes. The government websites mainly serve to provide texts of regulations and laws, but provide little functionalities for citizens to interact with the government or citizen consultation. Ma et al. (2005)compare the stated purposes of e-government in China with those of the US, as shown in the following table.
Kluver (2005) points out that e-government promises to bring forward two essential promises to the Chinese government, that of stability and efficiency which provides some rationalization and normalization of citizen-state interactions especially among the newly emerging middle classes; and that of fidelity of information and transparency to the critical information flows needed for effective policy making. These rationalities are government centric rather than citizen-centric. Therefore the purpose of e-government initiatives in China is not to empower citizens or to attract external investment, but rather to add stability and order to a chaotic governing process and social change, and to re-establish the control of the governing authorities, including improving the quality of surveillance and data gathering, and hence policy-making, the elimination of corruption, and ultimately, the re-legitimation of the Communist Party of China. Nevertheless, Zhang (2002) argues that the introduction of e-government will in the long run bring political transformations arising from different ways for thinking and behaving, and
5. The Internet and mobile phones: an emerging civil sphere?
Damm (2007) suggests that the usage and content of the Chinese Internet are dominated by consumerism and lifestyle rather than political issues, and that the Internet in China is shaped by fragmentation and localization which mirror the Chinese society, in
veloped regions, urban areas
much of the trivialization and de-politicization its observation is valid that consumerism and materialism are dominant in the Chinese society today (and probably so in many other societies), it does not seem entirely reasonable to dismiss the effect of ICTs such as the Internet and mobile phones in energizing alternative communication practices in the Chinese society, which may not lead to participant democracy in the short term, but serve to alter the power dynamics between citizenry and the state.
The dichotomy between state control and free market cannot be more pronounced
double-edged sword, indispensable to economic modernization but also confronting the authorities with unprecedented ch (Dai 2000). On the one hand, the government still imposes substantial control and censorship over the Internet in China, from blocking foreign websites such as news pages, Youtube and Facebook, shutting down Internet Service Providers, websites and online forums, to arresting political
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activists voicing their criticism on the government on the Internet. On the other hand, the state is aware that in this age of globalization, free flow of information is pivotal to
Orweillian surveillance on Netizens, the Chinese government focuses on setting up boundaries on the virtual space and penalizes transgression of those boundaries (Zheng & Wu 2005). In other words, free flow of information is allowed to a certain extent as long as it does not cross the boundary. It should be noted that the boundaries are often blurry and penalty is often selective. There is therefore significant space within those boundaries to allow debates, civic engagement and mobilization of collective action (ibid.).
On the other hand, the strong focus by the government to use ICT to foster economic growth and state control might have the un-intended side-effect that the middle-class citizens, who largely benefit f will increasingly gain influence and start to demand a stronger representation in the Chinese political discourse. This is also a group of population who have the greatest presence on the Internet. Yang (2003; 2006) argues that despite state control and regulation on the Internet which to some extent has a panoptical effect on cyber-activities, the Internet has opened up space for expression of public opinion, public debates, and criticism on the government. He examines various forms of internet activism in recent years which engaged isocial pressure on the government, and in some cases, result in changes in governmental behaviour or even institutional and regulatory changes. In these cases, the Internet, being a domain for struggle of information access, are used to engage in various forms of political advocacy: as information channel to release and transmit factual information that are not accessible to the public in traditional media, which often serve a testimonial function; to carry symbols and narratives to frame an event and influence the public; to
government; and to use rhetoric of constitutions and laws to hold authorities accountable (Yang 2006).
In the last decade, China has seen many examples of Internet mediated collective actions which at times produce visible political and social consequences. Various public events have emerged on the Internet to become foci of public discussion among Netizens, after the prominent case of Sun Zhigang in 2003, whose death in a custody and repatriation centre led to public outrage online and consequently the repeal of a state regulation aimed to control mobility of population. A subtle trend can be observed that the authority is reluctantly learning to adapt to an unprecedented level of public attention and questioning, and sometimes feel the need to respond and even engage with public discourses online.
In 2009, the Propaganda Department of Yuannan Provincial Committee invited 10 Netizens to participate in the investigation of the death of a man Li who died in prison. The reason of death given by the local police was that Li accidentally hit his head on the
from Netizens. While those who participated in the investigation complained that they were unable to reach the core of the issue, eventually the police admitted that Li died of violent abuse from fellow inmates. Such unusual, and some may argue, probably ineffective involvement of citizens in a criminal investigation to some extent indicates the intensification of the public gaze on the authority which has increasingly become self-conscious of its own image.
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soy
seems to produce a type of public discourse characterized by subdued satire, dark humor underlined by suppressed discontent. This Internet discourse is supplemented by the
(He 2008).Compared to the Internet, mobile phones are more widely used than the Internet and by a more diverse section of the population. For example in early 2005, fifteen times more SMS messages than emails were being sent in China (Latham 2007). Yan (2003)
including being more economical than the Internet, more discrete under formal and social occasions, more suitable for mass distribution of information, and more difficult to censor.
SMS communication was reported to have played a critical role during the SARS epidemic in 2003 and in organizing anti-Japanese protests in 2005. Again, parallel to what Zheng and Wu (2005) observe as the challenge of Internet governance implicated in the relationship between state and society, Lu and Weber (2007) argue that the
using hegemonic norms as cultural leadership to instill a social and political stability among dynamic economic changes. Such a policy entails providing an open and modern telecommunication infrastructure to enhance performance of the economy on the one hand, and exercising careful control over the unexpected information flows within legally regulated channels.
Latham (2007) observes that SMS practices constitute an alternative form of media to the top-down, durable and purposeful traditional Chinese media, or the propaganda models of communication. SMS practices are described as disorderly, disposable, and ephemeral. Similarly, He (2008) suggests that SMS plays a pivotal role in increasingly pluralistic political undercurrents that defies the discursive hegemony of the Communist Party. Many SMS take the form of satire or implicit social critique about the government or social injustice, which cannot be carried by the state controlled media such as newspapers and TV. The messages are often not directly subversive to the political regime, but constitute a moderate form of cultural and ideological challenge to existing social conditions.
om a revolutionary song popular in the
General Secretary Jiang ascends the Tiananmen Gate,
And looks at the land he rules;
General Secretary Jiang looks to the North - long lines of unemployed workers;
General Secretary Jiang looks to the West - Swarms of beggars;
General Secretary Jiang looks to the South - crowds of prostitutes;
General Secretary looks to the East - smuggling ships entering ports;
General Secretary Jiang looks at
These playful, often critical or even political discourses are further strengthened by blogs playing a leading role in voicing public criticism from 2006, and in the last couple of years, succeeded by microblogging (Weibo), the Chinese version of Twitter. A lot of
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public intellectuals and influential business and public figures are active bloggers and twitters who attract a large number of readers. Mobile internet also has also in the last couple of years become the most direct way to publish online. The combination of microblogging and mobile internet means that real-time reporting is possible for most citizens with a mobile phone and a Weibo account. Citizen journalism therefore becomes more viable, dynamic and difficult to censor, because by the time the authority notice certain sensitive posts, it has probably been read by tens of thousands of people and spread widely online. These emerging forms of communications provide rich avenues for future research.
6. Discussion and Conclusion
There is no doubt that information and communication technology is transforming societies in many different aspects by interacting with social, cultural and institutional actors in various ways, leading to diverse consequences. Even though the paper does not explicitly theorize on the roles of actors in the Chinese information society, four major types of actors can be identified from the review in a relatively simplistic way: the Chinese authority (which encompasses different political forces and interests), representing the logic of control; the business sector, representing the logic of the market and the instrumental value of information flow; the citizenry (again fragmented), representing the logic of commercial or non-commercial demand of information as well as participatory civil discourses; and finally, ICT artifacts as non-human actors, representing the logic of free information flow. There are various alliances among the actors, including one between the authority, the business sector and ICTs mobilized by the political power and resources mainly aimed to create a stable network fosteringeconomic performance and political legitimacy. However, stability is difficult to sustain with ICT as a traitor, enrolled by the citizenry and often connecting to the business sector, mobilizing a counter-network that seeks to expose and if possible disrupt the panoptical control. The interaction of these networks is ongoing and calls for academicattention.
This paper is a personal summary and reflection of research encountered by the author on ICT development and applications in China. Although not systematic or exhaustive, the literature collected from across disciplinary boundaries outlines a broader and much more complex picture of the Chinese information society which goes well beyond the simplistic headline stories of the emerging economic power of China and the lack of human rights in the country. In reality the country is undergoing gradual yet significant changes across various facets of the society, and ICTs such as the Internet and mobile telephones are deeply implicated in these processes of change. It therefore requires a more sophisticated understanding, a broader outlook and greater sensitivity towards institutional and societal dynamics for researchers to engage in investigation of the phenomena, in relation to China or any other developing countries going through transitional phases.
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IFIP WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
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Kanjo and Kaasboll Influence of Information Generated from Traditional Practices on HIS
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
Influence of Information Generated from Traditional Practices on Health Information Systems
Chipo Kanjo, ([email protected])Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, NORWAY and
Department of Mathematical Sciences, Chancellor College, University of MALAWI
Jens Kaasbøll, ([email protected])Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, NORWAY
Abstract: A health sector in most developing countries comprises a dual legacy of traditional and modern providers. This necessitates that information from both sectors feed into their health information system (HIS). This paper analyses influence of information generated from traditional practices into HIS in a context where most of the population is assisted by traditional health providers. The paper draws on empirical findings from a developing country using acase of maternal and child health (MCH) information and describes why some information from traditional providers fail to find its way into HIS. The impact which the dual legacy of modern and traditional providers has on delivery of MCH services, achievement of the Millennium Development Goals and comprehensiveness of HIS isestablished. Community of practice (CoP) and chain of CoPs concepts are used to understand mechanisms that affect data collection and the way data flows from one level to the other in the health sector. We focus on community level where information is generated from traditional practices. We conclude that there is a weak link in the chain of CoPs between community and district level; causing most data generated from traditional practices to be missed.
Keywords: Community of Practice, Traditional Practices, Chain, Boundary Objects, Boundary Interactions
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Influence of Information Generated from Traditional Practices on Health Information Systems
1. INTRODUCTION
A health sector in most developing countries comprises both traditional and modern health care providers, both of which generate information which could be of relevance to health information system (HIS). This dual legacy of traditional and modern health sectors necessitates that information from both sectors feed into HIS. However, problems may arise during implementation which may deter information systems (IS)from yielding desired outcomes. Implementation problems include: failure to collect all relevant data required by the IS from all possible sources; and other organizational issues. Successful implementation of HIS depends on whether data captured into the system is complete.
HIS in developing countries channel information almost exclusively from periphery level to centralministry headquarters. Most of the information is captured from patients who seek care at the lowest level-reporting facilities. This information is compiled on different forms for different services like outpatient care, immunization, and maternal care. The information is then aggregated on a weekly, monthly, or quarterly basis depending on the program and sent to the next level of reporting. Once it reaches the highest level, the information is used for planning and management. In some developing countries, particularly in the sub-Saharan Africa, health care planning and management is highly centralized, and its information base is weak (Oranga and Nordberg, 1997). Sources of data are usually vital statistics, facility-based reports, and population projections based mostly on old census figures. Although the information provides general illness pattern, services provided and an account of resources output at reporting facilities, the picture in most cases is crude, incomplete and partly inaccurate as it mostly reflects problems of a relatively healthy urban minority with easy access to health institutions (ibid.). Information generated from levels lower than reporting facilities where there are no proper mechanisms for data collection and reporting is left outside the loop.
This paper analyzes influence of information generated from traditional health practices on HIS.Considering that information generated by traditional health providers may or may not find its way into HIS. We describe limitations why information on traditional practices is not included in HIS and implications which omission or inclusion of such information has on delivery of mother and child health (MCH) services, achievement of Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) four and five, and comprehensiveness of HIS. MDG four and five are specific to improving child and maternal healthrespectively. The High Level Forum on achieving the health MDGs identified weak IS as one of the major shortfalls in the health sector (WHO, 2004). Strong HIS is a necessary ingredient towards attainment of the MDGs. We place much emphasis on traditional health practices and explore the following questions:
How can traditional health practices within communities be utilized to strengthen community-based HIS?
How can better utilization of health information from traditional practices improve data quality and health care management?
To understand the nuances of health information flows from community to higher levels, concepts of CoP have been used. A special focus is on community level where information is generated from traditional practices. We propose involving community members and strengthening village CoPs and making all forms of boundary interactions and objects (oral, hand written or electronic) visible. The process of strengthening the village CoPs will enable members to be empowered as they learn ways of participating in a group. Speaking with one voice as a group, their voice can be heard, and utilized; and their needs met. The paper draws on empirical findings from a developing country called Malawi using the case of MCH information with special focus on the traditional practices by traditional health providers. The paper emphasizes Noir and Walsham (2007) analysis that implementation of IS in health sector without a critical review of the wayits cCoPs operate remain mythical and ceremonial. They give an example of how ICT implementation was used just as a way of legitimizing ICT for development where an IS was implemented as prescribed by and
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Kanjo and Kaasboll Influence of Information Generated from Traditional Practices on HIS
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conforming to government rules. Technical purpose of the IS and how it can benefit marginalizedcommunities was disregarded (Noir and Walsham, 2007).
The paper uses three stories to describe contributions and influence of information generated fromtraditional practices in the Malawi health sector. The Malawi HIS is called Health Management Information System (HMIS). The extent that traditional health providers can support and enhance comprehensiveness of HMIS is also discussed. The paper suggests that data on traditional health practices can be drawn upon to inform planning and policies on MCH services. This data is crucial as in most developing countries context, a good proportion of the population do not have access to modern health care.
2. INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN HEALTH
Most HMIS have mechanisms for collecting and reporting data from health facilities, these are more developed and the data available is well organized. Other information is collected through centrally planned national household surveys (Oranga and Nordberg, 1997). HMIS concentrate on comprehensive information and are continuous as they are routine systems integrated into day to day service provision (Koot, 2005). Oranga and Nordberg (1997) categorize HMIS into two types namely: 1) Facility-based health management IS (FBHMIS) and 2) Community-based health management IS (CBHMIS). The distinctions between the two have been illustrated in table 1. Unlike Thailand which has CBHMIS and an extensive network of community health workers collecting and using information (RHINO, 2006), most countries do not have CBHMIS.
Facility-based HMIS Community-based HMIS
Definition a system of generating information originating from health facilities such as hospitals, health centers and dispensaries, private clinics and other NGO health activities
a system that generates information through sources at the community level
Scope Limited: covers a special group consisting of health care seeking clients who are to visit or pay for the services
Comprehensive: covers all those members of the population who are poor or without access to modern health care
Use Collects, aggregates, processes and monitors routine patient data
Monitors illness conditions that are either mild or too culturally stigmatizedto be reported at health facilities
Strengths and weaknesses
Provision of reports Action-oriented at community level
Mechanisms for capturing data well developed
Lacks structured mechanisms for collecting data from households
Table 1- Facility-based vs. Community-based HMIS
In most cases, community-based HMIS are part of a larger programme where communities take ownership (Koot, 2005). Desired outcome of HMIS, regardless of type is to build a knowledge base that can guide decision makers in planning and health resource allocation.
3. COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
A CoP is characterized by three dimensions: domain, community, and practice (Wenger, 1998). CoPs have sense of purpose, a real need to share experiences defined by knowledge, and a life cycle which is determined by the value it creates for its members (Allee, 2000). Within a CoP, organization is around domain of knowledge that brings members together. As members identify with the domain of knowledge and shared understanding of their situation, an urge to work together and know what others know increases (Allee, 2000, Wenger, 1998). People function as a community through relationships which they build as a social entity, when they interact in joint activities. They build capabilities in their practices by sharing
According to Puri (2007), practice is an interpretive scheme that community members draw upon to manage their day to day activities. In CoPs, members participate more on a voluntary basis as they
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personally identify with the course (Allee, 2000). A CoP has a sense of mission and continually redefines
2009).
CoP as a concept provides a new lens at the way organizations manage their knowledge. Instead offocusing narrowly on IS alone, they have a wide focus that includes people and available social structures,enabling organizations CoPseach CoP is its internal configuration, which results from its mission. Organizations with several CoPs need to pass on accumulated knowledge of each community to other CoPs. CoPs interact in various ways across their boundaries (edges). These boundaries are fluid and offer new learning opportunities different from the ones offered by communities as competences and experiences diverge (Wenger, 2000). Boundaries bridge via boundary objects, boundary interactions, or by brokering (ibid.). The boundary objects are transformed as they are passed from one CoP to the other, and have shared knowledge resident in them (Puri, 2007). Aboundary object can be passed from CoPs in a community to health facility level; based on that, a new boundary object is created in the health facility CoP.
Health data flows from health facilities through district administration to national level. The CoP concept can be used to describe what happens at each of these levels when data is received and delivered as boundary objects, and building of knowledge within each unit when interacting with boundary objects.Since the building of knowledge at all levels is the aim of HMIS, the CoP theory is appropriate. However, CoP literature does not provide concepts for flow of boundary objects through several communities. Since this flow is an essential aspect of HMIS, we use the concept of a chain to characterize the flow. This concept was used as a theoretical lens to analyze how data flows through Organizations (Kanjo and Kaasbøll, 2009). The idea of a chain is that it connects several nodes, and when used in relation to CoP theory, each community can be seen as a node. Looking at the data flow as a chain enables identification of weaker links in the flow of data between CoPs. A chain strength depends on its weakest link. We will usemissing data as an indicator of weakness in links, and although it has not been necessary to quantify missing data in this paper, such measurements could be done.
An organization is efficient only if all sub-systems are performing well and like a chain, the most unreliable sub-system can cause the whole system to fail. In HMIS, the purpose of passing on boundary objects is to inform each other and produce relevant information for planning at the highest level, and weak links between CoPs can weaken the whole process. Understanding the way each CoPs generates and stores data before it is passed to the next level is crucial and provides insight into causes that may weaken the links between CoPs.
Some CoPs interact via brokers, who are peripheral members of two or more CoPs (Cobb, et al., 2003), and can introduce parts of practice from one CoP to the other (Wenger, 2000). For example, a community health worker living in a community and also working in a health facility could be a broker between the two CoPs by discussing the community information with health personnel in the facilities. To be able to negotiate, translate and mediate between CoPs; brokers need to be abreast with the way issues are handled and expressed in both CoPs.
4. TRADITIONAL PRACTICES IN THE HEALTH SECTOR
Many developing countries use traditional health practices to meet their health care needs. In Africa, up to 80% of the population use traditional medicine for primary health care (WHO, 2008). Coincidentally,
traditional health sector is also reported to provide up to 80% of the health care (Lwanda, 2002 after Msukwa, 1981). Even in cases where one has access to modern health care, others combine with the use of traditional practices. Traditional health practices include use of traditional healers and sTBAs. Large numbers of TBAs are present in rural areas. In th context, traditional practices include delivering of babies and attending antenatal care at a TBA. TBAs usually adopt their skills by observing what their parents and other elders in their villages are doing. The observations, coupled with need and demand from pregnant women within their localities push them into offering the service.
Traditional like modern health providers, have their own prescribed and accepted practices and many people depend on them. Globally, those using traditional practices are struggling to make their voices heard. Conceptual challenges come into play as policy makers and communities do not have same idea as
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to why TBAs are important. Whilst policy makers see them as the problem, communities see them as the
importance of using the potential which lies within communities for providing basic health care as a way of
Currently community health workers which are locally referred to as health surveillance assistants (HSAs)are the only link between the traditional and modern health sector.
5. METHODOLOGY AND METHODS
The research uses an interpretative philosophy with qualitative data analysis. Qualitative was chosen as people and their practices were the main focus of the study (Walliman, 2006) and most of the information was interpreted from the descriptions, accounts, and opinions (ibid.). The approach allowed for in-depth interviews and a chance to probe for more information where necessary. Data was collected from TBAs,mothers of babies under 2 years, chiefs, HSAs - these are community health workers who collect data from communities, enumerators, national statistics officer, health personnel at health facility, district and national levels as shown in table 2.
Cadre interviewed Number
Traditional birth attendant (TBA) 7Mothers of babies under 2 years 70Health surveillance assistant (HSA) 7Chief 2Enumerator 1National Statistics officer 1Health facility personnel 6District health office personnel 3Ministry of Health HQs personnel 2Focus group discussions 3
Total 102
Table 2 Individuals and groups interviewed
Data collection was done during the period of January 2008 to July 2010 using unstructured and interactiveinterviews using a question guide. In order to gain complete information on facts, behavior, beliefs and attitudes of those involved with traditional health practices and the influence on HMIS, all of Kvale(1996) types of questions (which include direct, indirect, probing, interpretive etc.) were used during the interviews. The interviewees gave subjective accounts of the way they understand the situation and meanings were constructed from these responses. Informal discussions after the interviews proved to be a very rich source of accurate accounts of the situation at hand without reservations. In addition, observation was used. In some cases respondents would give accounts of the way things are supposed to be done, not what they actually practice. Observing them in their daily environments of work and within their communities enriched the understanding of their practices.
The findings are presented in a form of stories for two reasons: i) they are meant for a wide range of audiences from policy makers to collegial audiences. While collegial audiences can absorb at an abstract
(Corbin and Strauss, 2008), and ii) each storyline presents an opportunity to give a more complete and nuanced way of following up a baby from birth, where the baby is delivered, whether or not the baby receives vaccination .
The three stories that follow are constituted from the research findings.
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6. CASES OF TRADITIONAL PRACTICES
6.1.
In 2006 Mwayi was living and working in Zomba when she became pregnant with her second born child. Like her first pregnancy, she was attending antenatal clinic at Matale health facility since her first trimester. On her due date, Mwayi left early in the morning for the clinic. Her baby was born during the night. Unlike her first born baby where she was assisted by a nurse and details of the baby were recorded; this time Mwayi was assisted by a cleaner as the nurse on duty was busy attending to other cases. Although Mwayi delivered a bouncing baby girl, the cleaner did not record details of her baby in the maternal register as she was hoping that the nurse was going to do it later. Recording of data in the registers is the mandate of trained health personnel (doctors, nurses, clinical officers, laboratory technicians...) who are also responsible for aggregating recorded data when compiling reports.
6.2.
One of the most common beliefs within communities in most Malawi rural areas is that TBAs are more caring when it comes to assisting a pregnant woman who is due for delivery. Edna had the same belief, and when she was due for delivery, she did not hesitate to go to Mai Mato, the TBA who has won the hearts of many. Although Piri deliver at the TBA. Both Edna and Mai Mato were aware that TBAs had been stopped from conducting deliveries. For Mai Mato, stopping the trade of assisting mothers deliver babies meant losing her only source of income. Before they were stopped from practicing, she would get MKvillage, a committee was formed to promote awareness to all pregnant women to go to health facility on time when they are due. Members of the committee included TBAs, chiefs and two representatives from each participating village. HSAs for the community are also peripheral members. They even set chindapusa(penalty) to be paid if a mother defaults advice. The chindapusa was in a form of a goat or chicken or MK500 ($3.50) paid to the village head (chief). Both Edna and Mai Mato were aware of the consequences.
than go to Piri health facility where many women were waiting and some were being delivered by cleaners not the much publicized skilled birth attendants (SBAs). Edna did not want to add to statistics of
The other risk was what if the chief gets to know about it? By this time, Mai Mato was aware that the chief also did not mind a chicken for a meal, let alone a goat or being MK500 richer. Besides, by the time
her labor pains were already advanced. She could not send her back to
would go for check up at Piri health facility and have the baby immunized. As it turned out, not only did Edna not believe in being assisted by SBAs at a health facility, she also did not believe in having her baby immunizedfor her baby such as the ones shown in the pictures below.
Figure 1 Traditional protection used on babies
Mai Mato informed Edna that this time she will not record details of her baby in her birth register (see figure 4) as she has since stopped recording. Although Edna did not mention to Mai Mato, she did not go for the said check up or immunization. Fortunately for her, both the baby and she did not have any
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complications. The HSA who collects recorded data by the TBAs from that community did not know about birth as Mai Mato did not record it, and he had not surveilled that village that week.
Figure 2 - TBA Births Register
6.3.
They arrived by foot at the TBAs place in the early hours of the night, two of them, Chifundo and her grandmother. The TBA, Mai Leni, who had already received instructions to send all pregnant women to a health facility, had no choice but to assist Chifundo since the health facility was more than 10 kms away. During the day it had rained heavily. The dirt road to the health facility was muddy and slippery due to the heavy rains. That also made it difficult for Chifundo and her grandmother to continue their journey to Ngwe health facility. Besides, not only did Chifundo lack transportation, she also did not have all the requirements which she had been advised to bring with her to the health facility once she is due. Mai Leni was woken up; she received Chifundo and her grandmother and asked them to go into the house which was being used as a maternity room the time she was practicing. She remembered Chifundo from last time when she assisted her during the birth of her second born. Those days Mai Leni used to have many clients from the neighboring villages. Her place was like a health post as the only health facility was very far specially for heavily pregnant women.
have the baby vaccinated at Ngwe health facility. Within the week, Chifundo reported at the health facility
for this baby only as the previous two were born at a TBA. The statistics were also not recorded in the village health register as it is kept by the HSA.
7. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
The three stories narrated give a clear indication that both traditional and modern health care providers generate information which is relevant to HMIS. This dual legacy of traditional and modern health sectors necessitates that well structured mechanisms for collecting data be put in place in both sectors. The data presented above suggest that there is need to go beyond the discourse that suggests that there is a choice to make in developing countries between modern and traditional health providers. In all stories, there are elements that limit a pregnant woman to have modern health provider as a choice. In the first story, although Mwayi went to a health facility on time, she ended up not being assisted by trained health personnel due to circumstances and was not sure whether statistics were recorded. In the second story, Edna is not keen to go to Piri health facility where many women will be waiting unattended or being attended by cleaners who have less experience than the TBA. The only advantage would be that statistics of her baby would be captured in the system had she opted for this route. In the third story, much as Chifundo wanted to have her baby delivered at a health facility, access was a problem twofold: means to get to the
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health facility quickly at night without enough resources, and long distance to the health facility. In most rural parts of Malawi where Edna and Chifundo live, there is inadequate numbers and inequitable distribution of health facilities. In this situation, a facility-based HMIS captures mostly information relating to only a small proportion of the population those with access. In the case of Malawi, over 80% of the population live in rural areas where health facilities are far apart.
7.1. The Need for Community-Based HMIS
Koot (2005) articulated that there are few and isolated community-owned data collection systems and that in most cases; the CBHMIS are part of a larger programme where communities take ownership. Here the graph is asymmetry. We have a situation where more FBHMIS cater for less proportion of the population and few and isolated CBHMIS have a large population to take care of. For example, in Malawi, the healthfacility population ratio in rural areas is almost double that of urban areas with an average per facility of 9,870 people in urban areas and 14,749 in the rural areas. story confirms the
(ASJ, 2009), where her baby was born and there was no legal record o
Where CBHMIS are part of a larger programme or a larger HMIS, it is necessary to devise proper and consistent mechanisms of capturing data from communities. A number of researchers (Koot, 2005; Lippeveld et al. 2000, and others) have discussed how important data and information on births and deaths is. It is the cornerstone of public health planning. When such data go uncounted and the causes of death are not documented, governments cannot design effective public health policies or measure their impact(WHO, 2007). From literature and the stories, the importance of capturing data at the point where it is generated cannot be ignored. As time pass before the data is captured, it can be forgotten or cultural aspects come into play where some people may not feel comfortable talking about death. If this happen, and data collection rely mainly on data from national surveys, then HMIS risk missing a lot of data from communities.
7.2. Traditional Practices and HMIS
In addressing the issue of improving implementation of HMIS, it is important to note that going to health facility for delivery, or check up, or to immunize a baby can be limited by i) choice or ii) circumstances.
not find its way into HMuld not have been captured. TBAs also play a crucial role in the implementation of
HMIS. Once the data of the deliveries which they assist is not recorded, that data is easily missed if the mother does not go for check up and immunization. However, if TBAs include data recording in their practices, the data can find its way into HMIS through HSAs. In a study conducted by Byrne and Sahay (2007) where they looked at role of participation in a community-based child health IS in rural South Africa; it was revealed that in IS, there is need to involve not only the users of the IS, but also those individuals who are affected by the IS, even when those individuals have no direct interaction with the system. TBAs and mothers will not have interactions with HMIS yet their practices affect the data that is fed into HMIS.
7.3. CoPs in the Health Sector
The health sector has various levels and different types of CoPs; each containing many instances. CoPs within the health sector can broadly be categorized into two types: one comprising members who practice traditional medicine, and the second comprising members practicing modern medicine as members of these two groups often meet and share their experiences. However, the focus of this paper is not to understand the practices in broad categories, rather we aim at understanding how data flows from community level (center of traditional practices) to the highest level and the way it is transformed by different CoPs which the data interact with. Using the stories above and background information of a health sector (Lippeveld at al., 2000; Chaulagai et al., 2005), three levels (community, district, and national) have been identified within the Malawi health sector. In addition, we have identified five different types of CoPs namely: village committee, health surveillance assistants (HSA), trained health personnel, coordinators, and policy makers
(see figure 3). The five CoPs identified are not exhaustive, but will assist in explaining the concept of chain of CoPs. For the discussion, we look at one vertical slice of each of the five types of CoPs.
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Since CoPs have a sense of mission, each of the CoPs identified have their purpose. In the second story for example, village committee CoP comprising TBAs, chiefs, HSAs and two representatives from each participating village is described. This CoP was created with a purpose of advising pregnant women to go to health facilities for delivery as a way of improving MCH. These members had a real need to share their experiences and knowledge to pregnant women in their villages, advising them to deliver at a health facility. This CoP belongs to the community level. A second CoP comprises of HSAs, these share their experiences from the different CoPs each of them interact with. HSAs CoP cuts across community and district levels; and its members also belong to two other CoPs which it interacts with. Like a link in a chain, this CoP also acts as a link between the two broad CoPs (the traditional and modern health providers). Coordinators is the fourth CoP comprising district health officers, health program coordinators, and HMIS Statisticians. The fifth CoP is that of policy makers. Each of these CoPs has common practices and purpose that bring them together and as articulated by Allee (2000), they continually redefine their form to suit the current situation. For example, the village committee CoP redefined their form by adding follow up activities for pregnant women to ensure that they deliver at health facilities and charging the defaulters chindapusa, in addition to their advisory role. As CoPs also leverage tacit knowledge (Antony et al., 2009), the village committee had leveraged knowledge of the behavior of community members they assist.
Much as they have a mission, there are cases where CoPs can lose their sense of volunteerism. An example here is a situation where a village committee CoP charges chindapusa and it is not paid. The CoP can easily lose trust in the system which they have invested their time in. On the other hand, a CoP can have the urge to forge ahead if they are motivated. An example here is the HSA CoP. Although this CoP is overburdened with tasks, they are motivated to go on because of the respect they get from communities they serve. The community members refer to them as a Dokotala a term locally used to refer to a professional health personnel like a doctor or a nurse. That gives them a strong urge to continue serving the community due tothe clout they command. The situation which a CoP is operating in can therefore make or break it.
As the health sector comprise several CoPs, it is important that information generated in one CoP is passed to the other. In the case of the Malawi health sector, information is passed using different forms of boundary objects or interactions from one level and CoP to the other; and brokering by HSAs is usedbetween village committee and health facility CoP. The purpose of passing on these boundary objects is to inform each other and produce relevant knowledge of health information for planning at the highest level. If the CoPs identified in the health sector do not share the data they generate or if weak links exist between CoPs this can weaken the whole process and CoPs collective mission cannot be achieved.
Figure 3 illustrates the different boundary objects that link CoPs. Village committee CoP is linked to HSACoP via three boundary objects namely: antenatal care reports, birth registers, and village visits reports. Much as the birth registers and antenatal care reports are formal, the village visits reports are informal, improvised by the village committee. These are transformed into monthly inspection reports and village health registers as they link HSA to the trained health personnel CoPs. At this link, the monthly inspection reports are also improvised and informal. Facility reports links trained health personnel with coordinatorsCoP and finally, aggregated reports link coordinators with policy makers CoP. At each level, the boundary objects are transformed from one type of report to the other. These boundary objects form a link which bonds the CoPs into one chain.
Antony, et al. (2009) express that ways in which each CoP constitute and express their knowledge needs to be understood. In addition, it is important to understand the way different CoPs interact and how data is transformed from one community to the other. The Malawi health sector illustrates how different CoPs interact, with the boundary objects acting as the links that hold a chain of CoPs. This can also apply in CoPs in other sectors. In any situation, a chain of CoPs created is as strong as its weakest link.
The second story narrated above give a good example of weakest link in a chain of CoPs; the boundary objects used to link the village committee and HSA CoP are not operational as TBAs no longer record data due to change in policy. This makes this link the weakest. Further, one of the boundary objects linking the HSA and trained health personnel CoP is not fully functional, and that link is also weak. Both CoPs with weak links are at community level, this also provide a weak link between traditional and modern health providers, a situation that leads to most of the data generated from traditional practices not finding its way into HMIS.
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Figure 3 CoPs within the Malawi Health Sector
With the 80/20 rural urban population ratio, and the fact that a good number (NSO-WMS, 2008; pp. 26) of pregnant women, particularly in rural areas, prefer to deliver their babies at TBAs, completeness of data feeding into HMIS is affected as evidenced in . The missing information from traditionalpractices may have a negative influence on comprehensiveness of HMIS for planning, decision making and policy implementation. Further, excluded data from part of 80% of population may translate into a large number of missed data. This may derail the attainment of fourth and fifth MDGs as planning is based on information that does not reflect the situation on the ground.
8. CONCLUSION
Most of the data generated from traditional practices does not find its way into HMIS due to the weak link existing between the community and district levels. This is a result of lack of mechanisms for data collection at community level since TBAs stopped recording data due to change in policy. The missing data from the traditional practices means excluding most data from 80% of the population. The missed data may affect completeness of HMIS, This may derail the attainment of fourth and fifth MDGs as planning and decision making is based on information that does not reflect situation on the ground.
The paper has emphasized that implementation of IS in health care system without a clear understanding of CoPs remain mythical and ceremonial as articulated by Noir and Walsham (2007). Further, we conclude that to make sense of the way data flows from one CoP to the other, there is need to understand mechanisms that link the CoPs. To establish the links between CoPs, we have introduced the concept of chain of CoPs. We conclude that there is a weak link in the chain of CoPs between the community and district level; causing most data generated from traditional practices to be missed.
In the developing countries weak links in chains of CoPs may apply particularly in contexts where there is interplay of traditional and modern practices. The mode of communication in these contexts could be oral,hand written papers or electronic. The hand written papers and electronic messages are boundary objects;
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on the other hand, oral messages are boundary interactions. Within the traditional health sector, onlyboundary interactions exist. In the modern health sector, both boundary objects and interactions are used. Where boundary interactions (oral messages) only are used, the links are weaker, therefore, CoPs that communicate using boundary interactions (orally) are considered to be weaker links. In figure 3, the weakest link is between village committee and health facility CoP since TBAs no longer record data. Wepropose the need to capture data passed by all forms be it oral, hand written, or electronic within different CoPs.
We have highlighted weak areas and how health information from traditional practices can be better utilized by strengthening CoPs in order to improve health data quality and health care management anecessary ingredient towards attainment of MDGs. In strengthening the CoPs, members increase their participation and interactions and they become more empowered as there is strength in numbers; they can be able to articulate their health needs with one voice. This helps to make data created within their communities more visible through interactions within and across CoPs. This can enhance development. Much as an example from Malawi, a developing country, has been used, community empowerment is necessary in all underserved and disadvantaged settings across the globe.
9. REFERENCES AND CITATIONS
Allee, V., Knowledge networks and communities of practice, OD Practitioner, 2000.ASJ, Regional workshop on civil registration and vital statistics systems in Africa, June 29 July 3, The
African Statistical Journal, (9) 2009, Available from: http://www.afdb.org/fileadmin/uploads/afdb/ Documents/PublicationsAsghar, R.J., Obstetric complications and role of traditional birth attendants in developing countries, Review Article, Journal of College of Physicians and Surgeons,Pakistan, ( 9:1) 1999, pp 55-57.
Backus, M., E-Governance and developing countries: Introduction and examples, Research Report No.3, April 2001. The International Institute for Communication and Development (IICD). 2001.
Braa, O., Hanseth, O., Heywood, A., and Shaw, V., Developing health information system in developing countries: the flexible standards strategy MIS Quarterly, (31) 2007. Special Issue August 2007.
Bisika, T., The effectiveness of the TBA programme in reducing maternal mortality and morbidity in Malawi, East African Journal of Public Health, (5:2) August, 2008, pp. 103-110
Corbin, J., and Strauss, A., Basics of qualitative research 3e: Techniques and procedures for developing grounded theory, Sage Publications, 2008.
Damtew, Z., Kanjo, C., Kaasboll, J., and Williamson, L., Using and sharing locally generated information for action: the case from three developing countries, IADIS 2010, Portugal. 2010.
Koot, J., Community based health research and community based health information systems for policy and practice in developing countries, Public Health Consultants, Amsterdam, 2005.
Kvale, S., Interviews: An introduction to qualitative research interviewing, London SAGE Publications,1996.
Lippeveld, T., Sauerborn, R. and Bodart, C. (eds.), Design and implementation of health information systems, World Health Organisation (WHO) Publication. 2000.
Lwanda, J. L., Politics, culture and medicine in Malawi: Historical continuities and ruptures with special reference to HIV/AIDS, PhD. Thesis, University of Edinburgh. 2002.
MoHP-NHA, Malawi National Health Accounts (NHA): A broader perspective of the Malawian health sector, August, 2001. Malawi Ministry of Health and Population, 2001.
MEASURE DHS, (2010), http://www.measuredhs.com/aboutsurveys/dhs/start.cfmMosse, E., and Sahay, S., (2003), Counter networks, communication and health information systems: A
case study from Mozambique, Proceedings from the IFIP8.2/9.4 Working Conference, Athens Greece, June 15-17, 2003, pp. 35-52.
Noir, C. and Walsham, J., The great legitimizer: ICT as myth and ceremony in the Indian Healthcare sector, Information Technology & People, (20: 4) 2007, pp 313 333.
NSO-WMS, Welfare Monitoring Survey 2007, National Statistics Office (NSO), Government of Malawi.2008.
Third International RHINO Workshop. Information for Action: Facility and Community Focus, Chiang Rai, Thailand, 2006.
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UNFPA, Support to traditional birth attendants, evaluation findings, UNFPA report, Office of Oversight and Evaluation, United Nations Population Fund Issue 7, 1996.
UN-MDGs Report, The Millenium Development Goals Report 2008 End Poverty 2015: Make it happen,2008. Available from: http://mdgs.un.org/unsd/mdg/Resources/Static/Products/ Progress2008/ MDG_Report_2008_En.pdf#page=26
Rao C., Osterberger B., Anh T.D., MacDonald M., Chuc N.T., and Hill P.S., Compiling mortality statistics from civil registration systems in Viet Nam: the long road ahead, World Health Organization Bulletin, (88) 2010, pp 58 65.
Walliman, N., Social research methods, UK, The Cromwell Press, 2006.Walsham, G., Interpreting information systems in organization, Wiley, Chichester, 1993.Wenger, E., Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity, Cambridge University Press, 1998.
WHO, Traditional medicine, Geneva, Fact Sheet, No 134, 2008.WHO, Civil registration: Why counting births and deaths is important, Fact Sheet No 324, 2007.WHO, High-level forum on the health MDGs. Geneva, World Health Organization, 2004.
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IFIP WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
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Lagebo, Birkinesh Training Strategy, and Implementation in HMIS Training
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Training Strategy, and Implementation in Health Management Information System Training in a Developing Country
Birkinesh Woldeyohannes LageboDepartment of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway
Abstract: Research depicts that organizations place a high investment on training to accommodate changes, and that workplace innovation occurring without integrative training strategies usually leads (Bostrom, Olfman, & Sein, 1990)to poor results. This case study examines the Health Management Information System (HMIS) training conducted in the public health sector of Ethiopia to explore the role of strategy in the training and its outcome. The focus dimension of the integrative learning strategy model developed by Olfman et al. (2003) is used to analyze the case through an interpretative approach. The results find the strategic training component in the HMIS Reform Strategy at the national level, which was similar to what the Ofman’s model described, was not used during implementation. Instead, training at the organizational level was guided and conducted by management decisions and trainers’ experience regardless of the strategy. By ignoring the strategic training component during implementation (training design and delivery) the ultimate objective of the HMIS Reform strategy was lost, which is in-congruent with the training recipient organization’s objective of improving health service. Eventually, trainees either neglected or inappropriately used the tool in their daily routines. Based on thesefindings, having a sound strategic component at the national level is not adequate unless it serves as a road map for training activities rather than being filled away at the national level. This study suggests that learning training strategies be prepared at the organizational level based on the existing high level strategies such as the training component of the HMIS Reform strategy and the best practices described in the model. This strategy would facilitate the filtering down of the strategy to implementers, and it could be used as a road map for training activities.
.
Keywords: HMIS, Health Management Information System, learning, training, strategy, Ethiopia
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Training Strategy, and Implementation in Health Management Information System Training in a Developing Country
Birkinesh Woldeyohannes LageboDepartment of Informatics, University of Oslo, Norway
1. INTRODUCTION
Organizations invest their money in training to keep their employees up to date in this competitive world (Gupta & Bostrom, 2006; Kozlowski et al., 2000). However, researchers have indicated various factors that limit organizations from yielding what they invested in training (Bostrom, et al., 1990; Lagebo, Paper in progress; Ngoma, Kaasbøll, & Aanestad, 2008; Olfman, Bostrom, & Sein, 2003). Lack of technical and supervisory support, absence of appropriate knowledge levels,lack of resource and absence of an integrative learning strategy are some of the identified factors in training research. Of these, Olfman et al. (2003) indicate(Olfman & Mandviwalla, 1995) that the absence of an integrative learning strategy that fits with the organization’s objective is a major reason for ineffective training. Training as one of the essential functions of the organization requires focused strategies for effective training. A learning strategy guides how to use the training resource according to the organization’s objectives. This paper attempts exploring the role of strategy to the HMIS training outcome conducted in one public hospital in a developing country, Ethiopia. The study formulates four research questions to conduct the study.
1. Was there any strategy for the HMIS training?
2. Did it focus on the main objective of the organization or the introduced tool?
3. How was it implemented during the training process?
4. What was its impact on the training outcome?
HMIS training was conducted in Tikur Anbesa Hospital in Addis Ababa because of HMIS reform at the national level. The HMIS reform aimed to improve health services through implementing evidence based health management. The reform brought new tools, procedures, and staffing in the public health sector. Accordingly, considerable amounts of money and resources were allocated to train around 40,000 health workers to make them capable of applying the introduced tools and procedures nationwide.
While Olfman et.al. regarded strategy as a coherent entity, the setting for the training studied opens the possibility for different strategies at the national hospital and trainers levels.
The issues examined are the training’s mission, content, ownership and evaluation versus the training recipient’s (in this case, the hospital) objective and role in the training design and delivery.
This paper is structured as follows. The first section presents the learning strategy and socio-cultural perspective of learning as a conceptual framework. Next, how and where the research wasconducted is presented in the research approach and setting section followed by the case analysis and findings. Finally, the conclusion is presented.
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2. CONCEPTUAL FRAME WORK
2.1.Learning Strategy
Training is increasingly viewed as a strategic necessity for staying competitive and delivering results in our dynamic world (Olfman, 2003). Companies are thus expected to employ a learningstrategy that supports the organization’s strategy (Olfman & Mandviwalla, 1995); yet most companies do not use these strategies. Hence, Olfman (2003) developed an integrative learning and training strategy based on 16 organizations with best training practices and using previous literature and experiences to guide organizations in conducting effective training. The learning strategy is developed on the basis of the general organization strategy in order to deploy the organization’s resources for training, see Figure 1. The training strategy is developed based on the learning strategy in order to use it as a means to achieve the organization’s objectives.
Figure 1. The Training Context
The learning strategy model implies continually aligning the training efforts with the objectives of the organization. The learning model is divided into the four dimensions of focus, conceptualization, integration and positioning; these dimensions are interlinked and have effect on training strategy components (trainees, training method, training content and training outcome) (see Figure 2). Each dimension has its own components that determine the training position in the specific dimension spectrum. The model has been validated and is suggested as a tool for analyzing the training efforts (Simonsen & Sein, 2004). Furthermore, the model is based on best training practices from 16 organizations, along with previous literature and experience. This paper emphasizes the focus dimension of the learning strategy as it is directly related to the training outcome component from the training strategy (see Figure 2).
The focus dimension has four components, training mission statement, training needsdetermination, training ownership, training content and evaluation of the training. These components show the focus of the training as being either technology or business related The focus dimension addresses to what extent the training is based on the business or technology needs. The best practice is the business focus, which deals with business processes and understanding what the related knowledge, skills, and systems will do for the individual and the organization. Business focused training can be identified by business analysis to determine training needs, use of internal staff as trainers, use of business processes as examples in the training, and to allow training recipients to own the training resources. The focus affects the training outcome; ultimately, this is one of the training strategy components.
ORGANIZATION STRATEGY
LEARNING STRATEGY
TRAINING STRATEGY
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Figure 2. The Focus Dimension of the Learning Strategy The Training Outcome Dimension of the Training Strategy
This study attempts to investigate the strategic issues and training implementation around the focus dimension and its impact on the training outcome of HMIS.
2.2.Training Outcome Based on Knowledge Levels
The training strategy framework was developed on the basis of four major training components (learning tools, trainees, training methods and training outcome), of which training outcome is the focus of this study. Researchers have noted that both ability and motivation regarding training outcomes are important factors for learning (Keller, 1983). However, traditional training is condemned for its skill-focused approach, which ignores motivation. Olfman (2003) suggested a seven-level knowledge framework that goes beyond skill training by integrating business-oriented levels of knowledge. The knowledge levels include command based, tool procedural, business procedural, tool conceptual, business conceptual, motivational and meta-cognitive level (see Figure 2). Command based covers the syntax and semantics of the tool. Tool procedural refers to performing a function, for example, creating a document. Business procedural includes using a tool for other functions. Tool conceptual focuses on the overall purpose and structure of the tool,such as the interdependence of tools. Business conceptual includes understanding the “big picture” of how the specific business process fits in the organization. Motivational knowledge includes what the tool can do for the trainee and organization. Meta-cognitive knowledge focuses on the process of learning to learn. The best practices describe to use functional area unit heads as trainers to address motivation and to use specific business process examples during training,and to add business process in the training material to address business procedural..
3. RESEARCH APPROACH
An interpretative case study research approach is adopted to understand human thought and action in a social and organizational context (Klein & Myers, 1999). As an interpretative study, I used interviews in order to understand thoughts and action of individuals who participated in the training as training coordinators and trainees. Besides interviews, observation, and analysis of internal and external documents produced in the context are considered a valuable data collection
Training Outcome
Command based KnowledgeTool ProceduralBusiness ProceduralTool ConceptualBusiness ConceptualBusiness MotivationalMeta-Cognition
Focus
Training Mission Statement
Training Evaluation
Training NeedsDetermi
nition
Training Content
Training Ownership
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method for interpretative studies (Walsham, 1995, 2006). Accordingly, I analyzed documents related to HMIS reform, the Health Sector Development Programme (HSDP) strategy, introduced tools and procedures, the HMIS reform strategy, health policy, hospital documents, training schedules, and training materials to understand the contextual, organizational and strategic issues of the training and its outcomes. Three training sessions conducted from November 6, 2008, to January 2, 2009, were observed. Overall, nine trainees and three training coordinators were interviewed. I took extensive notes during the interviews. Each interview lasted from 20 minuteto 1 hour.
I analyzed the documents and the views and actions of the informants to understand their meanings in the context, and their interrelationships and impact on HMIS implementation as a whole. Initially, I produced a document based on the components of the focus dimension using the mission statement, training content, training group, resource, and trainee activity as a themes to understand their roles and how they influence each other. New themes and understandings emerged through this process; these new themes modified the initial themes and became part of the analysis. For instance, the hospital and the HMIS reform strategy were much more relevant than the ultimate objective of the training providers. Management actions taken during implementation emerged as a major theme during analysis. This directed me to remove irrelevant data and collect more data until my data was saturated and showed similar results.
4. RESEARCH SETTING
4.1.HMIS REFORM IN ETHIOPIA
The Ethiopian public health facilities include 119 hospitals, 451 health centers, 2396 health stations, and 1432 health posts (FMOH, 2003). HMIS in the public health sector of Ethiopia has been identified by fragmented data collection tools and reporting that did not help managers withdecision-making (Damitew & Gebreyesus, 2005; FMOH, 2008d; Lagebo & Mekonnen,2005)FMOH, 2006). The Ministry is aware of these problems, and in collaboration with government and non-government organizations (NGOs), it has been actively working on HMIS reform since 2006. The HMIS reform aims to develop comprehensive and standardized national HMIS for evidence based planning and management of health services (FMOH, 2001), budgeted with at a total cost of US$ 100million over five years (WHO & HMN, 2009). NGOs such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the World Health Organizations (WHO), John Snow Incorporated (JSI) and Tulane University Technical Assistance Programme (TUTAPE)hereafter in this study Tulane University, have played a critical role in supporting the HMIS reform by providing funds, technical advice, and field expertise for designing technical standards and by assisting in conducting training in all administration offices and health facilities.
HMIS/Monitoring and Evaluation (HMIS/M&E) technical standard documents were designed to realize the HMIS reform. The technical standards contain indicator definitions, and disease classification, as well as case definition, data recording, and reporting procedures. Additionally,information-use guidelines and display tools have been disseminated to be implemented in the public health sector (FMOH, 2008a, 2008b, 2008c, 2008d).
As part of the implementation activities, training is planned for 40,000 health staff who serve in these public facilities dispersed over the country. The Ministry made an agreement with all regional health bureaus to provide resources, training, and support for one-year HMIS implementation.
Accordingly, Tulane University as one of the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia Ministry of Health (FMOH) partners, was tasked to conduct training at the national level (WHO & HMN, 2009). To carry out this responsibility, Tulane University hired 22 mentors with public health backgrounds at the Masters (MSc) level on a contractual basis to provide training and support to users. Of these mentors, some of them underwent one month of special training on the
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HMIS/M&E technical standards, conducted by Tulane university officials. Tikur Anbesa Hospital was the first public hospital to engage in the HMIS reform nation wide effort.
4.2.Tikur Anbesa Hospital
Tikur Anbesa Hospital is a public referral hospital under the Ministry. It treats approximately 400,000 patients a year. The hospital employs 130 specialists, 50 non-teaching doctors, 350 residents, 600 interns and 999 non-health professionals in various specialized units and clinics with sophisticated and high tech equipment. The hospital is responsible for HMIS activities like data collection, processing, and analysis and for submitting quarterly reports to the Ministry based on health service activity.
The HMIS is a highly interdependent system employed by hospital staff across different units and with in the same units. Card clerks in the card room originally issue patient cards by recording patients’ information, and distribute these to the concerned units. Nurses transcribe this biographical data and additional data generated during service provision to the register book located in the units. Ultimately, statisticians are expected to visit all units on a daily basis to collect data, with the aim of generating quarterly reports. The delay and inaccuracy of health reports, lost patient cards, time taken to retrieve patient cards, and lack of resources for data collection and reporting are mentioned as some of the hospital’s problems: these are in line with the problems of other health sector organizations.
HMIS training was organized by Tulane University and FMOH for the hospital staff as a result of the HMIS reform to deploy new procedures and registering and reporting tools. Tulane University was responsible to the training material development and the training delivery. The Ministry played a coordinating role in the training activities, and allocated training funds for the hospital. The hospital assigned one health staff to be training coordinator; this coordinator worked with the with training providers group (FMOH and Tulane University) with the specific role of addressing logistics and assigning trainees according to the training schedule
5. Case Analysis:
5.1.HMIS Training Focus in Tikur Anbesa Hospital
The full version of training preparation, delivery and outcome is reported in (Lagebo, Paper in progress). This paper highlights key findings related to strategy, which is the aim of this study. The study is concerned with understanding the training focus by exploring strategic documents;how the training was designed, conducted, and evaluated; and who owned the training. The focus dimension components such as mission statement, training needs determination, training ownership, training content and training evaluation and assessment are used to analyze the data.
5.1.1. Mission Statement
Although there was no learning and training strategy at the hospital level, I found the training component in the HMIS reform strategy at the national level. The mission statement of the HMIS reform strategy is “To support continuous improvement of health services and the health status of the population through action-oriented, evidence-based decision making, based on quality information, by health sector planners, managers and care givers, by other public sectors, by civil society, and by development partners – with an emphasis on authorities at woreda, facility, and community” (FMOH, 2008). Similarly, the main objective of Tikur Anbessa Hospital is providing quality health services to the community. This shows the alignment of the ultimate objective of the HMIS reform and the training recipient. Such alignment is stated as the best practice in the learning model to show that the training has a business focus. Similarly, the training component of the HMIS reform strategy describes providing the responsibility of implementation activities for HMIS departments/units at all levels with the anticipation that NGOs will also be involved in implementation. The best practice requires training providers to work closely with organization
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units and have regular meetings with key management personnel during the training process, from determining training needs to the evaluation level.
However, in this training, neither the HMIS unit of the hospital nor the hospital health units had arole in the HMIS training design, or implementation, except participating as trainees. My interview results and some of the related documents such as the HSDP III mid-term report (2008)revealed that Tulane University was tasked for training, and support by management bodies at the national level regardless of the strategy. This is echoed by the HMIS head of the Ministry, whosaid “Tulane University is responsible for human resource development at the national level. What we [the Ministry] do is allocate resources to the organizations when they are ready for training.” Tulane University is left with the national responsibility for training activities without being offered a training strategy to follow or anyone to audit its activities. As a result, Tulane used its own experience to discharge the national responsibility of the training activities without involving the HMIS unit or the hospital health unit despite the fact that these courses of action arestated in HMIS reform. This act of giving total responsibility to Tulane University regardless ofthe HMIS strategy, and not involving the hospital units turned the focus of training from that of business to technology.
5.1.2.Training Needs Determination
Training need determination refers to who needs training and what training content must be addressed. The best practice of the learning strategy model suggests making business analysis and working together with functional area managers to determine training needs. Regardless of this, all hospital health staff (including, cashiers, laboratory technicians, and data clerks) attended the one-week HMIS training without selecting trainees for relevant training topics. The HMIS expert described the reasons behind involving all the staff in the training as follows: “It has been decided to train all staff in the public health sector which is about 40,000 due to high staff turn over and the absence of health staff motivation to learn from their trained colleagues in the pilot sites.” This statement showed that the Ministry had already made decisions based on the pilot site results which might not be the same in the case of the hospital. However, the HMIS strategy directs trainers to train all staff who work in HMIS/M&E activities such as physicians and healthstaff who actually record data. The hospital unit had no mandate for selecting trainees and instead, sent all employees to the training event. This reveals that neither the HMIS reform strategy nor the learning strategy model was addressed regarding the trainees’ selection.
Regarding selecting relevant training topics, the training content was prepared by trainers based on training materials and a manual prepared by Tulane University, and based on Tulane University’s specific training experience, without conducting business analysis with the hospital health units. The training covered selected tools, data elements, and indicators from all health programmes to all health staff. For instance, only three health staff members work in the Family Health Planning section, yet the topic of contraceptive prevalence rate indicators was discussed in all three weeks of training sessions given to all trainees. Regarding incorrect data recording, which I observed at the work place, I asked one interviewee whether or not she refers to the training manual. She replied, “I do not really need the manual for recording, as I know how to do it because I have done this work for the past 20 years”. This statement indicates that the training content was already accumulated or familiar to the health staff through their long time experience. Yet, trainees did not have an understanding of the benefits or new concepts introduced in the new tools in relation to the old tools. Moreover, this statement confirms the absence of training needs analysis being conducted for the training. This training needs determination by the Ministry and TulaneUniversity does not reflect the best practice, which requires business analysis and working together with the hospital units to determine the training needs. Instead, the training needsdetermination was based on the introduced tools, revealing that the training has a technology focus instead of a business focus.
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5.1.3. Training Ownership
The best practice regarding training ownership suggests giving training ownership to the training recipient organization or operational units. Despite this suggested best practice, in this training, the training resource was owned by the Ministry and Tulane University. The HMIS expert said “We have an agreement with regional health bureaus to provide the developed tools, training and support for one year to help them implement the system.” This statement shows that the training resources are owned by the Ministry. During the implementation, the Ministry handed over the training activities to Tulane University, as it stated in the HSDP III mid review report. Both the HMIS expert statement and the HSPD III report show that the training was owned and controlled by Tulane University. The training expense related to trainers, and the development of training manuals and materials were covered by Tulane University while the expenses related to trainees’ per-diem and refreshments were financed by the Ministry. Such decision providing total responsibility to Tulane University might be associated with the major training resource came from the Tulane University.
The hospital training coordinator was responsible for assigning trainees and controlling the attendance of trainees at the scheduled training. The training coordinator said “I talked to each unit head to assign employees to the training based on the employees’ workloads. For instance, if there are four nurses in a unit, they could send two in one, and the others for training in the next week”. This shows that the hospital’s role in training consisted only sending their staff to the training events.
5.1.4. Training Content
The HMIS strategy’s training component specified using a problem based learning approach. The best practice of learning states that in order to address health workers’ motivation, internal staff should be used as trainers and specific business process examples should be given. However, the hospital staff did not take on the role of trainers; they only attended the training. The hospital unit heads were only consulted about scheduling their trainees in order to avoid understaffing during the training. Furthermore, except in the introductory talks, the training content did not show how these tools facilitate the ultimate objective of the hospital. For instance, one of the introduction slides stated the importance of the HMIS reform as being, “To improve the management & optimum use of programme resources and to make timely decisions to resolve constraints and/or implementation problem.”
Mentors developed structured training which has seven major topics with five subtopics based on developed training manuals and materials. The major topics were the overview of the HMIS reform, reproductive health, child health and immunization, HIV/AIDS, communicable disease, integrated disease surveillance and response (IDSR) and disease classification, and performance monitoring. The program overview, indicators, registers and data elements were considered as sub topics under each major topic. Selected data elements, indicator, report definitions, recordings,and calculations from each health programme were emphasised in the lecture. For instance, this random selection of examples was shown by the fact that health center examples were provided to calculate prevalence rate indicators, rather than using examples related to business processes in the hospital. Mentors gave lectures using power point presentations on laptop computers andprojectors, based on the structured training program. The selected training content did not address the HMIS strategy training approach, problem-based, or the best practice which advises usinginternal staff as a trainer and businesses process as examples. Here we can see that while the HMIS strategy and introduction of the training showed the business focus of the training, itshifted to a technology focus when the training topics were selected, and this was manifested in how the training was conducted.
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5.1.5. Training Evaluation and Assessment
In this study, there was no formal evaluation made after training:- however, the training providers visited the hospital to assess the performance of trained employees six months after the training. This visit resulted in redesigning the tool related to the disease list, which was challenging to implement in the hospital. If this was considered as evaluation, it was not performed by unit managers as advised in the best practice model.
In general, the case analysis shows the switch from the business focus to the technology focus during implementation and over time (See Figure 1). The business focus of the training appeared in the HMIS reform mission statement and strategies and was lost when the training responsibility was transferred to Tulane university. Although the business focus was raised again during the training event introductory speech, it was lost again in the training content and evaluation. .
Time
Figure 3, General process of the Training Focus
Olfman suggested seven knowledge levels to address both ability and motivation which are the key for learning (Olfman, 2003, Keller, 1983). Olfman emphasised at least to cover the motivation part for effective training. The general findings show that the HMIS training neither fulfilled the best practice of the training strategy model regarding the focus dimension (Olfman, et al., 2003), nor the training component of the HMIS reform strategy. The training was dominated by introducing the deployed tool using data elements and indictors without linking its importance to the health service provision. Table 1 summarizes the findings based on the learning strategy model.
Focus
Components
Best Practice The HMIS Strategy Strategy as implemented by the
trainers
Mission Statement
Align the training unit’s mission with the organizational objectives.
Work closely with organizational units.
Regular meetings with key management personnel.
Support continuous improvement of health services and the health status of the population with an emphasis on authorities at the woreda, facility, and community levels.
Training providers based the training solely on equipping health workers with required knowledge and skills to use the introduced tools.
The hospital role was limited to facilitating the training
Training Needs Analyze corporate business plans, business processes,and specialized roles such as relationship managers
Training managers hold regular meetings with functional area managers
Involve all staff who work in HMIS/M&E activities such as physicians and health staff who actually record data
The training needs weredetermined by training providersin order to implement the introduced tools
Training providers did not meetwith the hospital unit heads
Training Ownership
The training ownership must be in the hands of the business units, or controlled
HMIS departments/units at all
The training resource was owned by the Ministry and Tulane University
Training
Busine
Focus
Technology
Mission statement
HMIS reform
strategy
Management decisions
Training needsdetermination
Introductoryspeech
Training content topics
Support evaluation
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Focus
Components
Best Practice The HMIS Strategy Strategy as implemented by the
trainers
by them levels will be responsible for training implementationanticipating that NGOs will also be involved inimplementation
Training Content Use specific business process examples during training to address motivation
Use functional area personnel as trainers
Use a problem based learning approach
The training content was based on the introduced tools, which were developed based on pilot situational analysis at the national level
Internal staff did not participate as a trainer
Evaluation and Assessment
Use certification
Unit managers should perform evaluation
Training providers visited the hospital to obtain the semi-annual report based on the introduced tools
No formal evaluation was made by unit managers
Table 1. The Summary of Tikur Anbesa Hospital training based on the focus dimension
5.2.Training Outcome
The details of training outcome has been reported in (Lagebo, paper in progress), here the main findings related to strategies and implementation are reported. All introduced tools are implemented except the disease list. However, the tools were not properly used due to trainees lack of motivation to HMIS activities. The contextual knowledge was not well addressed in training content that lost trainees’ motivation to use the tool according to the training. As a result trainees stick with the previous ways of doing without giving much attention to what they have taught. They give more attention to health service provision than for recording patient information properly. This was the result of not making business analysis during the training need determination as it was stated in the case analysis. Following traditional training approach instead of problem based approach and using internal staff as a trainer for the training limited the trainees participation to bring contextual issues to the training event. Absence of collaboration between training providers and training recipient which also indicates the lack of working closely with the hospital units when determining the training need.
6. Conclusion
This study investigates training strategy, implementation and its impact on the training outcome. Olfman et. al, (2003) described the importance of formulating an integrative learning strategy thatfits with the organization’s objective for effective training. This study identified implementation problems that lead to a poor training outcome despite having sound high level strategic documents.The study emphasized the commitment of the management bodies in using the strategy as a road map for training activities. Therefore, it is necessary to have a mechanism to maintain the strategic elements throughout the training process.
The study attempts to answer the research questions raised in the beginning of the study. (1) Was there any strategy for HMIS training?
The study identified the HMIS training component in the HMIS reform strategy developed at the national level to guide the training activity. (2) Did it focus on the main objective of the organization or the introduced tool? The case studied revealed similar mission statement and
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objective for the training recipient, hospital, and national level HMIS reform strategy, which initiated this training. The HMIS training components in the HMIS reform strategy was formulated on the basis of high-level health sector strategies like HSDPIII and health policy which aim to facilitate health service delivery to all. The strategy contains the basic elements of the best practices such as establishing ongoing in-service training, providing training ownership to the HMIS unit of the organization, using problem based learning approach for the training, and providing training for those involved in the HMIS activity. These training strategy elements showed that the strategy has a business focus. (3) How was it implemented during the training process?
Regardless of this similarity, management bodies at a national level took actions regarding the training without being informed from the strategies. The management decision might be influenced by the source of the training resource which is donor dependent as many the developing countries. As a result, implementers and trainers used their own experience to design and conduct training which resulted in the tools becoming the focus of the training without acknowledgement of the overall strategic component. Numerous advantages of the training strategy elements were either neglected or forgotten during implementation or the training process. The business focus set in the strategy shifted to a tool or a technology focus due to decisions taken by management bodies regardless of the strategy.
(4) What was its impact on the training outcome? Consequently, the formulated strategies in the document did not have a positive impact on the training outcome since they were not used in the course of the training. Based on these findings, the Tikur Anbesa Hospital HMIS training was in line with the tools(technology) focus, in contrast to the best training framework, which considers business as the best practice (Olfman, 2003). As a result, health workers viewed the HMIS activity as an additional burden to their daily activities and were unable to see the importance of the new tools for the health service. Eventually, trainees either neglected or inappropriately usedthe tools when prioritizing health service delivery to HMIS activities. Most of the service providers’ justifications (see section 5.1) for the inappropriate- use of the tools depicted a lack of motivation to carry out the HMIS activity rather than a lack of ability. Eventually, the HMIS unit staff members were forced to generate the required evidence based report from inappropriately collected data.
Olfman et.al. (2003) suggested developing a comprehensive learning strategy that guide the planning, execution and evaluation of training. While Olfman et.al. recommendation seem sound,the research findings reveal having a sound strategy at a high national level will not result in effective training unless the strategy is used as a road map for training related decisions and is simplified and filtered down to the organizational level. This study suggested that the development of organizational-level learning strategy based on high level strategies could result in effective implementation over widely dispersed geographical organization. The organization level strategies need to be filtered down to the implementers in order to be used as guidelines and evaluation criteria for the training process. These findings will also be applicable to other contexts dealing with widely dispersed geographical organizations.
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Rangaswamy N Short Message Social Networking and Emerging Digital Literacies
11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Short Message Social Networking and Emerging Digital LiteraciesA Case-study from India
Abstract
We present insights from a case-study of SMSGupShup, the largest mobile social networking platform in India, by adopting a digital inclusion lens to understand information sharing and communication practices steering computer literacy among users. We point to the pioneering affordances of the platform in a developing country allowing a variety of skill share and transfer between mobile communities. Ostensibly friendship, instant connection and sharing
why users flock to SMSGupShup. Underlying these is the use of platform by the more privileged tech-savvy group exchanging skillful information with those less capable of doing the same. Equally and arguably important are the affordances of sharing information to hack programs and crack phone codes to expand usage skills. Amidst a variety of usages to achieve diverse ends, social media emerges as a powerful tool to meet the goals of digital inclusion and literacy
Keywords: Social Media, Social Networking, ICTD, Mobile communities, India, Digital Literacy
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11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
1. INTRODUCTION
Social network sites (SNS) also referred as social media, are already a global phenomenon. David Kirkpatrick (2010) in his recent sociological treatise on Facebook refers to social media as a platform for people to get more out of their lives and a technological powerhouse with unprecedented influence across modern life and an entirely new form of communicationOften, technology and services to accelerate social networking practices produce unintended user behaviours rooted in specific social contexts and cultures of sharing, learning and communication practices. We present insights from a case-study of SMSGupShup, henceforth GupShup, a mobile social networking platform in India, by adopting a digital inclusion lens to understand sharing information and communication practices resulting in enhanced computer literacy among users. By digital inclusion we refer to those activities on the platform assistingICT related literacy and skill building among users. GupShup is the largest SMS-based mobile social networking site in India with 40 million users showing diverse kinds of appropriation of the platform. From a six month study of user behaviours we showcase a specific aspect of sharing and learning of mobile phone and PC operating skill behaviours. On GupShup, information sharing is largely carried out by means of short message services (SMS) from and to a mobile phone. These messages range from simple help-like pages to open and save a file to more complex trouble shooting applications and hacking tips. None of these require sophisticated technology skills but operate at a more basic and functional levels of digital literacy and learning. We note a rapidly expanding user base of posts and reply posts sharing a variety of information related to PC and mobile phone operating skills.
GupShup though modeled after the popular mobile networking service Twitter, is showing unique appropriation of user behaviors in the last four years of operating in India (Rangaswamy et al 2010). From amongst a diverse set of usages we attempt to glean techno-social practices benefiting learning and developing ICT skills. We also attempt a novel set of conceptual frameworks for analyzing the platform . In this paper wepresent insights from a study of GupShup focusing on social media networking for sharing ICT skills and informal peer-to peer transfer of information. What makes our research significant for development studies is its contextualization in a developing country, with considerableconstraints for low-income populations to access and use ICTs. Hence, informal appropriation of technical platforms becomes consequential in the diffusion of digital skills.
Technology has reorganized how we live, how we communicate, and how we learn. Literacy and learning is increasingly aligned with everyday practices of information seeking and peer to peer sharing through real time information technologies. The process of learning is being recognized as an ongoing set of attitudes and actions by individuals and groups that they employ to try to keep abreast of the surprising, novel, messy, obtrusive, recurring events (Vaill 1996: 42). Informal learning has emerged as a significant aspect of learning experiences with learners moving into a variety of different, possibly unrelated fields over the course of their lifetime. Learning now occurs in a variety of ways through communities of practice, personal networks, work related activities, all of these intersecting in the everyday behavioral arena (Ibid).
The GupShup platform, only four years old, already shows potential to diffuse digital literacies among its users. The platform, for the price of an SMS, less than one cent in India, allows individual users to create, manage and broadcast short messages to mobile communities or groups. The platform boasts of two million groups, more than 40 million users and one million new users joining every month. With such large and scaling adoption figures there is a need to
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understand its users and potential for aiding goals of ICTs for development. The paper is an attempt to view ICT enabled social networking practices with a lens of learning and as containing a path to digital literacy
1.1 Background to SMSGupShup
In order to set up a free SMSGupShup group, a person only needs an email address or a mobile number. Such groups may be private or public and one user can create up to five groups and join any number of them. The owners of free groups can invite up to 25 users beyond which
- message to the group owner. Most importantly, group owners may only send messages no longer than 140 characters. The owners of free groups have the option of posting messages to their members through SMS, mobile web or the internet. Public groups also have homepages that their owners and users can access. A large bulk of GupShup users are mobile-centric and lack or ill affordinternet access. Many of them hail from small towns and villages of India. It is no exaggeration to claim that GupShup is a first in extending the potential of social networking connecting theentire expanse of India for the price of an SMS (<.02 $US). While owners can post messages to the entire group, members can only reply to these messages. Most often, replies are in the form of requests that ask the group owner to circulate advertisements among his members to join the
the broadcast content. The two most popular groups, with membership ranging between 30,000-
There are several groups related to computing/web help groups, educational news and alerts groups. Significant are two other group characteristics in promoting its popularity: 1) Types of posts or content the owner chooses to broadcast to his group (There is a considerable volume of content in English transliterations of Indian languages) 2) Conscious strategies to promote and expand group membership. The latter is undertaken through specific appropriation of the GupShup platform by joining as many groups and posting requests to these group group. These behaviours exhibit a unique and marked use of the platform to grow and build group membership
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
We attempt to borrow three frameworks to help analyse this paper through the lens of sociallearning, social networking and ICT for development. We try to merge important lessons from all three to illume our research question of gauging social networking platforms, specifically the architecture of SMSGupShup, in aiding the spread of digital literacy
Over the last twenty years, technology has reorganized how we live, how we communicate, and how we learn. Heutagogy, the study of self-determined learning and draws together some of the ideas around, 'knowledge sharing' rather than 'knowledge hoarding' (Chapnick &Meloy 2005, Hase & Kenyon 2000 ) and looks to the future in which knowing how to learn will be a fundamental skill. Information revolution is triggered by new ways of relating to one another, new forms of discourse, new ways of interacting, new kinds of groups, and new ways of sharing, collaborating and learning. Wikis, blogs, social media and networking sites are Web 2.0technologies inspired by a spirit of interactivity, participation, and collaboration. Even something as simple as the hyperlink taught us that information can be in more than one place at one time, challenging our traditional space-
(Wesch 2008) Google revolutionized research with powerful machine-assisted search in an almost limitless variety of ways. Wikipedia shows how a networked information environment
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11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
allows people to work and create information. A learning network is particularly attractive to self-directed learners, who themselves decide on their learning program as well as the timing, pace and place of their studies (Wesch 2008). Tapscott and Williams ( 2006 ) call this new organization of
wikinomics which involves motivated amateurs who voluntarily produce knowledge and information in a new form of social and managerial organization. Socially, a wiki-ized system cannot exist without an agreement among the members of that system to behave in a certain fashion. Managerially, wikinomics is built on the idea of the platform (Staley 2009 ) Wikipedia and other social networking sites provide a space or platform upon which all kinds of activities can flourish, with the idea of a platform transcending any particular technology or application and referring to either virtual or physical worlds (Ibid). User collaboration on these platforms often produces unintended and unexpected results from unique and special ways of appropriations. In a wiki-ized setting, users especially leaders among users, work toward ensuring the vitality and
stability of the platform rather than regulating the actions and activities of the people who use the platform (Ibid). A contrary spirit of sharing can be found in the cultures of collaboration amongst hacking . For the hacker "the computer itself is entertainment... the
hacker programs because he finds programming intrinsically interesting, exciting, and joyous(Himanen 2001). Hacker activity is a dedication to one that is intrinsically interesting, inspiring, and joyous . Collaborative learning is rather an outcome than a foundational ethic in hacking cultures
Social networking sites are mainly about a) people reaching out to people they know or have latent ties with, b) adopting an interactive or conversational tone while networking and c) possessing a mental model of their networks and adopting relational behaviours to gain social benefits (Boyd & Ellison 2007, Boyd et al 2010) On the academic side, a large body of knowledge has accumulated on the formation and dynamics of these networks, fueled by the easy availability of data and the regularities found in the statistical distribution of nodes and links within these. In perhaps the first study of Twitter use, (Java et al 2008) three main categories of Twitter users were identified as information sources, friends, and information seekers. Among these information sources post news and tend to have a large base of
Studies note the benefits of microblogging including information sharing, information seeking, and friendship. A much broader range of content in microblogs direct questions in pursuit of qualified answers while targeting a large audience (Constant, Sproull and Kiesler 1996; Weisz, Erickson and Kellogg 2006). Clearly, these studies allot significant affordances to social networking channels to share and seek information
Out third framework, ICT4D (ICTs for Development) as a research area concerns with the twin challenges of addressing Millennium Development Goals and designing technologies for resource-constrained environments. Innovations in this area address healthcare, agriculture and education and privilege technology in the service of meeting goals of social progress. Mobile phones are often touted as the most promising platforms for ICT4D, owing to their tremendous uptake in low- (Kam et al, 2008) and Healthline (Sherwani 2006) have targeted development problems by innovating applications for the mobile phones. Jensen aligned economic benefits to the poor due to mobile phone ownership (Jensen 2007). Previous research has also studied the changes to social and business networks through mobile phones, including in India (Donner et al 2008) and Jamaica (Horst 2006).
The challenges for conceding technology prime of place in development studies is grouped into three categories: technical, cultural, and environment (Brewer et al 2009). Research has also called out specific technological adoption challenges that users face in their everyday (Medhi et al, Kumar et al) Nevertheless, recent studies show challenges such as these are circumvented if the ICT in question has enough value and potential in the lives of the adopter or user. Studies
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have found incentives and motivations are of paramount importance to technology adoption. In a recent study, Smyth et al (2010) discuss an innovative technological system of sharing and consumption of entertainment media on low-cost mobile phones in urban India. The authors claim this practice as surpassing Internet file sharing in its structural complexity and ingenuityin spite of myriad obstacles from the technical (interface complexity, limited Internet access, viruses), to the broader socioeconomic (cost, language, institutional rules, lack of privacy).
We combined the three frameworks to help investigate and shape our arguments about social media as agents of digital inclusion by sharing and transferring valuable ICT related information and skills through a social network.
3. METHODWe explain how we conceived a research effort by adopting a portfolio of methods to study users of GupShup. Having adopted qualitative methods to research a platform with millions of users, we do not aim to quantify user behaviours into statistically relevant findings. Our study is qualitative in nature and purports to study and engage more deeply with a small sample of users. Hence, from a focused and deep engagement with a set of users, our findings are indicative of broad trends and patterns of behaviours on the GupShup platform. We make no claims to offer statistically accurate categorization of user populations and the corresponding behavioral outcomes of user engagement on the GupShup platform.
The initial phase of study aimed at understanding the following: 1. Personas of group owners/publishers, as opposed to their audience/recipients 2. Variety of messaging content 3. Patterns of group expansion/networking behaviours. We adopted research on SMS communities promoted on GupShup, by mining on-line data consisting of posts and reply flows between the broadcaster who is the group owner, and members who are usually a socially mixed group of recipients. The latter, apart from a small number of friends,remain anonymous to the group owner and passive consumers of messages they receive on the phone (a small percentage of them attempt personal interactions with the group owner throughthe mobile phone)
We conducted profile building and characteristics of user groups (location, messaging medium,rate of use) by mining the web site. Off-line strategies included personal interviews with group owners and publishers. For this paper we chose groups defining themselves as web help groups,often times dubbed under the broad rubric of internet and mobile phone tricks or tips group. Ostensibly, the groups defined internet or phone based tricks as providing information about using mobile and web services more efficiently. We mined 30 such group profiles available on-line ( we do not have a count of the total number of tricks groups out of the 2 million groups on GupShup due to lack of availability of data). We hand-picked profiles to represent group size (between 100 to 20,000 members), variety of data (web help, internet tricks, mobile phone tips, basic computing and browsing skills) and frequency of activity (number of posts under a web profile). Out of the 30 we held telephonic interviews with 15 of them willing to speak about their GupShup activities. We held several, usually more than 2, interview sessions with each of the 15 group owners, ranging between 30 min to 90 minutes per interviewee. All of them, with formal consent, were audio-recorded, transcribed and anonymised. The ensuing transcripts were coded for relevant data, such as the motivations of group owner, the variety of tricks or help tips they shared and the many ways in which they tried to reach out and expand group membership. Our Findings are based on data from the 30 web profiles and 15 interview profiles.
We wish to reiterate that our sample is drawn from the universe of group owners who are discoverable on the platform for profile building and off-line research interviews. Group
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owners, usually owners of small groups leave phone numbers and to a lesser extent, web sites,blogs or Orkut profiles as contact information on their dedicated GupShup web pages. Platform restrictions imposed on the usability features of group members impede their discoverability on the platform. There is small possibility of researching this class of users from on-line data. They require other research strategies and methodological efforts we did not integrate into our current research agenda.
4. FINDINGSWe present core findings of sharing information practices, especially enhancing operating skills for the PC and mobile phone. These are drawn from the perspective of GupShup users who are group owners and active content publishers. They learn and share information on the platform, and are both teachers and students of digital literacies. This section will summarise the instances of sharing and learning behaviours from the two sets of data mentioned in the method section. We reiterate this is not a study calling out the ratio and proportion of messages based on the kinds of content promoting literacy, advertisements, real or fake skills. The study makes a humble claim to be revelatory of user behaviours contributing to digital literacy through a deep engagement with a small set of users. Much of our insights came from personal interviews with GupShup group owners indicative of their motives, behaviours and actual use of the platform.
4.1 Social Networking Profiles
We note a distinguishing social demographic of users characterizing the circulation of information on the GupShup platform through multiple channels like the web and the phone,birthing nascent practices and behaviours of learning and sharing technology use. They become critical in shaping contours of acquiring and practicing digital know-how. We interviewed 15 subjects, all male, between the ages of 18 and 22 and living either in a small city, an urban town or a rural village. All are living with their parents and pursuing studies in an institution.As we mentioned, interview profiles were randomly chosen depending on who was willing and available to give interviews. The distinct social features characterizing our subjects are primary findings and not the results of sampling methods. Eight of our subjects are studying hard sciences, 6 in business studies or humanities, and one of them is a college dropout undergoing computer training in a private institute. One of them lives in a mid-sized city in Central India, 8 in small towns and 3 in villages either in South India or North-East India. While all of them can read and write English, only 4 were able to converse in the language. All belong to low-middle income groups. Being young students, subjects are dependent financially on their parents and cautious in expensing internet and talk time. While effectively using platform features for social networking, care is taken to keep user expenses as low as possible. These user concerns drive a set of practices keen to exploit the commercial potential of the GupShup platform.
As noted much of information sharing happen through the SMS channel. While 7 of the 15 use only SMS, the rest mix platforms by accessing the GupShup web portals for publishing and browsing purposes. Despite the lack of on-line data, there is enough evidence from interviews with users, to suggest most followers or members of the group access messages and experience the platform solely through the SMS medium. The latter is mainly driven by affordable pricing of receiving and accessing messages on the mobile phone as opposed to the internet. Equally important is the lack of internet or PC infrastructure in the localities and residences of users.The SMS is the predominant broadcasting channel for a group owner to reach an optimum number of his members. It is also the primary channel to advertise and grow a group in two ways; by broadcasting content aimed at enhancing PC and mobile phone literacy and advertising groups to rake in membership. The overwhelming presence of requests to promote
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ones group on GupShup are reciprocal behaviors by two or more groups to advertise their respective groups. The tricks genre of groups constantly keeps in touch by joining groups through the platform. One of our subjects had joined 500 groups in a bid to grow his own by requesting all of the 500 group owners to advertise his group! Likewise, group owners, through their broadcasting privileges, are mindful of their influence over a large mobile group of members.
We outline the variety and nature of posts in the following section and offer evidence connecting group expansion behaviours to the nature of content and extra-platform (what we call back channel) behaviours.
4.2 Social Networking Content
The pages belonging to the tips and tricks groups on the GupShup site are a noted by one of the group owner] for learning simple and valuable ways to operate and perform functions on a PC or a mobile phone, to use them in life enhancing ways they are created for. Posts or messages ensuing from a tips and tricks group owner revolved around keeping his members engaged with a variety of ways to use the mobile phone and the internet. These revolved around information exchange, which our subjects prefer to refer as tricks: 1. Tips to help users increase the speed of computers, internet and the mobile phone 2. Tips to hack or write code to access internet free of charge on a PC or mobile phone 2. Tips to re-charge talk time on the mobile phone 4. Basic PC operating skills. All of these are termed tricks or tips to skillfully maximize benefit out of a PC or a phone. Some samples of these: 1. Create your own customized fonts in windows: Go to run, Then type eudcedit Then press
enter. Enjoy your customized fonts!!!
2. Get Almost every photoshop tutorials.. In Google Search Bar Just Type- in
url:"Photoshop.aspx" "tutorials
3. Want to restore ur pc? open run type msconfig selct toolsystem restore next selct a restore
point ok system will reboot aftr restore And Enter
4. Trick to view files with extension.just go to tools=> folder option=> select view => and
uncheck hide extension of file name option .
There is a plethora of content on the GupShup website in the tricks and tips group pages
So, what are Tricks and what do they represent to a group owner? A group owner Tashi, a hey
are tips to help users increase the speed of computers, internet, mobile, etc. Also, I send tips [on He calls it
and surfs, searches and passes on eaching himself computer hardware,
Developing tricks is also by self- By cracking, patching, key-gen...Tricks means hacking, that is, breaking the networks to enjoy free calling,
For example, no company will allow free calling? Right? There are some codes for every mobile company. And if we use these codes [if we punch them into our phones], we can call our friends for free. These are called tricks. Everyone is not aware of those codes and I send them to my group members, who are not savvy enough to code or
For Gulal, another college-going small group owner, are not just hacking mean helping others by suggesting to them things like shortcut keys, which are already there [but people might not know about them]. Tricks also mean breaking the security code. I send both.
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about getting internet for free aBPL,
. 18 year old Babu said he has a few tricks up his tricks can work also for broadband networks. To work on these tricks basically you need some software, some programming skills... we can access internet for short spurts of
Benny, who is a undergrad science student, re-interprets hacking tips as never really employed wanted to spread counter hacking Hacking means showing an ability which a person has and cracking means [something] illegal. It tries to decomputer or his organization. I created my group to prevent this and get an idea into pupils [students/users/members] to become aware that there are some illegal tricksethical hacking
Tricks can be real or fake, according to our subjects. As to our question why would anybody post a fake trick, group owners mention the publishing of fake tricks when they fell short of content to keep their audience engaged, mixing up real and fake tricks and those that may work only in specific geographies and service territories. Group owners cleverly released working tricks amongst fake ones also to engage and challenge members to glean the functional from the fake. We are seeing a nuanced interpretation of what it means to learn operating skills, basic or higher programming to crack code. Both are viewed as digital literacy by the practitioners who express pride in knowing it and are willing to share it. [We could not gauge the actual proportion of fake and real tricks as tricks are efficacious pertaining to specific geographic regions and Telco services in India. We deduced from subject interviews that the two were cleverly fused in order to proficiently nurture, without turning away, the bedrock of loyal members]
To go back to the spirit of the hacking ethic as emanating from intrinsic affinity to
interpretation of the platform as optimized to expand membership. Tips, ticks and hacks are customized in service of group expansion. Nevertheless, the expanding networks of the tips and tricks groups, despite promoting themselves as sharing valuable hacking codes to expand internet use and talk time validity, contribute content that directly enhance PC and mobile phone user skills. Admittedly, tricks group owners realize the potential of attracting considerable membership, most of who are male college going students, by positing their group as a repository of PC and web help combined with hacking tips and skills. Also, they believed in the intrinsic value of sharing these to boost skill building among their members and
As Benny, the ethical hacker says, Many of my members live in
Sean Parker1
4.3 Social Networking Practices and back channel behaviours
Dominant behaviours of group center on broadcasting posts to hold the attention of and sustain an audience eventually leading to growth in group membership.
Group owners spend a good part of their time (admittedly from interviews, 4 to 8 hours a week) searching for appropriate content and circulation of information. This happens in two ways 1. On the internet 2. On the GupShup platform scanning posts in other groups. Group owners actively browsing the internet are able to circulate that much more tips and tricks through the
1Sean Parker is an American Internet technology businessman, and entrepreneur. He co-founded Napster and was a part of Facebook.
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platform impelling a second tier of circulation through SMS of the same messages among the mobile-centric platform users. As Abhishek, a group owner with more than 10,000 followers
and fetch content from the big world of the internaudience do not have this kind of access and benefit I get a lot of responses on my
. Interestingly, 6 out of 15 of our profiles hail from specific region in South India and show evidence of an in-group sharing of tricks which are then infused into the platform for wider circulation. Benny,the ethical hacker with 20,000 members saidlike a secret society
then put it out for circulation We
Deepak, another group owner form the same region, hints at the viral nature of these groups used to search for tricks. That is when I used to contact these people who owned other groups who published tricks. Then I realized I can also open my own group Initially I used to search for hacking tricks on the net. When I would search, sometimes the names and numbers of GupShup groups would get reflected on Google. I do it just for fun. I just like to share what I know. I want that whatever tricks I get to know even others should get to know. More and more
people liked the content and more people came into this group. ..More of my friends and people around me slowly got to know about this group. My friends may have also spread the word about my group and that is how I have grown
Sharing tricks and tips was a fun, useful and even feel-good service oriented activity but is there another aspect to these popular group behaviours? All our subjects mentioned an informal commercial angle to the activity on tricks groups. Groups with good tricks up their sleeve charge money to exchange new tricks who is desperate to grow his group. Kannan one of our subjects admittedgroups with 3000 members to another owner -
[ 2.5$US] talk-time recharge for his phone . Many of our subjects denied they would ever adopt such behaviours for monetary benefit but all of them admitted knowledge of these practices.
well, I am not party of confused and may be a bit sacred to use GupShup in this manner... Suppose I were to gain 100,000 members, who know
The economic outcomes of social networking on GupShup are arguably a huge draw for theuser. These informal and back channel exchanges falling outside the purview of GupShup platform services explain some of the seemingly irrational behaviours to grow membership by group owners. Moreover, these practices and their real or assumed material outcomes contribute to system expansion and adoption rates.
5. CONCLUSIONThe GupShup platform reveals a strong user motivation to grow, build and nurture mobile communities with the specific intention to share computing skills on the PC and the mobile phone. These are called by the users and agents of information diffusion as tricks and tips to learn and use ICTs more easily, proficiently and cheaply. They are also central to attracting and stabilizing a group s popularity and membership. Our paper points to a variety of skill share and transfer among and between the groups on GupShup for a variety of reasons. While the
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desire to share, exchange and transfer skills are prevalent, group owners are mindful of commercial gains as a significant consequence of broadcasting to a large audience.
GupShup as social media platform pioneered an all-India character catalyzing social and geographic reach for nascent and first time mobile communities. These included towns and villages having little else other than a mobile phone for communicating over long distances.GupShup was the only platform enabling users to post from a basic mobile phone to a group consisting of several hundreds of thousands of people for the price of a single SMS.
Ostensibly friendship, instant connection and sharing via an affordable SMSchannel and competitive pricing are provided as reasons by users to adopt GupShup.Underlying these is a veiled use of the platform for commercial gains in the form of sharing tricks that help to re-charge talk time and activate internet time free of cost. This perhaps is an unintended consequence of a free platform with a manifest potential to build mobile communities. Equally valuable is its appropriation by the more privileged tech-savvy users transferring skillful information to those less capable of doing the same. The reach of GupShup into rural areas in India is another pointer to similar effects.
Users of GupShup, self-admittedly, exploit its limited affordances and modify behaviours to achieve desired outcomes: many of them, leading to sharing and learning internet and phone technologies for effective use. Arguably, GupShup is an instance of social media, geared to harness and diffuse digital literacies albeit in ways unintended by the originators of the system.
AcknowledgementsI wish to thank Ed Cutrell and Jonathan Donner for valuable comments on early drafts of the paper. Many thanks to Arijita Pal and Indranil Roy Chowdhury for assisting on-line data collection and research interviews.
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Weinberger, D, Everything is Miscellaneous: The Power of the New Digital Disorder (New York: Times Books, 2007).
Wesch, M "Anti-Teaching: Confronting the Crisis of Significance," Education Canada (Spring2008),http://www.cea-ace.ca/media/en/AntiTeaching_Spring08.pdf
Wesch, M, "A Vision of Students Today (and what Teachers Must Do)," Encyclopedia
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Wiley, D. A and Edwards, E. K. (2002). Online self-organizing social systems: The decentralized future of online learning. Retrieved December 10, 2004 from
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Paper
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Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May
2011
THE IMPACT OF ICT INFRASTRUCTURE ON HUMAN
DEVELOPMENT: AN ANALYSIS OF ICT-USE IN SADC COUNTRIES
Felix Olu Bankole1
Irwin Brown1
Kweku- Muata Osei-Bryson2
1Department of Information Systems and Centre for IT and National Development in Africa,
University of Cape Town, South Africa
2Department of Information Systems and the Information Systems Research Institute, Virginia
Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23284, USA
Abstract
Over the past decade African nations have been increasing their investments in Information and Communication
Technologies (ICT) infrastructure to aid social and economic development. The provision of ICTs such as the
Internet, mobile phone and fixed line telephone aims to bring digital opportunities to all citizens in Africa. The
United Nations under the auspices of UNDP and the World Bank affirm that such infrastructure would improve
the level of development in poor nations. The HDI (Human development Index) as specified by the UN serves as
a measure of development in a country. In this paper, we investigate the effects of ICT infrastructure use on
human development in Southern African countries. We use regression analysis to explore the impact of Internet,
mobile and telephone usage on the human development measures. The empirical analysis suggests that use of
these ICTs has a significant bearing on human development in Southern African countries.
Keywords
ICT-Use, Human Development, ICT Development Index, Structural Equation Modeling, SEM, SADC (Southern
African Development Community) Countries, Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).
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1.0 INTRODUCTION
A decade ago, the world leaders and the international community gathered at the United
Nations Millennium Summit to adopt Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), an initiative
d at reducing poverty, disease,
lack of education and human deprivation by setting eight time bound goals to be achieved by
2015 (UNDP, 2000; Steinberg, 2003). This intent was to provide yardsticks for international
organizations such as the United Nation (UN), the World Bank, the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) as well as Policy makers and industry leaders to ensure human development is
within the reach of everyone (UNDP, 2010).
Several initiatives have been stimulated in both developed and developing countries to
achieve these common ends, such as the provision of information and communication
technologies (ICT). As a result of this mandate, many African nations have invested hugely in
ICT infrastructure in response to the demand of MDGs through the influence of development
organizations (Bollou, 2006). There have also been suggestions that investments in ICT can
support Africa through the stages of economic reformation and development (Braga et al.,
2000).
The positive impact of ICT investments on global economic growth in developed and
developing nations has been established in most literature (Zhen-Wei Qiang & Pitt, 2004).
Yet opinion on the potential of ICT to transform economic and social development in Africa
is inconclusive and empirical studies in this regard are few (Akpan 2000; Mwesige, 2004;
Bollou, 2006; Ngwenyama et al., 2006; Morawczynski & Ngwenyama, 2007; Bollou &
Ngwenyama, 2008).
At present, Africa is facing many developmental challenges such as lack of education, health
epidemics, and poverty to mention but a few. There is a crucial question African policy
makers must answer: Are increased investments in ICT infrastructure providing improvement
in human development in Africa? The objective of this article is to investigate the link
between ICT infrastructure use and human development in SADC countries and report the
progress made. ICT infrastructure use consists of main telephone line usage, mobile cellular
usage and Internet usage in a given country.
We focus our central question on: What are the impacts of ICT use on human development?
To further provide better explanation to this question, we stated our secondary research
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questions as follows: (1) What are the impacts of three components of ICT use on standard of
living? (2) What are the impacts of three components of ICT use on health? (3) What are the
impacts of the three components of ICT use on education? (4) Does ICT use contribute to
growth in overall human development?
To investigate the relationship between ICT infrastructure use and human development, we
employed Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), an important tool for empirical research in
social sciences, widely used for its ability for specifying and estimating interrelationships
among a set of variables (Crowley & Fan, 1997; Bauer, 2003; Samoilenko, 2006). SEM
expresses relation among variables either directly or in-directly.
The rest of this article is organized as follows: Section two discusses human development.
Section three presents on ICT infrastructure. Section four provides the background on SADC
countries while Section five presents the theoretical background. Section six provides detail
on the data collection and analysis procedure. In Section seven, findings and discussions are
presented. Section eight provides a conclusion.
2.0 HUMAN DEVELOPMENT
of well being. A broad definition of human development addresses the need to lead a long and
healthy life, to acquire knowledge and to have access to the resources for a decent standard of
living (UNDP, 2006). At all levels of development, the above three essential choices should
be made accessible to people. The concept of Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) was
adopted by UNDP to assess the level of human development in many nations. The MDGs
were used as a standard scale for human development. They consist of eight specific goals as
follows:eradication of poverty, universal primary education, gender equality and women
empowerment, reduction in child mortality rate, improved maternal health, eradication of
HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, environmental sustainability and global partnership
for development (Moran et al., 2008; Chacko, 2005). These MDGs goals have a broader
measure named the Human Development Index (HDI). The HDI
economic and social well being. It serves as a standard to specify the improvement of
development of a country (Sun, 1993; Sagar & Najam, 1998). The index consists of three
major components. These are as follows:
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GDP per Capita (standard of living) - This can be described as a measure of average
distribution of income among the citizens of a nation (UNDP, 2003). It is measured in
US dollars based on the purchasing power parity exchange (PPP USD).
Literacy rate (education) - This is a measure of enrolment in primary, secondary and
tertiary institutions (UNDP, 2008).It is also referred to as the level of literacy of
people in a society (Despotis, 2005).
Life expectancy at birth (health and longevity) - This is the average number of years a
person is expected to live from the time of his/her birth or the average age of
individuals in a country (UNDP, 2008).
Recently, there has been much discussion on human development in Sub-Sahara Africa. For
example, the British government has indicated that is the duty of the international community
to support human development goals in Africa. As a result, many African countries have
benefited in the form of foreign aid, debt relief, the provision of health care facilities and the
provision of new Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). There have been
several initiatives for ICT expansion in Africa by both African governments and international
organizations (Ngwenyama et al., 2006; Bollou, 2006). For instance, African leaders have
been investing in ICT infrastructure such as for the Internet, mobile phones and fixed line
telephones as an avenue to transform the productive capacity of their nations.
3.0 ICT INFRASTRUCTURE
On a global level, ICT infrastructure has brought communication and access to information to
the forefront of development. People are forming new social networks, and sharing
knowledge across geographical boundaries. Fixed line telephony, computers, the Internet and
mobile communications have become part of the daily life of millions of people around the
world, providing them with instant access to voice, video telephony, messages, video
streaming, e-mail, file transfer and other applications. More than 118 million PCs were
installed in homes and schools worldwide by the late 1990s (WITSA, 1998).
In Africa, the technology age presents many challenges due to lack of adequate ICT
infrastructure. ICT adoption and diffusion has been tied to socio-economic development of a
country (Musa, Meso & Mbarika, 2005). Therefore, the United Nations ICT task force has
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advised African leaders to focus on ICT infrastructure expansion as part of their human
development strategies (Bollou, 2006). In response to this demand, many African
governments have been investing in their ICT infrastructures. ICT infrastructure use can be
conceptualized in terms of three major dimensions (measures) as follows (ITU, 2008; ITU,
2009; Musa et al., 2005):
Main telephone lines per 100 inhabitants (MTL)
Cellular subscribers per 100 inhabitants (MCS)
Internet users per 100 inhabitants (IU)
In this study, we employ the above ICT infrastructure use dimensions (measures) to show the
impact of ICT adoption, use and penetration on human development in SADC countries.
4.0 BACKGROUND ON THE SADC COUNTRIES
SADC consist of 15 member states within a regional community (Figure 1). One of the aims
of SADC is to support human development in Southern Africa (SADC, 2010). The vision is
to reinvigorate the positive values, principles, culture and history that existed among the
people of the region prior to colonization.
The SADC region was formed as a result of the Lusaka declaration of 1980 where each
member state committed to the development of ICT, human resources and economic
integration (Mutala, 2002). The SADC countries have a combined population of over 200
million with 80 percent of people living in the rural areas (Mutala, 2002; SADC, 2009).
During the 1990s the region experienced growth in its ICT sector (Mutala, 2002; Bollou,
2006).
Mauritius and Seychelles are the only countries placed highly on the UN Human
Development Index (HDI) rankings. Mauritius has a population of 1.2 million, and a literacy
rate of 80%. Seychelles has a population of about 0.09 million and a literacy rate of 91.8 %.
The two countries had the highest ICT development ranking in Africa in 2007. Angola, South
Africa, Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland, Tanzania, Madagascar and Lesotho are ranked as
medium in terms of human development. Zambia, Mozambique, Malawi, DRC and
Zimbabwe are grouped as low on human development according to the rankings. Zimbabwe
which has the highest literacy rate of 91% and population of 13.3 million was not ranked in
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the list of all the countries in human development ranking due to recent political and
economic stagnation (UNDP, 2007).
Figure 1: Map of SADC countries. Source: SADC, 2009.
The SADC countries have increased their ICT infrastructure investments and usage since
1994 due in part to the liberalization of telecommunication policies in the states (The Africa
Initiative, 2004). South Africa has the most sophisticated ICT infrastructure in the region
(Brown & Brown, 2008), while other countries such as Zambia, Tanzania, Mozambique and
Lesotho are categorized as Least Developed Countries (LDC) with poor ICT infrastructure
(UNCTAD, 2005). Table 1 below shows a summary of demographic data for the countries.
The trends of ICT infrastructure growth in SADC between 1998- 2007 are presented in
Appendix A.
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TABLE 1. Demographic Data for the Countries (UNDP, 2008; ITU, 2007; UNCTAD,
2010)
Key:
HHD High Human Development
MHD Medium Human Development
LHD Low Human Development
IDI: ICT Development Index
Countries
HDI
Subgroup
Level
Population
(Millions )
Life
Expectancy
(Years)
GDP per
Capita
(US $)
Literacy
Rate
% HDI IDI
HDI
Ranking
2007
IDI
Ranking
2007
Seychelles HHD 0.09 72.8 16,394 91.8 0.845 3.44 57 62
Mauritius HHD 1'262 72.1 11,296 87.4 0.804 3.45 81 62
Botswana MHD 1'882 53.4 13,604 82.9 0.694 2.1 125 109
Namibia MHD 2'074 60.4 5,155 88 0.686 1.92 128 112
South Africa MHD 48'577 51.5 9,757 88 0.683 2.7 129 87
Swaziland MHD 1'141 45.3 4,789 79.6 0.572 1.73 142 113
Angola MHD 17'024 46.5 5,385 67.4 0.564 1.31 143 138
Madagascar MHD 19'683 59.9 932 70.7 0.543 1.27 145 139
Tanzania MHD 40'454 55 1,208 72.3 0.53 1.13 151 145
Lesotho MHD 2'008 44.9 1,541 82.2 0.514 1.48 156 123
Malawi LHD 13'925 52.4 761 71.8 0.493 1.20 160 145
Zambia LHD 11'922 44.5 1,358 70.6 0.481 1.39 164 129
Mozambique LHD 21'397 47.8 802 44.4 0.402 1.02 172 148
DRC LHD 62'636 47.6 298 67.2 0.389 1.13 176 147
Zimbabwe
LHD
13'349 43.4 2,038 91.2
Not
Ranked 1.46
Not
Ranked 126
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5.0 THEORETICAL BACKGROUND
The Impact of ICT Infrastructure on Human Development
Several studies have affirmed that ICT infrastructure could improve the level of human
development in both developed and developing countries (Bollou, 2006; Ngwenyama et al.,
2006; Ngwenyama & Morawczynski, 2007). ICT usage has furthermore been shown to
improve firm level performance and growth in many countries (OECD, 2003). Thus we
propose that:
P1: Increased ICT infrastructure use facilitates improvement in the level of human
development in SADC countries
The Impact of Main Telephone Lines (MTL) on Human Development
Bollou (2006) posits that the use of main telephone lines in Sub-Sahara African countries
increases per capita GDP in these countries. Thus we propose that:
P1a: Main telephone line penetration facilitates improvement in the standard of living (GDP
per capita) in SADC countries
Mbarika et al. (2002) claims that the growth in main telephone line usage has brought a
variety of social benefits such as better education, health service delivery, development
projects, stabilization of migrants, handling of natural and social disaster in Sub-Sahara
African countries. Therefore we propose that:
P1b: Main telephone line penetration facilitates improvement in the level of education
(Literacy) in SADC countries
As stated in P1b above, main telephone line usage in Sub-Sahara African countries has brought
about improvement in health service delivery (Mbarika et al., 2000; Mbarika, 2002b). The
provision of telephone lines and telecentres furthermore provides individuals access to health
information (Info Dev, 2006). Thus we propose that:
P1C: Main telephone penetration facilitates improvement in health (Life expectancy) in SADC
countries
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The Impact of Mobile Phone Subscribers on Human Development
Several studies on the impact of telecommunications on economic growth in developing
countries have shown that increase in mobile cellular penetration has a positive and
significant impact on GDP growth (Waverman, Meschi & Fuss, 2005; Wang, 1999; Hamilton,
2003, Avegerou, 1998; Collechia & Schreyer, 2002). Thus we propose that:
P2a: Mobile phone penetration facilitates improvement in the standard of living (GDP per
capita) in SADC countries.
In recent times, education has been shaped by the use of mobile phones due to its capability
for continous learning, learning during leisure time and interaction for more knowledge
(Attewell & Svill-Smith, 2004). Chigona, Beukes, Vally & Tanner (2009) state that the
mobile phone is an essential tool for communication in skills acquisition and business. Thus
we propose that:
P2b: Mobile phone penetration facilitates improvement in the level of education (Literacy) in
SADC countries.
There has been evidence of the impact of mobile phones on population health in both
developed and developing countries (Kaplan, 2006; Patrick, William, Grisworld,
Intille,2008). The use of mobile phones has aided in increasing household income which has
led to improvements in food security, health and education (InfoDev, 2006). Thus we propose
that:
P2c: Mobile phone penetration facilitates improvement in health (Life expectancy) in SADC
countries.
The Impact of Internet Usage on Human Development
The use of the Internet in both developed and developing countries has been shown to
improve productivity, trade, business transactions, income and socio- economic status (Litan
& Rivlin, 2000; Oyelaran-Oyeyinka, 2003; Oyelaran-Oyekinka & Lal, 2003). Thus, we
propose that:
P3a: Internet penetration facilitates improvement in the standard of living (GDP per capita) in
SADC countries
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There has been a wealth of research affirming that Internet usage contributes significantly to
the level of education (Chigona el., 2009; Chogona, Kamkwenda & Manjoo, 2008;
Chivhanga, 2000) Mbarika (2002a) states that the Internet is beneficial to both academic and
research sectors in least developing countries. Thus, we proposed that:
P3b: Internet penetration facilitates improvement in the level of education (Literacy) in SADC
countries.
Improvement in the health of a population, and strengthening health systems such as
prevention and detection of disease are important to development. The use of the Internet has
provided opportunities for health providers, media and stakeholders to disseminate health
information in developing countries (Curioso & Kurth, 2007; Ojo, 2006). In general health
information management processes are facilited by ICT infrastructure usage (InfoDev,
2006).Thus we propose that:
P3c: Internet penetration facilitates improvement in health (Life expectancy) in SADC
countries.
These propositions are summarized in Figure 2 below. Figure 2 also illustrates that there are
other factors besides ICT which have an impact in human development, but these are outside
the scope of this study.
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Figure 2: Theoretical Model of ICT Infrastructure and Human Development
6.0 DATA COLLECTION AND ANALYSIS
We gathered data for this analysis from the International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
and the United Nation (UN) databases. The ITU database provides telecommunications data
for all countries and the UN archive consist of social developmental indices for all
countries. The study employs a country level dataset drawn from the years 1998-2007. This
period of 10 years is assumed to be the period of highest ICT use in Africa, as it follows the
years of major ICT investments in the continent (Bollou, 2006). The relevant variables are
described in Table 2.
The approach we followed to test the propositions is Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) as
implemented in the Partial Least Squares (PLS) method (Samoilenko & Osei-Bryson, 2010b;
Gefen & Straub, 2005).The data was analyzed using WarpPLS (Version 1). The average
values per country from 1998-2007 for all the variables were calculated (i.e. for the three
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dimensions of ICT infrastructure and three components of human development). The
dimensions of ICT infrastructure use (independent variables) were introduced into the
software tool regarding each component of human development (dependent variables).
TABLE 2: List of Variables
Independent Variables (ICT-Use
Components)
Dependent Variables (Human -
Development Components)
Fixed telephone line (100 inhabitants) Standard of living (Economy ,GDP)
Mobile cellular subscribers (100 inhabitants) Education( Literacy rate & enrolments)
Internet users subscribers (100 inhabitants) Health (Life expectancy at birth)
6.1 Structural Equation Modeling (SEM)
Structural equation modeling (SEM) is a type of multivariate statistical analysis that enables
the researcher to solve a set of interrelated questions in a single, orderly and comprehensive
way (Crowley & Fan, 1997). SEM allows one to conjecture the presence of relationships
between multiple unobserved variables (latent variables) such that each latent variable is
associated with multiple observed variables (Samoilenko, Ngwenyama & Osei-Bryson, 2006).
In SEM, variables may appear as a response or predictor depending on the level of influence
on another (i.e. either directly or in-direct) (Samoilenko, et al., 2006). These are meant to
represent a causal relationship among the variables in the model (Fox, 2002). Due to the
efficiency of SEM for testing theoretical models (Crowley & Fan, 1997), we use SEM in this
study to determine the causal relationships among variables of observational data to facilitate
the translation into data analysis (Fox, 2002) while the pattern of relationship among the
variables are specified a priori based on theoretical expectation (Crowley & Fan, 1997).
Figure 3 below presents the structural equation model of ICT infrastructure use and human
development.
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7.0 FINDINGS
The Impact of ICT Use on Human Development
The relationship between ICT infrastructure and human development (HDI) is presented in
Table 3.
TABLE 3: The Impact of ICT Use on Human Development
Path
Coefficients
P
Values
R2
Coefficients
ICT
HDI 0.939 0.025 0.881
* P < .05 ** P < .01 *** P < .001
The Impact of Telephone Use on Health, Education and Standard of Living
Table 4 shows the link between main telephone line usage and health, education and standard
of living respectively.
TABLE 4: The Impact of Telephone Use on Health, Education and Standard of Living
Path
Coefficients
P
Values
R2
Telephone
Health 0.911 <0.001 0.831
Education 0.668 <0.001 0.446
Standard of
living
0.983 <0.001 0.966
* P < .05 ** P < .01 *** P < .001
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The Impact of Mobile Phone Usage on Health, Education and Standard of Living
The relationships between mobile phone usage and health, education and standard of living
are shown in Table 5
TABLE 5: The Impact of Mobile Phone Use on Health, Education and Standard of
Living
Path
Coefficients
P
Values
R2
Coefficients
Mobile
Cellular
Health 0.773 <0.001 0.598
Education 0.614 <0.001 0.377
Standard
of living
0.975 <0.001 0.950
* P < .05 ** P < .01 *** P < .001
The Impact of Internet Usage on Health, Education and Standard of Living
The relationships between Internet usage and health, education and standard of living
respectively are presented in Table 6.
TABLE 6: The Impact of Internet Usage on Health, Education and Standard of Living
Path
Coefficients
P
Values
R2
Coefficients
Internet
Health 0.898 0.026 0.806
Education 0.715 <0.001 0.511
Standard
of living
0.898 <0.001 0.806
* P < .05 ** P < .01 *** P < .001
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Table 7 below show the results from testing the propositions. All the propositions were
supported.
TABLE 7: Test of Propositions
P1: Increased ICT infrastructure use facilitates improvement in the level of human
development in SADC countries - Supported
P1a: Main telephone line penetration facilitates improvement in the standard of living (GDP
per capita) in SADC countries - Supported
P1b: Main telephone line penetration facilitates improvement in the level of education
(Literacy) in SADC countries - Supported
P1C: Main telephone penetration facilitates improvement in health (Life expectancy) in SADC
countries - Supported
P2a: Mobile phone penetration facilitates improvement in the standard of living (GDP per
capita) in SADC countries - Supported
P2b: Mobile phone penetration facilitates improvement in the level of education (Literacy) in
SADC countries - Supported
P2c: Mobile phone penetration facilitates improvement in health (Life expectancy) in SADC
countries - Supported
P3a: Internet penetration facilitates improvement in the standard of living (GDP per capita) in
SADC countries - Supported
P3b: Internet penetration facilitates improvement in the level of education (Literacy) in SADC
countries - Supported
P3c: Internet penetration facilitates improvement in health (Life expectancy) in SADC
countries - Supported
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8.0 DISCUSSION and CONCLUSION
From the analysis, we observed that ICT infrastructure use is playing a tremendous role in
promoting human development in SADC countries. The three dimensions of ICT
infrastructure are highly correlated with all three dimensions of human development, i.e.
standard of living (GDP per capita), education (literacy) and health (life expectancy)
respectively. The highest correlation was between ICT use and standard of living. For all of
main line telephony, mobile phone usage and the Internet, the relationships with standard of
living were stronger than those for education and health. The advent of mobile phones, fixed
line telephony and the Internet have improved the life of many citizens in SADC countries.
The introduction of mobile applications such as Mpesa, and Wizzit, amongst others, is adding
further value (Bangens & Soderberg, 2008). ICT infrastructure are bridging the digital divide,
reducing poverty and ensuring socio-economic development thereby sustaining the evolution
of Africa.
The next strongest relationships were between the three dimensions of ICT infrastructure and
health, with the weakest relationships, relatively speaking, between the dimensions of ICT
infrastructure and education. Generally speaking ICT infrastructure is deployed primarily as a
means of improving business and economic growth, hence the strongest relationships are with
standard of living measures. The fact that the relationships with health are the next strongest
may relate to the fact that the measure of health in the human development index is life
expectancy. Deployment of ICT infrastructure for economic development, then, has an
indirect impact on life expectancy, as there is a relationship between standard of living and
life expectancy.
8.1 Limitations and Future Research
The data used in this research was drawn from archival data of the ITU and UN. It covers a
period of ten years from 1998 to 2007 with 15 SADC countries. Since SEM offers richer
insight when provided with wider data, we envisage that more data from African countries
would provide deeper understanding.
should be explored, as ICT infrastructure alone will not improve the level of development.
Other complementary factors should be researched. This limitation is not peculiar to this
study alone but is characteristic of the research in this area in general. The ten years period
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can be used for longitudinal analysis as well in future studies (Samoileko & Osei-Bryson,
2008; Hoskisson et al., 2000).
Future research could also explore more African countries to show if the situations is the same
across different regions of Africa. It has been observed that countries have dissimilar
capabilities for translating ICT use into macro-outcomes.
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APPENDIX 1
Figure A: Main Telephone Line Penetration Rates (1998-2007)
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Figure B -2007)
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Figure C Penetration Rates (1998-2007)
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IFIP WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
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AFGHANISTANS ROLE IN A GLOBAL INFORMATION AGE - ACTORS, GOALS AND REACTIONS
Melanie Stilz
School of Communications
Dublin City University
Email: [email protected]
Abstract: Concepts like “the Information Age” are far from unknown in a country like
Afghanistan that is often characterised as “failed state”; on the contrary, one
observes that, amongst certain groups, the notion of “leapfrogging”
industrialization is deemed possible even for a poor country like Afghanistan.
Indeed, one can observe a distinct awareness that new communication
technologies offer many potential new opportunities especially amongst young
educated Afghans. Not surprisingly perhaps, (especially for those familiar with
Everett Rogers work), it is precisely them, those “early adopters”1 who cooperate
closely with development organizations in information and communication
technology (ICT) projects. However, decisions on those projects are in most cases
negotiated beforehand among representatives of Afghan institutions of higher
education, donor agencies and international organisations. The differing
experiences with, and expectations of new communication technology among the
young Afghans, the international actors and the local older generation civil
servants also reflect their differing ideas of Afghanistan’s role and prospects in a
“Global Information Age“. This paper examines how these potential conflicts
might be avoided by greater awareness of the local and international contexts of
new ICT applications and adoption processes.
Keywords: ICTD, Higher Education, Diffusion of Innovations, Information Age
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AFGHANISTANS ROLE IN A GLOBAL INFORMATION AGE - ACTORS, GOALS AND REACTIONS
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„For example in a society like us, who had Taliban rules. Internet cafés now somehow face
the role of a relaxation park. Somewhere you can go and cut off with every life you have.[...]
Somewhere you could go and find new friends and make communications. Somewhere you
are forced to learn Latin characters [...]. All of this in the last five years in Afghanistan is
moving very fast. In many ways we are behind somehow, but we are now computerized much
quicker than Germany.“2
The attitudes towards New ICTs among actors in the Higher Education Sector in Afghanistan
have been experienced by the author as generally positive. At the same time these positive
remarks usually come with reservations and doubts that greatly differ. This paper takes a look
at expectations and objections of different local stakeholders who are involved in the planning
and implementation of ICT projects. It focuses on the “early adopters” (Rogers, 1995) and
their role in a context based diffusion of New ICTs.
When talking about the Information Age and the Information Society, it is often less the
information itself that comes to peoples mind, but the way information is received, exchanged
and processed: by information technologies. Internet, Personal Computer, mobile phones,
smartphones, portable laptops - information societies use devices that allow sending and
receiving information in real-time, independent from time and place. The idea of the
information society is based on technological breakthroughs (UNESCO, 2005) seen as
potentially powerful instruments for increasing productivity, generating economic growth,
creating jobs and employability and improving the quality of life of all (WSIS 2003).
Thinking of the chances and possibilities that these “technological breakthroughs” can offer
developing countries, the promise of “technological leapfrogging”, of being able to skip the
stages of industrial development by adopting the most advanced technologies directly and to
capitalize on their tremendous potential, holds out special appeal (UNESCO, 2005). The
concept of industrialization, however, implies technology in tandem with organization,
“linking the notion of the division of labour as developed by political economists, the division
of mental operations underlying the mechanization of thought, and the doctrine of scientific
management of the workshop.” (Mattelart, 2003). A “mechanization of thought” that never
established in many developing countries.
How can such a concept of the “the Information Age” as successor of the “Industrial Age”, as
it exists in most parts of Europe and the US, with “the network society [as] the social structure
characteristic of the Information Age,” (Castells, 2000) be adopted by and implemented in
very different historic and cultural contexts?
The potential power of ICTs for developing countries, is often emphasized. As suggested by
UNESCO “the use of ICT can improve information and service delivery, encourage citizen
participation in the decision-making process, and make governments more accountable,
transparent and effective. ” (UNESCO, 2009). These kinds of definitions however only
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provide a common base of understanding, but do not offer a precise conception or
recommendation in practical terms. Additionally, the critical point is mainly seen in "unequal
distribution of resources, such as telecommunications and technical skills, [which] causes
concern about the ability of developing countries to participate in the emerging world
economy." (Avgerou, 1998). The lack of infrastructure, equipment, access to technology as
well as computer literacy are mostly seen as the main obstacles for developing countries to
benefit from new ICTs and they all undoubtedly are essential preconditions. But there is little
consent on why so many projects that seem to promise closing some of these gaps, do not
succeed and leave behind deserted pools of hardware.
This paper suggests, in accordance with Heeks (2009) that ICT projects in a development
context must move from serving passive consumers to being demand-driven by active
producers and innovators. In order to identify these potential active innovators for ICTs in
Afghan Higher Education, Everett Rogers “Diffusion of Innovations” model is applied.
2 DIFFUSION OF INNOVATIONSEverett Rogers introduced his diffusion of innovations approach in 1962 originally as a
framework in which to evaluate the impact of development programs (idem). Diffusion is
seen as the process by which an innovation is communicated through certain channels over a
time, among members of a social system.
Rogers questions that advantageous innovations will sell themselves thanks to their obvious
benefits, and diffuse rapidly. The early diffusion research, usually on technological
innovations, fitted well with the dominant paradigm’s focus on technology and its top-down
communication to the public (Rogers, 1976a). The dominant paradigm had implied that
poverty was equivalent to underdevelopment and the simple and obvious way for less
developed countries to develop would be for them to become more like the developed
countries (Rogers, 1976b). But mere transfer of resources and technology did not necessarily
bring one any closer to the realization of a desired state (Kothari: 1984:22), which can
similarly be observed today with efforts of introducing New ICTs in developing countries.
Rogers accepted the criticism the dominant paradigm received during the 1970s, he adapted
his model and distanced from a mere economically concentration and definition of
development. He modified his diffusion theory during the 1970s and pursued a more
culturally sensitive approach. He proposed that diffusion research needed to integrate
traditional and modern media as well as community-based change agents and local opinion
leaders (Rogers, 1976c). Most early diffusion of innovation studies had been based on a linear
message – receiver model of communication, later definitions are more accurately described
by a process of convergence, where participants create and share information to reach mutual
understanding. The essence of the diffusion process is information exchange through which
one individual communicates a new idea to one or several others, which involves
1 an innovation
2 an individual or other unit of adoption with knowledge of the innovation
3 another individual or other unit that does not yet have experience with the innovation
4 a communication channel, connecting the two.
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Mass media channels were long seen as most rapid and efficient means to inform an audience
of potential adopters about the existence of an innovation. Yet interpersonal channels had
proven to be more effective in persuading an individual to accept a new idea, especially if the
interpersonal channel links similar socioeconomic status, beliefs, education and the like
(Rogers, 1995).
These interpersonal channels exist within the diffusion process of ICTs in Afghan Higher
Education among the stakeholders involved, with varying degrees of similarity in background
and status.
Diffusion investigations show that most individuals do not evaluate an innovation on the basis
of scientific studies of its consequences, but that diffusion is a social process, consisting of
modelling and imitation of previous adopters by potential adopters. Most influential in this
adoption process are according to Rogers members of a society that function as opinion
leaders, that are able to influence other individuals attitudes. This leadership is in most cases
not an individual's formal position or status. Opinion leadership is earned and maintained by
individuals technical competence, social accessibility and conformity to the systems norms.
Opinion leaders are members of the social system, other than change agents who are usually
professionals who represent external change agencies.
In the following section it is suggested, that in the case of Afghanistan, the early ICT adopters
come from a privileged rural university environment and that their role as opinion leaders in
this area should be considered.
3 AFGHAN HIGHER EDUCATION CONTEXTThe situation in Afghan Higher Education in 2002, when many war torn universities first
reopened, was similar to most parts of the country; non or unstable power and water supply,
no heating or cooling facilities and insufficient premises and equipment. At the same time the
number of students increased within only two years from 4000 in 2001 to 31 000 in 2003,
confronting the universities alongside the physical (re)constructions, with the fierce
competition for academics in order to meet with the urgent need for well-educated and trained
leadership, lacking in public and private sectors alike (World Bank, 2005). In 2010, there
were about 70 000 students at public universities and institutes of higher education, not
including several thousand students at a growing number of private universities.
Within a few years of immense effort and investment by international governmental and non-
governmental organizations in building up urban infrastructure, access to communication
technologies has improved considerably. Though still accompanied by regular power
interruptions and hardware breakdowns, unlike in 2002 the majority of Afghan universities
and institutions of higher education is today equipped with PC labs, available to the students;
most of the bigger universities are in addition connected to the Internet and run local
networks, making the planning, implementation, maintenance and troubleshooting of
networks that grow more and more complex necessary.
ICTs have for many already become an indispensable part of academic life and work. Digital
resources and online research have established as an alternative to compensate the lack of
well equipped libraries and study books. However the gap between technology literates and
illiterates in academic institutions is still considerable and leads to various overt as well as
hidden conflicts.
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During several years of working in ICT projects in the Afghan Higher Education sector the
author experienced a number of situations where intentions and expectations of the involved
actors linked with ICT projects didn't meet with the outcomes.
4 METHODOLOGYThis study is part of an ongoing research project on New ICTs in the Education Sector of
Afghanistan. As the author has been working since 2005 in the area and actively participated
in some ICT projects, there is an element of action research to it.
The author has as a practitioner been part of the whole process of project planning,
negotiations with local partners and international donors and project implementation of ICT
projects in Afghan Higher Education between 2007 – 2010 and since 2011 is involved in
action research projects on New ICTs supported primary education and adult literacy.
The study is widely based on ethnographic research methods and framed by concepts taken
from Science and Technology Studies. It looks at the role and meaning of technology for
actors of different groups involved in New ICTs projects and how these influence and shape
decisions (MacKenzie & Wajcman (1985)). It also aims to open the `black-box' of technology
to look at the socio-economic patterns embedded and the processes of innovation and
diffusion (MacKenzie & Wajcman (1985), Pinch & Bijker (1987)).
The data for this study has been collected and analysed between 2008 – 2010 using qualitative
methods as participant observation and conversations at the work place as well as in meetings
and semi-structured Interviews. Most of the meetings took place in the IT Department of the
Ministry of Higher Education of Afghanistan, which is responsible for handling all ICT
related projects in the higher education sector. Meetings were held with representatives of
donor organizations, with representatives of institutions of higher education as well as
practitioners and contractors responsible for the implementation of ICT projects. As a
consultant to the IT Department the author was able to attend most meetings and take notes,
but also get involved into discussions. To this point eight in-depth interviews were conducted
with members of the local groups involved (representatives of the ministry, university
officials and young ICT professionals).
In a fist step, different groups of actors were identified by their differing experiences with and
perceptions of technology. The data conducted was then analysed looking at their role in the
negotiation and implementation process of ICT projects as well in the diffusion process of
New ICTs in Afghan higher education.
4.1 ACTORS
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5 EARLY ADOPTERSThe early adopters of ICT innovations have shown to be mainly “young experts”, students and
young professionals that in most cases had been in contact with New ICTs when living in
exile in Pakistan or Iran. Back in Afghanistan, computer technologies offered opportunities
that where otherwise not available: easy access to different sources of information,
entertainment and not the least computer literacy meant a qualification for better paid jobs.
Many young Afghans, who went to high school in Pakistan or Iran and now study at Afghan
universities, had difficulties adopting to the changed circumstances, but also came with high
hopes to contribute to the reconstruction process with their knowledge. Although “the West”
is not viewed by many young Afghans as an ideal, yet they do perceive the opportunities of a
globalized World Wide Web. The prominent example of India's software industry disengages
from the constant feeling of being disadvantaged,
“the Internet makes all the same, there is no difference if you are in America, in India or in
Afghanistan. It's all the same.”4
Many of the students have shown a strong motivation to participate and contribute to
“become part of the Information Age”5 and can imagine Afghanistan developing a high
quality educational system and becoming a software exporting nation in the future. Most of
them use information technologies not only for educational research and communication with
their often world wide network of family and friends, but also to get information on health
issues, news and personal interests.
At most universities it was science students, who were the main force behind the first
implementations of communication technology systems, revealing their interest and offering
their services to university officials and international organisations.
6 OPINION LEADERSThese computer literate students, or young lecturers at Afghan universities would in a first
impression also seem to belong to the group of opinion leaders; they posses a comparably
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high technical competence, are socially accessible to their fellow students and lecturers and
are familiar with the systems norms.
In the case of Afghanistan however, external “change agents” (Rogers, 1995) play another
important role, as technological infrastructure and access to technology is not available or
affordable for everyone alike. Where and how these physical requirements as power supply,
equipment and access are provided depends on decisions largely made without any influence
of these early adopters.
Based on their often close cooperation with international organisations and donor agencies,
“exile Afghans” holding key positions in governmental institutions are the most influential
local group in the decision making process. Before coming back to Afghanistan they were
part of the “Information Society”, technical infrastructures and high-speed internet were taken
for granted. The technical obstacles in a country like Afghanistan, the necessary expertise
required to run, maintain and secure ICT systems are seldom apparent to this group, as they
are used to invisible network structures and reliable technology. Also in terms of organization
and cooperation most of them rely on information technologies and working structures they
have gotten used to during spending most of their working life abroad. The aforementioned
“mechanization of thought” had become part of their personal and professional life and the
generally slower and time consuming decision making processes in Afghanistan are often
perceived as disturbing as the following quote from an interview with an advisor to the
Minister of Higher Education shows:
„We have 400 plus employees here – I don’t think they could do the job of 40 people. Having
computer and technology, with 40 people we could run this ministry 100 time better than we
do now.“ 6
This group is in most cases very supportive towards New ICT innovations, but lacking
technical competence and often also the social accessibility they would need to persuade the
second group involved in the decision making process: the “senior officials” who spend all
their live in Afghanistan. Members of this group have in most cases little or no experience
with information technologies but they are responsible for the local implementation at the
university or institution of higher education. They have never experienced a life dominated by
strict time allocation and the expectation of immediate reaction and response. Communication
relies on personal meetings or at least a phone call. One member of Kabul University
administration stated that most staff in higher education had email addresses today – but that
the computer would depend on too many things7.
Their attitude strongly differs from both, the technological understanding and high
expectations among the “young experts” as well as the conception of technology as an
essential, taken for granted tool as most “exile Afghans” see it. In the experience of the
“senior officials”, computer systems are unaffordable for the average citizen, they are not
reliable and don't meet with most people's real needs, as one university professor observed,
“we have all these things. Freedom of media, journalist, we can talk, we can speak, nobody is
afraid of of anything, of doing something. But this is the surface. But underneath, the
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economic situation of the majority of the people are getting worse day by day. [...] I can't find
any kind of program in the computer to manage a family life at 50$ in Afghanistan”8
Not only the acquisition costs are what they are worried about, but the fact that the careless
introduction of new technologies will lead to a whole range of problems and interfere with
existing structures and procedures. Though not generally hostile towards information
technologies, they often give ICTs a rather low priority.
The cooperation between the “senior officials” and the “young experts” concerning ICTs is
commonly based on regular personal meetings as they tend to be responsible for technical
support and often also offer advise:
„Usually we tell the chancellor what is needed for the University-IT and we also tell him
what to say to the Minister (he laughs).“ 9
But their influence depends on the approachability of the “senior officials” and their
willingness to accept advice from the “young experts” during the decision making process. As
this requires a certain degree of trust, and there exists for various reasons a high staff
turnover in higher education leadership positions , this approachability is often limited.
External change agents, represented by practitioners or international organizations, willing to
introduce and support ICTs in Afghan higher education are often limited in their access and
communication primarily to the “exile Afghans” and to a lesser extend to the “senior
officials” but tend to neglect including the “young experts” into the project planning and
early implementation phase. Although it is them who could most likely - as opinion leaders
among ICT interested students and university employees – support the process of adaptation
of technologies to the local context and convey acceptance among the users.
7 CONCLUSIONThe example of Afghanistan shows, that in certain social systems the influence of opinion
leaders to support the adoption of an innovation is limited by external power relations that
prevent or slow down the diffusion of an innovation. To fully understand a diffusion process
and its reasons for adoption, rejection, or delay, it is as shown here fundamental to identify the
key actors involved in decision making about and providing access to an innovation. And
subsequently consider motivations of adoption, delay or rejection of all groups involved.
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8 BIBLIOGRAPHY
AVGEROU, C. (1998). How can IT enable economic growth in developing countries?
Information Technology for Development, 8(1).
CASTELLS, M. (2000). Materials for an exploratory theory of the network society 1. British
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HEEKS, R. (2008). ICT4D 2.0: The Next Phase of Applying ICT for International
Development.
KOTHARI, R. (1984). Communication for Alternative Development: Towards a Paradignm.
Development Dialogue, 13–22.
MACKENZIE, D. & WAJCMAN, J. (1985). The Social Shaping of Technology.
MATTELART, A. (2003). The Information Society
PINCH, T. & BIJKER, W. (1987). The Social Construction of Facts and Artifacts. In: The
Social Construction of Technological Systems. New Directions in the Sociology and History
of Technology. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
ROGERS, E. M. (1976a). Communication and Development - The Passing of the Dominant
Paradigm. pp 121–142 . Rogers, Everett M. (ed), Communiaction and Development - Critical
Perspectives. SAGE Publications.
ROGERS, E. M. (1976b). The Passing of the Dominant Paradigm – Reflections on Diffusion
Research. pp 49 – 53. In: Schramm, Wilbur, & Lerner, Daniel (eds), Communication and
Change The last ten years - and the next. East-West Center.
ROGERS, E. M. (1976c). Where are we in Understanding the Diffusion of Innovations? pp
204–222 . In: Schramm, Wilbur, & Lerner, Daniel (eds), Communication and Change The
last ten years - and the next. East-West Center.
ROGERS, E. M. (1995). Diffusion of Innovations. 4thed. The Free Press.
UNESCO (2005). Towards Knowledge Societies.
UNESCO (2009). UNESCO and the Private Sector: Making a Difference through
Partnerships .
WORLD BANK (2005). Strengthening Higher Education Program (SHEP) report.
WSIS (2003). Declaration of Principles Building the Information Society: a global challenge
in the new Millennium.
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510
IFIP WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
63
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Developing Integrated National Health Information Systems in Malawi: Oriented emergence of flexible architecture
1
Developing Integrated National Health Information Systems in
Malawi:
Oriented emergence of flexible architecture
Abstract
In this paper, development of an integrated health information system based on an iterative
and data warehouse approach is discussed. Using a case from Malawi, the process was lead
by a data standard task force whose mandate was to organize the overall HIS framework as a
way of ensuring that both organizational politics & differences, and technical issues are taken
on board. The need for open standards for interoperability is discussed and such standards are
seen as important for enabling African countries to control their own systems development
despite their relatively weak technical competencies. This development has benefited from
collaboration with other African countries such as Sierra Leone and Tanzania through the
sharing and exchanging practices and open source software. Based on commonality of the
different programs, integration is done one program at a time. Initial success of first systems
integrated ensures process continuity and the system gains strength and builds momentum.
This encourages more actors to integrate their systems into the data warehouse. This approach
improved the interoperability of the Malawian HIS as the initial integration gave a strong
basis for its development. But how could such organization achieve its goal when it has no
control on system development and lack skills for technical standard making? We explore
how the emergence of the new HIS is influenced by both the data standard task force and
conjunctures.
Keywords:
Iterative integration, HMIS, Data warehouse, HIS architecture, standard.
1. Introduction
This paper is about integration of health information systems (HIS) following an iterative data
warehouse approach where data sets from various health programs have been included
gradually and without introducing radi Interoperability between
systems is important in such an approach to integrated health information architectures and
the paper is discussing the need for open standards for data exchange. The case being studied
is from Malawi but the paper is arguing that the findings are relevant also for other African
countries.
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Developing Integrated National Health Information Systems in Malawi: Oriented emergence of flexible architecture
2
As most African countries, Malawi health systems and health information system (HIS)
remain weak and of poor quality. However the key to improving the health systems, health
status and attaining the three health-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) is to
have well-functioning HIS (WHO 2007). However, in many countries HIS remain
fragmented between different health programs, and donor agencies, with little or no
coordination between them (Braa et al, 2007). Efforts have been made to improve and
strengthen HIS in developing countries, this include the establishment of the Health Metrics
Network (HMN) by WHO in 2005 (HMN, 2008). The core role of the HMN strategy is
working for integration of different data sources and sub-systems. HMN adopted a data
warehouse approach as a way of achieving this strategy. According to the HMN strategy,
countries should develop a country data warehouse (repository), for aggregate data and
indicators to be shared across a Ministry of Health (MoH), health programs and agencies.
Using a case from Malawi, we explore how the emergence of the new integrated HIS that uses
the HMN data warehouse approach is influenced by both the data standard task force and
conjunctures. We discuss how the new approach improves fragmentation of health
information systems within the MoH. The Malawi HIS is called Health Management
Information System (HMIS).
Causes of Fragmentation within the Health System
The Ministry of Health is dominated by health programs which are rich in resources than the
ministry itself. The budgets for the different health programs are not centrally controlled by
the ministry. Each of the health program deal with a particular disease, such as HIV/AIDS,
Malaria, Tuberculosis (already three different programs organised as separate entities). They
also deal with areas of the health services, such as the Extended Program on Immunisation
(EPI) responsible for vaccination; Reproductive and Child Health (RCH) responsible for the
health services addressing pregnant women, deliveries and new born, infants and children;
Family Planning program; and so forth. Each of these health programs will have funding from
external donors who will require reports on how their funds are used. As a consequence of
such demands for data and reports (combined with the fact that the official reporting system is
not able to provide such data), each vertical health program will establish their own reporting
and information system. This leads to a situation where there is no coordination of
information resources and no shared data standards. Given this situation, an iterative approach
to integration was followed rather than having total integration of data and reports from the
different vertical health programs.
Iterative Integration Process as a Solution
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Developing Integrated National Health Information Systems in Malawi: Oriented emergence of flexible architecture
3
Starting with the official information system of the Ministry of Health (MoH) called the
HMIS in the data warehouse, iteratively vertical programs were integrated into the data
warehouse, one at a time. Integration was done taking into consideration the needs of each
health program integrated and the commonality of the different programs. The aim was to
- a system that
satisfies their requirements. After demonstrating some initial success; which indicated that
integrating iteratively actually worked, the project gained momentum and is attracting
increasing interest from other stakeholders. The decision of which programs to be integrated
first was collectively done by the data standard task force members. Some lessons were learnt
from this process, a key lesson was that the obstacles to integration are not only technical by
nature, but organisational, political and social. As Latour expressed, integration of systems
fail not because of technical reasons alone, but due to a combination of other more complex
issues such as institutional, political, and social (Latour, 1996), particularly in cases where
technology develops independently from social contexts.
vertical
programs of the Malawi health care system were integrated into an HMIS at once, failed. The
reasons for its failure and the architecture of the failed system are also explained. The paper
then describes the proposed iterative and data warehouse approach that addressed the
problem. It also illustrate soft influence from a steering committee combined with
conjunctures can impact the development of the overall HIS. We address the following
research question:
How can political will and conjectures influence emergence of an integrated HIS architecture
in contexts where there are limited human resources for technical standardization?
2. Conceptual Framework Health Information Systems in
Developing Countries and Integration
Health Information Systems in developing countries
Effective Health Information Systems (HIS) are seen as being important in the process of
improving health systems and health status in developing countries (e.g. AbouZahr and
Boerma 2005). However, developing and successfully implementing such systems have
proven to be difficult due to unrealistic expectations (Heeks, 2002), the problem of
sustainability (Kimaro and Nhampossa 2005) and the fragmented and uncoordinated
organizational structures in health (Chilundo and Aanestad 2004). The problem of
sustainability is generally related both to the need for technical support structures to maintain
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Developing Integrated National Health Information Systems in Malawi: Oriented emergence of flexible architecture
4
systems and ICT technology and the need for human capacity to manage, analyse and use the
information (Kimaro and Nhampossa 2005). Fragmentation and lack of coordination is a
major characteristic of the health sector in developing countries. International donor agencies
target their support to specific health programs, such as HIV/AIDS, immunization, or
maternal health, and develop their own reporting structures and information systems to
monitor and control their activities and impact. By supporting their own vertical HIS, they
The Health Metrics Network (HMN), Technical Framework for HIS development (HMN,
2007) identified fragmentation of HIS and uncoordinated vertical systems as the major
problem in countries and recommended integration using a data warehouse approach as a
strategy. According to the HMN Framework, integration is achieved by extracting essential
aggregate, statistical data from different data sources and loading it into a data warehouse.
Following this approach, information from different sources considered as essential by the
different pr ..
A similar approach to integration has been followed by a network called HISP (Hedberg,
2002; Braa, Monteiro, Sahay, 2004). Starting in South Africa in the 19
developing an open source database application suit, called the District Health Information
Systems (DHIS), which is enabling the integration of aggregated data from across different
health programs and services and from different types of data sources. This is more or less
what we are labeling a data warehouse approach in the context of the HMN Framework. In a
recent study (Sæbø et al., 2011), four different country cases following a data warehouse
approach to integration from the HISP network and using the DHIS were analyzed. The
findings indicate that they differ in the way they include data sets and official reporting
routines in the DHIS applications. Zanzibar, Sierra Leone and Botswana include all data sets
and official reporting routines in the DHIS applications in an effort to make a new all-
encompassing system ), whilst South Africa use a summary of the most important data in the
DHIS application without replacing the other more comprehensive systems. The following
three cases and strategies are important for analyzing the case of Malawi:
Two :
Zanzibar: All stakeholders agreed to a standardization approach where the various datasets
were harmonized; overlaps, inconsistencies in definitions, and gaps were solved. This process
was funded and supported politically. New revised paper forms for data collection were
distributed and the DHIS was customized accordingly.
Sierra Leone: A two-steps approach was followed. As stakeholders did not agree to abolish
the existing paper forms and routines they did not trust that the process would benefit them
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Developing Integrated National Health Information Systems in Malawi: Oriented emergence of flexible architecture
5
the approach was to use the two systems in parallel first for data collection forms, until the
inconsistencies were solved in the DHIS database, and the datasets were fully integrated and
harmonized. Second, after the stakeholder saw that collaboration and integration was indeed
possible, after about a year, they agreed to revise and harmonize all the data collection forms.
One country followed
South Africa: The essential data and indicators used for management and decision making are
have been constantly revised and extended as new requirements and needs have emerged.
Health data standards are key to HIS integration and they typically emerge through a
standardization process rather than being decided in committees (Braa, et al. 2007). In that
way the iterative process in Sierra Leone may be regarded as typical. In this article we will
show how Malawi is following a similar approach to Sierra Leone.
Integration
Integration is a term with different meanings in different contexts and which could mean
different things to different people. In the organizational context of HIS we may use the term
integration as related to goals of better efficiency, effectiveness and co-ordination in
organizations (Wainright and Waring, 2004). In the current landscape of HIS in developing
countries numerous systems are in use and integration will denote processes to bring these
to each other. In the IS field, the concept of
integration has evolved over time from the narrowly technical perspective to a complex socio-
technical one. The desire to integrate the different systems in order to have better information
and better control has often resulted in greater risks and less control. A study of efforts to
integrate information systems in hospitals in Norway has shown that it eventually led to more
fragmentation and less control (Hanseth et al., 2006). The number and role of side effects
increased with increased integration (Hanseth and Ciborra, 2007). Integration may therefore
lead to increased complexity.
In order to analyse levels of integration better, we will adapt a framework developed by
Carlile (2004) to share and assess knowledge across boundaries in organizations. The
framework includes three progressively complex borders; syntactic, semantic and pragmatic.
It also uses three corresponding progressively complex processes; transfer, translation and
transformation. Communication, sharing and agreeing across these increasingly complex
borders are about developing an adequate common lexicon, or standards, at the syntactic
border, shared meaning at the semantic border and aligning interests at the pragmatic, or
political or organizational border. The proposed framework has a forth element which is the
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Developing Integrated National Health Information Systems in Malawi: Oriented emergence of flexible architecture
6
iterative cycling through the levels in order to step by step develop common understanding
and alignment of interests. This framework describes an ongoing and iterative process where
one attempt may not suffice and stresses the need for continuous adjustment or re-adjustment.
It considers that the environment in which integration takes place is complex and unstable.
Figure 1
Capability.
Interoperability is, contrary to integration, a term which may be given a more formal
definition; in our context interoperability refers to the ability of a system to use information or
functionality of another system by adhering to common standards. Without agreed standards
shared by at least the systems, processes or other actors which are aiming at interoperability,
interoperability is not possible.
Architecture is formally defined by the standard (IEEE) as representing the fundamental
organisation of a system embodied in its components, their relationship to each other, and to
the environment, and the principles guiding its design and evolution. In this article we build
on the Health Metrics Network (HMN) Framework as representing agreed overall health
information systems architecture to be used by countries. The HMN Framework architecture
approach is to use a central data repository/data warehouse for aggregate data which is
integrating data from multiple sources as a key component. Standard based interoperability
needs to be established between these data source systems and the data warehouse.
3. Methods
All the authors have been actively involved in all phases of the HIS implementation project
described in this paper since its inception. The study followed an action research approach. In
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Developing Integrated National Health Information Systems in Malawi: Oriented emergence of flexible architecture
7
this context, action research aims at generating new knowledge through participation in the
iterative process of HMIS system development and to feed back this new knowledge to the
process. Feedback is through a cyclic approach of (adjusting) design and planning,
development, implementation, use and evaluation, and then adjustment before the next cycle
(adapted after e.g. Susman, Evered, 1978). All authors are involved in project in Malawi, and
one was also involved in the Sierra Leone, whilst one was involved in the South Africa, Sierra
Leone, Zanzibar projects as well as in the wider Health Information System program (HISP)
network . The free and open source District Health Information Software version 2 (DHIS2)
has been used as a data warehouse in the actual development of the harmonized data sets
(www.DHIS2.org).
The research behind this paper has also used document analysis, participatory approach
involving data collection from national data standard workshop and task force meetings
(which all the authors took part), experiences from the other countries mentioned above, and
participation in the design of the iterative approach. In Malawi, one author was involved in
the processes that led to the implementation of the initial HMIS system and the monitoring
and evaluation processes. One of the authors participated in the 2007 annual sector wide
approach (SWAp) performance review. The authors work with the Central Monitoring and
Evaluation Division (CMED), a department responsible for HMIS. In this case the authors
-Smith, Thorpe, and Lowe, 1991) method. This
helped to experience the processes surrounding HMIS integration at first hand. Three authors
are members of the national data standards task force and are directly involved in the design
of the data warehouse approach. To come up with a good situation analysis, five papers and a
thesis were reviewed. The papers and the thesis were part of the results of studies conducted
by the authors.
In addition, other literatures (and HMIS bulletins) were reviewed to have a clear
understanding of the context in which the iterative approach was taking place. These included
the 2007 annual joint sector wide approach (SWAp) performance review and the 2008
landscape survey of the health information systems in Malawi reports. To ensure that the
information needs of the vertical programs are met, members from the vertical programs are
directly involved in the process of designing the system. This is being done using a prototype
system. The integration is to be done in an iterative manner starting with expanded
programme on immunization (EPI) and HIV/AIDS systems.
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Developing Integrated National Health Information Systems in Malawi: Oriented emergence of flexible architecture
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4. The case of Malawi
4.1 The HMIS System: the initial integration process
An integrated HMIS was implemented in Malawi in 2002. Prior to this system, the national
health information system was just a compilation of a number of separate data reporting
systems organized by the various health programs. During a process of workshops and
committee work 2001-02, the stakeholders agreed to new national minimal and essential data
sets to collect data and new paper forms for data collection were designed (Chaulagai et al.,
2005). In collaboration with HISP South Africa, the DHIS v1 was customized to manage the
data flows. The new data sets included a sub-set of the data being collected by each of the
health programs. Initially, health programs and other stakeholders regarded the national HMIS
as the main system providing the official and best quality data. However, as time went by, and
disease burden and health system changed, the vertical health programs did not wait for the
official HMIS to adapt to the changes and focused on improving their own reporting systems.
The official HMIS did not adapt to the changing requirements on time. By 2009 there was
consensus to develop a new integrated system. Malawi was part of the HMN process of
developing new strategic plans for strengthening country Health Information Systems, and the
Central Monitoring and Evaluation Division (CMED) of the MOH decided to start a project to
develop a new integrated system following a data warehouse approach, as recommended by
the HMN Framework. This new strategy consists of integrating the current HMIS managed by
CMED with the systems being used by the HIV/AIDS and EPI programs.
The approach of minimum data and indicator sets followed by Malawi in the first phase of
developing the HMIS 2001-02 had been successfully followed in South Africa since 1998 t
(Braa, Hedberg, 2002). The focus was on essential information and on reducing the number of
data variables collected. The DHIS v1 database application developed in South Africa was
used and implemented in Malawi. The DHIS was designed for flexibility in terms of user
participation and prototyping in the development of the system and the meta data structures.
This included the definition data variables, indicators, evaluation rules, and the organizational
hierarchy of clinics, hospital, and districts from where data is reported.
The plan was for HMIS, to be the sole source of information from the health sector, or at least
the dominant and most reliable source, as it would cover the essential information from all
programmes. However, a few years after the implementation in 2002 it became clear that the
minimum essential data sets approach had caused more fragmentation instead of solving the
problem. The data elements and indicators generated from the HMIS were not seen as
sufficient by the health programs as only a sub-set of their data needs was met. For example,
while the immunisation program (EPI) wanted data on all the vaccines they provided, the
official HMIS only reported data on a subset of the vaccines. Furthermore, the procedures
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Developing Integrated National Health Information Systems in Malawi: Oriented emergence of flexible architecture
9
and routines for data collection followed by the HMIS were not well aligned with the needs of
the health programs as, for example, the EPI wanted monthly reports and the HMIS collected
data only quarterly (Galimoto, 2007). As a result, the vertical programs continued to use their
own reporting systems resulting in duplication of data collection and following
inconsistencies between data reported from vertical programmes and the national HMIS. It
became difficult to know what was the official, or best, data on health services and status in
Malawi. Access to data is another problem, as the central HMIS database
not accessible by districts and health programs at central level.
4.2 The New Data Warehouse Approach
An assessment of the overall HIS in Malawi was conducted in 2009 as one of the first steps to
strengthen the HIS and as part of the process of implementing the HMN framework. The
assessment revealed weaknesses of the existing system as related to fragmentation, poor data
quality and limited access to the data and it concluded with the need for integration. Data
from different sources would be integrated in one web based data repository based on the data
warehouse approach. This would improve the access and availability of data to stakeholders
(Figure 1). A strategic plan for strengthening the HIS was developed as a second step of the
HMN roadmap. The approach agreed upon by stakeholders was to integrate different sub-
systems gradually and to make sure that the requirements of the various stakeholders were
met through a collaborative process. In order to ensure interoperability of existing systems at
different levels and in different domains, the need for adopting open standards was written
into the strategic plan document. There was however no clear idea about what standards to
adopt, but the concrete aim was that all systems should be able to exchange data with dhis2
which would function as the backbone of the HIS architecture.
4.3 Integrating routine subsystems
The proposed approach was that each vertical program should have their routine dataset
included in the integrated data warehouse without duplications of data collected by various
health programs. Furthermore, the health programs agreed to conduct the integration process
gradually in order to be able to negotiate agreements between programs with overlapping
interests. In the end, the plan is to arrive at an integrated HIS with harmonized metadata and
collection tools.
The integration process started in October 2009 with three systems; the national HMIS based
at MoH, and the HIV/AIDS and the EPI systems. These three actors were chosen because of
their strategic importance in the health system and their strong influence on decision makers
and other health programs.
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Developing Integrated National Health Information Systems in Malawi: Oriented emergence of flexible architecture
10
Figure 2 Data warehouse approach for integrating HIS
The aim is to start with these three actors and once the process yields result more vertical
programs systems can be brought on board and integrated into the data warehouse iteratively.
The choice of the two initial programs to be integrated into national framework was made
based on a number of factors: i) the EPI unit and CMED were already collaborating on data
collection as the EPI was from 2008 providing the official national figures for EPI data in
HMIS; ii) the HIV/AIDS
programs and with them on board the integrated system may be more attractive for others.
Furthermore, the HIV/AIDS program has access to financial resources from Global Fund
which can be used for strengthening HIS. Since 2005, the HIV/AIDS program has developed
its own HIS based on the MS Access platform.
In order to ensure user involvement the prototype system is demonstrated regularly to the
whole team to make sure that the requirements are met and get feedback. Most of the
problems discussed during the feedback sessions are more of political than technical
character; such as what to do with the overlapping data collection forms? What to do when
the same or similar data elements appear on different data collection tools, owned by different
health programs? As the health programs seam to have more ownership to the paper forms
than to the data, it is not an option to simply remove or change paper forms. In principle,
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Developing Integrated National Health Information Systems in Malawi: Oriented emergence of flexible architecture
11
everybody agreed to the need for harmonising the paper reporting tools, but it was difficult to
achieve it in practice. The chosen strategy was to develop the system in close cooperation
with the health programs and other users so as to ensure that the new system was meeting
their requirements. T to use the new system was enough for them
4.4 Broader integration: integrating at different levels
The broader HIS ecosystem in Malawi comprises different actors ranging from institutional
data sources National Statistic Office (NSO), National Registration Bureau (NRB) to
other HIS subsystems Human Resource, Finance, Logistics. Other actors such as software
development and implementation organizations (Baobab and Luke International Norway,
HISP) are also part of the framework and play critical roles in the evolvement of the system as
they are also members of the data standard task force.
Having noticed the complexity of the HIS framework, CMED and other stakeholders took the
lead in 2008 to establish a national data standard group which is a collaborative framework to
engage stakeholders in ongoing planning and implementation of the health information
infrastructure. The national data standard group aims at building consensus on HIS policies,
integrated HIS, appropriate standards, interoperability to support loosely-coupled systems and
promoting innovative and scalable solutions. In sum, the data standard group is responsible
for developing a more coherent, genuine and integrated HIS architecture. According to the
standard task force group, existing systems operating at aggregated data and individual patient
levels should be integrated through a data warehouse approach and standards needed to be
developed to enable interoperability between systems at different levels. However due to lack
of qualified personnel and the absence of proven or effective open standard in this domain,
the debate about strategies to achieve interoperability was to some extent left to the technical
actors, the system developers and implementers.
As far as patient management information systems are concerned, there are two main actors.
The first one is Baobab Health project which started in 2001. Baobab deals with medical
records and has several modules ART, Out-patient, Laboratory, HTC, patient registration,
pharmaceutical inventory and is based on OpenMRS. Furthermore, they use touch screen
appliances to run Baobab system in the health facilities. Their system is currently deployed in
11 health facilities mainly in the central region of the country. The second system is Luke
International Norway (LIN)-HIS which is also open source and has two main modules EDS
and pharmaceutical inventory system. The EDS module has two versions; one with touch
screen technology and another with conventional computers. LIN systems are deployed in 5
health facilities in the northern region. Although LIN started its activities in Malawi in 2008,
its HIS activities is just a continuation of what Taiwan Medical Mission was doing in
assisting Mzuzu since 2002 to 2007. Taiwan medical mission has stopped because Malawi
government decided to recognize China instead of Taiwan.
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Baobab and LIN are both NGOs and they are competing for national leadership and each want
to secure a sizeable share by having the strongest installed base. Both are members of the data
standard group. The main selling arguments they have are the number of patients they are
serving and the integration of their system to DHIS2. Both state that they export
electronically aggregated data from their system to DHIS2 since November 2009 although
nobody has witnessed such process yet.
As far as the standard issues are concerned the view of the data standard group is to adopt and
promote open standards that will be internationally recognized because developing data
exchange standard is beyond its capacity and politically it does not want to favour any of the
two. However its concern is the interoperability of all existing systems. The newly released
SDMX-HD standard for exchange of statistical health data is already implemented by the
DHIS2 and the OpenMRS and will be implemented and used also by the Baobab and the LIN.
The SDMX-HD standards represent a practical solution to interoperability between the
DHIS2 and the other systems. In this way is solves the problem of the data standard group
since SDMX-HD was like the missing link in architecting the overall HIS. The choice of
implementing a new Human resource management project using iHRIS was motivated by the
ability of the system to be interoperable with the DHIS2. Figure 2 shows the planned
architecture which aim at extending gradually the implementation of SDMX-HD with other
systems.
Figure 2: Planed architecture, following the HMN Framework
SDMX-HD?
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5. Discussion
5.1 HMIS Integration Process
The findings from Malawi confirm what other IS researchers have found, that standardisation
and integration is evolving over time and that a narrow technical perspective needs to be
extended to include a more complex socio-technical one (Braa et al, 2007, Hanseth, 2006).
The initial HMIS process in Malawi followed the essential data set approach which had
successfully been developed in South Africa. In Malawi, however, this approach was less
the flexible and continuous process of revising and extending the essential datasets according
to changing requirements. In Malawi, the initial datasets from 2001-02 remained unchanged,
despite, for example, the tremendous increase in the HIV/ADIS program over the following
years. After a few years, therefore, the HMIS became outdated and partly replaced by the
in responding to their needs. Over
the years, therefore, the HMIS lost its relevance and its position as the dominant health
information system.
When the process to revise the system started in 2008-09, following the HMN initiative and
technical framework, the practical approach was building on the experiences from Sierra
Leone. In Sierra Leone, as in Malawi, it was regarded as possible to build a totally new
system from scratch, including the revision of all the data sets and data collection forms. An
iterative process of revising the data collection tools and integrating the procedures of data
collection between the health programs was initiated.
differences in perspectives and data sets between health programs were addressed through an
iterative process:
i) a common data dictionary has been developed among the three actors and duplication
avoided in order to allow efficient data sharing (transfer),
ii) inconsistencies, duplication or different way of managing data such as cohorts of
HIV/AIDS patients on anti retroviral treatment (ART) was addressed to come out
with standardized definition and meaning (translation) and
iii) since the organisation units or facilities from which all involved actors are collecting
data are not the same (private, different level of the hierarchy) and collection
frequencies are different, the entire system has slightly changed to include private
facilities, zones as new administrative units and the frequency of EPI and HMIS
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data has been set to monthly instead of monthly for the first and quarterly for the
second (transformation).
These processes are iterative and not linear since the feedback and feed forward processes are introducing new issues that have to be negotiated. However, all the actors know that this is only a first step and that further negotiation will be needed in order to arrive at a standardized data dictionary agreed among all HIS stakeholders.
Figure 3: The three processes and iteration in Malawi
5.2 Emergence of the HIS architecture
The data standard task force is including the main HIS actors in Malawi and has a unique
position and mandate in the HIS strengthening process. Although it has no official mandate to
develop the HIS architecture, it is in charge of standardisation and integration along the three
levels of Carlil in bringing the HIS boxes together. Unlike
other countries (Kossi et al, 2008) where such committee does not exist, the data standard task
force include all the main HIS actors and they have agreed to work together towards an
integrated HIS. Following the HMN framework, they are working on harmonizing metadata
and the interoperability of existing system. All actors acknowledge that the new system needs
it would not be possible to redesign an all
encompassing system form scratch. The need for standards for ensuring interoperability
between the systems was regarded as a problem, as the task force did not have the needed
skills. However, the development of the SDMX-HD (Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange
A common data dictionary has
been developed among the three
actors and duplication avoided in
order to allow efficient data
sharing (Transfer)
Inconsistencies, duplication or different
way of managing data such cohorts was
addressed to come out with standardized
definition and meaning (translation)
Change of data collection procedures, targets
and technical solution(Transformation)
Iteration
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Health Domain) standard may solve this problem as it provides a feasible solution for
exchanging data between the various sub-subsystems and the DHIS2.
For the patient management systems, however, a two-step interoperability approach is needed
first, the patient level data will need to be aggregated according to the needed meta data,
second, the aggregate data need to be exchanged. Prior to the release of the SDMX standard,
the approach followed by the teams from the patient management systems were to establish
data exchange through a specially constructed gateway. The problem was that developing
bilateral gateways for each system to the backbone would have been very costly and also
very inflexible as related to future changes.
The successful testing of SDMX-HD in Sierra Leone and its launch in September 2010 made
the MoH and the task force decide a shift in strategy from the current human resource
management system to iHRIS, one of the partners in the SDMX-HD project. An iHRIS
implementation project is currently being designed in Malawi.
Revisiting the two terms integration and interoperability, we see that while information from
multiple data sources are integrated in the data warehouse, this is achieved by SDMX-HD
standard allowing interoperability between these data source systems and the data warehouse.
We may say that human resource data and medical record data are integrated in the data
warehouse, but there is no interoperability between these two systems. Interoperability is only
needed between these two systems and the data warehouse. The release of SDMX-HD came
at the right time for the data standard task force as the missing link for its strategy to plan a
flexible and interoperable HIS in Malawi.
6. Conclusion
Computerised HIS in developing countries has started without any proper plan or architecture
trying to link together components in order to have a better functioning overall HIS. In
Malawi the first attempt to implement an integrated HIS failed because i) it adopted a
minimalistic approach which did not meet all information needs of stakeholder and ii) the
integration process was static in the sense that the integrated HIS did not evolve to adapt to
changes in its environment. However learning from the previous failure, the HIS actors
constituted the data standard task force to address issues related to stakeholders needs and the
planning or architecture of the overall HIS. Integration is now being addressed as a dynamic
and iterative process in which different systems are integrated gradually. Despite its mandate,
the data standard task force did not have the technical competence needed for engaging
directly in the development of data interchange between different systems. Nevertheless, the
task force required all stakeholders and system implementers to follow an open standard
approach to achieve interoperability between systems. Because the task force lacks capacity
and resource to make a technical standard it could not fully control the architecture of the HIS
but has at least oriented the development of the HIS towards interoperable systems. This made
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the Malawian case particular as compared with other less organised developments observed in
other African countries (Kossi et al,2008) and the more top down Enterprise Architecture
approach prescribed by HMN (Stansfield et al,2008). The release of the SDMX-HD was in
this context a favourable conjuncture which is providing the important missing link in the HIS
architecture and thereby avoiding the need to develop bilateral gateways between systems.
The SDMX-HD standard and its uptake among important open source software projects in the
health domain, such as iHRIS, DHIS2 and OpenMRS, makes countries less dependent on
specific technical competence to achieve data exchange between systems. Provided that the
SDMX-HD is continuing to gain momentum, this new standard has the potential to
significantly increase the ability of African countries to control the development of their own
integrated HIS architecture.
7. References
World Health Organisation (83:8), 2005, pp. 578-583.Braa, J., & Hedberg, C. (2002). The Struggle for District-Based Health Information Systems in South Africa.
The Information Society, 18, 113-127.
-362Braa, O., Hanseth, O., Heywood A, Shaw, V (2007) Developing health information system in developing
countries: the flexible standards strategy. MIS Quarterly Vol 31 Special Issue August 2007rative Framework for Managing
-568.Chaulagai, C.N., Moyo, C.M., Koot, J., Moyo, H.B.M., Sambakunsi, T.C., Khunga, F.M. and Naphini, P.D.,
(2005), Design and Implementation of a Health Management Information System in Malawi: Issues, Innovations and Results, Oxford University Press in association with The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
in the Process of Integrating the Information Systems of Disease- Systems in Developing Countries (20:2), 2004, pp. 1-28.
Easterby-Smith, M., Thorpe, R. and Lowe, A., (1991), Management Research: an Introduction, SAGE Publications Limited.
Galimoto, M.S., (2007), Integration of Health Information Systems: Case Study from Malawi, Master Thesis, University of Oslo.
Hanseth, O., and Ciborra, C. U., (2007) (eds.), Risk, Complexity and ICT. Edward Elgar.Health Metrics Network (2008) "Framework and Standards for Country Health Information Systems",
http://www.who.int/healthmetrics/en/Heeks, R
Information Society (18), 2002, pp. 101-112.Unsustainable Health Information Systems in
Less-Developed Information Technology for Development (11:3), 2005, pp. 273-298
Kossi, E. K., Braa, J, Tohouri, R., Uggowitzer, S., Yumkela, F., Bye, K., Turay, M., Koh, P., McEwen, E. (2008) -Fragmenting Health Information Systems in Sierra Leone: horizontal and ve
Proc. IST-Africa, 2008,Latour, B., (1996), Aramis or the Love of Technology, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Markus, M. L., and Robey, D., (1988), Information Technology and Organizational Change: Causal Structure in
Theory and Research, Management Science, Vol. 34., pp. 583-598.Orlikowski W. J., and Barley, S. R., (2001), Technology and Institutions: What can Research on Information
Technology and Research on Organizations Learn from Each Other? MIS Quarterly, Vol. 25, pp. 145-165.
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Stansfield S, Orobaton N, Lubinski D, Uggowitzer S, Mwanyika H, (2008) The Case for a National Health Information System Architecture; a Missing Link to Guiding National Development and Implementation. Making the eHealth Connection, Bellagio
Sæbø, J., Kossi, E., Titlestad, O., Tohouri, R. Braa, J., (2011), Comparing strategies to integrate health information systems following a data warehouse approach in four countries', Information Technology for Development, 17: 1, 42 60
Wainwright, D, and Waring, T (2004) Three domains for implementing integrated information systems: redressing the balance between technology, strategic, and organizational analysis In International Journal of Information Management 24 pp. 329-246
Wenger, E., (1998), Communities of Practice: Learning, Meaning, and Identity, Cambridge University Press.WHO (2007) "Everybody's business: Strengthening Health Systems to improve Health Outcomes: WHO's
Framework for Action", Geneva
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IFIP WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
64
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Braa & Sanner Making mHealth happen for Health Information Systems
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
MAKING MHEALTH HAPPEN FOR HEALTH INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN LOW RESOURCE CONTEXTS
Kristin Braa ([email protected])University of Oslo
Terje Aksel Sanner ([email protected])University of Oslo
Abstract: The paper offers a reference typology for large scale mHealth solutions in low-resource contexts. The proposed typology is produced through action researchengagement with various mHealth initiatives within primary health care; including one fully deployed large-scale solution, medium-sized pilot studies and projects currently being implemented. Our investigations are informed by theoretical assumptions about the cultivation of health information infrastructures, through evolutionary strategies ofinstalled base cultivation and local patchwork through bricolage. We view the extension of national Health Information Systems (HIS) through mobile phones to the community level as a socio-technical cultivation process shaped and determined by the availability of communication infrastructures, handset dispersion, telecom service provider schemes and tariffs, local politics & policies available skilled manpower andestablished work practices. Through the proposition of a reference typology formHealth implementation strategies we aim to address the need for identification and cross-fertilization of appropriate mobile based approaches for extending digitized HISsto the community health facilities in a continuously changing development context.
Keywords: mHealth, Health Information Systems (HIS), Low-Resource Context
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MAKING MHEALTH HAPPEN FOR HEALTH INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN LOW RESOURCE CONTEXTS
1. INTRODUCTION
It is not because countries are poor that they cannot afford good health information; it is
because they are poor that they cannot afford to be without it (AbouZahr & Boerma 2005).
At present, considerable efforts are made by international aid agencies (notably the World Health Organization - WHO) and the United Nations (UN) in addressing primary health care related human deprivations such as; poor health, rampant communicable diseases (e.g. HIV/AIDS, malaria, cholera), starvation, malnutrition and high rates of maternal & young child mortality.Wilson and Smtechnology is one of the most promising means of improving the quality, timeliness, clarity,
p. 199).Similarly, Stansfield et al. (2006, p161) details ealth information is required for strategic planning and the setting of priorities; clinical diagnosis and management ofillness or injury; quality assurance and quality improvement for health services; and human resource management . Despite many current difficulties, recent research experience finds that ICTs can play an important role in strengthening national Health Information Systems (HIS) indeveloping countries (Braa and Hedberg 2002, Lippeveld et al. 2000, Wilson 2000, AbouZahr & Boerma 2005), including important monitoring of Millennium Development Goals related tomother and child health1.
Unfortunately, the enabling infrastructures, skills and human capacity required for adopting andutilizing computers and landline Internet connectivity for routine HIS has been unavailable or unattainable to the majority of health information users in developing countries (Wilson 2000).Experiments with PDAs and low cost laptops have similarly met obstacles to realization in the public health care scenario in India (Ranjini & Sahay, 2005). In order to strengthen medical and primary health information systems at the grass-roots (i.e. local community), alternative strategies like mHealth are currently being explored (Mukherjee, Purkayastha & Sahay 2010, Braa, Purkayastha 2010, Braa, Purkayastha & Grisaw 2010).
In accordance with Germanakos, Mourlas, & Samaras (2005), we understand mHealth as the; medical and public health practice supported through mobile devices for collecting community
and clinical health data, delivery of healthcare information to practitioners, researchers, and beneficiaries, real-time monitoring of beneficiary vital signs, and direct provision of care .Although mHealth encompasses all kinds of mobile devices from wireless chip-based solutions to portable computers, we advocate that low-end mobile phones bear some important characteristics that make them suited to large-scale deployment in low-resource primary health care scenarios; theextensive and swift rollout of mobile telecom infrastructures; widespread domestication of affordable and robust handsets; ease of mastery - leading to high levels of low-end mobile phone literacy; local competencies on servicing and repairing low-end handsets and; low consumption ofscarce power.
Within the primary health care domain, mobile phones show promise in filling the digitization gap at the grass-root levels and assist in capturing routine health data even during Community Health Workers (CHWs) interaction with beneficiaries. Mobile data collection and reporting can help reduce errors associated with manual aggregation of routine health data. In addition, it promises to address issues of untimely or unreported data due to transportation of paper reports by foot, bike or
1 The official United Nations site for the Millennium Development Goals Indicators including child and maternal mortality can be inspected at http://unstats.un.org/unsd/mdg/Default.aspx
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vehicle over long distances on poor or climatically challenged roads. Thirdly, the on-the-spot digitalization promises to free up time currently spent on monotonous tasks of manually transferring data from paper to paper and into the digitized HIS for aggregation and analysis at higher organizational levels. Finally, the early digitalization of data allows for data sharing and integration between currently isolated HISs that do not communicate across multiple coexistent health programs (WHO 1994). In short, mobiles are believed to assist in improving data quality and affect efficiency in reporting and sharing of data.
Through the proposition of a reference typology for mHealth implementation strategies, this paper aims to address the need to identify, cross-fertilize and maneuver in the space of appropriate mobile based approaches to extending digitized HISs to the community health facilities in adynamic development context.
In the following section we disclose our theoretical assumptions about the cultivation of health information infrastructures. In section three we report on our networks of action approach toresearch. Next, we present the case of a large scale mHealth implementation, involving 5000 low-end handsets, in the Indian state of Punjab. Based on the presented case and our involvement with various other mHealth implementations we propose the reference typology for mHealth implementation strategies in section five. Finally, in section six we suggest some directions for future work on the typology and elaborate on the contribution this paper offers.
2. SUSTAINABLE HEALTH INFORMATION INFRASTRUCTURES IN
LOW-RESOURCE CONTEXTS
A World Bank report by McNamara, McNamara & Kerry S. (2003) suggests that many ICT development initiatives are seeded as short-term donor funded pilots without regard to scalability and sustainability, which implies that the anticipated impact and benefits of the projects deteriorate as soon as pilot funding is discontinued or key activists resign from the projects. Similarly,attempts to computerize HISs have too often produced only pilot systems or systems that fail to exist after donor-based funding has ceased (Heeks and Baark 1999). The projects that actually aim for large scale intervention may be forced to go for a singleshort donor driven time schedules and attention spans (Cain, 2001). Kimaro and Nhampossab (2005) suggests that scalability is hampered due to the inability to mobilize long term national support, the focus on top-down strategies as opposed to a focus on local needs and the lack of focus on building local competencies to maintain and integrate the HIS interventions.
The political vision of equity in access to health services further intensify the need for scalable and sustainable approaches to the utilization of mHealth for extending digitized HISs to the community health facilities in low resource contexts. This has been characterized by Braa, Monteiro, Sahay (2004) as the all or nothing problem of HISs intervention within primary health care. Here we refer to it as the issue of full scalability, implying that local success is not sufficient as the mHealth solution has to scale to whole regions and whole nations in order to be of practical value. Existing research into the topic of how sustainable mobile HISs can be effectively deployed and scaled is limited (Donner, 2008), and hence this topic lies in the frontiers of health information systems research. Similarly, Rashid & Elder (2009) review of IDRC2-supported mobile phone driven development projects conclude that
To address this gap in research we explore the utilization of low-end mobile phones in HISs in low resource contexts through the notion of health information infrastructures.
With the term low-resource context we refer to the lack or instability of enabling infrastructures (e.g. roads, public transport, power-supply, and electronic communication networks), shortages inhuman capacity and skill (i.e. primary health and technology competence), as well as an inherent
2 IDRC is a Canadian Crown corporation that works in close collaboration with researchers from the developing world in their search for the means to support growth and development.
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price sensitivity in addressing these and other shortcomings. By health information infrastructure
we refer to the complex socio-technical and socio-political ensemble of communication networks, information systems, and work practices that constitute the primary health information scenario.
Hanseth (2002) emphasize installed base cultivation as the most feasible ICT intervention strategy for complex socio-technical information infrastructures. Installed base refers broadly to whatever is already in place. In our case, this includes health workers and their paper registers at the community health facilities; computers and data analysts at the district levels; the servers and monitoring & evaluation officers at the state level; in addition to basic infrastructures required tosupport mobile phone use; charging facilities, maintenance support and network coverage. The installed base cultivation strategy acknowledges the lack of control any one stakeholder have over the full ensemble and sees the opportunities and choices of the present as shaped and determinedby the materiality and institutionalization of previously stabilized alignments. Thus, addressing theshortcoming of more traditional top-down enterprise architecture strategies where work practices and infrastructures are supposed to be redesigned and implemented in one fell swoop.
Although subscribing to this evolutionary view on ICT intervention, we find that cultivation as aninformation infrastructure design strategy fails to guide the fine grained and nitty-gritty patchworkand problem solving happening on the ground in low-resource contexts. We therefore draw on the concept of bricolage to describe the constant trying out and re-ordering of people and resources.Bricolage (lat. bricola catapult) means tinkering through the combination of resources a
hese resources become the tools and they define in situ the heuristics to solve the problem(original emphasis, Ciborra, 2002 p 49). The power of bricolage is that it is highly situated and exploits the local context and resources at hand, while often pre-planned ways of intervening appear to be less effective because they do not fit with the contingencies of the moment. Bricolage tend to include an added element of ingenuity, experience and skill belonging to the individual
and their community (of p (ibid, p50).
3. RESEARCH APPROACH
The study presented in this paper is guided by a network of action research approach. Theapproach is aimed at to tackling the issue of sustainability in research driven interventions by recognizing that local intervention needs to be part of a larger network in order to achieve robustness. In short, the approach sees scalability as a prerequisite not a luxury for sustainability of local action. The network creates opportunities for sharing of experience, knowledge, technology, and value through multiple sites of action and use (Braa, Monteiro, Sahay, 2004). Hence, the emphasis on scale through a focus on networks is not so much about size as facilitating the necessary learning processes for sustainability (Elden and Chisholm 1993, p. 293).The focus on full scale and sustainability challenges the tendency of designing and reporting onaction research as well-defined phases. Susman andsuch phases: diagnosing, action planning, action taking, evaluating, and specifying learning. While these cycles are implicit and ongoing in our interventions, we cannot categorize them neatly intodifferent phases with a clear start and end.
Both authors are involved with the Health Information System Programme (HISP); an international research network doing open source development and implementation of District Health Information Systems (DHIS2) in more than 15 countries in Africa and Asia. DHIS2 is implemented in 20 states in India for intrastate HMIS reporting. The DHIS software is developed, customized and used for reporting, analysis and presentation of aggregated health data whilecatering for various health programs (HIV, ANC, Malaria, EPI etc).
This study draws its empirical material from mHealth implementations aimed at seamlessly integrating and extending DHIS to the community level; where there are no computers, no Internet and often unstable power supply. The suite of applications are referred to as DHIS-Mobile and address both capturing of aggregated routine data (facility reporting), as well as tracking
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beneficiaries throughout the duration of the health program they are enrolled in such as ANC, child immunization and HIV/AIDS (name-based). One of the authors manages the DHIS-Mobile project (Author 1), while the other author is a Ph.D. student (Author 2) enrolled in the project since August 2010.
3.1. mHealth implementations
The authors have been involved in the iterative development of various solutions for DHIS-Mobile(Table 1); ranging from design, implementation, training, project coordination, and evaluation activities. In the following, we describe the different projects informing this study and the roles of the authors in the various projects.
Project Initiated Current Stage Application Users Trained
Five state pilot (India) May 2009 Pilot Java / SMS 250
Nigeria September 2009 Pilot Java / SMS 60
Punjab June 2010 Full-scale Java / SMS 5000
Name based In startup Pre-pilot SMS/GPRS -
Table 1. DHIS-Mobile Projects
Case study of IDSP pilot in Andhra Pradesh
In order to learn from an ongoing mHealth project in India a short case study of a SMS based reporting system for Integrated Disease Surveillance Project (IDSP) was conducted in February 2009 by Author 1 together with colleagues from HISP. The pilot was initiated in August 2008 and was implemented in six out of Andhra 23 districts. The solution supports weekly reporting of data through plain SMS with alpha-numeric codes. Data of the prescribed IDSP formats is sent from the reporting units to a server at the state capital. To secure the confidential information being transmitted, the system identifies every reporting unit with a unique identification number and the SMSs are accepted only from pre-registered mobile numbers. The alpha-numeric codes include;facility ID, disease code, number of registered cases, deaths, etc. The system sends out automatic alerts to concerned officials whenever the frequency of particular events cross pre-set threshold levels.
The short case study served the purpose of learning about routine facility reporting, getting feedback on the facility reporting prototype for DHIS-Mobile and discussing possibilities for supporting Community Health Workers (CHWs) through mobile applications. A range of stakeholders involved in the pilot project were interviewed; including director of epidemics, district epidemic officer, district medical officer, data manager and the IDSP team. Three health facilities were visited and two monthly meetings were attended in order to discuss the experiences of 38 CHWs and 60 voluntary health workers.
Facility reporting Pilot in five Indian states
Simultaneously, facility reporting was initiated in five Indian states; Kerala, Rajasthan, Gujarat,Himachal Pradesh and Nagaland. CHWs were provided with an application on mobile phones to report routine outreach service data (e.g. ANC, immunization) to the district and state level. Over 250 people including CHWs and state/district/block-level medical officers were trained. The detailed findings of this study are reported in (Braa et al 2010, Mukherjee, Purkayastha, & Sahay2010). The application was based on the national HIS form for CHWs coordinated by the National Rural Health Mission.
In February 2009 a pre testing of the prototype was performed among health workers in AndhraPradesh (mentioned above) and Kerala. In Kerala Author 1 visited three health facilities and interviewed CHWs, block health administrative people and the village head. In July 2009 and April 2010 Author 1 was involved in the evaluation of the pilot in the two states Kerala and
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Rajasthan. Six community health facilities were visited and two focus groups were organized; with15 facilities represented in each. A total of 30 CHWs were interviewed.
Pilot in Nigeria
Based on experience from of the IDSP pilot and the facility reporting solution, a pilot was initiated in the two Nigerian states Yobe and Katsina in September 2009. Health workers from 26 health facilities and 34 local government area Monitoring & Evaluation officers were involved, thus,covering the whole state of the Katsina and parts of Yobe. The Nigerian solution is very similar to the Indian pilots, although in Nigeria, the mobile application was developed based on the existing national HIS facility forms and implemented at the facility and district levels (Asangansi & Braa, 2010). Due to unstable power supply the pilot faced difficulties in maintaining server uptime and a power backup system was put into place. In order to receive all s, the modem had to be switched on at least daily as the mobile operator in Nigeria only store SMS for 24 hours. Author 1was involved in the whole process from negotiating the pilot, designing the application, installing the application on handsets, training users and later evaluating the experience. Interviews were conducted with stakeholders from both states - including health and government administration.
Full scale roll out in Punjab
Based on the experience from the pilots a full scale mobile facility reporting implementation was rolled out in the state of Punjab. From late September 2010, Author 2 spent a total of six weeks following the implementation stages; visiting three health facilities to observe local work practice,attending one regular monthly meeting with about 40 CHWs, and participating in five mobiletraining sessions, also involving about 40 CHWs each. The field work involved extensive interaction with representatives from the health organization; voluntary health workers, CHWs, medical officers, statistical assistants, and data analysts; the project HISP team; mobile trainers, application developers, technical support staff, project coordinators; and state officials/mangers.Secondary sources of data from studying the Punjab roll out include training manuals and official reports from mobile trainers, project coordinators, state level data analysts and state officials.
Global Developers Workshop
In November 2010 both authors participated in a two week global workshop for DHIS-Mobile developers in Kerala with 12 participants from India, Vietnam, Tanzania and Norway. The aim of the workshop was to design prototypes for DHIS-Mobile based on previous experiences and new requirements. In addition to improving the existing solutions, a prototype for the mobile name-based module of DHIS was developed. Three CHWs from different facilities tested the prototype and gave valuable feedback to the developers and implementers.
In order to structure the key experience and learning from engagement with previousimplementations and navigate in the space of possible design solutions, different version of the reference typology for mHealth implementation strategies was presented by Author 1 and negotiated between the researchers and developers throughout the last week of the workshop. Thenegotiation during the workshop is just one example of how data collection and analysis has been highly interlinked in our study. The typology has been continuously re-negotiated as it has been presented by the authors to fellow researchers, students, and practitioners involved with HISP-Mobile. The typology has thus emerged, not from a well defined process of analysis, but from both
engagement and interaction with the HISP-Mobile project. Both our own and othersshared experiences have been conceptualized and synthesized through our theoretical assumptions about installed base cultivation of health information infrastructures while allowing room for improvisation and local patchwork through bricolage.
Although our proposed typology draws insights from engagement with all the mentioned implementations, we will, in the following data chapter describe in further detail the full scale mHealth implementation in the Indian state Punjab.
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4. MOBILE REPORTING OF DAILY AND MONTHLY ROUTINE DATA
IN PUNJAB
The bricks and mortar of the Punjabi public health system are the CHWs stationed at the community health facilities. There are 2948 such facilities in Punjab employing about 5000CHWs, of which a large portion is middle aged women. The primary health organization of Punjab is divided into districts, blocks, primary health centers (PHCs), and community health facilities.Table 2 illustrates the availability of computers and Internet connectivity at the different hierarchical levels of the primary health organization.
Reporting Units
Computers Internet
State - Yes Yes
District 20 Yes Yes
Block 118 Yes Yes
Primary Health Centers 396 Rare Rare
Community Health Facility 2948 No No
Table 2. Punjab Health Organization Units
During spring 2010, the state of Punjab decided to implement mobile phone based facility reporting from all community health facilities. An evaluation of the network signal strength in districts of Punjab led to the choice of basing the mobile data reporting on SMS rather than GPRS. All of the CHWs were provided with a SIM card and a Nokia 2330 Classic with a Java application for routine data reporting installed. The application allows CHWs to fill forms and send one daily (10 data elements) and two monthly (53 & 86 data elements) reports of routine health data (seeFigure 1). A team of ten people manually installed the native Java mobile applications (*.jar files) to all 5000 handsets over a period of one month. The application utilizes only basic J2ME functionality which allows it to be installed and run on most Java enabled low-end handsets.
Figure 1 Screen Shot of Mobile Application Form
Training on mobile reporting and the data elements in the forms was given to all CHWs.
Completed reports can be stored and retrieved locally on the mobile phone and forwarded when
reception of the mobile network is sufficient. The report is sent as a compressed (70%
compression rate) SMS to two GSM Modems integrated with the DHIS2 data warehouse. Block
and higher facility personnel can access the reported data through the online DHIS2 software on
computers (Figure 2).
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Figure 2 Mobile supported Health Information System in Punjab
Although Internet connections and computers are available at block level, Bluetooth is generally
not. This has forced support staff to travel long distances in order to reinstall the Java applications
to handsets in cases where CHWs have accidently deleted them. CHWs will continue paper
reporting until the mobile based reporting stabilizes and consistency with paper reports can be
confirmed.
4.1. Mobile Networks, handset and service provider schemes
The state of Punjab decided to purchase the 5000 handsets in one go, in order to get the best
possible discount price of 1900Rs ($40), as opposed to the retail price of about 2700Rs ($60). A
tender document was published in national newspapers and included the required cost and
technical phone specifications for mobile phone companies and lowest rental plan with Closed
User Group (CUG) for service providers. The Nokia 2330 Classic was chosen for the project
implementation as it supported all the technical specifications within budgetary limitations.
According to the requirements of a tariff plan, customer service and network coverage in rural
areas of Punjab, a service provider was chosen, however a few CHWs have complained that the
service provider does not have sufficient network coverage in their catchment area. The Indian
pilot studies show that having unconstrained access to managers, medical officers and colleagues
through the CUG are some of the most cherished and obvious benefits recognized by CHWs (Braa
et al. 2010). Thus, the CUG was part of the implementation concept in the Punjab roll out and was
negotiated to include free calls within the network for health workers and 100 free SMS every
month.
5. MHEALTH IMPLEMENTATION STRATEGIES FOR LOW RESOURCE
CONTEXTS
In this section we will present the reference typology for mHealth implementation strategies, with
the aim of identification, cross-fertilization and maneuvering in the space of appropriate mobile
based approaches to extending digitized HISs to the grass-root levels (Table 3). The typology
address the need to cultivate the existing resources available (the installed base) as well as creating
room for improvisation and bricolage in a dynamic development context. Our intention is to
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unravel a solution space that can also cater for changes in implementation strategies according to
infrastructure resources.
Although mobile network coverage can be found in low resource contexts where there is not even
stable power supply and roads are underdeveloped, these networks are oftentimes unstable or have
weak signal strength. Within primary health care, mHealth solutions need the robustness to cope
with situations where no wireless communication is available (e.g. by storing data on the handset
until connectivity is available). Thus, the mobile application was designed so that the facility
reports can be saved on the phone until a place with better reception is reached. SMS data can be
sent even where network coverage is marginal, as illustrated by a Nigerian health worker climbing
a three in order to send the SMS report. Cost of data transfer can also be a factor influencing the
mHealth solution and where sending SMS is costly; GPRS can be utilized for report sending
whenever the network signal is strong enough.
In Punjab the applications on 5000 phones were installed manually and took a team of ten people
almost a month. With a hybrid solution where the application can be downloaded via GPRS (i.e.
during user training) while reports are still sent as compressed SMSs would reduce the manual
workload. Similarly, a hybrid solution would allow for a link to be sent as an SMS while GPRS
would be utilized to download a new version or reinstall a deleted application. Reinstallation or
updating could then be performed during monthly CHWs meetings at block or PHC if GPRS is
available there.
In contexts where GPRS network is good and cover the whole area a full GPRS solution where
both downloading the application and sending the data through the GPRS network may be
preferable. A new implementation to be tried out in Himachal Pradesh will most likely be a mix
between GPRS hybrid and full GPRS solution due to fluctuating network quality.
However, more skill and experience is required in order to design and develop a hybrid solution.
Thus, we see a trade-off between human resources for application development and solution
deployment. The SMS based client solution with the Java manually installed on the phone was
relatively easy and fast to develop but have required more human resources to maintain. To some
extent, the lack of a robust application design can be compensated for by use of manual
deployment labor.
In situations where handsets cannot run Java clients, have no browsers and GPRS network is
unavailable, plain SMS based solutions like the IDSP pilot may be an option - although usability is
a challenge. In the pilot, CHWs found it hard and cumbersome to enter all the required digits
without making errors. Thus, they relied on super users to enter the data whenever coming to a
meeting. Failures in data capturing were still reported as a problem.
All the DHIS-Mobile solutions reported in this paper are based on initial purchase, application
installation and subsequent distribution of phones to the health workers. This strategy was chosen
because the phones people already had were frequently not Java enabled. To provide phones will
not always be possible due to lack of finances and different solutions need to be explored. We
have seen that pure SMS based solutions may be chosen on the expense of usability, but if the
handset has a browser web based solutions can be a viable option.
In our reference typology (Table 3) the various mHealth implementation strategies are mapped
according to the contextual parameters including network signal strength, handset availability and
existing tariff plans, human capacity and user experience on low-end handsets. The reference
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typology aims to support the navigation in the space of possible design solutions in low resource
contexts and facilitate the cross-fertilization of synthesized experiences between different full
scale and sustainable mHealth projects. The contextual parameters of the installed base are not
stable, but will be subject to changes in resources availability such as network upgrades, better
handsets and service provider competition.
Technical Solution
Contextual Resources Human Capacity Application Use
Network Handset Tariff Development Deployment Ease of Mastery
SMS only Plain SMSWorks on all
handsetsCheap SMS Simple Easy to deploy Error prone, complex
SMS based
client
Sending compressed SMS Java enabled
phonesCheap SMS,
CUGSimple
Demanding to install / update (manual labor)
Small learning curve
SMS based
client
hybrid
SMS client with
GPRS sending
Java enabled phones
Cheap GPRS, CUG
Complex, time
consuming
Easy to install & update
Small learning curve
GPRS
hybrid
GPRS for downloading
application and SMS data reporting
Java enabled phones
Cheap SMS, CUG
Complex, time
consumingUnknown Unknown
GPRS
GPRS for downloading
application and data reporting
Java enabled phones
Low data tariff, CUG
Unknown Unknown Unknown
Table 3 Reference typology for mHealth implementation strategies in low resource contexts
Cultivating Health Information Infrastructure
We find that the strengthening of existing HIS through mHealth solution is made feasibly by
leveraging on the backbone system (i.e. the DHIS2) that is already shared in the current HIS setup
and work practices. In order to extend the reach of digitized HIS we see that we need to cultivate
the installed base of recourses as technologies mature and contexts change. Cultivation occurs
through the constant inclusion of local innovation based on currently available resources, while
bricolage is the maneuvering on the ground in this landscape of making mHealth happen.
We see bricolage as a strategy for navigating within the typology as it addresses the fine-grained
situated local problem solving From the trying out in different
local contexts the network of action accumulates knowledge within the community and learns to
avoid the pitfalls. Learning is produced through the sharing of experience from resource trade-offs,
breakdowns and successful patchwork in the network. This needs to be an ongoing process due to
continuous changes in infrastructures such as network and handset availability and resource
availability, thus the experience and skill required to do bricolage is accumulated in the network.
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6. CONCLUSION
In this paper we have presented a reference typology for mHealth implementation strategies for
matching mobile solutions to low resource contexts. We find that the theoretical lens of installed
base cultivation through bricolage is useful in understanding, describing and synthesizing the
learning that emerges from our networks of action oriented involvement with various mHealth
implementations.
The proposed reference typology is based on a limited set of implementations conducted within
the same network of action over a three year period. Our findings suggest that extending national
HIS with mHealth solutions, need to match with existing work practices, local contextual
resources, service provider tariffs, existing communication infrastructures and integration with the
backbone HIS. Thus, solutions need to be continuously cultivated with respect to the context they
are embedded in. The typology is not cut in stone and will need to be expanded and improved in
the future e.g. web-based solutions will be a viable option in some low resource contexts. In this
study the main focus has been on utilizing the mobile phone in the primary health scenario for
scalable and sustainable data reporting, with improved data quality and timeliness as key motives,
yet the pilots revealed the use of the handsets for coordination tasks and social networking within
a Closed User Group (CUG) was a much appreciated benefit to health workers. Further utilization
of this effect as an engine for sustainable intervention needs to be explored. Finally, we suggest
that low-end mobile phones offer opportunities for giving contextualized and localized feedback to
CHWs directly on the handsets, the solution space offered from the typology needs to be explored
further with feedback in mind.
7. REFERENCES AND CITATIONSAbouZahr, C., & Boerma, T. (2005). Health information systems: the foundations of public health. Bulletin of the
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Asangansi, I., & Braa, K. (2010). The Emergence of Mobile-Supported National Health Information Systems in Developing Countries in Proceedings fromThe 13th World Congress on Medical and Health Informatics
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Braa, J., Hedberg, C., (2002) The struggle for district-based health information systems in South Africa, The information society 18( 2): 113 127.
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Cain, P., (2001). Automating personnel records for improved management of human resources. In Reinventing
government in the information age, ed. R. Heeks, pp. 135 155. London: Routledge.
Ciborra, C., (2002). The labyrinths of information: Challenging the wisdom of systems New York: Oxford University Press Inc.
Donner, J., (2008). Research Approaches to Mobile Use in the Developing World: A Review of the Literature. The
Information Society, 24(3), 140-159.
Elden, M., and Chisholm, R. F. (1993) Emerging Varieties of Action Research: Introduction to the Special Issue,Human Relations 45(2), , pp. 121-142.
Germanakos P., Mourlas C., & Samaras G. (2005). A Mobile Agent Approach for Ubiquitous and Personalized eHealth Information Systems. Proceedings of the Workshop on 'Personalization for e-Health' of the 10th
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International Conference on User Modeling (UM'05)., 67-70.
from design to cultivation. Towards a theory of ICT solutions and its design methodology implicatiohttp://www.ifi.uio.no/~oleha/Publications/ib_ISR_3rd_resubm2.html accessed 22 November 2010
Heeks, R., Baark, E., (1999) Evaluation of Donor Funded Technology Projects in China. Working Paper, Institute for Development Policy and Management (IDPM), University of Manchester.
Lippeveld, T., Sauerborn, R. & Bodart, C., (2000). Design and implementation of health information systems, World Health Organization Washington, DC.
Kimaroa, H.C. & Nhampossab, J.L., (2005). Analyzing the Problem of Unsustainable Health Information Systems in Less-Developed Economies: Case Studies From Tanzania and Mozambique.
McNamara, K.S. & McNamara, Kerry S., (2003). Information and Communication Technologies, Poverty and Development: Learning from Experience, World Bank, Washington D.C., USA. Available at: http://www.infodev.org/en/Document.19.aspx Accessed December 14, 2009.
Ranjini, C.R., Sahay, S. (2005) , Computer-based Health Information Systems Projects for computerization or Health Management?: Empirical experiences from India. Chapter CV - Medical Informatics: Concepts, Methodologies, Tools, and Applications, IGI Global Publications
Rashid, A.T. & Elder, L., (2009). Mobile Phones and Development: An Analysis of IDRC-Supported Projects.EJISDC, 36(2), 1 16.
Stansfield S. K et al.. (2006) Information to improve decision making for health, A custom publication of the Disease
Control Priorities Project: 157
Susman, G., and Evered, R. (1978) An Assessment of the Scientific Merits of Action Research, Administrative Science Quarterly, 23 (4), pp. 582-603.
Mukherjee, A., Sahay,S., Purkayastha, S., (2010). Exploring the potential and challenges of using mobile based technology in strengthening health information systems: Experiences from a pilot study. Proceedings of the Sixteenth Americas Conference on Information Systems
WHO. (1994) Information Support for New Public Health Action at the District Level: Report of a WHO Expert Committee, World Health Organization. Technical Report Series, No. 845, Geneva, pp. 1-31
Wilson, R. G., Smith D. L., (1991) Microcomputer applications for primary health care in developing countries.,Infectious disease clinics of North America 5(2): 247.
Wilson, R., (2000). Using computers in health information systems. In: T. Lippeveld, R. Sauerborn, and C. Bodart, eds. Design and implementation of health information system, Geneva: WHO, 198-212.
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11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
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EXPLORING THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC STRUCTURES OF INTERNET-ENABLED DEVELOPMENT: A STUDY OF GRASSROOTS NETREPRENEURS IN CHINA
Chrisanthi Avgerou, LSE, UKBoyi Li, LSE, UKAngeliki Poulymenakou, AUEB, Greece
Abstract: There is increasing interest in the potential of internet platforms for networking and collaboration - often referred to as web 2.0 - to open up unprecedented prospects for individuals to come together and engage in economic and political activities, bypassing and indeed subverting the corporate structures of the market economy and state control. The prevailing discourse on this technology-driven transformative potential focuses on networks of individuals interacting through technology tools with little, if at all, attention to the social context that gives rise and sustains their networked economic or political activities. In this paper we study the social embeddedness of the empowering potential of internet-enabled economic activity. We present and discuss a case of intense entrepreneurial activity in a Chinese community, engaging in e-commerce trading conducted on aplatform of internet tools. Our analysis of this case juxtaposes the emerging views on web2.0 business activities with views drawn from a long established literature on entrepreneurship as a networked activity. We found that internet-based entrepreneurial activity at this case of grassroots development enacts online social networking mechanisms of peer-to-peer and vendor-customer interactions andheavily depends on a corporate service provider, as well as the historically developed community infrastructure for commerce. Overall, our research explores whether economic activity enabled by web 2.0 is an individualistic phenomenon, or it relies on institutional bearings and if so what is their nature.
Keywords: netrepreneurs, internet, development, Yiwu, China
1. INTRODUCTION
Research interest in the developmental potential of internet-enabled socio-economic action is well justified. Addressing an audience of development studies scholars in 2007, Mark Thomson sketched the emerging opportunity and challenge. He presented web 2.0 as aparadigm for technology-enabled social life comprising diversity, collaboration, and multiple truths an ICT-enabled mode of participatory development (Thompson 2008). Congruently, Richard Heeks wrote about ICT4D 2.0 as a distinct phase in the use of digital technologies for development which has a demand-driven focus and demands (Heeks 2008, p.32).
In this paper we focus on the economic potential of the internet in developing countries,aiming to explore what form internet-enabled grassroots economic activity might take.Empirically, we are interested in tracing evidence showing how the poor manage
by engaging in internet enabled business (Heeks 2008, p.29).Theoretically, we set out to understand the conditions of possibility of internet-enabled
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initiatives for income generation in particular socio-economic contexts, thus hoping to understand the agency/structure articulations of internet-enabled economic development.
The literature on web 2.0 celebrates the internet for the power it affords to individual initiative to create new models of delivering services that depart from the proprietary logic appropriate for products (O'Reilly 2005; O'Reilly 2007). It is argued that the intrinsically centre-less network architecture of the internet ive production of information services and opens possibilities for a more democratic polity. Some have taken these ideas further, suggesting that individual initiative in an environment of peer to peer collaboration is a new mode of creating wealth, departing from the mechanisms of
(Benkler 2002). Thus, the internet has been linked with a libertarian ideology, which is suspicious of government and the industrial structures of advanced economies and sees the use of internet technology platforms as the transcending the constraints of the major socio-economic institutions of late modernity, namely the state and the corporation (Benkler 2006).
Bearing promise for citizen empowerment to curb the abusive bureaucratic state by creating information channels that are not controlled by government authorities, it is easy to see the relevance of internet-enabled networking for socio-political reform in developing countries. It is less obvious how a platform for individual initiative and peer to peer collaboration may generate economic growth in poor communities. The iconic examples of open source software production, Wikipedia, and online social networking that are used in the literature thatcelebrates the new potential of the internet as a platform for production and economic activityseem quite remote from the conditions of poor communities in developing countries. In these examples, individual initiative and collaborative interaction occur in conditions of abundance, utilizing readily available surplus computer power and relying on volunteered action that doesnot seek to secure an income. Moreover, despite the anti-corporation ideology of the most vocal web 2.0 advocates, this socio-economic paradigm has fostered and relies upon some of the biggest corporations of our time, including Google and Facebook, which generate their income as advertising channels for all other industries1. We find it difficult to see the developmental exemplars of the internet in the quintessential peer-to-peer social collaborationmodels of the advanced economies.
Instead, our research drew initial clues for the way internet platforms of economic activity and social collaboration may create economic development in the research fields ofentrepreneurship2 and regional development (Eckhart and Shane 2003; Feldman and Francis 2005; Rocha 2004). A rich literature on regional development has established the significance of social collaboration, elaborated on the forms collaboration in economic activity can take and addressed questions concerning the fostering of entrepreneurship. In such literature we found a more convincing logic of the role of the internet in creating new income and jobs, as a platform of interaction of entrepreneurs with customers, multiple service providers, and other entrepreneurs whether suppliers or competitors. Consequently we sought to find relevant case studies in on going regional development initiatives on Chinese provinces. We studied entrepreneurs who launched and are conducting their business on web 2.0 platforms. We refer
found widely used in China and has been already in
1 Such examples challenge the libertarian claims of web2.0 political economy, and give rise to critiques of increased corporatization of online social networks, see for example Pascu, C., Osimo, D., Ulbrich, M., Turlea, G., and Burgelman, J.C. "The potential disruptive impact of internet 2 base technologies" in: First Monday,2007.2 Entrepreneurship is defined as the start of new businesses, or the revitalization of existing ones and their expansion into new markets, often through new technology.
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existence in the international literature without nevertheless a clear definition (Lowery et al. 1998). In W an entrepreneur that applies innovation to create new businesses on the Internet
netpreneur
Our paper is structured as follows: In the next section we outline relevant literature on web2.0 and entrepreneurship and draw better informed theoretical assumptions on the articulation of individual entrepreneurial agency and contextual enablers. Then we present a case study of a cluster of internet based entrepreneurial activity in a Chinese city. Our narrative focuses on and unfolds around two individual netrepreneurs, tracing their business partners, service providers, supporting institutions. The analysis of this case identifies the web2.0 features andinstitutional bearings of these netrepreneurs and, finally, in the conclusions we form claims about the conditions of possibility for achieving development through internet enabled business initiatives. In a nutshell, our study provides evidence of effective mobilization of resources through web 2.0 platforms on the internet by the poor to create modest incomes through electronic micro-trading. But in addition to the internet enabling technologies, the Chinese netrepreneurs of our study are supported by social networking with other netrepreneurs in the same locality, built on a historically developed tradition of trade, and rely on the services of a giant corporation. In this case at least, the internet-enabled route toeconomic development does not break free from, but relies on existing local institutions and corporate services.
2. INTERNET ENABLED ENTREPRENEURSHIP
atthe same t (Allen 2008). Web 2.0 encompasses tools on internet based platforms enabling users to set up applications for content creation and publishing, communication, networking,and collaboration. These multi-technology platforms enable users to develop content and further applications for personal, social as well as business purposes. As the range of technologies continues to develop, a rhetoric is also unfolding around the economic opportunities offered (O'Reilly 2007; Tapscott and Williams 2010), emphasizing collective intelligence, crowdsourcing, peer-to-peer collaboration and online social networking.
However the literature remains unclear about the way in which emerging platforms of internet tools contribute to business activity. We know little about the conditions under which such business generating opportunities are realized. The web 2.0 network concept is technology driven and places emphasis on the individual. Part of the discourse emphasizes the liberating effect of collaborating through these technologies from restricting institutions, such as intellectual property rights, and has an anti-business-for-profit flavour (Benkler 2006).Another part of the discourse heralds new business creation and entrepreneurial opportunities through networking, suggesting a range of opportunities for start-ups. Corporations are encouraged to leverage employee collaboration and establish new ways to connect to their markets and collect intelligence from customers and the public at large as internet user (Brown 2010).
The actors involved in internet-enabled peer-to-peer activities tend to be portrayed as disembedded individuals, and their involvement in production activities as disassociated from any institutional structures. To some extent this is what advocates of web2.0 see as the source of its developmental potential: internet based platforms of collaboration allow individuals to participate in networks of sustained economic or political action, such as the production of
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information goods and mobilization for common causes, bypassing the restrictions of dysfunctional institutions and the lack of infrastructure (such as transport, banking, etc), characterising developing countries.
However, attention on internet-enabled economic activity is not new, and it was not always portrayed as socially disembedded. Some questions that need to be asked are: Does web 2.0 development differ from earlier models of network economic activity? Is it geographically disembedded? Does it by-pass the major economic development of institutions of modernity, namely the corporation and the state?
that is enabled by the internet, and positioned it within the post-industrial socio-economic logic. He illustrated via multiple examples that globe-wide networking was already under way (Castells 1996). But encompassed the institutional embeddedness of collaborating individuals. To a large extent his view on the significance of networking drew from a well established stream of research on industrial and post-industrial socio-economic analysis, which sought to explain the business and entrepreneurial activity in terms of collective economic rationality and institutional bearings. Such institutional bearings have historically been formed in geographic concentrations of business firms, and a great deal of research on entrepreneurship is concerned with the regional and spatial characteristics thatenable and sustain it (Feldman and Francis 2005; Rocha 2004; Uzzi 1997).
The question why enterprises tend to locate in proximate places have been studied byeconomists and other social scientists for over a century. Researchers from different social science disciplines are trying to uncover the factors and mechanisms that are responsible for the development of industrial clusters. Three basic types of industrial clustering have been highlighted, each sustained by its own socio-economic structures. The first type is the Marshallian district, which is a concentration of a large number of related industries in
proximate places, in order to maximize sales and minimize the cost of production (Asheim 2000). In this type, enterprises tend to locate close to the biggest target market, in order to save transportation costs. They also cluster together to benefit from proximity to labour markets, economies of scale, the degree of division of labour and specialisation between enterprises, and knowledge and skill spillover possibilities.
The second type is the so- , which is an industrial region of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), collaborating with each other and specialising in market niches. The main feature of such industrial districts is its collective flexibility. Because SMEs are specialising in different areas of production with different skills, the industrial district has the flexibility to re-organize its production and cope with market uncertainties. Thus the new industrial district type was seen to be the answer to the crisis of mass production industrial organization (Cooke and Morgan 1994; Piore and Sabel 1984).
With the rise of technology and knowledge-intensive industries, industrial cluster studies identified a third type of clustering concerning industries for which knowledge is the main factor of production (Saxenian 1994). This industrial clustering occurs in order to achieve
enterprises producing knowledge-intensive high technology products and thus requiring innovation capability. The mechanisms that attract and keep enterprises located in the same place are mainly knowledge spillover effects and flows of human capital. The literature of national system of innovation (Lundvall 1992) and regional systems of innovations (Asheim and Gertler 2005) emphasizes the importance of having knowledge institutions, such as universities, research labs, and innovative enterprises in the same regions, in order to facilitate the knowledge flows. Within the knowledge focused
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industrial regions, inter-firm collaborative relations aim at sharing cost, sharing knowledge and spreading the risks of innovations.
Economic factors are not the only reasons that make enterprises network and cluster. Social community, history and culture also play important roles in the development of industrial clusters. Industrial regions are communities of people and populations of firms in naturally and historically bounded areas (Becattini 1990). Within such communities of people and population of firms, the systems of values and rules are acting as the glue that holds people and firms together in a regional industrial network (Kumar et al. 1998). So, for instance, the
-Romagna regions have shown the influence of the strong socialist values that give rise to various associations and cooperatives in the region (Cooke and Morgan 1994).
This brief juxtaposition of the currently circulating views on the potential of emerging internet tools for new business models of collaborative economic activity with established understanding about the fostering of networked entrepreneurship that highlights social embeddedness within geographic regions shapes the question that we will address with thecase of the following section, as follows. What is the economic logic that sustains the business activities of the internet-enabled individual entrepreneurs and what kind of network (i.e. the individuals, organizations, and institutions they interrelate with) do they form and rely upon?
3. RESEARCH METHOD
3.1 Identification of case study Preliminary Research
As the previous sections indicates, our research is of an exploratory nature, dealing with an emergent phenomenon. The web 2.0 phenomenon itself has no clear definitions or featuresyet. The challenge for us was the tendency to present this as the result of individualistic behaviour. In contrast to this discourse, our research started with the assumption that all economic activity is socially embedded and thus we sought to identify relevant institutional bearings. The features that qualify the case of our empirical study as a web 2.0 driven activity,were determined as the study unfolded. Theoretically, the industrial clustering literature acted as a sensitising device rather than a source of specific features that we sought to verify.
We identified the case study that we present in this paper, the netrepreneurs of Yiwu city, during a study of the major Chinese e-business service provider AliBaba and its e-commerce company, Taobao. Interviewees in Taobao brought to our attention the concentration of individuals in this city who successfully make a living from online commerce. The Chinese author firstly met netrepreneurs from Yiwu in 2009 in one of Taobao conferences in Hangzhou. In that conference, he was introduced to netrepreneurs by Taobao staff and interviewed them. He then went for a field trip to Yiwu accompanied by a Taobao customer service specialists who facilitated his initial introduction and acquaintance to the local community. During that trip the researcher stayed in the city of Yiwu for a week and had fifteen interviews with netrepreneurs of several different sectors, ranging from manufacturers, distributors, business service suppliers and government officials. He also conducted day longobservations of the business operations of the netrepreneurs through both online and offline communications.
3.2 Constructing case narratives
After reading the case description produced from this data collection, all three authors went to Yiwu in June 2010 and visited a selected sample of netrepreneurs identified from the first
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round and suppliers at their places. This second visit served two purposes. First it gave the two non-Chinese authors a better understanding of the case than by reading its description. Although our interviewees did not speak English and we continued to rely on the Chinese author for translation, sharing observations was very important for deriving common interpretation of the cases study. Second, during this visit we sought to clarify aspects of the case that remained unclear and to probe further into the business making circumstances of our interviewees. To that end, in addition to the formal interview sessions at their business places we gained valuable insights by talking informally with a group of netrepreneurs over lunch and coffee and while walking in the city. We visited also service providers catering netrepreneurs and the local college which offers relevant training courses.
Our analysis aimed at identifying the characteristics of the way individuals were doing business over the internet platform and the organizational and institutional context thatsupported such business. Thus, we traced the business activities of the netrepreneurs and thetechnology tools they used to conduct them. We then traced the virtual and face-to-face relations that constituted their business network - including relations with customers, service providers, suppliers. One actor in this network, the electronic tools platform provider, stood out as most significant and we focused our analysis to understand the emerging entrepreneurial model.
4. Netrepreneurs of Yiwu - Case description
Yiwu City has a population of about 1.2 million and is located in central Zhejiang Province, about 100 km south of the provincial capital, Hangzhou. A Chinese reporter described his impressions from his first visit to the QingYanLiu neighborhood of Yiwu in 2009 as follows:
11:00 am, November 3rd
: I walked on the streets of this netrepreneur village and it was
strangely quiet. I spotted a few offices that looked like internet start-ups or commodity trade
companies. The whole village seemed to be still asleep, except for a few noises made by the
neighbouring highway traffic. What made it even stranger was that most of the street
restaurants were closed. Local people told me that these restaurants are running good
business but they only open in the evenings.
17:30 pm, November 3rd
: I came back to the same street in the late afternoon and found that
the whole village was getting busy. Thousands of young men and women suddenly came out of
the buildings, opening the doors of underground warehouses, and starting to package
merchandise. Then all streets were filled with the noises of ripping tapes and packaging
boxes.
20:00 pm, November 3rd
: After two hours of packaging, the streets were filled with a long
queue of trucks, sent by the logistics companies to pick up boxes and deliver these them to
various destinations. One of the staff told me that all the underground spaces are used as
warehouses by internet-shops, and all the internet-shop staff did was to fill in the delivery
forms and attach a copy on the packaged box which then waited to be picked up by the
lock, the village streets were filled with people who just got
off from work and were rushing into restaurants for dinner.
(Zhe Zhong Xin Bao, Central Zhejiang Info, November 5th, 2009)
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4.1 Two personal stories
Pan sells trinkets for mobile phones on the web. Her austere one bedroom flat in Yang Liu neighbourhood of Yiwu serves also as storage space for her stock, and also as her office. Her only piece of equipment is her laptop which is placed on a base to prevent it from overheating. Pam offers miniature plastic dolls to hang from your mobile, in multiple coloursfor 2.50 CNY. When we met her, she was also busy selling-off a batch of crystal-like plastic trinkets (again for mobiles) for 68 CNY. These products still featured a well known pharmaceutical brand tag and as she explains she has located and bought them cheaply on the net as surplus from promotional ware. Her flagship product, however, is an ultraviolet light activated mobile phone trinket which as she explains is very popular with young club-going customers. She proudly explains that she is currently the only merchant in Taobao, an e-commerce platform for micro-AliBaba, selling this particular type of trinket and for this reason she hphotos of these products on her site with the brand of her Taobao shop. Hundreds of these items are scattered around her living space in boxes and she seems very optimistic about selling them all. A newer addition to her product selection is a batch of alien-looking Barbie style dolls which she says are the basis of her export trade to Singapore and Japan. This is Business on a shoe-string: with a total stock of about 50 US dollars, an infrastructure comprising a Chinese made laptop and a free-of charge range of business services from Taobao, and an income of no more than a few dollars a day.
While we we creen was buzzing with pop-up windows from the Taobao chat channel. Prospective customers were trying to reach her with questions about her products and existing customers have questions about their order. Other windows were communications from the Taobao operation such as notifications about her scheduled e-learning courses on Taobao features and functionality.
Pan has been in business for less than a year and she seems quite happy with her progress. She does not seem to have any particular product strategy; she rather opportunistically relies on finding whatever seems probable to sell well, although she clearly focuses on cheap,
also another readily available product sourcing option. The local netrepreneur supermarket. It is a shop full of cheap products rather difficult to classify under a general heading. Shelves are overflowing with plastic toys, flip-flops, head phones, plastic keyholders with thermometers, pouches for mobiles, computer speakers, toilet brushes, carton storage boxes, and hundreds of such like types of objects. Netrepreneurs come here to buy these items which they then sell through their online Taobao shops. They save on the effort and cost of finding products, negotiating with suppliers, ordering and receiving the goods. They can also browse the product assortment online on www.92pifa.com.
Lin, now in her early thirties is another entrepreneur. She left Yiwu after secondary school to study in Shanghai and developed an interest in health food, natural ingredients and substances used in traditional medicine and cosmetics. She did some research on recipes and manufactures of products from natural ingredients, particularly cosmetics, and she located a source of such products in Thailand. Then she had the idea of setting up an online shop to sell such products and she came back to Yiwu to develop her business. She solicited the help of a professional graphic designer to set up her site on Taobao and started trading.
She has been running her Taobao based shop from her sparsely furnished one bedroom flat in Yiwu for more than three years, employing an assistant and relying on the help of her boyfriend. She rents storage space for the goods she sells in the basement of the same block of
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flats (approx. 100 sq.m). The bulk of her trade is currently cosmetics, while she is continuously exploring other product lines currently she is testing a brand of instant coffee blend from Sumatra which she believes has good prospects in the Chinese market.
Lin maintains contact with her customers through Taobao communication tools, mainly the instant messaging and chat services. Customers (particularly prospective customers) may also contact her via email. She uses AliPay, a Taobao service to handle the credit card and bank payments she receives from her customers. AliPay acts as the guarantor of payments and does not release them to sellers until buyers confirm receipt of the goods they ordered. On the marketing side, she can make use of a sophisticated array of online visibility, promotion, and reputation tools to promote her online Taobao shop. She pays Taobao a fee to have advertisements displayed to Taobao visitors who search for products similar to the ones she is selling. Advertising space in Taobao is auctioned to netpreuners who also need to demonstrate a certain level of commercial activity in order to keep it.
Her reputation in Taobao is critical for attracting customers. Taobao has 450 million products on sale and 70 million registered users (sellers) and runs a customer rating service for online shops based on a number of criteria, such as whether the netrepreneur pays a fee (multiple fees available), whether the site occupies un-auctioned keywords (popular keywords are auctioned in Taobao; price paid determines the order of appearance in a customer search), and whether the netrepreneurs make frequent edits (updates) to their page. Building a reputation in Taobao has developed into a professional service in its own right. The streets of Yiwu are littered with makeshift noticeboards displaying hundreds of handwritten notices from people who offer to help netrepreneurs improve their online reputation.
4.2 Doing online business in Yiwu
Lin and Pan, as all other people we interviewed in Yiwu, place emphasis on theture currently seems to play an important role in provding the
conditions in which a network of services necessary for Yiwu netrepreneurs is spawned. While Lin receives orders for goods online and Taobao acts as a trusted intermediary for the financial part of the transaction, she makes use of a number of additional services available in Yiwu to fulfill customer orders.
For example, she buys packaging materials from the many small businesses specializing on this in Yiwu. The owner of one of these shops explained to us that hers is a third generation family business which traditionally served local manufacturers packaging needs. They have now shifted their attention towards serving netrepreneurs. She has expanded the selection of sizes and specifications in the carton boxes she sells (down to packages no bigger than a box of matches), and introduced materials suitable for mail order dispatches. Local netrepreneursmay pick up their orders in person, while she also offers dispatch service on bicycle. Usually netrepreneur orders for packaging materials are more frequent and lower volume compared to those of manufactures and she has adjusted the services she offers accordingly.
In the same vein, netrepreneurs like Lin and Pan have an ample selection of postal service companies to choose from. These small businesses have appeared, multiplied and grown in tandem with the number of netrepreneurs active in the city. Many of them offer only local delivery service on their own, and collaborate with larger post and logistics service providers to deliver goods to distant destinations. Similar to packaging material providers, postal service companies have tailored their services to the needs of netrepreneur logistics. Many of these small businesses have only netrepreneurs as their customers.
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The netrepreneurs of Yiwu find much of the merchandise they sell in a massive compound at the edge of the city that is host to more than sixteen thousand wholesale businesses selling all manner of consumer goods from cutlery to ornaments, from fabrics to toys, and from equipment to alimentary products. This wholesale market, one of the largest commodity markets of China, has been there for a long time, well established in both national and international trade Arabian and Russian (not English though) feature widely in local restaurant menus.
Many of the Yiwu netrepreneurs were trained in a local college which specializes in business and commerce education, offering courses and specializations on all topics that would normally comprise a business administration curriculum, including a sizeable portfolio of business computing topics. The college offers extensive training options on netpeneurship skills including hands on experience on AliBaba and Taobao platforms. In essence, young locals may start as students and graduate as netrepreneurs with their own start-up running.
Students are encouraged to look for potential products to sell both on- and off-line. In many cases, pr Taobao-based retail sites come from merchants selling wholesale on Ali ling or capable to set up an online retail operation themselves, welcome the opportunity to have one maintained by independent netrepreneurs such as Yiwu College students. In the case of consumer goods ordered online from AliB Baba logistics deliver the goods to the
At present, everything in this community of entrepreneurs is in small monetary num bers: the value of stock, the prices of products traded, the cost of services, the earnings. Yet, the unambigious message emerging from the stakeholders is that this secures their livelihood, and an optimism that it is leading to growth.
5. CASE ANALYSIS
In the entrepreneurial businesses that we studied, the network is the platform3 for doing business. The whole spectrum of business activities is structured by the services provided by the Taobao platform. The netrepreneurs are heavily relying on front-end tools for interaction with their customers, marketing purposes and back-office support. The experience of doing business for Yiwu netrepreneurs is shaped by the technology tools provided by the platform. It is a shortcut to acquiring relevant skills and competences.
Customer communication tools, such as messaging, email, VoIP, are integrated with the transactional side of the customer relation. During our interviews in their business places the netrepreneurs repeatedly interrupted our conversations to deal with a continuous flow of customer queries on delivery details, features of products and price negotiations. Research on e-commerce service providers in China confirms the significance of this functionality of the Taobao platform. The capacities provided for communication with the customer and negotiation, and the heavy use made of these services has been a major advantage of the Taobao platform compared to eBay, its main competitor from 2003 till 2006 (Chen et al. 2007; Li and Li 2008; Ou and Devison 2009).
3
see O'Reilly, T. "What is Web2.0: Design patterns and business models for the next generation of software" Communications and Strategy (65:1st quarter) 2007, pp 17-37.
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The importance of Taobao in the creation of these micro-entrepreneurs cannot be overemphasized. Not only it provides a range of services for conducting C2C e-commerce,such as a rating mechanism, advertising, financial transactions, but it organizes and sponsors online and off line community building activities (Chen et al. 2007). We found manifestations of the community building activities of Taobao in the e-business association and the Yiwucollege.
The e-business association was originally a self-organized body, set up by local netrepreneurs, but currently Taobao has taken over its development, administration, regulation and governance. Lin is an active, founding member of the Yiwu e-business association. Joining the association means getting access to producers and products, but also to a social network of local netrepreneurs and through them to expertise on a range of netrepreneurship related skills and experience. Lin maintains an array of on and off-line connections with other local netrepreneurs through meetings, the organization of counselling sessions and seminars, as well as the participation in discussion boards, online communities and blogs, all hosted within the Taobao infrastructure. Indicatively, her business card features the e-business association logo.
Taobao supports the e-commerce Yiwu College and maintains regular contact with the teachers. It has given an official vote of approval to their training courses, and named the College
TaobaoThe picture of the entrepreneur par excellence, Taobao and
AliBaba creator, Jack Ma on the walls of the local college serves as a constant reminder of the aims as well as the potential of such entrepreneurial activity.
Overall, Taobao as a social networking platform constructs a netrepreneur identity, creates a sense of belonging, promotes role models and values associated with success, and cultivates desirable netrepreneurs profiles by prizes and publicity for particularly successful netrepreneurs.
5.1 Spatial and institutional embeddedness of the Yiwu netrepreneurs
Netrepreneurs in Yiwu are co-located with a range of businesses providing services to them(Ding 2009). Several logistics and postal and packaging services compete for their custom. Freelance designers emerge to provide help with the set-up of the interface of the netrepreneurs site and improvement of the online rating of their business. The commodity market offers unlimited sourcing opportunities for merchandise to be re-sold electronically. In addition to this huge market, corner shops and minimarkets sell products that netrepreneursre-sell electronically so that they do not need to maintain their own inventories. The knowledge spill-over effect of the college is also important. The college provides a large number of internet savvy and entrepreneurially inclined young people, acting as an incubator for netrepreneurs as many of which emerge from their studies with their own business up and running.
Perhaps more importantly, the netrepreneurs of Yiwu are a continuation of a culture of commerce that has old historical roots, survived the maoist regime and revived in the era of
economic liberalization. Moreover, the Yiwu case is not an exception in contemporary China. On the contrary, it is part of an energetic capitalist development which celebrates private initiative and the creation of wealth. This is sustained by an attitude of consumerism in the country which creates demand for all manner of products, thus providing
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ample opportunity for intermediary traders, such as the netrepreneurs of our case (Cui and Liu 2001; Li 2010).
6. CONCLUSIONS
The case of Yiwu netrepreneurs demonstrates that web 2.0 technologies, services and ideas may coalesce to create income for the poor in developing regions. Our objective in this research was to understand the socio-technical character of such business activity and the conditions that make it possible for individuals to launch and sustain a business on an internet platform.
In the case we studied the internet is indeed a central actor for networked entrepreneurial activity. It provides an accessible (both financially and in terms of easiness of use) communication medium and is the source of multiple tools for running an enterprise. Compatible with the web 2.0 ideas, the software and information that the netrepreneurs use to run their business are provided as a service, and mostly free of charge or at a very low fee, not as purchased products. But what is the industrial model that makes it possible individuals with no capital resources and minimal training to engage in commerce and generate an income?
The netrepreneurs of Yiwu cannot be easily classified in the existing models of clustering of entrepreneurship and industrial activity. Although they benefit from, and feed into, the business development of locally available suppliers and services, they lack many important characteristics of the industrial district categories. They do not make a Marshallian district because they are not co-located with their major service provider or with their customers; they are nottend to source the products mainly from local wholesalers; and they are not a high-tech district driven by technology innovation, although they rely on the high-tech platform of a service provider. The main difference from the industrial districts identified in the literature is that important parts of their business relations are virtual. The community they belong to is only partly local, created by spatial co-presence. It is to a large extent virtual, maintained by the geographically remote, yet ubiquitous, corporate actor of Taobao.
Also, this is not a model of a libertarian model of individuals exploiting the business making potential of internet technologies solely on their own ingenuity. As our case description and analysis show, the netrepreneurs of Yiwu rely heavily on the services of a corporate service provider and are supported by off line collaboration in a tradition of risk taking in trade, a culture of sharing, and a government provided infrastructure for a commercial city. Our research does not disprove claims for the capacity of web2.0 platforms to empower individuals to break free from corporate structures and local community support. The heroic individual entrepreneur who exploits the potential of the internet and the business facilities available through the cyberspace remains a possibility, as they have always been and studied in the literature of entrepreneurship. Nevertheless, our study suggests that there is scope for income generation through internet enabled entrepreneurial activity in developing countriesfor rather ordinary individuals, if their ingenuity, initiative, risk taking and learning are supported by off line trusted networks of collaboration and reliable online business support services.
We reached the conclusion that the most important enabler of this promising exemplar of internet based economic activity of the poor is a web 2.0 type corporate actor. The e-commerce services provider, AliBaba, is itself a rather recent entrepreneurial creation, which stemmed from the conditions of economic growth of China and closely linked with the
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internet does bear developmental potential, it is becoming increasingly accessible, and can be creatively exploited through human agency directed to the improvement of life conditions, as the Yiwu netrepreneurs do. But to think about developmental transformation as the encounter of poor people with the internet is a misleading abstraction, hiding crucial infrastructure conditions and shifting attention away from institutional actors that continue to play important roles for the elimination of poverty.
7. REFERENCES
Allen, M. "Web 2.0: An argument against convergence" in: First Monday, 2008.Asheim, B. "Industrial districts: the contribution of Marshall and beyond" in: The Oxford
Handbook of Economic Geography, G.L. Clark, M. Feldman and M. Gertler (eds.), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2000.
Asheim, B.T., and Gertler, M.S. "The geography of innovation: regional innovation systems" in: The Oxford Handbook of Innovation, J. Fagerberg, D.C. Mowery and D. Nelson (eds.), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005, pp. 291-317.
Becattini, G. "The Marshallian district as a socuo-economic notion" in: Industrial Districts and Inter-Firm C0-operation in Italy, F. Puyke, G. Becattini and W. Sengenburger (eds.), International Institute of Labour, Geneva, 1990, pp. 37-51.
Benkler, Y. "Coase's Penguin, or, Linux and The Nature of the Firm" The Yale Law Journal
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Wurttemberg and Emilia-Romagna" in: Globalization, Institutions, and Regional
Development in Europe, A. Amin and N. Thrift (eds.), Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1994, pp. 91-117.
Cui, G., and Liu, Q. "Emerging market segments in a transitional economy: a study of urban consumers in China" Journal of International Marketing) 2001, pp 84-106.
Ding, K. "Distribution system of China's industrial clusters: case study of Yiwu China commodity city" in: Asian Industrial Clusters, global Competitiveness and New Policy
Initiatives, B. Ganne and Y. Lecler (eds.), World Scientific Publishing, 2009, pp. 267-306.
Eckhart, J., and Shane, S. "Opportunities and entrepreneurship" Journal of Management
(29:3) 2003, pp 333-350.Feldman, M., and Francis, J. "Creating a cluster while building a firm: Entrepreneurs and the
formation of industrial clusters" Regional Studies (39:1) 2005, pp 129-141.Heeks, R. "ICT4D 2.0: The next phase of applying ICT for international development"
Computer (June ) 2008, pp 26-33.Kumar, K., van Dissel, H.G., and Bielli, P. "The merchant of Prato - revisited: Toward a third
rationality of information systems" MIS Quarterly (22:2), June 1998, pp 199-226.Li, C. China's Emerging Middle Class: Beyond Economic Transformation Brookings Institute
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Li, D., and Li, J. "Online consumer-to-consumer market in China: A comparative study of Taobao and eBay" Electronic Commerce Research and Applications (7:1) 2008, pp 55-67.
Lowery, J., Jackson, J., and Turner, M.L. Netrepreneur: The dimensions of transferring your
business model to the internet Que, 1998.Lundvall, B.-Å. (ed.) National Systems of Innovation: Towards a Theory of Innovation and
Interactive Learning. Pinter, London, 1992.O'Reilly, T. "What is Web 2.0", 2005.O'Reilly, T. "What is Web2.0: Design patterns and business models for the next generation of
software" Communications and Strategy (65:1st quarter) 2007, pp 17-37.Ou, C.X.J., and Devison, R.M. "Why eBay lost to TaoBao in China: The global advantage"
Communications of the ACM (52:1) 2009, pp 145-148.Pascu, C., Osimo, D., Ulbrich, M., Turlea, G., and Burgelman, J.C. "The potential disruptive
impact of internet 2 base technologies" in: First Monday, 2007.Piore, M., and Sabel, C. The Second Industrial Divide: Possibilities for Prosperity Basic
Books, New York, 1984.Rocha, H. "Entrepreneurship and development: The role of clusters" Small Business
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Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1994.Tapscott, D., and Williams, A.D. Wikinomics: How mass collaboration changes everything
Portfolio, 2010.Thompson, M. "ICT and development studies: towards development 2.0" Journal of
International Development (20:6) 2008, pp 821-835.Uzzi, B. "Social structure and competition in interfirm networks: the paradox of
embeddedness" Administrative Science Quarterly (42:1) 1997.
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Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
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Data, Information, and Knowledge: The Greatest of All is Knowledge
Chipo Kanjo, ([email protected])Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, NORWAY and
Department of Mathematical Sciences, Chancellor College, University of MALAWI
Jens Kaasbøll, ([email protected])Department of Informatics, University of Oslo, NORWAY
Abstract: This paper looks at a situation in a health care system where most knowledge generated within traditional health sector remain invisible, and some data sources are considered less credible than others. Data collection methods and data sources in the health sectorare described. Using a developing country, Malawi as a case, we argue that there is great potential for e-health initiatives in development both at local and global levelsonly if organizations were to understand the existing and emerging knowledge that can lead to effective strategies for improving data quality. Organizations need to move their focus closer to where practical knowledge is situated. We analyze how key players in generating and collecting data (community health workers, traditional births attendants, enumerators) can work together in the process of externalizing tacit to explicit knowledge to improve data quality in health information systems.
Keywords: Data Quality, Knowledge, Health Information Systems, Data Sources
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Data, Information, and Knowledge: the Greatest of All is Knowledge
1. INTRODUCTION
Organizations strive to have information systems(IS) that use good quality data. In most cases (Strong et al., 1997; Tee et al., 2007) the organizations end up having all the data needed to produce information for decision making but fall short of appropriate knowledge to make tactical and strategic decisions. Poor-quality data, if not identified, can have negative impacts on an organization (Tee et al., 2007). As we approach 2015, there is more urge for quality data within organizations such as health sectors to improve monitoring of the millennium development goals (MDGs). It is more important for health sectors as three out of the eight MDGs are health-related. Health data is derived from multiple sources (national surveys, census, health facilities, and communities). In some cases, there are contradictions in the data sources. This calls for knowledge of which data sources to use in order to obtain quality data for strengthening health systems. Travis et al. (2004) acknowledge the challenge of getting existing and emerging knowledge about effective strategies to strengthen health systems into practice. In the health sector, lack of knowledge about which data sources are more credible can result in poor data quality, ill-informed decision-making, and poor planning; in the long run impeding the attainment of the MDGs. Tee et al. (2007) give an example how lack of knowledge resulted in 25 million pounds loss as Burger King recalled contaminated meatbatches (Cf. Tee et al., 2007:p336). Knowledge of the contaminated batches would have meant recalling fewer batches.
This paper looks at a situation in the health care system where some data sources are considered less credible than others and analyzes how knowledge externalization about credibility of the ignored data sources can help improve quality of data used in a health information system (HIS). We address the following question: how can externalization of tacit knowledge generated at community and health facility level improve data quality in the health sector? The specific empirical setting used is a study of maternal and child data in the Malawi health sector. Data collection methods and data sources in the health sector both in general and using Malawi case is described. concepts of tacit and explicit knowledge are used to analyze how knowledge created at different levels of the health sector can be utilized to enhance data flow, information processing, and generation of knowledge that can improve data quality in HIS. Specifically, we build our argument based on externalization of tacit to explicit knowledge according to Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) SECI model. Improvements in health care can be made if both tacit and explicit modalities of healthcare knowledge are leveraged (Sheperd et al., 2006). We discuss what we mean by tacit and explicit knowledge in section 4.
The paper first describes data collection methods in health and their strengths and weaknesses at a broad level. This is followed by a discussion of the theoretical lens, where concepts of tacit and explicit knowledge are defined. The next section looks at the methodology that was used to collect data. Then we present an analysis of the findings, assessing contradictions of the data sources used in the Malawi health sector, particularly community based ones. This is then followed by a discussion of how the theoretical lens presented fits with the case.
2. DATA COLLECTION METHODS IN HEALTH SECTOR
Data used to generate information in health can either be collected routinely as a continuous process or as a single event - routine methods and non-routine methods (Koot, 2005; Lippeveld et al. 2000). Examples of routine methods include 1) routine health unit-managed data collection where data is collected based on patient/client encounters in a health facility or through outreach clinics 2) routine data collection managed directly by a community, 3) civil registration, (Lippeveld et al., 2000) and 4) sentinel surveillance (Koot, 2005). The non-routine health data collection methods include 1) quantitative surveys, 2) qualitative rapid assessment methods, 3) research projects (Koot, 2005), 4) informal investigations (Lippeveld et al., 2000
and groups (Lippeveld et al., 2000 after Green, 1992), and other special studies. These methods are
w access to health services in most developing countries ation generation
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mechanisms has a place for all different types of data collection methods (see figure 1). The data can be collected from a health unit or from a community. The IS whose data are collected from health units are referred to as facility-based HIS, whilst those that have data collected from communities are community-based.
Figure 1 - Information Generation Mechanisms (Koot, 2005)
While many HIS combine health unit and community data collection methods, each of the two types of HIS(facility-based and community-based) have data collection methods that best suit them. Table 1 shows thedifferent data collection methods used in the two types. The ticks ( ) indicate the intensity which a particular method is used with as the highest and absence of tick means that method is not in use.
Although table 1 shows the different methods of collecting data for community-based HMIS (CBHMIS),there are very few and isolated community-owned data collection systems (Koot, 2005). This is because communities rarely initiate research activities, neither do they own data analysis processes. Therefore data analysis is done outside the community where data was collected and rarely do the communities receive feedback.
Data Collection Methods Health Management Information System Types
Facility-Based HMIS Community-Based HMIS
Routine health unit data collection Routine community data collection Civil registration Sentinel surveillance Surveys Research projects Informal investigations Soft information obtained through meetings
Table 1 - Data Collection Methods for the two types of HMIS
The data collection methods are also applied to two different types of health providers; modern and traditional. The traditional health providers do not have direct access to facility-based HMIS (FBHMIS) in the communities where they reside; therefore it is important to have CBHMIS and community-based data collection methods which they can uselevel can provide some of the most valuable information for health services management, as well as for management of essential public health functions from reporting of births and deaths; to notification of disease outbreaks; to identification of high-risk individuals, pregnancies, and births; and to more peripheral
therefore examine the different methods for collecting data within communities. The methods for CBHMIS will be examined highlighting the ones with flaws.
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3. STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES FOR COMMUNITY-BASED DATA
COLLECTION METHODS
3.1. Routine Community Data Collection
The strength of this method is that there is a link between communities and facilities through community health workers (CHW). In some areas, the CHWs collect baseline data for the communities and they do have population figures based on head count (Damtew et al., 2010; Lippeveld et al., 2000). In situationswhere there is high level community participation, a strong commitment of village leadership, and a culture of volunteerism; this method works well (Cf. RHINO, 2006; pp. 13-14: Case of Thailand).
However, there is no appropriate mechanism or technology for collecting data at this level. Lippeveld et al. (1997) emphasizes that some health workers in developing countries record information which is not relevant. Information needs should drive demand (RHINO, 2006). Since information needs are not clear, the information is not analyzed and used at community level. Much as the information collected needs to transform into action, this is not always the case. Means by which data are collected vary depending on members of communities involved.
3.2. Civil Registration
Civil registration is the only way to count everyone and track all births and deaths in a country. Civil registration is beneficial to both individuals and countries. It provides a basis for each individual legal identity within a country and countries are able to identify their most pressing health issues. In many developing countries in Africa, functional national vital/civil registration systems are lacking. WHO (2007) acknowledges that it only receive reliable, cause-of-death statistics from 31 out of its 193 Member States;and two-thirds (38 million) of 57 million annual deaths are not registered globally. Further, almost 40% (48 million) of 128 million global births go unregistered. Although civil registration is something that all countries developed and developing need, only a few developing countries have civil registration systems in the past 50 years (WHO, 2007). This is not surprising as it takes years to establish well-functioning civil registration systems. Countries such as France and the United Kingdom took more than three centuries to establish a functional civil registration system having evolved from church registries (ibid.). In Viet Nam civil registration was mandated under the first Vietnamese national civil code in 1956, to date, they have novital statistics published from civil registration sources (Rao et al., 2010). The picture is getting brighter as international efforts to improve comparability of vital statistics seem to be effective, judging by progress in collection and publication of data. It is now possible to establish a functional system in a few decades.Examples include: Jordan, Malaysia, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Thailand (WHO, 2007).
3.3. Surveys and Research Projects
National surveys collect a wealth of information on different topics. Some health surveys use quantitative methods whilst others use qualitative methods to collect data. These surveys provide a chance of collecting data on a large scale. The capability to use either qualitative or quantitative methods provides an opportunity to use methods best suited for a particular context and understand better social and cultural dynamics related to health. Qualitative research allows for an in-depth understanding as individuals speak with their own voices; discuss their concerns and priorities using concepts meaningful to them. The most common source of data in health is Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS). DHS are nationally-representative household surveys that provide data for a wide range of monitoring and impact evaluation indicators in areas of population, health, and nutrition (MEASURE DHS, 2010). DHS Surveys have large sample sizes (usually between 5,000 and 30,000 households) and are conducted every 5 years.
In surveys, data for some of the needed indicators are difficult to collect. For example, maternal mortality, this represents deaths to women that occur during the reproductive process, meaning during pregnancy, childbirth, or within 2 months after the birth or termination of a pregnancy ology for collecting maternal mortality data is to ask, female respondents to list all their siblings, that is, all children born to their mother starting with the first born, and whether or not each of these siblings is still alive at the time of the survey. Current age is collected for those who are still alive, and additional information issought on the year of death and age at death of deceased siblings. To establish whether deaths were maternity-related, respondents are further asked questions for allwhether she was pregnant when she died or she died during childbirth or she died within two months after
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the end of a pregnancy or childbirth (MEASURE DHS, 2010). In developing country context it is very difficult to talk about death, as such some of the responses may not be accurate. On the other hand, two or more sisters may report death of their sibling and this may bring in duplication. Child birth and deaths indicators are also tricky to measure.
4. THEORETICAL LENS
In this paper, we use two concepts from the knowledge theory. These are tacit and explicit knowledge. Tacit knowledge resides in the know-how and is accumulated through experience and intuitions. On the other hand, explicit knowledge is formal with written guidelines, systematic and capable of being communicated and shared (Puri, 2007). Over time, an understanding of patterns, experiences and practices encountered within a context, builds upon existing knowledge. In the process, some knowledge is converted from tacit to explicit or from explicit to tacit (Nonaka, 1994). Figure 2 illustrates the four ways that tacit and explicit knowledge can be created and converted using Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) SECI model. Tacit knowledge can be converted into explicit knowledge through the process of externalization, and from explicit to tacit through internalization. Knowledge can also be converted from tacit to tacit through socialization and from explicit to explicit through combination (Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995).
Figure 2 SECI model Source: Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995)
Although we describe knowledge as being dichotomous, we acknowledge the fact that as knowledge interacts between explicit and tacit; it creates a continuum and exists on a spectrum (Leonard and Sensiper, 1998). At one extreme, the spectrum is almost completely tacit and at the other end completely explicit and most of the knowledge exists between the extremes of tacit and explicit (Leonard and Sensiper, 1998). The different characteristics of tacit and explicit knowledge are shown in figure 3.
Although organizational knowledge has been categorized into tacit and explicit by Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995); others have categorized it as formal and informal (Conklin, 1997), soft and hard (Wenger, 1998), and know-what and know-how (Brown and Duguid, 1998). Despite the different categorizations, there are similarities in their meanings where tacit knowledge is understood to be soft, informal, and know-how. However, Hildreth and Kimble (2002) point to some inconsistencies arising to such inference, arguing that although Brown and Duguid (1998) state that know-what is explicit knowledge, know-how can also have an explicit component. From our point of view, none of the different categorizations can be best suited in all different scenarios where knowledge is discussed and applied. In this (1995) categorization of tacit and explicit is adopted as the starting point for the scenario being discussed.
Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) have modeled knowledge transfer as a clockwise spiral process; starting with socialization; the process that transfers tacit knowledge from one person into tacit knowledge in another person. An example is TBAs who learn their skills from their mothers by taking part as assistants and observing what they are doing. Next is externalization where tacit knowledge is converted into explicit
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knowledge. In some cases, a TBA would touch a pregnant woman throat with a leaf to induce labor process. This is an example of know-how which assists the TBA to solve a problem. However, this is not documented nor shared. Documenting such practice would, convert that tacit knowledge into explicit.Knowledge externalization can be achieved in two ways: by articulation -putting ideas in words, metaphors, analogies; and through eliciting and translating tacit knowledge of others into an understandable form. Dialogue (oral communication) is an important means for both(Nonaka and Takeuchi, 1995).
Explicit knowledge can be converted to a new form of explicit knowledge through a process calledcombination or to tacit knowledge through internalization. An example of combination process is where during surveys, enumerators use under five health records in health passports (books) as the main source of information this is explicit knowledge about under five children. The enumerators record details from the health passports into their data capturing forms (another form of explicit knowledge). Combination allows knowledge to be transferred from one group to the other across organizations. TBAs can internalize knowledge after being trained when explicit knowledge about hygiene rules and modern methods of assisting pregnant women becomes part of their practices.
Figure 3 Characteristics of tacit and explicit knowledge
Our focus in this paper is making tacit knowledge explicit, hence analyzable and encoded. In the process of externalization, different interests that create barriers to develop shared meanings are revealed; these may
one domain creates negative consequences in another. This makes knowledge to be both a source of innovation, and a barrier to innovations (Brown and Duguid, 2001). Both tacit and explicit knowledge are considered to be context-specific (Puri, 2007; Suchman, 2002; Lam, 2000) and situated in practice (Suchman, 1987). It is through practices that knowledge is continuously created and converted. The knowledge produced during work practices may be valuable to an organization but contrary to its rules(Orr, 1996). However, there are situations where disobeying the rules may save the situation (Orr, 1996).Work practices that are not part of organizational rules and routines may reflect tacit knowledge that is useful to the organization (Puri, 2007). Puri (2007) describe a case from India where tacit knowledge and work practices that were not part of the formal organizational rules contributed to the successful design of IS for land management. The need to have both tacit and explicit knowledge is essential, as on one hand, not all [tacit] knowledge produced within an organization is valuable (Duguid, 2006); on the other, a high degree of formal [explicit] knowledge (without tacit knowledge) can constrain work practices (Lam, 2000).
5. RESEARCH APPROACH
A study was used to collect data for the specific health sector context used in the analysis. This study took place from January 2008 to July 2010 and it adopted a qualitative research methodology.
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The ultimate aim of qualitative research is to offer a perspective of a situation and provide well-written research reports that reflect the researcher's ability to illustrate or describe the corresponding phenomenon. One of the greatest strengths of the qualitative approach is the richness and depth ofexplorations and descriptions. (Myers, 2000)
Data was collected using interviews, observations, and document analysis. The interviews were guided by a set of questions outlining the broad themes used in the process of data collection for different groups of interviewees. Those interviewed included: 2 ministry of health officials at national, 3 at district, and 6 at health facility levels; 7 traditional births attendants, 70 mothers of babies under 24 months, 2 chiefs, 7community health workers (CHW), 1 enumerator who collect census and surveys data, and 1 national statistics officer. In total there were 90 individual interviews and 3 focus group discussions (1 for CHWs, 2 for members of the community). More individuals interviewed were from community level because at this level, data collection mechanisms are elusive and knowledge remain tacit than explicit.
Individuals do not always have sufficient skill or motivation to articulate their useful knowledge during interviews. The observations helped us understand the knowledge socialization from a TBA to her female children for example. In some cases, what people say they do and what they actually do is different, observing them gave a complete picture.
In the initial group of interviewees we did not include the enumerator and national statistics officer. However, after preliminary analysis, the results pointed to the vicious cycle nature of the data sources for health information. This observation of having health passports as the most reliable source of data for maternal and child health had to be confirmed by the national statistics personnel.
Qualitative research gives an opportunity to collect descriptive information, that may support or attempt to invalidate concepts and theories. In this study, the descriptive qualitative reports will offer an opportunity to communicate to decision makers in the health sector the impact of the knowledge generated within communities. In addition, the descriptive reports will help information systems developers understand the need to take into account local understanding of the situation where the system will be implemented.
6. ANALYSIS
We studied Malawi health care system. Like most developing countries the Malawi health sector is pluralistic, with both modern and traditional health providers. Malawi health sector is demarcated into districts and health facility levels. Each health facility has its own catchment area comprising a number of villages the community level. The mandate of each health facility is to provide both curative and preventive out-patient care to its catchment area, as such; they need to know the total population they serve. Community health workers known as Health Surveillance Assistants (HSAs) are the only link between communities and health facilities. Each HSA is responsible for several villages within a catchment area (covering a population in between 3000-6000). In principle, HSAs are supposed to go from household to household on a daily or regular basis, recording vital statistics (deaths, births and population variables) and disease outbreaks in the community. Data collected by each HSA would then be reported to a health facility.
However, due to factors such as work overload, long distances to catchment areas, and large populations to be covered, these visits are as few as once a month. This problem is also true for surveillance; HSAs hardly have capacity for regular surveillance. At the same time, there are no CBHMIS within the catchment areas, making it more difficult to capture births and deaths data from the communities. During census and surveys, enumerators use under five health records in health passports (books) as the main source of information this is explicit knowledge. Where health records are missing, they ask mothers to give the information. In some cases, the mothers may not be comfortable to talk about their child death and in the absence of regular surveillance data; it becomes difficult to verify the data. This may lead to a situation where the data captured is inaccurate. Babies born at TBAs do not have records unless if they were immunized. In some instances, the mother would not reveal to enumerators details of a baby who was born at untrained TBA as a way of protecting the unregistered TBA.
The fact that there are two categories of TBAs trained and untrained; in areas where they live close by, each group tends to protect their knowledge from the other as a way of ensuring that they get most clients. Trained TBAs who would have internalized modern ways of assisting mothers would be reluctant to share
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their knowledge with the untrained TBAs. Untrained TBAs would also ensure that their tacit knowledge is kept to themselves. The untrained TBAs would also be discreet about assisting clients and their knowledge remains situated within their practices.
Above we have discussed two modes of collecting data from the community level; through HSAs, and through survey enumerators. As both groups of data collectors (HSAs and enumerators) continue with their job, patterns emerge based on their experiences as they collect data and they develop know-how (tacit) knowledge. However, there is a difference between the two groups. The tacit knowledge which enumerators develop in one area can only be applied to another area (not the area where it was developed),and depending on the context, this knowledge may not be useful. For example, an enumerator may learn that according to culture; access into a particular village can only be possible after seeking permission from village chief. This may not be the case in all villages. For HSAs, they are able to apply tacit knowledge developed as they interact with the same group over and over. The tacit knowledge developed by HSAs can enable them to identify people within their community whom they can trust and use as point of data collection. An example is where HSAs have been using TBAs as their source of data on births and deaths generated within communities a make shift CBHMIS.
Over the years, the Malawi health sector has come up with a number of initiatives including the development of a health management information system (HMIS) as a way of easing the process of planning. The HMIS draws its data from various sources including health facilities (patient data), census data and data from health household surveys. However, health facility supplies are based on projected census and household survey figures. The dilemma is sometimes the projected census data might be inaccurate. Having noted shortfalls of the projected census figures, health facilities externalized their tacit knowledge which led into collection of head-counted figures (explicit) and they do conduct head count for their catchment areas. The head counting is done by HSAs, people who are familiar with the environment and their practices. In presenting the case, we also do an analysis and look at the contradictions that arise in the data sources.
6.1. Contradiction of Data Sources
most trusted and reliable statistics are those from the national
collected by HSAs are disregarded despite the fact that they are a better representation of the situation on the ground (Cf. Damtew et al., 2010). HSAs, unlike survey enumerators, have a more permanent presence within communities and have access to, and knowledge of, health cases with and without records from health facilities. Enumerators on the other hand, interact with communities during surveys only; they hardly know the people they are collecting data from. This leads into a vicious cycle (see figure 4). Figure 4illustrates a situation where the source for both - official census data and head-counted population data is the communities. The difference is that: Census data is commissioned by the National Statistics office (NSO) and their data is collected by enumerators. In the communities, enumerators use health passports as their most reliable source for maternal and child data. On the other hand, head-counted population data is commissioned at health facility level and is collected by HSAs who live within the communities and know the people well enough as they interact with them regularly. Ministry of Health (MoH) uses the NSOpopulation figures as the main and most reliable source for use in its health facilities. Ironically, the reliable source of the NSO figures when enumerators are collecting data from communities is a health passport whose data comes from a health facility. Although the MoH considers NSO as their source of data, reality is - the actual source is the health facilities. This particularly holds in the case of maternal and child data. However, relying on data collectepopulation which has no access to health facilities. The usefulness of statistics depends on their quality, yet in this case the statistics used has compromised quality.
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Figure 4 Vicious Cycle of health sector data sources
In a workshop initiated by the African Center for Statistics (ACS) and the UN Statistics Division (UNSD)any people in Africa
and Asia are born and die without leaving a trace in any legal record or official statistics . The participants
at the root o
explain this as when decision-makers fail to recognize the usefulness of tacit knowledge generated within communities making it invisible and lack of externalization of this tacit knowledge as the root of this scandal. Externalization of tacit knowledge may be useful in two ways: enhances sharing of know-how that
empowers individuals as they learn to articulate what they know to other people. People from traditionally excluded groups are included in decision making which is an empowering approach to participation (World Bank, 2011). In this case, knowledge from TBAs can be made explicit and be included in decision making and trainings. Once communities are empowered in participation and sharing knowledge, they can also develop a culture of sharing data which they generate. This is critical to ensure that data generated through traditional health providers is also captured into the system.
Although untrained TBAs have never been recognized by the health sector, the births data they generate is essential to planning. They may also have some tacit knowledge that if made explicit and shared, can help the trained TBAs.
In the case of Malawi, HSAs essentially live in villages among the community. In terms of training, HSAs are at par with enumerators who collect data for national surveys; they would have reached high school (form 4) and obtained their certificate. In addition, HSAs undergo 10 weeks training on health care. This places HSAs at an advantage compared to the enumerators in a number of ways as summarized in table 2.
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CHWs the health surveillance assistants Survey Enumerators for DHS
Reside in communities where data is collected Only come once to collect the required dataGood rapport with communities as they are familiar with them basisAble to make follow ups No follow up visitsWork relationship present as they interact on a regular basis
No work relationship
Data from health records can be verified during surveillance
No chance of verifying the data collected
Table 2 Comparison of CHWs and Enumerators
6.2. Alternative Source of Population Figures
An alternative source of population figures used by health facilities is data collected through head counts.However, these figures are not considered to be credible by policy makers. Although District Health Offices are given projected population figures based on population census to work with; health facilities also compute total population within their catchment areas they serve based on head count done by the HSAs. This allows them to know the total number of people within their communities. As they conduct door to door visits within their locality, HSAs acquire relevant knowledge about the population which they serve. This was acknowledged by the district health staff that uses data gathered by HSAs to make their plan, rather than the population figure projected from census. One of the coordinators and one of the District Health Officers said:
The head count data is more accurate than the census data.
As they interact with communities, HSAs are also in a position to know common diseases, sanitation condition and cultural practices that influence health actions within their catchment areas directly or indirectly. For example: they would know where a pregnant woman delivered her baby in cases when they do not go to a health facility. This is possible because of the familiarity they have with members of the villages they work in. Since they live and work within the same communities, HSAs develop local knowledge which enables them understand their communities better. This knowledge helps them to know the population within their communities and the target population for the different health services, which they offer.
7. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION
The analysis illustrates the presence of both tacit and explicit knowledge within the Malawi health sector.
them (p.33); to do that there is need to learn how to capture the decision and the rationale behind it (Conklin, 2001). Health facilities in this study were able to capture the decision that collecting population data using head-counts would give them more accurate figures. The rationale being that with accurate figures, they will be able to order enough supplies (avoid shortages and wastages). Therefore, tacit knowledge is reflected where health facilities use the know-how and accumulated experience from their communities for planning. This know-how is generated within HSAs as they interact with communities, sharing and learning their way of life. Through the interactions, HSAs know the village set up and over time, they can easily notice if some of the community members were absent during head counts. In this case, HSAs use their know-how (tacit) knowledge and converts it into know-that (explicit) knowledge in the form of head-counted population figures. Know-that knowledge enables them to have more accurate figures when ordering supplies for their populations.
Tacit knowledge is also reflected within communities by TBAs, how they learn the skill and how they induce labor. Through socialization between mothers and daughters, the skill of assisting in delivering births is passed on (from mother to daughter). Within community, tacit knowledge exist as members of the community can see that the once protruding stomach of a pregnant woman is now flat, they can also see the baby. Whilst the tacit knowledge generated by HSAs is converted into explicit knowledge, the tacit knowledge generated by TBAs remains unconverted. Such knowledge if properly documented and shared can help other TBAs who encounter similar problems. The process of externalizing knowledge empowers
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community and they also learn the benefits of making data they generate visible. As the documented knowledge is generated, same conduits would be used to communicate the data produced.
The projected population figures discussed is a form of explicit knowledge; these are communicated and shared to all health facilities for use. These projected figures fall short in a number of ways; they are outdated, and their source is actually health facilities as most of the data is from health passports as described in section 5.1.
Table 3 identifies the type of knowledge identified through the different modes of data collection (through HSAs and through enumerators); we notice that whilst the have only explicit knowledge present in a specific context, the HSAs produces both tacit and explicit knowledge.
CHWs the health surveillance assistants Survey Enumerators for DHS
How they relate with Communities Type of
Knowledge
How they relate with
Communities
Type of
Knowledge
Reside in communities where data is collected
Tacit, explicit
Only come once to collect the required data
explicit
Good rapport with communities as they are familiar with them
tacit explicit
Able to make follow ups Tacit, explicit
No follow up visits -
Work relationship present as they interact on a regular basis
tacit No work relationship -
Data from health records can be verified during surveillance
explicit No chance of verifying the data collected
-
Table 3- Types of Knowledge for Community Health Workers and Survey Enumerators
Much as there is a clear indication that both tacit and explicit knowledge exist, there are some variations amongst the three groups (HSAs, TBAs, Enumerators) discussed in the way knowledge is transformedduring the SECI processes. HSAs knowledge is externalized from tacit to explicit as they convert what they see into written form. Enumerators use combination process as they transfer what is explicit in the health passport onto the forms. TBAs knowledge go through process of socialization as what they do is converted into what others see; and they go through the process of externalization when what they do and what is seen is converted into written form.
Malawi is mostly an oral culture. Although Nonaka and Takeuchi (1995) use dialogue which is oral- as a way of converting tacit to explicit, the characterization of tacit and explicit knowledge in figure3 indicate that both tacit and explicit knowledge can be oral. One is able to articulate, analyze, and do theoretical reasoning (explicit knowledge characteristics) orally; at the same time what is oral is hard to measure, and can be lost if individual possessing it become incapacitated (tacit knowledge characteristics). Handzic and Tolhurst (2002) identified oral and written as two main knowledge sharing systems and oral as being closely associated with tacit knowledge. We are in agreement with their categorization because the oral/explicit is short lived compared to the written/explicit. Further, in the communities, knowledge sharing is done orally and informally because of the oral culture. This makes the categorization of knowledge as formal and informal (Conklin, 1997) more appropriate where formal represent both oral and written explicit knowledge. Once an organization recognizes the significance of the informal (tacit) knowledge and manage it appropriately, they have the key raw ingredients to improving data quality.
As suggested by Brown and Duguid (2001) that knowledge can be both a source of innovation, and abarrier to innovations, we have a situation in our case where knowledge created in the domain of HSAs in form of the head counted population creates some tension and inconsistencies in the health sector as some coordinators may use it whilst others do not. In addition, tension between trained and untrained TBAs as they compete for clients also create barriers to knowledge sharing. On the other hand, the findings are in
Work practices that are not part of organizational rules and routines may reflect tacit knowledge count population is useful at health facility level, and how the TBAs tacit knowledge assists them during deliveries.
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Although the health sector as an organization has all the data needed to produce information for decision making, the contradiction of the data source is not visible. This lack of knowledge about the contradiction of data sources leads to a situation where the health sector uses less accurate information (projected NSO figures to distribute supplies), leaving out the head counted population figures that are more credible. The knowledge of this contradiction and utilization of the tacit knowledge generated at community and health level can improve the quality of data used in health system.
The HSAs and TBAs live in the context where they are able to construct tacit knowledge that helps them understand the communities which they serve. However, the experiences and practices encountered within a context are not externalized due to the organizational rules in place. We conclude that externalizing the tacit knowledge that reside within communities and specifically among traditional health providers can help externalize other human practices and make data generated within communities visible. Understanding the existing and emerging knowledge can lead to effective strategies to strengthen the health systems. Although we use the Malawi health sector case, aspects of tacit knowledge not being externalized are part of most organizations and more pronounced in cases where there is a dualism (formal/informal, rich/poor, modern/tradition, urban/rural) where one side is seen to be more superior to the other. Here NSO generated population data is seen to be more credible to the health facility generated data, despite the contradictions.
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Strong, D.M., Lee, Y.W., and Wang, R.Y. Data quality in context Communications of the ACM, (40:5)1997, pp 103-110.
Suchman, L., Located accountabilities in technology production Scandinavian Journal of Information Systems (14:9) 2002, pp 1-105.
Suchman, L., Plans and situated actions: The problem of human-machine communication, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Tee, S.W., Bowen, P.L., Doyle, P., and Rohde, Factors influencing organizations to improve data quality in their information systems, Accounting and Finance (47) 2007, pp 335 355.
Travis, P., Bennett, S., Haines, A., Pang, T., Bhutta, Z., Hyder, A.A., Pielemeier, N.R., Mills, A., and Evans, T., (2004), Overcoming health-systems constraints to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, Lancet, (364) 2004, pp 900-06.
Communities of practice: Learning as a s The Systems Thinker, (9:5) 1998.Strengthening of health information systems World Health Organization Report, Sixtieth World Health Assembly, 2007.
World Bank, 2011, http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/TOPICS/EXTPOVERTY/EXT EMPOWERMENT
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11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
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Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF ELECTRONIC PAYMENT SYSTEM IN A DEVELOPING COUNTRY: A
Austin Briggs (Brunel University, UK) Laurence Brooks (Brunel University, UK)
Abstract: This paper examines the institutional arrangements in the development of
(EPS) using the new institutional economics
(NIE) perspective. It suggests that a well-functioning set of arrangements which
is lacking in the institutional setup in Nigeria is required to build necessary
institutional capacity suitable for development of safe and efficient electronic
payment systems. Although the technological payment infrastructure in Nigeria
is modern and of comparable standard, there is a failure to put in place market
and collaborative agreements. Current governance structure show elements of
power struggle and distrust between stakeholders (players and regulators),
and does not enable an environment that would sustain free market economic
activities and effective development of payment systems.
Keywords: electronic payment systems, new institutional economics, inter-organizational systems, institutional arrangements, Nigeria, developing countries context.
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INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF ELECTRONIC PAYMENT SYSTEM IN A DEVELOPING COUNTRY: A
1. INTRODUCTION
Viewing Information systems (IS) as essentially social systems with some technological elements (Land 1994; Soriyan, Mursu et al. 2001), indicates a shift from an initial techno-centric focus to a more integrated technology, management, organisation and social focus (Elliot, Avison 2005). It also emphasises the application of technologies and the interactions between people and organisations and the technology. This paper examines these interactions, their contributions or limitations, in the form of institutional arrangements in the development of Electronic Payments System (EPS).
IS effectiveness and success may well depend on the constructive interactions between itscontextual social systems and the technology applied. Thus IS has been described as the effective design, delivery, use and impact of information and communication technologies in organisations and societies (Avison, Fitzgerald 2003). The UK Academy for Information Systems describes its domain to involve the study of theories and practices related to the social and technological phenomena, which determine the development, use and effects of information systems in organisations and society.
An Electronic Payment System (EPS) is a form of inter-organizational information system (IOS) for monetary exchange, linking many organizations and individual users. This may require complex interactions between the stakeholders, the technology and the environment. The unique characteristics of EPS/IOS also differentiate it from traditional internal based information systems; it is more complex and multifaceted technologically, organizationally and, relationally (Sprague, McNulin 1993; Boonstra, de Vries 2005; Kumar, Crook 1999).
EPS encompasses the total payment processes, which include all the mechanisms, technological systems, institutions, procedures, rules, laws etc. that come into play from the moment a payment instruction is issued by an end-user. Different kinds of rules, regulations, mechanisms, technology and arrangements have therefore been put in place by trading partners, markets and governments (stakeholders involved in EPS development) in all countries and throughout time to develop effective infrastructure of monetary exchange,commonly referred to as payments systems (Bossone, Massimo 2001).
This situation illustrates the argument that the development process of electronic payment systems, like other information systems, is defined by the selection and application of organizational resources (within environmental constraints) (Ives, Hamilton et al. 1980); and is also composed of activities and relations of different groups of stakeholders characterised by inter-organizational issues that are subject to conflicting interest from different stakeholders (Mursu, Soriyan et al. 2000). This condition often requires the information systems development (ISD) process to be adjusted to the socio-economic and technological context in ensuring the interests of all stakeholders (Korpela, Soriyan et al. 1998), and indicates the moderating influence of environmental socio-economic factors (Pick, Azari 2008). IS in most cases may also not function well within the organizational / external environment unless there is a modification of the system, the organization (institutions) or both (Wijnhoven, Wassenaar 1990). This supports the argument that technology use, and IS in particular, is modified by organizational, inter-organizational, and institutional arrangements in the development process. Features of the technology are combined with the
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way users take advantage of the system (Fountain 2001) through institutional arrangements.Unfortunately little empirical work has been carried out on the institutional arrangements in IOS development, particularly in electronic payment systems. The literature on EPS mainly focuses on technological issues, systems efficiency, risks, choice of payment instruments and managerial/business aspects (Camenisch, Piveteau et al. 1996; Herzberg 2003; Chau, Poon 2003; Liao, Wong 2004; Yu, Hsi et al. 2002). Organizational and marketing arrangements facilitating payment services and systems development also need to be considered. This paper therefore examines institutional arrangements in the development of electronic payment systems in a specific country context. The contribution or limitation of the institutional arrangements in a developing country context of Nigeria is examined in this paper.
2. BACKGROUND PROBLEM CONTEXT
Many years of development aid have failed to bring the desired results, partly due to the focus on macro approaches and policies which did not emphasize the local institutional context faced by economic agents in developing countries; getting the right institutional context for effective payment system development may therefore be a major issue for developing countries (Sautet 2005). IS development has been described as problematic and constrained in developing countries with peculiar socioeconomic environments, such as Nigeria, with diverse challenges (Heeks, 2002; Avgerou, 2008; Mursu, Soriyan et al. 2000).These challenges range from lack of adequate legal backing, credibility of the human element, integrity of data transmitted, to interconnectivity and interoperability (Ovia 2005),and technological infrastructure and institutional capacity.
Payment system development, like every IT development, is seen as social and politicalprocesses (Christiaanse, Huigen 1997), shaped by the politically and socially constructed realities of its contexts (Currie 2009). Its development therefore may have to take into consideration a whole range of factors, particularly the socio-political setup in the country,especially in developing countries with peculiar circumstances and poorly developed socio-political setups. The network of actors involved in the development process also producesoutcomes and their interactions are influenced by the institutional contexts (King, Gurbaxani et al. 1994). Moreover, the complexity of EPS arises both from the network of actors involved and a number of elements and processes that make up the payment system which may individually and collectively influence development. This includes the payment infrastructure, legal framework and institutional arrangements. The level of development of these elements, their interactions, collaboration of the stakeholders and shared resources, may be key issues in the development of EPS/IOS which transcends organisational boundaries(Kumar, Van Dissel et al. 1998). Although technology serves as the backbone and driver of EPS/IOS, organizational and collaborative issues that cover working arrangements/relationships, power, regulations, economic, social, trust issues etc, are other key factors to be taken into consideration in the development of any IOS such as EPS(Boonstra, de Vries 2005; Kumar, Crook 1999).
Unfortunately EPS development is often too narrowly focused on instruments, technology and infrastructure (CPSS 2006). This has not yielded anticipated results, particularly in most developing countries where the other elements are poorly developed and as such fail to give proper support to the payment infrastructures. A payment infrastructure requires supporting institutional arrangements backed up by adequate legal framework. Moreover, a broad issue of payment system efficiency that is often raised involves the uncompensated and inadvertent shifting of credit and liquidity risks through payment mechanisms and associated institutions. The impact of this risk shifting, particularly on the incentives to improve overall payment system efficiency, is a perennial issue (Greenspan 1996).
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This implicitly challenges the legal, operational and governance elements of the payment system which are institutional, country-specific and represent important aspects of the process of payment system development. These challenges may have contributed to the uneven success of similar reforms in different countries, and resulted in a design-actuality gap (Heeks 2002) that has made the achievement of planned outcomes difficult in terms of expected use, benefits and costs. The country-specifics of these institutional elements may have to be considered to determine the most appropriate mix and suitable development approach (CPSS 2006).
3. INSTITUTIONAL INFLUENCES
North (1991) describes both the legal framework and the institutional arrangement as the institutional framework of a country which is of high significance to parties in an economicexchange. North (1991) continues by suggesting that it raises the benefits of cooperative solutions and reduces transaction costs but cautions that the central issue is the evolution of an institutional framework that would create an enabling economic environment. The quality, level of development, and effectiveness of existing institutional framework, particularly in the developing countries as it enhances or limits the development of payments system, istherefore questioned. The analysis of the regulatory framework and the organizational/institutional arrangements that drive the payment system, are issues that need to be taken into consideration in their development. Payment systems development is complex and dynamic and the outcome may depend on factors which cannot be comprehended without institutional dimensions (Christiaanse and Huigen, 1997). King et al, (1994), also argue that institutional factors are ubiquitous and essential components for understanding and explaining inter-organizational IT innovations. IS studies may therefore also focus on the regulative processes/framework in the country that shape the design and development of IS/EPS (Currie 2009).
It is also pertinent to note that general IS research has rarely addressed explicitly questions of the socio-economic context of IS innovation (Avgerou 2008) which is largely institutional. Economic development which is the focus of any IT/IS innovation, particularly electronic payment systems, is a situated, context-specific process that is entangled with indigenous politics and historically-formed institutions. Further, developed an institutional setting that sustains the mutual re-enforcing of competent free-market economic activity and ICT innovation, but that such a process has not been set in
(Avgerou 2003). This raises a strong argument for theimportant role of institutions in the development of payment systems, economic development and in fostering economic collaborations. Gaining deep insights into payment system issues also may depend on understanding complex institutions and processes (Greenspan, 1996).This challenges the ability of the researcher to draw on ideas from many different fields of economic research. One notable resource is the New Institutional Economics (NIE) theory which provides clear concepts from which to leverage understanding of the institutional processes in the development of payment systems. The NIE is discussed in the theoretical approach section.
4. PAYMENT SYSTEMS ELEMENTS AND STRUCTURES
Electronic payment systems have evolved from a simple system involving cash as a means of exchange to a more sophisticated system involving various institutions and related regulations providing payment instruments and infrastructures allowing for interconnections between various partners or business units in fulfilling their business or social obligations. It could thus be seen to include any payment to businesses, banks and public services from
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citizens, businesses or governments, which are executed through electronic networks (Sumanjeet 2009).
Commercial non-cash electronic transactions, which is the focus of this paper, usually involve a payer and a payee exchanging money for goods or services, and one or two financial institutions acting as an issuer on behalf of the payer or an acquirer on behalf of the payee. A typical payment system therefore interconnects the payer and the payee, and is usually initiated by an instruction from the payer, using an agreed instrument, through the issuer and acquirer and the central bank in computer networks, which enables them to exchange money (CPSS 2006; Ovia 2005). European Central Bank (2010) therefore defines payment system as consisting of a set of instruments, banking procedures and typically, interbank funds transfer systems that ensure circulation of money with minimum delay and cost.
Greenspan (1996) views it as a set of mechanisms which can only provide the necessary infrastructure when coupled with appropriate rules and procedures. Therefore having the technology, systems, or instruments such as debit/credit cards without the supporting rules and arrangements between the institutions involved, may not necessarily present a safe and working payment system. There may be a need for a platform of collaborative arrangements for the mechanism. CPSS (2006) therefore views the payment system as comprising of all institutional and infrastructure arrangements in a financial system for initiating and transferring monetary claims in the form of commercial bank and central bank liabilities. A
infrastructure arrangements and processes.
ent transactions. These include payment instruments used to initiate and direct transfer of funds; clearing the transmission and recording of the instructions to make payment; and settlement
institutional arrangements describe the payment services provided, the financial institutions and other organisations providing the services, working relationships amongst these institutions and their customers, and the legal and regulatory framework guiding these services and working relationships. These elements individually and collectively, may influence the direction in which the payment system develops. They are mutually reinforcing and the strength of a payments system depends on the interaction between them, particularly legal framework, payments infrastructures and institutional arrangements where most countries have experienced challenging difficulties in developing a safe and efficient payments system.
5. INSTITUTIONAL ARRANGEMENTS AND PAYMENTS SYSTEM
DEVELOPMENT
The institutional arrangements cover organizational arrangements facilitating payment services. The focus is usually on market arrangements, mechanisms for consultation with stakeholders and the coordination of oversight of the payment system and its regulation. It is argued that the expansion and strengthening of market arrangements for payment services are key aspects of the evolution of national payment system as it is crucial for both users and providers (CPSS 2006). They include the procedures, conventions, regulations and contracts governing the payment service relationships and transactions between service providers and users.
The development of payment system does not depend on only one organization or the central bank, but is open, allowing interested organizations to participate in the different aspects and services of the payment system. It is therefore argued that the success of the developmental
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efforts requires universal acceptability and market arrangements on the basis of cooperation with institutions involved (Baddeley 2004). These institutions involved are also seen as stakeholders that are usually systematically arranged in a planned manner by some pre-determined rules. They have different roles and vested interest which individually and collectively affect the development of the payment system (Sangjo 2006). It could therefore be considered crucial for an effective market arrangement and strong payment service market be developed, both for the users and providers. This may however be dependent on the effective coordination of activities in individual and interrelated payment service markets, efficient market pricing conditions, transparency and market education about payment instruments and services, and fair and equitable opportunities for all.
6. THEORETICAL APPROACH
The New Institutional Economics theory (NIE) posits that the institutional framework of a nation (institutional environment and arrangements), is instrumental to successful collaborative relationships and economic activities/developments which are basic requirements of payment system development (North, 1991; CPSS 2006). It helps to identify institutional arrangements suitable in carrying out economic transactions and exchange of property rights and explains economic relationships and the development of organizational settings in a world of imperfect actors (Laffont and Martimort, 2002; Williamson, 2000).Economic development is therefore seen as a response to the evolution of institutions such as the regulatory framework including formal rules, informal norms and their enforcement elements; and governance structure that support social and commercial relationships while controlling potential hazards (shirking, opportunism and the like). Economic development, or rather payment system development, therefore requires institutional development that would create an enabling environment (North, 1991).
7. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES
electronic payment system has enhanced or hindered the development of the national payments system. New Institutional Economics (NIE) theory will therefore be used to examine the development of payment systemsexplain and understand institutional influences surrounding them. The institutional arrangements in Nigeria stem will be examined to determine the appropriateness and efficiency of the market and collaborative arrangements for payment services and systems development.
The policy implication and contribution of this research could be to help build institutional capacity and prepare an environment that favours effective development of payment systemsin Nigeria. The contribution for the academic community will be an improved understanding of the influence and interactions of the elements of the payment system in the effective development of payment systems in Nigeria. For practitioners, the expected contribution will be a tool to build institutional capacity and an environment suitable for effective payment systems development.
8. RESEARCH APPROACH
A qualitative research approach is adopted because of its array of interpretative techniques which seek to describe, decode, translate and otherwise come to terms with the meaning (Van Maanen 1979), not the frequency, of naturally occurring phenomena in the social world. The aim is to gain an understanding of regulatory framework/arrangements, the impact and the responses of organizations and users
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(Myers 2009). These are real life social issues that cannot be quantified or measured and analysed statistically, but require in-depth understanding and interpretation.
RESEARCH DESIGN
An interpretative case study was carried out (Bryman et. al. 2001). The organizations investigated during the study included the regulatory organizations, the switching companies,deposit money banks and third party independent service operators and users. The regulatory organizations have oversight responsibility and initiate policies, rules and regulationscovering all aspects of EPS. The switching companies are transaction switching and processing service providers, facilitating the exchange of value between financial service providers, merchants, their customers and other stakeholders. Deposit money banks are financial service providers issuing payment tokens such as credit/debit cards, vouchers, etc, used on the network of switches. Third party organizations are independent service operators, payments processing institutions, solution providers and users.
8.1 Data Collection
The data collection method used was semi-structured interviews. A total of 18 participants (among all the stakeholders) were interviewed over a two month period. Most participants were interviewed more than once (ie. for follow-up purposes). The interviews were recorded (with agreement) and transcribed for analysis. The interview questions were guided and structured based on the themes/issues deducted from the literature review and theoretical background. These covered the following areas:
Rules, regulation and agreements are they clearly defined for easy understanding?
Payment and settlement procedures are they clearly defined?
Competition and co-operation
o Market driven competition is it allowed and are the rules defined?
o Sharing of infrastructures setting-up non-competitive infrastructure?
o Interoperability and interconnectivity do rules and agreements allow for it?
8.2 Data Analysis
A thematic analysis approach was used in the data analysis (Boyatzis 1998). Recorded interview data were transcribed, read and examined for new themes/issues that may be inducted and used together with the deducted themes from the literature review, to code the data.
9.
The Federal government of Nigeria through its agencies and the banking sector has taken significant strides in the last 15 years to modernise the payment system. The system has beenunexploited, problematic and constrained by diverse challenges ranging from lack of adequate legal backing, credibility of the human element, integrity of data transmitted, to interconnectivity and interoperability (Central Bank of Nigeria 2010). The Nigerian payment system is predominantly cash based due to a culture informed largely by ignorance, illiteracy and lack of appreciation of other non-cash instruments (Ovia 2005).
markable achievements in the last ten years, evolving from rudimentary payment systems to paper and
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other electronic payments instruments. The pace of development is described as high in terms of achievements within its short life span and the challenges encountered. The technological infrastructure put in place by the private stakeholders such as the banks and switching companies for the EPS, is also seen as current and of high standard comparable to some payment infrastructures in other developed countries. For instance the use of chip and pin electronic cards, currently used in Europe and just taking off in America, started in Nigeria five years back. The Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), guided by the economic policies of the government and in collaborationmeasures to modernise the payment system in Nigeria with mixed results.
A re-engineering and re- has also beenundertaken and a set of national payment system policy objectives as guideline and framework for all payment system initiatives was put in place. The primary goal of the policy/objective is to ensure that the system is available without interruption, meet as far as
te at minimum risk and reasonable cost. In accomplishing this goal, the Nigeria Inter-Bank Settlement System company was incorporated in 1993 but commenced operation in 1994 with the sole mandate of providing a mechanism for same day clearing and settlement of inter-bank transfers and payments (funds transfer and settlement system); providing infrastructure for automated processing and settlement of transactions between banks (automated clearing operations); providing the framework for elevating efficiency in funds transfer (automated clearing of direct credit/debit instruments); and developing an integrated nationwide network (Nigeria central switch) to facilitate interconnectivity and interoperability of switches.
Consequently, to encourage the use of cheques and enhance the efficiency of the payments system, the cheque clearing system was automated with the establishment of the centralised automated clearing process in Lagos clearing zone in 2002, later extended to Abuja in 2005 and another six additional clearing zones in 2008. This initially reduced the clearing cycle from 5 to 3 days for local instruments and from 9 to 6 days for up-country instruments, which has now been harmonised at T+2 (three working days) for both local and up-country instruments. This guarantees a customer to take value for clearing cheques after one day. The development of an automated clearing system is believed to be an essential infrastructure in the banking sector and also as a baseline for the development and integration of other payments in electronic banking. But despite these efforts, the Nigerian payment system remains largely cash-based
In 2003 the central bank issued some guidelines on e-banking in an attempt to encourage the use of cards as payment instruments in Nigeria. This encouraged e-payment initiatives by private card/switch operators who introduced their cards, point of sales (POS) terminals and switches. But it also brought on board independent service operators for ATMs and POS who alongside the banks competed in placing ATMs and the cards and operated individual switches making interconnectivity and interoperability difficult with high cost of operations.
In the quest for a robust and efficient payments system aimed at increasing the diversity and liquidity of payment instruments, responsive to the needs of the users and minimise payment risks, a National Payments System Committee (NPSC) was reconstituted in 2005 to promote the development of the Nigerian payments system. An earlier committee, established in 2002,was noted to be ineffective largely due to weak and unresponsive organisational / institutional structures that allowed for un-coordinated and unsatisfactory level of co-operation of
of the payments system. The tasks of the new committee therefore included providing a forum for payment system participants and stakeholders to address emerging issues and to co-operate in the provision of
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payment services and infrastructure; promoting the institutionalisation of payment system reforms and development through the articulation of a comprehensive payment systems legal framework and its development into a national payment systems act; facilitating the codification of standards, guidelines, rules and regulations for the safety and operational effectiveness and efficiency of the Nigerian payments system.
These laudable attempts and measures however have experienced some measure of success and setbacks arising mostly from the institutional arrangements/framework and legal framework. Tables 1 and 2 show the timeline of activities/achievements and the forms/level of development in Nigerian payment systems.
Implementation of MICR 1993
Establishment of NIBSS 1994
Setting up of Technical committee on Automation of clearing System/appointment of consultants 1996-1997
Full implementation of National Automated Clearing system (NACS) 2002
Reduction of clearing cycle time to T+3 2002
Guidelines to E-banking 2003
Establishment of switching companies and Interoperability of/shared ATM/POS 2004
New settlement framework (for cheque clearing) 2004
Reconstituted National Payments System Committee and technical sub-committee 2005
Live run of CBN Inter-bank Funds Transfer System (CIFTS) 2006
Development of Payments System Vision 2020 2007
Inauguration of Payments System Work Group for Vision 2007
Table 1. Summary of Nigerian Payments System Achievements 1993 - 2007
ATM and POS Terminals 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007
No. Of ATM in Nigeria 101 352 532 1426 3676
Volume of transactions 240,192 1,207,576 3,489,845 12,138,109 15,731,630
Value of transactions (Millions of Naira)
1,206.00 4,344.57 17,315.00 63,238.87 131,562.67
Offline POS Terminals
Volume of transactions 887 1,055,653 1,063,915 557,508
Value of transactions (Millions of Naira)
49,621.00 61,279.50 41,334.43 19,302.18
Online POS Terminals
Volume of transactions 71,063 421,946
Value of transactions (Millions of Naira)
559.23 6442.07
Web Payments
Volume of transactions 440,733 665,015
Value of transactions (Millions of Naira)
97.51 95,551.79
Mobile payments
Volume of transactions 222,210 903,067
Value of transactions (Millions 3,023.19 10,622.63
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of Naira)
Table 2. Electronic Payments Transactions for Nigeria for 2003 - 2007
10.FINDINGS AND DISCUSION
10.1 Regulations and Operating Arrangements
The role of the regulatory bodies in designing and putting in place effective market arrangements for the development of electronic payment systems in Nigeria was a major issue. Until very recently, the government and development of the payment system was by the players (other stakeholders, mainly financial institutions) while the regulatory bodies played passive roles. This created a field day for the operators/players to introduce uncoordinated payment schemes/products and charges, independent infrastructures and unhealthy rivalries and competition. Planned and systematic development was obviously missing. One respondent sums it up as chaos,
not regulators, there is a
The ability of the regulators to provide a relevant platform for participation and effectiveness was questioned as guidelines and policies issued created more confusion among the players and tried to truncate the already developed plans of the private players. As remarked by one respondent,
eckmate ideas from players with
The setting up of a platform, connecting all switches (privately owned) called the central switch, created a lot of confusion. The arrangement was for one of the private switches totake the role of a central switch but with a lot of restrictions and arm twisting rules which killed the move. Thus the regulatory body decided to set up the central switch but rather than connecting private switches, went ahead to directly connect banks and introduced their branded payment schemes and products, thus becoming both a player and a regulator. This is bound to be frustrated, as remarked by a player respondent,
and it
The findings clearly show no viable working arrangement or governance structure that can control opportunism and other excesses of stakeholders; the players are in charge and determine the rule of the game (Williamson 2000). The existing structure therefore has not been able to advance the development of electronic payment systems. Its ability to support and sustain commercial relationships (North, 1991) is in doubt as the policies and rules guiding procedures and agreements are most times not clearly defined, misunderstood and create confusion. The market arrangement cannot be said to be appropriate nor efficient.
10.2 COMPETITION AND CO-OPERATION
The development of electronic payment in Nigeria has been largely affected by the activities of private stakeholders. The introduction of guidelines on E-banking in 2003 by the central
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bank encouraged uncoordinated e-payment initiatives by private card/switch operators with , cards and switches making interconnectivity and interoperability. These
stakeholders were guided strictly by their private interests and business motives and were prepared to protect these interests at all cost. A private operator captured this feeling in this remark,
means, not minding the eff
The central bank (regulatory body) welcomed the participation of the stakeholders but viewed the competitive activities as unhealthy and not favourable for development. Guidelines were therefore issued to halt this trend and to put structure in place for participation and operationsas observed by a private stakeholder,
influencing the structure and nature of the industr
One notable guideline which became controversial and much resisted by the stakeholders was three independent
ATM service providers were licensed to facilitate interoperability. The stakeholders viewed this guideline as creating a monopolistic structure, defining and restricting entry and participation of other players/stakeholders,
players; it is creating monopoly and surely wil
The regulators responded by seeking a collaboration effort through mediation to enhance cooperation among the players and the regulatory body as remarked by a regulatory stakeholder,
The formation of a national payment systems committee whose main task was to bring together all participants in the industry, was a welcome idea as remarked by a stakeholderparticipant,
of
The feedback from this committee forms the basis of most policy rules and regulations. This provided an environment for participatory policy formulation as remarked a stakeholderparticipant,
cy formulation which enables us
The findings also indicate that there is no appropriate institutional settings that sustain the mutual re-enforcing of free-market economic activity of the stakeholders and electronic payment services which is a requirement for successful IS development (Avgerou, 2003). The collaborative arrangement for payment services and system development is evolving and may not yet have a solid structure. Its efficiency is also in doubt.
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10.3 PAYMENT AND SETTLEMENT PROCEDURES
The development of electronic payment systems in Nigeria was boosted in 2009 by a government policy directive instructing all payments by government offices to be paid electronically. This was followed up with specific rules, procedures and enforcement mechanism. Guidelines for interbank transfer, clearing of cheques and settlement were also released. The scope and depth of the rules and the extent of coverage of every aspect of the electronic payment system was however challenged by unforeseen issues of payment and settlement.
The rules may not be sufficient; they are evolving, reviewed and evaluated regularly
ctices but the issues of change or review a regulatory stakeholder
This reflects the inadequate knowledge about the overall breath of the system and the limited information about emerging needs of the society. These are common problems affecting effective development of national electronic payment system (CPSS, 2006). It also demonstrates the need for a country specific assessment for effective payment system development.
11.CONCLUSION
The success of collaborative and economic relationships such as EPS depends largely on the institutional arrangement and its evolution to accommodate the emergent needs of society and interests of stakeholders. However, this position cannot be seen in the case of EPS development in Nigeria. The governm ze new sets of market and collaborative arrangements failed to create an enabling environment for fast-track development of EPS. Before the regulatoryprivate stakeholders brought about developments in many aspects of EPS. But now, the governance structure is in disarray, showing elements of a power struggle between the private stakeholders and the regulators. The private players do not have much trust in the ability ofthe arrangements to provide safe and convenient settings for the effective development of the payment system;the society and players are always in doubt.
A setting to promote clear and transparent agreements among the players to enhance interactions among players and interoperability of infrastructures is therefore lacking. The new arrangement and the institutional settings have not been developed to sustain mutual re-enforcing of competent free-market economic activities of the private stakeholders and EPS development (Avgerou, 2003). The arrangements and system procedures that facilitate connections and fund transfer between members, that constitute the payment system, and create a well-functioning set of arrangements is therefore required for an effective and efficient development of safe and efficient electronic payment systems. The lack of tangible
arrangements currently in place.
12.RESEARCH IMPLICATIONS
This paper re-enforces the position of new institutional economics (NIE) theory that says that institutional arrangements are instrumental to collaborative economic activities and developments. It also shows the interactions of the institutional arrangement with the technological infrastructures and other elements of the EPS, identifying the important roles played. The development of EPS not only depends on the effectiveness of the technological
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infrastructures, but on the building of a viable institutional capacity that will provide a suitable environment. The use of NIE theory thus has enabled the research to analyse the institutional arrangements and to determine its suitability in meeting the needs of society, the interest of the stakeholders and overall development of EPS.
13.REFERENCES
AVGEROU, C., 2008. Information systems in developing countries: a critical research review. Journal of Information Technology, 23, pp. 133-146.
AVGEROU, C., 2003. The link between ICT and economic growth in the discourse of development. In: M. KORPELA, R. MONTEALEGRE and A. POULYMENAKOU, eds, Organizational Information systems in the context of globalization. New York, USA: Springer, pp. 373-386.
AVISON, D.E. and FITZGERALD, G., 2003. Information Systems development
Methodologies, Techniques and Tools. 3rd edn. London: McGraw-Hill.
BADDELEY, M., 2004. Using E-cash in the new economy: An economic analysis of micro-payment systems. Journal of Electronic Commerce Research, 5(4), pp. 239-253.
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Framework for the Development and Governance of Payment |systems in Emerging
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CAMENISCH, J., PIVETEAU, J. and STADLER, M., 1996. An efficient fair payment system, Proceedings of the 3rd ACM conference on computer and communication security,
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CENTRAL BANK OF NIGERIA, , 2010-last update, Payment systems evolution [Homepage of Central Bank of Nigeria], [Online]. Available: http://www.cenbank.org [06/07, 2010].
CHAU, P. and POON, S., 2003. Octopus; An e-cash payment system success story. Communications of the ACM, 46(9), pp. 129-133.
CHRISTIAANSE, E. and HUIGEN, J., 1997. Institutional dimensions in information technology implementation in complex network settings. European Journal of Information
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CPSS, 2006. General guidance for national payment system development. Switzerland: Bank for International Settlement.
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CURRIE, W., 2009. Contextualising the IT artefact: towards a wider research agenda for IS using institutional theory. Information technology and people, 22(1), pp. 63-77.
ELLIOT, S. and AVISON, D.E., 2005. Discipline of Information Systems. In: D.E. AVISON and J. PRIES-HEJE, eds, Research in Information Systems: A handbook for Research
Supervisors and their Students. Butterworth Heinemann, pp. 185-206.
EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK, , 2010-last update, The Payment System. Available: http://www.ecb.int/pub [01/12, 2011].
FOUNTAIN, J., 2001. Building the Vitual State: Information technology and Institutional change, The Brookings Institution, .
GREENSPAN, A., 1996. Remarks on evolving payment system issues. Journal of money,
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KORPELA, M., SORIYAN, A.H., OLUFOKUNBI, K. and MURSU, A., 1998. Blueprint for an African Systems Development Methodology: An Action Research project in the Health Sector. In: C. AVGEROU, ed, Implementation and evaluation of information systems in
developing countries, International Federation for information processing. Vienna: pp. 273-285.
KUMAR, K., VAN DISSEL, H.G. and BIELLI, P., 1998. The merchant of Prato-revisited: Toward a third rationality of information systems. MIS Quarterly: Management Information
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MURSU, A., SORIYAN, A.H., OLUFOKUNBI, K. and KORPELA, M., 2000. Information Systems Development in a Developing Country: Theoretical Analysis of Special Requirements in Nigeria and Africa. Proceedings of the 33rd Hawaii International
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of Nigeria Bullion, 29(1),.
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Technology for Development, 14(2), pp. 91-115.
SANGJO, O., 2006. A stakeholder Perspective on Successful Electronic Payment Systems Diffusion. Proceedings of the 39th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, .
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IMPLICATIONS FOR DEVELOPMENT POLICY. 1. MERCATUS POLICY SERIES.
SORIYAN, A.H., MURSU, A., AKINDE, D.A. and KORPELA, M., 2001. Information Systems Development in Nigerian Software Companies: Research Methodology and Assessment from the Healthcare Sector's perspective. The Electronic Journal on Information
systems in Developing Countries, 5(4), pp. 1-18.
SPRAGUE, R.H. and MCNULIN, B.C., eds, 1993. Information Systems Management in Practice. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall.
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WIJNHOVEN, and WASSENAAR, , 1990. The Impact of IT on organisations: the state of the art. International Journal of information management, 10, pp. 35-53.
WILLIAMSON, O., 2000. The new Institutional Economics: Taking Stock, Looking Ahead. Journal of economic literature, XXXVIII, pp. 595-613.
YU, H., HSI, K. and KUO, P., 2002. Electronic Payment systems: an analysis and comparison of types. Technology in Society, 24.
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Gizaw An institutional perspective in shaping mHealth systems
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
AN INSTITUTIONAL PERSPECTIVE IN SHAPING mHEALTH SYSTEMS FOR DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: CASE FROM INDIA
Abyot Asalefew Gizaw ([email protected])Department of InformaticsUniversity of OsloGaustadalléen 23P.O. Box 1080 BlindernN-0316 OsloNorway
Abstract: Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are revolutionizing the healthcare domain of developing countries. Parts of these ICTs are mHealth solutions that caught the attention of multiple institutions. The current literature of mHealth has served very well in documenting existing practices and implementations experiences of mobile phones in healthcare domains of developing countries. However, there appears little reported on the role that institutions play in shaping mHealth as the focus has been on the potential of mobile phones and their technological characteristics. Trying to redress this imbalance, the focus in this paper is to understand key institutions that shape design and development process of mHealth solutions targeting the context ofdeveloping countries. The paper builds from an empirical material obtained from an ongoing action research that the author has participated. Drawing from the case, the paper provides a framework that conceptualizes the design and development process of mHealth as an organizational field that represent an area of institutional phenomenon identifying the key institutions and their interplay. The institutional analysis carried out helps to highlight the impact of institutional forces on the design and developmentof ICT for the healthcare domain of developing countries.
Keywords: mHealth, health information system, IS design and development, developing country, institutions, organizational field, institutional theory.
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1. INTRODUCTION
Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are revolutionizing the healthcare domain of developing countries. Emerging part of these ICTs are mHealth solutions that caught the attention of multiple institutions for efficent and effective health service provision. Currently, mHealth projects for the developing world are abundant and mobile phone use for development is taking off. mHealth has become an important area of collaboration interlinking various forces of institutions an .
mHealth is a term for medical and public health practices supported by mobile devices, such as mobile phones, patient monitoring devices, personal digital assistants, and other wireless devices. mHealth solutions include the use of mobile devices in collecting community and clinical health data, delivery of healthcare information to practitioners, researchers and patients, real-time monitoring of patient vital signs, and direct provision of care (Germanakos, Mourlas and Samaras
loitation of the mobile telecommunication and multimedia ,
in the context of developing countries, has been on the potential of mobile phones for tackling challenges of public heath services in new ways. This includes efforts to achieve some of the targets of Millennium Development Goals (MDG) reducing child mortality, improving maternal health and combating HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases. In these targets and efforts, mobile phones have demonstrated a promising potential for collection and reporting of accurate and timely data and also for education and capacity building for rural community health workers (Mishra and Singh, 2008; Vital Wave Consulting, 2008, 2009).
In the mHealth literature, attention has been primarily on the technical aspects of mobile phones for example rate of subscription, cost, geographical coverage, electricity for charging, power of computing and communication (GSM, 2007; ITU, 2008a; ITU, 2008b; Vital Wave Consulting, 2008, 2009). A huge part of the literature presents reports with fragmented and anecdotal success stories of mobile phones for data collection and reporting in most cases without a strong theoretical basis. However, what we are witnessing in mHealth is actors representing a range of
. The actors range from international donors, political bodies, mobile phone vendors and telecom operators to local policy makers, commuting community health workers and health administrators. Acknowledging the respective roles of these institutions in shaping the mHealth system, this paper seeks to theoretically understand the phenomenon by investigating the following two research questions:
What are the key institutions that shape a mHealth system for rural healthcare settings of developing countries?
How can an institutional analysis help in understanding the shaping process of mHealth design and development efforts of developing countries?
Answering these questions arguably provides significant contribution to the Information Systems (IS) research that has limited study on the impact of institutions on design and development process of ICT targeting the developing world. The empirical material informing this paper is drawn from an ongoing action research project called Health Information System Program (HISP). HISP aims to support the improvement of healthcare systems in developing countries by increasing the capacity of health personnel to make decisions based on timely and accurate information. The author, also part of HISP, is involved in design, development and piloting activities of a mHealth system that targets developing countries in general (India in particular).Before presenting the empirical material, first a discussion of the theoretical framework is presented. Institutional theory is applied to identify the key institutions that shape the mHealth system. Following the theoretical framework, methodology and the case description are presented.Finally a concluding section, containing discussions and contributions, is presented.
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2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Theoretically, this study intends to develop a lens that can help to understand the different institutions that interplay in shaping mHealth systems for the public health context of developing countries. The paper considers mHealth as a field that contains actors from multiple institutions and seeks to identify the major players, their playing rules, norms and values using the theory of institutions.
Scott sees institutional theory as an extension of open systems theory that got introduced during
the importance of the environment as it shapes systems (Scott, 2008). The environment recognized with open systems, however, was primarily a technical one composed of production resources and task-related information. Later institutionalists emerged with a holistic view that environments are not merely technical production systems, but also of strong and wider economical, political and socio-cultural forces. A number of IS researchers draw from such a view of institutional theory for example
1) to suggest its potential for a better understanding of material properties of IS and its interaction with organizing and work practices (Orlikowski and Barely, 2001),
2) to study the sustaining institutional forces of IS innovation (Avgerou, 2000) and suggest that ICT is an institution by itself (Avgerou, 2002),
3) to explain the commitments of social actors in IS development (Butler, 2003),
4) to highlight the importance of not only formal but also informal institutions (Piotti, Chilundo and Sahay, 2006) and identify key sets of institutions that influence issues related to health information system implementation in developing countries (Kimaro and Sahay, 2007).
Detailed stock of institutional theory in IS research is provided by Mignerat and Rivard (2005, 2009). Along with documenting how scholars applied institutional theory in their studies,
researchers need to address when adopting an institutional perspective. For example, in one of their concerns regarding units of analysis, they stressed IS researchers to look beyond an organizational level of analysis and look from organizational field level to better understand institutional forces that shape design and use of technical systems. Though not discussing systems development explicitly as an organizational field, Nicolaou (1999) used institutional theory to
ign and development as an organizational field that accounts all the producers, resources, consumers, regulators and other relevant actors interacting in the healthcare ICT domain of developing countries.
The literature of institutional theory is somewhat complex and diverse with background ranging from economics, sociology, political science, history and ecology (Currie and Swanson, 2009).However, from the point of this paper three concepts of institutional theory are fundamental institutions, organizational field and institutionalization. North defines institutions as rules that are devised to constrain (sometimes through punishment in case of violation) and enable (at times through rewards) human or organizational activities (North, 1990). The rules are both formal such as policies, constitutions, and contracts and informal like conventions, traditions and self-imposed codes of behavior (Jepperson, 1991). For Jepperson, institutions represent a social order or pattern that has attained a certain state or property. Family, marriage, insurance, aid, healthcare, handshaking are for example forms that represent institutions.
While institutions are some forms of structures that shape activities of actors, institutionalization is a process by which structures are habituated to accepting norms, values and rules. According to
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Jepperson (1991), institutionalization is the process of attaining social order or pattern in some form of state or property by following a particular reproduction process. Jepperson also pointed out that the notion of order, pattern and repetitive production process should not be considered to suggest institutionalization is only about stability or survival. For example, while trying to habituate certain forms of structure, departure from the normal forms of actions or production processes could be faced triggering some form of rewards and/or sanctions. Assume that the departure is rewarded and succeeded in instilling the new form or pattern by eroding the old one.This implies change or dynamics than stability or conforming to order, hence institutionalization. Factors for example political commitment, environmental change and culture could assist institutionalization (North, 1990; Scott, 2008). Scott outlines three mechanisms that underlie the process of institutionalization increasing returns, objectification and commitments (Scott, 2008). Increasing returns account for reinforcement of existing institutions and benefits of economies of scale. On the other hand, increasing objectification accounts for the social construction of reality in objectifying and habituating shared beliefs. The central point in objectification is the interaction of actors. Actors interacting together form symbolic elements and concepts which are mental represendocuments, software tools and best practices.
In the process of objectification, actors for example individuals and organizations often scan the outside world to understand what other similar actors are doing and learn best practices and similar trends of innovations (Scot, 2008). Actors will also engage in an interpretive activity of social construction of reality. Such purposive activity of adopting, adapting, diffusing and negotiating through interpretation creates a cluster of individuals, groups and organization that
organizations that, in the aggregate, constitute a recognized area of institutional life: key suppliers, resource and product consumers, regulatory agencies, and other organizations that produce similar
simi
Referring back to the research questions of this paper, the focus is to identify the producers,consumers, regulators and other connected and relevant actors and their interplay that shape design and development process of a mHealth solution. The research framework that guided the focus towards addressing the mentioned research questions draw on four points that Crotty (1998) suggested epistemology, theoretical perspective, methodology and methods. Given the nature of the research questions understanding the multiple institutions and their interplay that shape design and develop process of mHealth the epistemology adopted is subjectivist, interpretivist and social construction of reality. The theoretical perspective is the three concepts of institutional theory discussed above. The concept of organizational field helps to characterize the mHealth domain that enables us to identify the different players while the concept of institution helps to identify the players playing rules, work practices, norms and values that structure the healthcare ICT domain of developing countries. Institutionalization helps to understand the interplay.Qualitative data collection methods and action research formed the methodology followed in this research. The strength with action research is that it provides researchers an opportunity to understand what is happening and also an opportunity to make problem solving interventions. The author was involved in the design and development activities and in a position to observe how the system emerged, what influenced the system, how the system adapted to the different influences. The next section presents the research context and methods employed.
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3. RESEARCH CONTEXT AND METHODS
3.1. Research context
This research was conducted within the HISP network, specifically in the context of India and in close collaboration with HISP-India. HISP, operating since 1994 and largely funded by the government of Norway, is an international not-for-profit network of researchers, designers, developers, implementers and users of open-source health management information system (HMIS) called DHIS2. DHIS2 is a software for collection, validation, reporting and presentation of aggregate HMIS data in the form of graphs, charts and maps specifically targeting the context of developing countries. Currently a number of developing countries, including India, are using DHIS2. In India more than 20 states are using DHIS2. In addition to software design and development, HISP is engaged in activities of capacity building at both national and regional levels through masters and phd programs. It is also engaged in international sharing of best practices.
India, one of the countries HISP is operating, is a country probably very well represented in the research world within the domain of IS in developing countries. However, the vastness of the country with its diverse culture, socio-economic condition and striking inequalities of health status across states and within states provides a unique opportunity and challenge for more research and interventions. Recognizing such inequality and the importance of health in the process of economic and social development and also committed towards the targets of MDG, the Government of India has launched a unit called National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) to carry out necessary architectural correction in the basic healthcare delivery system1. The goal of the unitis to improve the availability of and access to quality healthcare, especially for those residing in rural areas (the poor, women and children). A technical support group to NRHM is another government unit called NHSRC (National Health Systems Resource Center) who has a technical support partnership with HISP-India.
HISP-India, together with the two government units, is engaged in strengthening the rural healthcare system of India which is structured as a hierarchy of health administrative units. To facilitate the timeliness of aggregate reporting and also improve data quality by linking aggregate figures to traceable individual records, HISP initiated a mHealth system called Name Based Information Tracking System (NBITS) in October 2008. Integrated with the DHIS2, NBITS supports for mobile supported aggregate reporting and also for individual level recording and tracking of health services that contribute towards the targets of MDGs.
3.2. Methods
The research adopted qualitative action research study (Myers, 1997) and interpretive data analysis (Orlikowski and Baroudi, 1991; Walsham, 1993). The empirical material was generated during the course of diagnostic and therapeutic stages of action research (Baskerville and Wood-Harper, 1996) that the author had fully participated. During these stages the author assumed a helping role and engaged in collaborative activities of the NBITS design, development and piloting together with other -sy(Baskerville, 1999) and this provided an environment to specify, propose and try out the mHealth solution. During the collaboration, actions were directed towards actively trying to address an existing challenge by introducing new tools and ways of doing things and hence going through a change process (Avison et.al, 1999). Outcomes of activities were recorded, studied and interpreted along views of technological, political, economical, administrative and socio-cultural institutions to develop a body of knowledge about the phenomenon.
Data was collected through a variety of means including observations, document analysis, formal and informal interviews, discussions and meetings both face-to-face and virtual using conference
1http://mohfw.nic.in/NRHM/Documents/Mission_Document.pdf
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calls, chats, emails and collaboration tools like Google Docs2. In the diagnostic stage, the author made four visits to rural health administrative units of India located in three different states namely Haryana, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. The purpose of these visits was to understand existing situations and also to demonstrate a mobile based reporting system and assess the views and feedbacks of rural healthcare workers on mobile supported solutions. During these travels report generation and on-site data collection (by following health workers in their house-to-house visits) were observed. Rural community health workers and supervising medical officers were also involved in interviews, meetings, pilot demonstrations and feedback collection process. Various paper documents and copy of diary-notes of community health workers (sometimes through pictures) were also collected. Following these travels, discussions were made between members of the HISP network leading to meetings, conference calls and many email discussions for analyzing requirement specifications, design models, development approaches and other related issues.These discussions have also continued following issues that came from pilot and trainingactivities. Two seminars, conducted one in India (Goa) and another one in Norway (Oslo), were also the other sources of data that enriched the empirical material. Table 1 presents a summary of data collection methods employed in the research.
2Google docs is an online and real-time sharing and collaboration medium from Google (http://docs.google.com)
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Data Collection
Methods
Description Time
Interviews,observations, meetings and feedback collection for a mobile supported reporting system prototype
Health administrative unit from state of Haryana:o on both occasions a female health worker
was followed in her house-to-house visits to understand how she indentify, locate and meet individuals and also how she perform on-site data collection on her diary-note
o back to her office, observation was also made how she transcribe from diary-noteto register books including routine report generation
o interview with 2 female health workers and a medical doctor
o meeting with a district medical officer
October 20, 2008 &February 12, 2009
Health administrative units from state of Keralao interview with a health worker and her
assistant how they perform their daily routines
o meeting with rural community leader, health worker supervisor and female health workers,
o interview with a medical doctor
February 13 17,2009
Health administrative units from state of Andhra Pradesh
o interview with a district medical officero meeting with health workers (both male
and female), a pharmacist, health education supervisors and medical officers
February 18 21,2009
Seminars Goa (India): International workshop on
integrated eHealth architectures
o discussion on design and development issues of NBITS
July 26 30, 2009
Oslo (Norway): Developing Health Service
Networks through Mobile Solutions in Low
Resource Settings
o demonstration and feedback collection
August 30- 31,2010
Chats, emails and online collaboration withmembers of HISP network
Analysis of computer generated logs, emails, personal dairy-notes that arise from discussion of issues related to design, development and piloting of NBITS
Since October 2008
Document Analysis
Documents such as reporting and recording formats, dairy-notes of rural community health workers, national and state level policy documents as well as related HMIS and mHealth documents from literature were analyzed
October 2008 August 2009
Table 1: Summary of data collection methods
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4. CASE DESCRIPTION: Shaping NBITS for rural healthcare settings of
India
The mHealth NBITS project started in October 2008 after a discussion between HISP members out of a concern that aggregate figures reported by DHIS2 are not traceable to specific individuals that actually got the service reported. Though started, the pace of the project was not fast enough for the team of HISP-India. The head of HISP-India wrote an email saying:
designer/developerA], can we have a clear idea of where we are on this and what are
coming from states to see what we are doing on
(email conversation April 28, 2009)
The pressing demand from states of India was so high that it puts a huge pressure on the HISP team. The need to act on the issue became so urgent when the health minister of India, the highest political body in the HMIS structure, raised a similar issue on a public newspaper:
coverage, we are failing to eradicate
diseases like polio? We have to start double checking immunization numbers being
[reported] to us by states ... once vaccination data becomes name based rather than
number based, we will be able to account for the exact number of children actually 3
There were also similar concerns in relation to targets of MDG, especially for proper service delivery and tracking of pregnant women from rural India. These concerns of data quality, together with issues of workload on health workers and delays in reporting, and also the huge pressure from states and higher level decision makers formed the pace of the project
The project continued first by eliciting requirements. A number of issues were considered in the process. The first one was the work practices of health workers and sub-centers (SC). SCs are the most peripheral and first contact health administrative units between primary healthcare systems and the community. Each of these units are manned by one (sometimes two) community health worker (in most cases females), called Auxiliary Nurse Midwives4 (ANMs). ANMs are charged with the responsibility of building interpersonal communication among community members in order to bring about behavioral change and also with a responsibility of providing health services related to maternal and child health, family planning, nutrition, immunization, diarrhea control and communicable diseases including drugs for minor ailments. Though SCs focus on similar services that target towards MDG, there are differences across states based on local needs.
Healthcare in India is the responsibility of states and union territories. The Constitution of India e standard of
5. This has resulted in differences in reporting formats that SCs should adhere to. For example, early in the process, we (HISP) made a simple reporting prototype to assess the uptake of mobile enabled services; during a demonstration one ANM said:
office. But what about the other reports, this is not the only report I am sendin
3
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Azad-doubts-data-on-child-vaccination/articleshow/5011257.cms4
The name ANM is only for consistency, otherwise health workers in India have different names some states, like
Kerala, call them Junior Public Health Nurse (JPHN). Haryana and Andhra Pradesh use ANM. There are also other
group of health workers called Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA), engaged in the public health service delivery5
The Constitution of India, http://lawmin.nic.in/coi/coiason29july08.pdf
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This made flexible and scalable support of reporting formats a serious undertaking during design and development processes. Together with reporting, name based individual recording was the other requirement we addressed. On average a single ANM maintains more than 20 recording books. Each book, also called a primary register, represents a single health program and isorganized as rows for names of individuals and columns for details of services in the program. ANMs fill these registers according to services they delivered.
To handle these registers, initially we thought of adopting standard service procedures of health programs by consulting specifications from WHO, but we found out that there is a different local practice. For example in a typical MDG related program of pregnancy care, a specification from WHO suggests a 5 stage care model of first, second, third, fourth and postpartum visits6, but SCs of India follow a 7 stage care model of first registration then four subsequent visits followed by delivery and postnatal visits. This lead us to focus on understanding the details of programs and their stages to have a broader picture, and we found out that though all SCs follow similar programs-stages cycles, there were differences across states in the details of what is actually collected during each of the program stages. And this influenced us to outline a program-stage model that allows SCs to define their programs, stages and related details in a flexible manner.
ANMs were also eager to have a system that could relieve them some part of their work loads. One ANM asked
We also found out that due date scheduling functionality is required for other programs like immunization and house-to-house visiting. At the start of every month, an ANM gets a singed
-holds that she is expected to visit. Departing from this tour guide and also consulted by register books, the ANM makes visit plans organized in terms of villages, list of houses, names of individuals to be visited and the type of service to be delivered, including delivery dates. Computerizing such practice was one of the biggest challenges we faced in the process as we had to identify and consider a number socio-cultural norms of the rural community. From the socio-cultural side, issues for example the way individuals were identified, the way they build house and also migration were factors that influenced computerizing visit plans.
For house-to-house visits, a pregnant woman, in addition to her name, is identified using an Identifying a pregnant woman
through her husband name was very easy for ANMs, as it is the males who are assumed head of a house-hold. For immunization, newly born babies were
mother-in-factor that influenced the sequence of house-to-house visits. In most cases, a newly married man builds a house on a free space next to his family sometimes in the compound of his family, and this made linear-sequential numbering of houses impossible and forced ANMs to number houses using custom prefixes.
Once we got a sound understanding of the situation, we made a design model sketching different components required from NBITS. The components on the model were abstract diagrams representing practices of ANMs and SCs figure 1 shows the major components while table 2 provides description for these major components. The model got distributed to all members of HISP through the common mailing list of designers, developers and users that HISP had. It was also shared on Google Docs so that others can work on it. Once the first model was distributed, we made a Skype conference-chat on May 26, 2009. Though the model distributed was purely based
6http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/2001/WHO_RHR_01.30.pdf
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on requirements from India, one of the agenda in the discussion was how to make the system more generic so that other countries of HISP can use the system. There was a clear message from lead designers and top decision makers of HISP that stressed the unavailability of funding and other resources for building context specific systems for each and every developing country HISP is operating. As most funds of HISP are for developing countries in general, its decade-long system design and development strategy is to build a system that is globally generic to cater multiple contexts but also flexible enough to fit into local settings (Braa et al., 2007). We followed this flexible standards strategy of HISP to further shape the design model. Currently the model stands in its version 133.
We also studied other related systems to have an understanding of best practices and trends of innovations. We studied health information systems that have experience in building individual level medical records and also mobile supported HMIS solutions for the context of developing countries (OpenMRS7 and JavaRosa8 are examples of systems we studied). DHIS2 was also a huge influence in the process. As most states of India are using DHIS2 for their routine reporting,
. As a result we made the NBITS to have the same look and use-pattern of DHIS2 so that issues of installation, training, use and support become less problematic. It took us more than 3 month to release the first prototype. Since the release we conducted two seminars, one in India and another one in Norway, where different actors for example from donors, government health ministries, and regional WHO offices participated and provided feedback.
The mobile technology especially phones and available telecom services was also the othermajor issue in the process. Prior to the release of NBITS, there were some states of India that have bought a very low-end, like Nokia 2330c, mobile phones. Assuming these states to be potential users, lots of discussions were made based on the consideration of Nokia 2330c that come with limited storage capacity and display screen. All our tests and demonstrations were made using this phone. In addition to capacity of phones, communication services provided by telecom operators were the other points of consideration. We sent a public mail requesting feedback for the type and coverage of communication services available, including cost. We considered the responses in the design and development process.
Figure 1: Components of NBITS
7http://openmrs.org
8http://www.javarosa.org
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Work practices of
ANMs
Components of NBITS Description
Keeping record of individuals
Maintaining health status of individuals for specific health programs
Person Register
Health Program Register
Enrollment
These are the entry points in NBITS. Using these modules ANMs (in general users) can register individuals who will be treated in a particular health center. The person register can capture as many details as possible using the person attribute module. It also provides functionalities to define relationships and representatives among individuals. Health programs being serviced in a given SC can also be registered using the program register. While registering programs, users can also define the different program stages a health program might have. For each of these health program stages, users can then define any data they will be interested to collect using the data element functionality.
Encounter
Work Flow
Each and every enrollment that an individual makes to specific health programs is treated as a specific health program instance. And each instance of a health program will have its own health program stage instances. The combination of these two instances, program and program stage, will dictate the whole process of an individany health service delivery.
Generating activity plans
Engine (Visit Plan) Depending on work flows, visit engine will generate visit plans containing list of individuals and the type of service they need including due dates for the services. The visit list can be sorted/grouped using different person attributes. The visit plan also provides functionality for customizing due dates for efficient scheduling.
House-to-house service delivery and data recording
Data Collector Using visit plans, ANMs can manage their house-to-house service delivery. Observations during service provision can be collected using either the mobile interface or the desktop interface depending on the location of the service provision.
Reporting Engine (Import/Export and Aggregation)
Collected individual records can be aggregated and exported to other systems, for example DHIS2, using import/export engine.
Table 2: Components of NBITS
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5. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
The design, development and piloting process of NBITS had brought together human and non-human actors from multiple institutions. The key actors in the process were HISP and its funding; government units and international bodies; rural health administrative units and their health workers; rural communities and their norms; and finally artifacts together with their trends of innovations and associated services. The concept of organizational field formed the basis to identify these actors. The field, containing the producers, regulators, consumers and other related organizations, formed a recognized area of institutional life. Participant in the NBITS organizational field were the resources (funding, mobile phones, telecom services, DHIS2 and other software systems); the producers (HISP, ANMs, SCs); the regulators (the funding policy of HISP, the Constitution of India, targets of MDGs, recording and reporting formats and the rural community); the consumers (ANMs, SCs, the rural community) and other related organizations that set best practices and trends of innovations. These actors, including their institutions, played a big role in shaping the NBITS. Figure 2 presents a summary of these actors and their institutions. In the figure, the key institutions that shaped the design and development process are conceptualized as economical, political, administrative, socio-cultural and technological institutions.
Figure 2: Institutions of NBITS
From the socio-cultural perspective, we have the community families and individuals living in rural areas with a reality of poor health status and scarce resources. These families and individuals, close to their own culture, belief and way of life constituted a high percentage of the total population that formed a context too high to get the attention of many the government of India,the health minister, the states, MDGs, HISP, and Norwegian funding agency. The rural community, characterized by its practices of settlement, migration, naming and identification, exerted a huge pressure in shaping the NBITS. These practices, norms or codes of behavior, are in the culture of the community and form an institution that Jepperson conceptualizes as an informal institution. The NBITS supported these institutions to get legitimacy and acceptance in the overallhealth service delivery.
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Beyond getting attention, the rural community was also strong enough to exert its own pressure in shaping mechanisms of intervention for example healthcare providers focusing on preventive care and providing community health services such as family planning, pregnancy care, and immunization by employing ANMs through SCs. SCs were established for a goal to improve the availability of and access to quality healthcare to people, especially for those residing in rural areas, the poor, women and children. The commuting female ANMs have the legitimacy in the culture of the community and were well accepted to go house-to-house and meet individuals in need of health service. However, the commuting pattern was very much affected by the culture and way of life of the community. Migration of individuals and also the way houses are built and numbered was a huge factor that affected visit plans and tracking. In general, identifying and tracking individuals was as per the norms and conventions of the community.
In addition to health service delivery, ANMs and SCs were engaged in routines of data collection, aggregation and reporting that are crucial in informing decision makers with the exact health status of the community. From their very creation, SCs were charged with a task to administer service delivery for health programs including family planning, pregnancy care and immunization. The administrative procedures of these programs for example the reporting and recording formats, the way healthave put their mark in the objectified components of the NBITS. The NBITS provided a flexible and scalable Enrollment component that helps SCs to administer health programs according to their needs. The engines (import/export, aggregation and visit plan) also work as per the requirements the SCs and ANMs. SCs, forming the bottom of
that is being made through DHIS2. Politically, as specified in the Constitution, states are independent to administer their health status; however, there is a requirement for upward reporting up to the national level which is addressed in the NBITS. The major health programs supported in NBITS immunization and pregnancy care were also programs stressed in the MDGs and objectives of the national and state governments of India.
Institutions from the technological perspective account for the whole set of players and playing rules that are engaged in the technology production process. At least four sets of players were involved in the process HISP; telecom operators; mobile phones and their manufacturers and retailers; and the bigger open-source community of designers, developers and users including those engaged in similar areas of interests. These players negotiated through their practices and objectified symbols in forming the NBITS mHealth system that fitted to practices. Scottmechanisms of institutionalization increasing objectification, commitment and return also provided an analytical framework to understand the NBITS shaping process. For members of HISP and DHIS2, who have a knowledge of aggregate logic and related technologies, understanding and taking best practices from other innovations for example OpenMRS and JavaRosa was key in the objectification of NBITS. The HISP members scanned the outside world
the components of NBITS on top of the other systems they analyzed. Instead they developed NBITS as per the look and use-pattern of DHIS2. This showed the commitment that HISP members have to their DHIS2.The reason to shape NBITS the DHIS2-way was also more than an issue of increasing commitments; it was also an issue of increasing returns through learning effort and time and also benefits of economies of scale from the already installed DHIS2 all over India.
Funding was also the player in the overall process. For example, SCs brought their recording and reporting formats defined inline with state rules and official languages while communities brought their culture and norm of for example identifying individuals through their relationships and representatives. However, despite the widely acknowledged emphasis for the importance of tailoring technology to local contexts, the NBITS followed the globally generic strategy of HISP. The reason to follow the globally generic and yet locally flexible solution strategy was due to the limitation of resources to develop specific system that are closely tied to local contexts. The
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NBITS developed in line with the flexible standards strategy enabled SCs to define and specify programs, stages, relationships and representatives that fit to their needs including working languages.
6. Conclusions
This paper showed how an mHealth system is shaped by taking an empirical evidence that surfaced from an ongoing action research project in the context of developing countries (India in particular). The research identified mobile phones (in their potential for recording, reporting and communication) as one of the actors that affected the mHealth system. However, beyond mobile phones and their communication service providers, there were also other actors from a range of institutions for example from that of political, economical, social, health and ICT. Institutional theory provided a conceptual framework to identify these actors and their structuring institutions. By doing so the paper makes an empirical contributions for the IS field. It complemented the technology focused existing literature of mHealth by providing a holistic view that accounted notonly for the technical but also for the social, economical, political and cultural perspectives. The paper also demonstrated an interesting approach to study design, development and implementation phenomenon of information systems by considering the phenomenon beyond a single organization level or point of view. It looked the phenomenon from an organizational field level that accounted for multiple organizations and their interplay.
7. REFERENCES AND CITATIONS
Avison D., Lau F., Myers M., Nielsen P.A. (1999). Action Research. Communications of the ACM. 42(1),94-97.
Avgerou, C. (2000). IT and organizational change: An institutionalist perspective. Information Technology & People, 13(4), 234.
Avgerou, C. (2002). Information systems and global diversity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Baskerville, R. (1999). Investigating Information Systems Research with Action ResearchBaskerville R., Wood-Harper A.T. (1996). A Critical Perspective on Action Research as a Method
for Information Systems Research. Journal of Information Technology. 11(3), 235-246.Braa, J., Hanseth, O., Heywood, A., Mohammed, W., and Shaw, V. (2007): "Developing Health
Information Systems in Developing Countries: The Flexible Standards Strategy." MIS Quarterly, 31(2), 381-402.
Butler, T. (2003). An institutional perspective on developing and implementing intranet- and internet-based information systems. Information Systems Journal, 13(3), 209-231.
Crotty, M. (1998). The foundations of social research: Meaning and perspective in the research process. London, Sage Publications.
Currie, W.L and Swanson, E. B. (2009). Special issue on institutional theory in information systems research: contextualizing the IT artefact. Journal of Information Technology. 24, 283 285. doi:10.1057/jit.2009.17
Germanakos, P., Mourlas C., & Samaras G. (2005). "A Mobile Agent Approach for Ubiquitous and Personalized eHealth Information Systems." Proceedings of the Workshop on 'Personalization for e-Health' of the 10th International Conference on User Modeling (UM'05). Edinburgh, July 29, 2005, pp. 67-70.
GSM, 2007: Phones for Health, GSM World, http://www.gsmworld.com/newsroom/press-releases/1989.htm (Accessed February 15, 2010)
Some Imperative notes on m-Conference on the IEEE EMBS.
http://www.itu.int/newsroom/press_releases/2008/10.html (Accessed March 4, 2010).
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http://www.itu.int/newsroom/press_releases/2008/10.html (Accessed March 4, 2010).Jepperson, R. L. (1991). Institutions, institutional effects, and institutionalism. In W. W. Powell &
P. J. DiMaggio (Eds.), The new institutionalism in organizational analysis: 143-163.Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kimaro, H.C. and Sahay, S. (2007). An institutional perspective on the process of decentralization of health information systems: case study from Tanzania. Information Technology for Development 13(4), 363 390.
Mignerat, M. and Rivard, S. (2005). Positioning the institutional perspective in information technology research. HEC Montreal, Chaire de Gestions Stratégique des Technologies de
L'Information.Mignerat, M. and Rivard, S. (2009). Positioning the institutional perspective in information
technology research. Jounral of Information Technology, 24, 369-391.Mishra, S., & Singh, I. P. (2008). mHealth: A developing country perspective. Paper presented at
the Making the eHealth Connection: Global Partnerships, Local Solutions Conference 2008, Bellagio, Italy.
Myers, M. D. (1997). "Qualitative Research in Information Systems," MIS Quarterly, 21(2), 241-242.
Nicolaou, A.I. (1999). Social control in information systems development. Information Technology & People, 12 (2), 130-147.
Cambridge University Press.Orlikowski, W.J. & Baroudi, J.J. (1991). "Studying Information Technology in Organizations:
Research Approaches and Assumptions", Information Systems Research, 2, 1-28.Orlikowski, W.J. and Barley, S.R. (2001). "Technology and Institutions: What Can Research on
Information Technology and Research on Organizations Learn From Each Other?" MIS Quarterly, 25(2), 145-165.
Piotti, B. Chilundo, B. and Sahay, S. (2006). An institutional perspective on health sector reforms and the process of reframing health information systems: case studies from Mozambique. Journal of Applied Behavioural Science 42(1), 91 109.
Powell, W.W and DiMaggio P. J. (1991). The new institutionalism in organizational analysis: 143-163. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Scott, W. R. 2008. Institutions and organizations. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Vital Wave Consulting (2008). "mHealth in the Global South. Landscape Analysis". Washington,
D.C. and Berkshire, UK: UN Foundation-Vodafone Foundation Partnership.
. and Berkshire, UK: UN Foundation-Vodafone Foundation Partnership.
Walsham, G. (1993). Interpreting Information Systems in Organizations. Chichester: Wiley.
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Zeferino Saugene (University of Oslo) & Sundeep Sahay (University of Oslo) Customizing Global Open-Source GIS Software in Developing
Countries
Proceedings of the 11th
International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
THE CHALLENGE OF CUSTOMIZING GLOBAL OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE TO LOCAL COUNTRY CONTEXTS: THE CASE OF DHIS GIS FOR HEALTH MANAGEMENT
Abstract: A software systems that supports wide range of user needs is difficult to customize. Most of the challenges are related to limitation of the tools as well as the skills needed to adapt them to fit local needs. In most cases the business workflow procedure inscribed into these global software systems may not directly map into the practices of the organizations adopting it. In whatever case, there is always aneed to develop and apply methods that can help to rapidly integrate them on the business processes and perspectives of the organizations. This paper reports on an action research study that aims at understanding the tensions of adopting global software system for health care management in developing countries. The work was conducted in Mozambique and Malawi and aimed at customizing the spatial analysis module of the district health information software to the local context. The findings of the study reveal that the process is prone for challenges and addressing those challenges require competent and skilled team that may be plunged not only into adaptations but also contributing in the evolution of the tool.
Keywords: Global Open Source Software, Local adaptations, Geographic Information System, Developing Countries.
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Zeferino Saugene (University of Oslo) & Sundeep Sahay (University of Oslo) Customizing Global Open-Source GIS Software in Developing
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International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
THE CHALLENGE OF CUSTOMIZING GLOBAL OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE TO LOCAL COUNTRY CONTEXTS: THE CASE OF DHIS GIS FOR HEALTH MANAGEMENT
1. INTRODUCTION
Computer systems are rarely developed from scratch, and typically require elements to new institutional contents (Pollock and Cornford 2002). Global Software Systems (GSS) are part of this important trend as they are expected to provide benefits from increased economies of scale and access to accumulated knowledge about organizational practices
(Pozzebon and Pinsonneault 2005). Further, they offer the possibility that the system functionalitiesrequirements over time and thus remain relevant (Dourish 1995). However, this process of adaptation is a challenging task, whether they are moving across the boundary from a commercial organizational context to a public sector setting, or from a general to a specific setting (Pollock and Cornford 2002).
This paper reports on an action research study that aims at understanding the tensions that come into play during the customization of a Global Open Source Geographic Information System (GIS) to the local contexts of health care management in Mozambique and Malawi. The process involves taking an existing software product and tailoring it to suit the needs of a group of users as well as translating and building the appropriate database, creating local reports, and creating other additions or deletions in the functionalities as required. In this process, significant and subtle changes needed to be made by the local users in order to fit with the generic GIS developed for global use.
The challenges of customizing GSS to local contexts have been well documented in Information Systems (IS) literature, including domains of global software outsourcing (Sahay et al. 2003), implementing of global applications in multi-national corporations to their various country offices (Rolland and Monteiro 2002), and also in the transfer of technology to developing country contexts (Nhampossa 2005). Bada (2002) has studied the challenges of adapting a GSS within a Nigerian bank, and (Pozzebon and Heck 2006) have likewise studied such adaptation in a Brazilian cooperative. These studies have concluded the need for global-local negotiations to help inscribe local organization business into the generic application system.
In the context of this study, it is also important to note particular challenges that come with GIS in developing countries, including the availability of maps that are adequately geo-referenced (Nuckols et al. 2004; Tanser and le Sueur 2002) while studying the adoption of GIS to address public health problems (such has HIV, malaria and tuberculosis) in Africa, have argued that accessibility to spatial data, fundamental to any GIS application, continues to be difficult and expensive. Further to the technology, there are additional particularities that come with public health settings particularly weak technical capacity (Braa et al. 2007; Heeks 2002; Tanser and le Sueur 2002) which impedes effective in-house customization. In studying the problem of scaling of health information systems in India, Sahay and Walsham havehighlighted the problems of increasing technological complexity, human resources capacity, waning political support, and unanticipated effects as challenges to local customizations (Sahay and Walsham 2006). Human capacity to address contextual characteristics in order to better implement and manage generic IT projects is a continuing challenge (Avgerou and Walsham 2000).
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Zeferino Saugene (University of Oslo) & Sundeep Sahay (University of Oslo) Customizing Global Open-Source GIS Software in Developing
Countries
Proceedings of the 11th
International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
Given the particularities of our study context GIS technology, public health setting, developing country contexts, the customization challenges are relatively unknown, and even less is our understanding of how to deal with them. The aim of the paper is therefore twofold:
1. To understand the nature of customization challenges in tailoring a global open source GIS tool for local use in the public health sector in developing country contexts;
2. Understanding ways and approaches of dealing with these challenges by engaging in addressing them in practice.
The nature of the research aims called for an action research approach which was carried out within the framework of the Health Information Systems Project (HISP), a global action research programme from the University of Oslo (Braa et al. 2007). This study was located in the Mozambique and Malawi chapters on the global HISP network.
The paper proceeds as follows. In Section 2, we describe the theoretical foundation whichserves as the basis for our analysis. Then, in Section 3, we describe the research setting and the research approach. In Section 4, details regarding the empirical study are presented. The paper ends with analysis and discussion in Section 5.
2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: ADAPTING GLOBAL SOFTWARE
SYSTEMS TO LOCAL CONTEXTS TENSIONS AND APPROACHES
There are many drivers to the globalization of software development including skill shortages in industrialized economies, increasing distributed modes of development and spread of ICTsto less developed economies, where skilled labor is available at lower costs (Abbott 2004). Acurrent trend is for technologies that have been developed in the West to satisfy the socioeconomic needs and the context of developing countries (Bada 2002). This process of transfer has been proved to be rather complex given the significant differences in organizational, economic, social, political, and cultural conditions.
Even though developers seek to reduce the uncertainty inherent in the innovation process by
(Leonard-Barton 1988). This nments (poor fits) between the technology and its
technical and institutional requirements. Caution thus has to be exercised against a process of and of instead adopting a subtle and sensitive approach to
customization. Such an approach involves a dynamic process of negotiation due to differences between local work practices and those 'imposed' by the generic application system (Pozzebon and Heck 2006).
Institutional differences cause persistent heterogeneity among organizations across countries, even if they operate in the same industry and are subject to similar external influences (Woywode 2002). Various authors have suggested to help support GSS adoption, particularly those located in developing regions (Avgerou and Walsham 2000).These local modifications will try to ensure that the technology is workable and fits with the needs and demands of the different contexts of implementation (Bada 2002).
Since cultures will engage differently with local adaptations, the challenge resides in how best to support diversity, which requires a greater sensitivity to local norms, values, and ways of doing things (Pozzebon and Heck 2006). Roland and Monteiro, for example, argue development and use of IT is interwoven with social and(Rolland and Monteiro 2002). ageneric IT can be localized in practice, where the focus is to try and distinguish between context dependent and independent components, seeking to globalize the independent parts
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Zeferino Saugene (University of Oslo) & Sundeep Sahay (University of Oslo) Customizing Global Open-Source GIS Software in Developing
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International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
and focus on the dependent parts for local customization. The notion of a design-reality gap (Heeks 2002) helps to focus on understanding the mismatch between current requirements and characteristics of a local organization and the embedded system design conceptions of a generic technology. This gap occurs because the contexts of the often distant in physical, cultural, economic dimensions and as a result certain design assumptions gets inscribed which do not reflect local realities. Understanding this gap helps to focus on the extent and nature of customization required. The greater we are able to plug the design-reality gaps (Heeks 2002), the larger is the possibility of success.
However, (Magni et al. 2009) improvised behaviors will result. -
are described as the occurrence of spontaneous and creative behaviors (Bada 2002; Rolland and Monteiro 2002) to address everyday problems. Such behavior has been studied in various domains including organizational learning, technology implementation (Orlikowski and Baroudi 1991), and new product development (Magni et al. 2009). Since not all required changes are concentrated in the local dimension, these adaptations also refer to significant or subtle changes local entities make in features crafted into the generic application system (Pozzebon and Heck 2006). Thus customization of technical innovations is best viewed as a process of mutual adaptation i.e., the re-invention of the technology and the simultaneous adaptation of the organization (Leonard-Barton 1988).
3. RESEARCH SETTING AND APPROACH
3.1.Research Setting
The research was conducted in Mozambique and Malawi, two developing countries in Sub-Saharan Africa in collaboration with the Ministry of Health (MOH). HISP teams in both countries are engaged in ongoing customization activities of the District Health Information Software (DHIS), to assist the management of health care data. The DHIS is a customizablefree and open-source software (FOSS) for management of health information within the framework of a data warehouse. DHIS supports the collection, validation, analysis, and presentation of aggregate statistical data. This application has been adapted in various countries including South Africa, India, Mozambique, Botswana, Tanzania, Malawi, and Zambia.
The early versions of DHIS application (1.3 and 1.4) released from 1997, were developed on Microsoft Office platform, and distributed for free. In 2005, the University of Oslo in collaboration with students and researchers from India, South Africa, Ethiopia and Vietnam, initiated the development of Version 2 as an evolution of DHIS 1.x., using open-source Java frameworks and tools, such as the Spring Framework, Hibernate, Struts2, Maven, and JUnit. The application it is now platform independent, can run on both on-line and offline modes, and is multi-language enabled.
Due to its modular approach of design, a variety of software modules are gradually being included within DHIS2 including the DHIS Community Data Management (DHIS2 Tracking)
that aims at collecting and processing the community based data, the DHIS Mobile Health
Data Management (DHIS2 mHealth) that allows the collection and processing of community based data using mobile device, and the DHIS Spatial Data Management (DHIS2 GIS) which is a focus of this study (see Figure 1 below). The DHIS2 GIS module allows for the display of map based information collected and processed by DHIS Core. It can also provide visual representation of baseline geographic, demographic and health information, including the location of communities, health facilities, and accessibility by road, among others.
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DHIS Database
Data Capture
Data Visualization
Attribute (non-spatial)
Data
GIS
Module
Report
ModuleRoutine Data
Module
mHealth
Module
Tracking Module
Spatial Data
Health Care worker
Govt. institution 1
Provide data
Provide data
Provide data
Provide data
Govt. institution 2
Govt. institution N
Provide data
Providedata
Figure 1: The DHIS ecosystem
3.2.Research Design
This study was conducted within an action research framework. The approach is based on the belief that the best experts of what needs to be done in any situation are the people already experiencing the situation (Hilsen and Ennals 2005). The study embedded a partnership between researchers, health care members, software developers and customizers in the period between January 2009 to June 2010. During this period, the action researchers apart from getting involved in the customization process, have worked as participant observers(Hansson 2006) and together with other members of the team has been involved in reasoning, action formulation, and action taking, leading to joint learning. This interaction has capitalized on learning by both researchers, software developers and customizers, and practitioners within the context of the practitioner (Baskerville and Myers 2004).The research has relied on the qualitative research tradition that is based on a situated activity that locates the observer in the world (Iivari 2010). Data collection has involved observation,interviews and document analysis. Documents and research articles were accessed and used as source of knowledge about the past history and current context of GSS in Africa and World and more specifically about DHIS and GIS. Two types of observations were applied: formal observations performed during the
Three types of interview were applied: face-to-face, phone, and e-mail. Interviews by phone and by e-mail were carried out with a considerable number of stakeholders including two DHIS2 developers, seven customizers and seventeen GIS users. Face-to-face interviews were conducted mostly withinthe sixteen spatial data user institutions in Mozambique.
4. EMPIRICAL INSIGHTS: CUSTOMIZATION OF DHIS GIS
This study considers specifically the DHIS2 GIS module and its customization to fit the
health care contexts in Malawi and Mozambique, process that we describe below.
4.1. The GIS Module
Soon after the release of DHIS2 in 2006, the HISP team began exploring the possibility tointegrate in it a GIS module starting in 2006 when a group of Master students from University of Oslo developed a Java based prototype named HISP GIS, which was integrated within the version of DHIS2 application working in India. HISP GIS was supposed to work closely with DHIS2 by providing map visualization of health indicators (Vik and Andersen 2005).
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Zeferino Saugene (University of Oslo) & Sundeep Sahay (University of Oslo) Customizing Global Open-Source GIS Software in Developing
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Proceedings of the 11th
International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
Subsequently, the HISP team explored Key Indicator Data System and CartoWeb. Due to limitations originating from the programming language and its limitations in supporting polygonal entities, the OpenHealth project emerged in 2007. This was operationalized through a MOU between WHO and HISP to enable developers from Geneva and Oslo to create an improved and web based version of the earlier HealthMapper of WHO.
GIS ModuleGIS Module
Attribute Data
(DHIS Core Database)
Spatial data
(DHIS spatial
Database)
Data Elements
Indicators
Organizational Unit Data
link
Sp
ati
alD
ata
Outp
ut
Figure 2: The Global View of the DHIS2 GIS Module
The module (see Figure 2) is a client-server application integrated within DHIS2. The three layers architecture of the module is handled by the store and service layers. The store layer provides communication with the database through Hibernate Framework while the service layer handles the objects and the service functionality (logic) manipulated at the application programming interface (Øverland 2010). The client side of the module is developed using JavaScript frameworks such as MapFish, OpenLayers, Ext JS and GeoExt, and it reads JavaScript Object Notation as a data-interchange format, Geometry JavaScript Object Notation (GeoJSON) is the format for encoding a variety of geographic data structures and Scalable Vector Graphics in XML. The server is purely based on Java.
4.2. DHIS GIS in Mozambique: process of customization
Based on experiences from the adoption of GIS in developing countries, and the challenges faced during the introduction of those system into the health care sector (Melnick 2002),(Saugene and Macome 2008; Tanser and le Sueur 2002), the customization started with GIS user institutions assessment. The aim was to understand spatial data issues including creation, processing and data storage as well as the supporting infrastructure, sharing and exchange issues, and human capacity. Key inferences were:
Data Issues: Data collection and maintenance is expensive and time consuming. While earlier, spatial data was derived from digitizing analogue maps, currently processes used include manual digitizing and scanning of analogue maps, image data input and conversion to a GIS, direct data entry including Global Positioning Systems (GPS), and transfer of data from existing digital sources. GIS was relatively new in most of institutions studied, and users were still learning its potentialities, learned primarily through the vendors of spatial data and GIS software. As a result independent capacity was limited, for example the data formats they used could not be customized for broader range of users.
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International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
Institutional issues: All institutions studied were involved with collecting and maintaining their own spatial data using their own digitalizing equipment. While information related to spatial data was registered during its collection, but the same was not done while digitalization. The data was usually organized in different ways leading to multiple standalone versions of the same data themes in each institution, making itdifficult to identify which institution to approach for specific type of spatial data.Networking issues: There was limited networking, technological or institutional, connecting the various institutions, but there were internal networks of professionals from different institutions providing some form of technical advise. Interviewees stressed theneed to belong to multiple networks to gain technical help. Additionally, there were limited mechanisms to enable sharing of data, forcing users to contact producers directlyfor their needs. Again, the informal networks also helped in this regard.Human resources issues: Human capacity in most cases was inadequate for the institutional needs in terms of experience and skills, and further there were inequities across the institutions. As a result, the staff was forced to perform multiple roles. Limited capacity impeded institutions from integrating their spatial data with that from other institutions. Internal capacity development plans were fragmented, uncoordinated and impeded due to limited funds. The onus then was on the individual rather than the institution to upgrade their skills.
Our customization process had two focus areas one customizing DHIS2 for the Ministry of Health (MOH), and the on the management of HIV data as well as related resources like finance and water. The second area was based on reports of indicators cross-cutting the two types of data. While DHIS2 customization was the responsibility of the HISP team,the other case was handled by a NGO assisting the MOH in scaling-up of HIV/AIDS care in Zambézia Province. Both groups were responsible to ensure security and integrity of the databases, develop new forms, reports, and modules, and integrate them in the DHIS2 application.
Figure 3: The Main DHIS GIS Module Interface for Mozambique
The DHIS2 GIS was successfully customized for the first user group (see outcome in Figure 3). During the customization challenges were faced, which contributed to the customization for the second user group. Key challenges related to the need for the NGO users to perform spatial analysis based on data elements, while the GIS was customized for indicators. However, technical problems prevailed, with the non-spatial database requiringcustomization such that the DHIS2 GIS would need to be done from scratch.
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4.3.DHIS GIS in Malawi: process of customization
In 2009, Malawi decided to embrace DHIS2 and with it the GIS. First, the modules used to capture data that feeds the system were customized in a gradual manner and then subsequently integrated with DHIS2 based on requirements or requests from the users. Soonafter the spatial information requirements were gathered and the first assessment was carried out in February 2010, leading to the initiation of the DHIS2 GIS customization.
GIS requires not only spatial information but data from the non-spatial database such as organization unit name and level, data elements, and indicators for display on the maps. These required database customizations including the definition of both spatial and non spatial data.Obtaining the spatial information from external sources required negotiations with the spatial information producers as well as the MOH users. Our analysis revealed:
Existing district boundaries and health facilities were represented in the respective maps.Two new districts Likoma and Neno, which were previously part of other districts, were not reflected in the existing maps, and so also new health facilities that had been recently constructed. These new additions needed to be customized and the database updated.
This customization required the generation of GeoJSON file format from the shapefiles
collected in the first step, which was then imported to the DHIS software and invoked in the mapping client. However, this process did not show the expected results, the reasons for which we could not diagnose because of our own technical limitations. Support was gained then from global HISP, to diagnose and solve the problem. After then the GeoJSON files were correctly generated, imported and configured and displayed in the DHIS application, the user interface customization was started. The following problems were identified:
The database had administrative information which did not match the reality, reflecting a mismatch between the MOH administrative data with that of data from other government institutions system. Figure 5 illustrates this problem where the Mzimba non-spatial data of the MOH stored in the DHIS2 database under two organizational units (Mzimba South and Mzimba North), which were actually part of the same administrative district.
Figure 5: The Main DHIS GIS Module Interface for Malawi
To overcome this problem, two alternatives were tried: first, to link the two districts to the same district on the map polygon; second, to create one district called Mzimba and assign the
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two as sub-districts. The second option was selected, with the consequence that it would not be possible for the health officers to perform spatial analysis on each of the sub-districts.
Since DHIS2 GIS is part of the DHIS2 data visualization modules, it would be booted only when the data entry module was completed or at least the basic features of DHIS2 had been customized. The team customizing the routine data systems in the DHIS2 had to collectively work with the GIS group to complete tasks of identification of data elements and indicators. However, since version 2.0.4 of DHIS2 required that spatial analysis must be performed only through indicators, the following additional problems were experienced:
Indicators had not yet been included in the DHIS2 database, and this process was delayed because data from the older versions of DHIS was not yet imported. The existing priority there was on completing data entry forms and report design.
To overcome this issue, the customization team defined basic indicators for demonstrationpurposes of the mapping client to a selected group of stakeholders.
4.4.From specific to general development The requirements
Successful implementation and usage of a GSS like DHIS2 is posited to be influenced by the perceived fit between the organization and the characteristics of the innovation. This requires flexibility both in the technology and for the organizational processes to adapt to the changes.During customization in both domains, requirements could not be always met because of the limitations of the technology. These incomplete requirements then became salient inputs for the global team to take forward in their road map. Some of these new requirements were:
The possibility of performing analysis based on data elements, for example, to understand malaria causes, managers preferred to use data elements rather than indicators.There was the need to provide more detailed description of the spatial data stored in the database. Such information helps the user in using the right data required for their needs.There was the additional need to include community data such as related to households. Such data might allow for example an ambulance driver to transport a pregnant woman due for delivery to the nearest facility.
5. DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS
After developing in-house solutions and/or embracing non-tailorable packages expected to match organizational requirements and needs (Pozzebon and Pinsonneault 2005) for decades, organizations are increasingly relying on using GSS. This in itself has been proved not to be a trivial task and fraught with huge challenges. This paper has tried to unpack some of these challenges by actually engaging in trying to address them through action. Our analysis has helped to identify three major challenges related to: (1) customizing of the spatial and attribute (non-spatial) databases, (2) handling emerging technical problems, and (3) having viable strategies for accommodating user requirements.
The customization process, which is the focus of this study, involved taking an existing software product and tailoring it for the local users in Mozambique and Malawi, includingbuilding the appropriate database, , and providing other required additions or deletions. In this process, changes were made by customizers in the local processes and rules in order to fit with the generic application system (Pozzebon and Heck 2006). Some examples of feedback to improve the GSS are provided, such as in understanding new requirements. Engaging in this mutual learning process has implications beyond GIS GSS adoption in Mozambique and Malawi.
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In both cases, we identified similar database related challenges which slowed the process ofcreation of the databases. There were challenges identified in the non-spatial database creation as well as those related to the spatial database such as the acquisition of maps and the dependency on external providers. Similar problems had earlier been reported in research (Melnick 2002), problems not directly controlled by local customization teams. Dealing with
actions such as the creation of indicators that was not in the database, definition of administrative unit only to accommodate the differences identified between data from the MOH and other institutions as well as the conversion of the shapefiles
into GeoJSON performed by external expertise.
The customization process was also plagued by technical problems, especially in dealing with the very advanced JavaScript frameworks (such as MapFish, OpenLayers, Ext JS and GeoExt) and the mapping client which relied relied on GeoJSON file format. The struggles faced by the team while generating the GeoJSON files from the shapefiles as well as the conversion of spatial data between coordinate systems during the spatial database creation in Malawi, are examples of these problems. Regarding non-spatial data, two examples are pertinent: First, the creation of indicators was not a priority of the team which adversely influenced customization, contributing to improvised solutions. For example, in Malawi the team created indicators by themselves, risking in creating gaps in the databases or errors in the definition of such indicators. Secondly, during the interface customization, we found the way in which the MOH had organized their administrative system differed from that of other institutions. This led to problems in importing the spatial data in the DHIS2 application.
Absence of required technical skills locally adversely influenced the customization process, and required the intervention of the global team that often took time and was challenging to communicate. There were also inherent limitations of the tool, which required local hacks such as to address the administrative levels differences the team created a new administrative level and attached to this two data collection levels. The creation of indicators was similarly a local improvisation resulting from the inability of the tool to display data-elements on maps.This process of identifying limitations through action, and finding global or local solutions emphasizes that addressing design-use gaps (Heeks 2002) is mutually-influenced (Pozzebon and Heck 2006).
The study builds on earlier research on global-local software issues from both the context of developing (Avgerou and Walsham 2000; Bada 2002; Sahay et al. 2003) and developed countries (Bada 2002). The action approach that has sought to identify and address challenges is a dimension in which this study extends upon earlier research. The study reinforces the critique of the technology transfer approach which treats technology like a black box that can be unproblematically moved to different settings. Instead a sensitive process involving mutual adaptation between the global and local is required. The additional particularities in this process because of the GIS and public health context have been highlighted in this paper, which arguably are additional contributions to the research field.
6. REFERENCES
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Avgerou, C., and Walsham, G. (2000). Information Technology in Context: Studies from the
Perspective of Developing Countries, Aldershot.Bada, A. O. (2002). "Local Adaptations to Global Trends: A Study of an IT-Based
Organizational Change Program in a Nigerian Bank." The Information Society: An
International Journal, 18(2), 77-86.
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Baskerville, R., and Myers, M. D. (2004). "Special issue on action research in information systems: Making IS research relevant to practice-foreword." MIS Quarterly, 28, 329335.
Braa, J., Monteiro, E., Sahay, S., Staring, K., and Titlestad, O. H. "SCALING UP LOCAL LEARNING - EXPERIENCES FROM SOUTH-SOUTH-NORTH NETWORKS OF SHARED SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT." Presented at 9th International
Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, São Paulo, Brazil.
Dourish, P. (1995). "Developing a Reflective Model of Collaborative Systems." ACM
Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction, 2(1), 40-63.Hansson, T. (2006). "Workplace Logics, Kinds of Knowledge and Action Research."
Systemic Practice and Action Research, 19(2), 189-200.Heeks, R. (2002). "Information Systems and Developing Countries: Failure, success and local
improvisations." The Information Society 18(2), 101 112.Hilsen, A. I., and Ennals, R. (2005). "An action research approach to work ability, health and
well-being of ageing workers." International Congress Series, 1280, 365-370.Iivari, N. (2010). "Discursive construction of [`]user innovations' in the open source software
development context." Information and Organization, 20(2), 111-132.Leonard-Barton, D. (1988). "Implementation as mutual adaptation of technology and
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integration and cohesion in shaping individual improvisation." Research Policy, 38(6), 1044-1053.
Melnick, A. L. (2002). Introduction to geographic information systems in public health: Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Nhampossa, J. L. (2005). RE-THINKING TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER AS TECHNOLOGY
TRANSLATION: A CASE STUDY OF HEALTH INFORMATION SYSTEMS IN
MOZAMBIQUE, University of Oslo, Oslo.Nuckols, J. R., Ward, M. H., and Jarup, L. (2004). "Using Geographic Information Systems
for Exposure Assessment in Environmental Epidemiology Studies." Environ Health
Perspec, 112(9).Orlikowski, W. J., and Baroudi, J. J. (1991). "Studying Information Technology in
Organizations: Research Approaches and Assumptions." Information Systems
Research, 2, 1-28.Øverland, J. H. (2010). An Open Source Approach to Improving GIS Implementations in
Developing Countries, University of Oslo, Oslo.Pollock, N., and Cornford, J. (2002). "Fitting standard software to non-standard
organisations"Proceedings of the 2002 ACM symposium on Applied computing. City: ACM: Madrid, Spain, pp. 721-725.
Pozzebon, M., and Heck, E. v. (2006). "Local adaptations of generic application systems: the case of Veiling Holambra in Brazil." Journal of Information Technology, 21, 73 85.
Pozzebon, M., and Pinsonneault, A. (2005). "Global-local negotiations for implementing configurable packages: The power of initial organizational decisions." The Journal of
Strategic Information Systems, 14(2), 121-145.Rolland, K. H., and Monteiro, E. (2002). "Balancing the Local and the Global in
Infrastructural Information Systems." The Information Society: An International
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development across borders Cambridge(UK): Cambridge University Press.
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Sahay, S., and Walsham, G. (2006). "Scaling of health information systems in India: Challenges and approaches." Information Technology for Development, 12(3), 185-200.
Saugene, Z., and Macome, E. (2008). "The understanding of the dynamics of implementing GIS for health management in Mozambique"ICT Africa. City.
Tanser, F., and le Sueur, D. (2002). "The application of geographical information systems to important public health problems in Africa." International Journal of Health
Geographics, 1(1), 4.Vik, L. G., and Andersen, T. (2005). APPLICATION OF OPEN SOURCE GIS IN DISTRICT
HEALTH INFORMATION SYSTEM, University of Oslo, Oslo.Woywode, M. (2002). "Global Management Concepts and Local Adaptations: Working
Groups in the French and German Car Manufacturing Industry." Organization Studies,23(4), 497-524.
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IFIP WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
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Choudrie & Harindranath Analysing ‘IS in Developing Country’ Research
Proceedings of the 11thInternational Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
ANALYZING ‘IS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES’ RESEARCH: A BIBLIOMETRIC STUDY
Jyoti Choudrie, University of Hertfordshire, Business School, DeHavilland Campus, Hatfield. Hertfordshire AL10 9 AB, UK. [email protected]
G. Harindranath, Royal Holloway, University of London, School of Management, Egham, Surrey TW20 0EX, UK. [email protected]
ABSTRACT
Bibliometric studies have increasingly become popular in charting developments in the
information systems (IS) discipline. This research-in-progress paper aims to provide a systematic
review of papers on ‘IS in developing countries’ published in selected, mainstream IS journals in
the last four decades. This study is significant given the recent push, in many countries including
the United Kingdom, to publish in so-called mainstream journals to improve university and
department research rankings. Such a study can shed light on any potential ‘mainstreaming’
effect on this niche research area. Specifically, the paper uses combined meta-analysis and
bibliometric methods to offer a preliminary overview of issues related to research on developing
countries, including the key authors, research methods, research themes and journal outlets.
While research on ‘IS in developing countries’ shows great vibrancy in niche or specialist
journals and conferences, our study shows that it is still restricted to the margins of the
mainstream of IS discipline when viewed through a bibliometric analysis. The paper hopes to
create a debate on the state of this research area within mainstream IS.
Keywords: Developing countries, bibliometrics, meta-analysis, researchers
1. INTRODUCTION
Information Systems (IS) is seen as a diverse discipline (Robey, 1996) with many sub communities and multiple research streams that have led to a range of research topics. Popular topics of interest such as adoption and usage, management issues, electronic commerce etc have all been examined employing various units/levels of analysis, for instance at the level of organizations, households or even countries (Palvia et, al, 2007; Dwivedi and Kuljis, 2008). In the IS discipline, developing countries are recognized as important for research in their own right as they are considered to be “a rich but untapped market” (Avgerou, 2008:p.142). Previously research on IS in developing countries was limited to specialist conferences such as the IFIP
Working Group 9.4 Conference and the ICTD Conference and niche journals such as the Journal
of Information Technology for Development, Information Technologies and International
Development, and the Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries.However, mainstream conferences, journals and publishers are beginning to publish research related to developing countries and related issues (ibid). This coincides with the recent push, in
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many countries including the United Kingdom, to publish in so-called mainstream journals to improve university and department research rankings.
“Scientometrics” is the quantitative study of the science process (Garfield, 1979) that seeks to study the phenomenon of science and scientific progress by employing tools of scientists (de Solla Price, 1986). Data sources for such studies include counts of publications and authors, citation frequency of articles, links between articles, journals, researchers and institutions, and research funding (Nowaczyk and Underwood, 1995). Many scientometric studies use citation indices such as, Science Citation Index (SCI), Social Science Citation Index (SSCI) or the Arts
and Humanities Citation Index (AHCI) (Osareh, 1996).
A large number of scientometric studies by Information Scientists have charted developments in their discipline using meta-analysis and bibliometric techniques (for example, Taylor et al, 2008). In recent years, IS researchers have also begun to apply scientometrics to better understand research profiles, to identify research trends and publication themes using databases such as Thomson Scientific (Williams et al, 2009; Lowry et al, 2007). Such studies can contribute to developing a better understanding of the emergence and evolution of specific research themes within a discipline and chart the development of the discipline itself through the setting up of links between themes and researchers, their institutions and publication outlets (Dwivedi and Mustafee, 2010; Taylor et al, 2008; Palvia et al, 2007; Gallivan and Benbunan-Fich, 2007).
In IS, identifying the most productive researchers or institutions have existed since the birth of the discipline (Vogel & Wetherbe, 1984). Studies that deal with ‘profiling’ of researchers (Dwivedi and Mustafee, 2010) or ‘research on research’ (Gallivan and Benbunan-Fich, 2007) have become a popular trend in IS (Markus & Robey, 1988; Orlikowski & Iacono, 2001). Thirty five such studies have been published over the past two decades (Gallivan and Benbunan-Fich, 2007).
Following such studies, this study presents preliminary results of a study of published, main stream journals articles that present research on IS in developing countries over the last four decades. We have noted the existence of well established specialist journals in this research area but the aim of the current paper is to explore the prevalence of this research theme within mainstream IS outlets. We use a similar research study strategy such as the ones used by Avison et al (2008) and Dwivedi and Kuljis (2008), to allow scholars’ considering publishing in this area a picture of the ‘state of this niche area’ in relation to mainstream IS research
1. By doing so, our
aim is to shed light on any potential ‘mainstreaming’ effect on this niche research area due to the pressures to publish in mainstream IS outlets. Using a bibliometric approach, the paper does so
1 According to the United Nations, “there is no established convention for the designation of ‘developed’ and
‘developing’ countries or areas in the UN system” (http://unstats.un.org); therefore, for the purposes of this research
we define the term ‘developing countries’ as countries at a low level of economic development. Information
Systems are defined as, “the means by which people and organisations, utilising technologies, gather, process, store,
use and disseminate information” (UKAIS, 1999).
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by exploring publication patterns in relation to document types, US versus UK journals, leading authors, research methods used and popular research themes.
The rest of the paper is structured as follows: Section two discusses the background to the current study. Section three explains the research methods used in this study. Section four presents the findings of this research study. A discussion of the findings is then offered in section five. Section six concludes this paper.
2. PREVIOUS STUDIES
Meta-analysis and bibliometric techniques have been used in IS research studies for several years now (Lowry et al, 2007; Gallivan and Benbunan-Fich, 2007; Mukherjee, 2009; Koehler, 2001). Earlier meta-analysis studies were used to examine prevalent research approaches (Mingers, 2003; Farhoomand, 1992; Walsham, 1995). Currently meta-analysis techniques are being used more commonly to examine the themes of adoption and diffusion (Williams et al, 2009), or to profile research published in highly ranked IS journals (Avison et al, 2008; Dwivedi and Kuljis, 2008; Palvia et al, 2007). Amongst these papers, Dwivedi and Kuljis (2008) identified various units/levels of analysis, including countries as a level of analysis. Research on IS issues in developing countries has grown in significance in recent years (Avgerou, 2008). Such research is critical particularly because developing and transitional economies spend in excess of US$800 billion annually on ICT but impacts of such expenditures have been mixed (Heeks, 2009).
Our survey of the literature showed that no meta-analysis and bibliometric studies examining ‘IS in developing countries’ research have been conducted in the past. However we did find some qualitative, literature review-type discussion papers that identify landscapes for future research in the area (Walsham and Sahay, 2006) or offer a critical research review that identifies discourses on IS implementation and associated organizational and social changes in developing countries (Avgerou, 2008). The reasoning that meta-analysis and bibliometric studies are viewed to be important in their own right prompted us to undertake this study. For one, such studies encourage debates on critical issues in the field (Hirschheim, 2007) and two, “assist in the identification of alternative theoretical and methodological perspectives” (Venkatesh et al, 2007). It is the intention of this paper to offer a perspective on the state of ‘IS in developing countries’ research in relation to mainstream IS publication outlets, given the increasing pressure on scholars to publish their work in mainstream IS outlets.
3. RESEARCH METHOD
This research uses a combination of meta-analysis and bibliometric methods. The initial step involved identifying leading journals articles using the counts of publications acquired from multiple academic journals database published by Thomson Scientific. Thomson Scientific was chosen as it employs citation indices, is widely available and widely recognised, hence preventing bias towards any particular database. The databases utilized in this research are: Science Citation Index Expanded (SCI-Expanded), Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI), Arts &
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Humanities Citation Index (A&HCI). Within this database, the “ISI Web of Knowledge, Web of Science”, ‘General Search’ feature was employed. Initially, the term “developing countries” was entered and the time periods of 1970 until 2010 were employed. A large time frame was selected as it allows a richer understanding (Koehler, 2001). The initial “General Search” on October 1, 2010 resulted in 48,760 publications. The 48,760 publications consisted of all subjects, which prevented an analysis of only those publications that dealt with ‘IS in developing countries’. A further refinement of the subject categories was then undertaken. For this purpose, a classification provided by Williams et al (2009) in relation to Information Systems and linked disciplines was used (see Table 1). This resulted in 1071 record counts, which were then examined in terms of the subject categories. This was again refined only to IS that amounted to 169 counts. These 169 counts were then examined in terms of language, source titles (journals), institutions, authors, years and countries. Following the selection of a list of leading journals (see ‘Publications
Considered’ later in this section), 43 articles of relevance emerged. Thereafter titles, abstracts as well as keywords of the journals that were of interest to this research study were manually examined and counted for the topics and research methodologies of interest.
Table 1: Subject categories related to IS
Subject Category This study’s
Count
n=1071
Williams et al (2009)
Computer Science,
Information Systems
241 237
Information Science &
Library Science
580 195
Management 235 148
Computer Science,
Hardware &
Architecture
1 34
Computer Science,
Software Engineering,
10 34
Computer Science,
Theory & Methods
37 34
Computer Science,
Interdisciplinary
Applications
86 27
Engineering, Industrial 112 16
Operations Research &
Management Science
222 15
Computer Science,
Artificial Intelligence
8 15
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3.1 Document Types
In terms of document types, there were 688 articles that were published and led the list of document types. The large numbers of articles then had to be refined to identify articles of research importance. Further, papers had to be identified in terms of journals and also in relation to keywords and abstracts. Articles also had to be refined in terms of special issues and regular issues. Please note that we disregarded special issues to avoid having skewed results favouring particular journals or authors (Gallivan and Benbunan-Fich,2007).
The articles were then examined for those that published only IS related research. In this first round, the 688 journals counts included Information Science and other subjects. Please note that this research intends to emphasise only IS research, leading to a refinement once again of the results to only IS and CS counts. This resulted in 169 counts. The 169 counts were then examined for document types that are only research articles. Proceedings, book reviews, editorial material, reviews, meeting abstracts, letters, notes, bibliography, discussion items and news items were excluded as they were viewed to be non-research, a strategy similar to Gallivan and Benbunan-Fich (2007). Inclusion of these documents can lead to an inflation of counts but at the same time fail to offer an insight into research contributions (Gallivan and Benbunan-Fich, 2007; Athey & Plotnicki, 2000). Articles could also be published in other languages, besides English, which was the case within these 169 counts. 1 article was written in the German language with the remaining 168 written in the English language.
Document Type Number
Article 688
Proceeding paper 78
Book Review 60
Editorial Material 36
Review 15
Meeting Abstract 13
Letter 8
Note 6
Bibliography 1
Discussion item 1
News item 1
Table 2: Document Types
3.2 Publications Considered
When considering the publications that should be used for this study, various journal lists were available. As this paper is written by IS researchers, the most obvious choice was the Association
of Information Systems (AIS) list of journals (Mylonopoulos & Theharakis, 2001; Athey & Plotnicki, 2000). However, as various scientometric studies emerge, debates about lists for inclusion have arisen. It was decided that a list provided by Gallivan and Benbunan-Fich (2007)
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would be used. Additionally, the Association of Business Schools list (ABS rankings, www.the-abs.org.uk, November 2010 list) compiled for UK researchers was referred to examine variances that exist in the 2 lists. The Gallivan and Benbunan-Fich (2007) list was selected as it offers a slightly broader list of top journals than the AIS or other lists. This list also contains listings that are used by Business and Management schools in UK. We added one more journal to the Gallivan and Benbunan-Fich (2007) list, Journal of Information Technology, since it is a highly ranked journal in Europe and one that will also allow a more equal distribution. As explained earlier, using such a mainstream list of IS journals allows us to explore any trends towards publishing ‘IS in developing countries’ research in such outlets due to increasing institutional pressures to publish in highly ranked, mainstream journals, as opposed to specialist or niche journals. Please note that restricted journal lists such as these are quite common in the IS discipline; see for instance www.vvenkatesh.com/ISranking/ for a listing of top IS researchers based on various top-IS journal lists.
Journals Names (Our study) Journals Names (Gallivan and Benbunan-
Fich, 2007)
MIS Quarterly MIS Quarterly
Journal of Strategic Information Systems Journal of Strategic Information Systems
Journal of Management Information Systems Journal of Management Information Systems
Information Technology & People Information Technology & People
Information Systems Research Information Systems Research
Information Systems Journal Information Systems Journal
Information &Management Information &Management
IEEE Transactions on Engineering
Management
IEEE Transactions on Engineering
Management
European Journal of Information Systems European Journal of Information Systems
Decision Support Systems Decision Support Systems
Decision Sciences Decision Sciences
Data Base for Advances in Information
Systems
Data Base for Advances in Information
Systems
Journal of Information Technology
Table 3: Journals used for this study compared to Gallivan & Benbunan-Fich (2007)
Following identification of an appropriate list of journals and document types the next step was to analyse the data by counting the numbers of publications. We did this by identifying the most productive authors during the 4 decades (1970 to 2010). As in previous studies (Dwivedi and Kuljis, 2008; Palvia et al, 2007; Huang and Hsu, 2005) a normal count approach was used. This means that all publications are counted equally regardless of the numbers of co-authors (Gallivan and Benbunan-Fich, 2007). However as Palvia et al (2007) emphasise, this method results in a combined count of all authors being greater than the total numbers of articles. Nevertheless, this is the method preferred by a majority of authors who have conducted similar studies and we therefore chose this approach for our study. Based on such a normal count, we initially decided to identify key authors as those with 3 counts or more after the filtering of the articles into research
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and non-research articles. As research on ‘IS in developing countries’ is relatively more recent in relation to the IS discipline the numbers of articles published in the area are fewer than those in matured subjects. We therefore decided to re-classify authors with 2 or more counts as key authors. This policy was pursued across the journals and institutions lists as well.
4. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
4.1 Subject Categories
Table 4 indicates that unlike the Willams et al (2009) study, wherein results displaying Computer Science and Information Systems had the most number of counts, in the case of developing countries, Information Science & Library Science had the most numbers of papers - almost 3 times the numbers of the Williams et al (2009) study.
Subject Category This study
Computer Science, Information Systems 241
Information Science & Library Science 580
Management 235
Computer Science, Hardware &
Architecture
1
Computer Science, Software
Engineering,
10
Computer Science, Theory & Methods 37
Computer Science, Interdisciplinary
Applications
86
Engineering, Industrial 112
Operations Research & Management
Science
222
Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence 8
Table 4: Subject categories related to IS
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4.2 Productive Years and Authors
This study began considering journals articles from 1970 until 2010, but using our list of journals from Table 3 above, the very first paper on ‘IS in developing countries’ was published in 1984. Overall, there were 43 published articles (1984 until 2010) (see Table 5). A full description of the titles, authors and years is provided in the Appendix. In terms of authors, there were 99 authors in total. The numbers of authors per article in this study ranged from 1 to 6. The earliest article on ‘developing countries’ was in 1984 that was written by 2 authors. We found that the vast majority of papers were either single or dual author papers.
Results also show a steady rate of production of articles from 1984 to 1991 with a single article being published in each one of these years. Since then we have seen periods of improvement and decline in the number of papers in this area published in mainstream journals. 2007 was the best year with 6 published articles. There was a reduction in article numbers in 2009 to 3, which further decreased to 1 in 2010. Clearly our results show that research on IS in developing countries is very much peripheral within mainstream IS outlets.
Authorship
Pattern
Total %ageof Total
1984 1985 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1995 1997 1998 1999 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010Articles Articles Authors
1Author 1 1 1 2 1 1 0 1 1 2 1 1 13 30.2 13
2Authors 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 1 1 13 30.2 26
3Authors 2 1 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 11 25.6 33
4Authors 1 1 1 1 4 9.3 16
5Authors 1 1 2.3 5
6Authors 1 1 2.3 6
TotalArticles 1 1 1 1 2 3 4 1 2 1 2 2 0 1 3 3 2 6 3 3 1 43 100
TotalAuthors 2 1 2 2 3 7 7 2 4 1 5 5 0 4 8 6 8 15 6 8 3 99
Numberofarticlespublished(n=43)
Table 5: Numbers of Articles Published and Numbers of Authors: From 1984 until 2010
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Collaborative efforts among authors have gradually increased since the 1990s and there is more evidence of multiple author papers in recent years. Technology advances must be facilitating some of this collaboration. Another reason for increased collaborative efforts could be the fact that such collaboration has been associated with “high quality output and high manuscript acceptance rates by prestigious journals” (Presser, 1980). Collaboration could also be attributed to “multiple authorship being viewed as a sign of a mature discipline, publishing complex articles addressing complex issues” (Koehler et al, 2000). Therefore, it might be assumed that ‘IS in developing countries’ research is maturing and becoming more nuanced.
4.3 Leading Authors
Table 6 identifies key authors from our list. Sahay led with 3 papers, published in 1997, 1999, and 2004. All other authors in the list had 2 publications, although some of these are joint papers. Indeed, Sahay has published with two other authors in our list. Geographically all but one of the authors in the list is based in Europe or the USA, the exception being Lee who is based in Asia. Significantly, the list of leading authors does not include anyone based in a developing country and features just one female author (Madon).
Leading & Prolific Author Names of co author/s Joint / Single TITLE OF ARTICLE
Sahay, S Walsham, G Joint GIS for district level administration in India: Problems and opportunities
Madon, S Joint Managing natural resources using GIS: Experiences in India
Monteiro, E; Braa, J Joint Networks of action: Sustainable health information systems across developing countries
Braa, J Hanseth, O; Heywood, Joint Developing health information systems in developing countries: The flexible standards strategy
Monteiro, E; Sahay, S Joint Networks of action: Sustainable health information systems across developing countries
Madon, S Sahay, S Joint Managing natural resources using GIS: Experiences in India
Single Governance lessons from the experience of telecentres in Kerala
James, J Single From origins to implications: key aspects in the debate over the digital divide
Single Reconstruing the digital divide from the perspective of a large, poor, developing country
WALSHAM, G Sahay, S Joint GIS for district level administration in India: Problems and opportunities
Single DECENTRALIZATION OF IS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES POWER TO THE PEOPLE
Lee, SYT Meng, ZL; Joint The value of IT to firms in a developing country in the catch up process: An empirical comparison of China and the United States
Gholami, R; Tong, TY Joint Time series analysis in the assessment of ICT impact at the aggregate level lessons and implications for the new economy
Lyytinen, K Mursu, A; K; Soriyan, HAJoint Identifying software project risks in Nigeria: an International Comparative Study
Schmidt, R; Keil, M; Cul Joint Identifying software project risks: An international Delphi study
Table 6: Leading authors
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4.4 Journals Publishing ‘Developing Countries’ Research
Information and Management published the most articles on developing countries, 16 (38.64%) with the first such article published in 1984 (see Table 7). Journal of Information Technology
(JIT) ranked second with 6 articles (13.64%). This was closely followed by MIS Quarterly and Decision Support Systems (DSS) journals with 5 articles (11.36%). The European Journal of
Information Systems (EJIS) ranked fourth with 4 articles (9.1%) and finally, Journal of
Management Information Systems (JMIS) and Journal of Strategic Information Systems (JSIS) had 3 articles each (6.82%).
The two leading journals, Information and Management (I & M) and Journal of Information
Technology (JIT), are based in the USA and UK respectively. The third and fourth ranked journals are based in the USA and EJIS is based in the UK. These findings support the view that reference lists should be more balanced and opportunities exist for researchers to publish in both European and American journals (Gallivan-Benbunan-Fich , 2007). It was also noted that both JIT and EJIS published articles focused on developing countries in the 1990s. Although JIT began publishing ‘developing countries’ research later it has developed a profile in the area and ranks highly in our findings. In addition, Database for Advanced Information Systems is a journal that has also recently begun to publish research related to IS in developing countries. The first article published in this journal was in 2009. An added indication is that perhaps in time, new mainstream journals such as, Information, Technology & People, Information Systems Research,
Information Systems Journal; IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management and Decision
Science will offer opportunities to publish ‘IS in developing countries’ research.
Names of journal Nos. of authors 1984 1985 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1995 1997 1998 1999 2001 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 Grand Total
DATA BASE FORADVANCES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS 3 1 1
DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS 1 1 1
2 1 1 2
3 1 1
6 1 1
EUROPEAN JOURNALOF INFORMATION SYSTEMS 1 1 1
3 1 1 2
4 1 1
INFORMATION &MANAGEMENT 1 1 1 1 1 4
2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 7
3 2 1 1 1 5
JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 1 2 1 1 1 5
3 1 1
JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS 1 1 1
4 1 1 2
JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS 2 1 1 2
4 1 1
MIS QUARTERLY 1 1 1
2 1 1 2
3 1 1
5 1 1
Grand Total 1 1 1 1 2 3 4 1 2 1 2 2 1 3 3 2 6 3 3 1 43
Year
Table 7: Mainstream IS Journals Publishing ‘IS in Developing Countries’ Research
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4.5 Research Methods Used
Research methods are of critical importance in IS and have been considered in various ways, such as positivist or interpretivist (Gloes & Hirschheim, 2000) or empirical and non-empirical research (Alavi and Carlson, 1992). We categorized papers in our list on the basis of quantitative and qualitative or a combination of both. We also classified papers in terms of single research methods or multiple methods, which included case studies, interviews, surveys, observations, action research, ethnography, a strategy pursued by Weerakkody et al (2010).
Research methods identified by this study
ResearchMethods Sub Category Research methods Grand Total
Secondary Data Secondary data 11
Survey Survey 10
Case Study with 1 research method Case study and Action research 1
Case study and framework 1
Case study and interview 1
Case study and survey 2
Case Study with 2 research methods Case studies, interviews, observations 1
Case study, framework and interview 1
Case study, interviews and survey 1
Case Study Case study 3
Interviews with 1 research method Interview and survey 2
Interviews and secondary data 1
Ethnography with 2 research methods Ethnography, interview and observation 2
Survey with 1 researchmethod Survey and interview 1
Case Study with 3 research methods Case study, interviews, observation and secondary data 1
Action Research Action research 1
Interviews with 2 research methods Interviews, observations and quasi experiment 1
Observations with 1 research method Observations, referring to archival documents 1
Interviews Interviews 1
Grand Total 43
Table 8: Research methods identified by this study
We found 26 single research method-based papers in comparison to 17 with multiple methods (Table 8). Single research methods that came up on the top of the list were surveys (10 papers) and secondary data (11 papers). This result also confirms the view: “Ever since the beginning of IS research some 35 to 40 years ago, surveys have been used most extensively” (Palvia et al, 2007). This is followed by case studies (3 papers). This latter finding is remarkable in that there is widespread perception that the ‘IS in developing countries’ research domain is dominated by
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qualitative case studies. It could well be that the specialist research outlets publish much more qualitatively oriented case studies. But our findings show that mainstream IS outlets tend to publish far more single research methods in the form of surveys and secondary data based studies as opposed to case studies.
While there is plenty of evidence of the use of more traditional methods such as interviews, observations, and surveys, we also found some evidence of the use of methods that are not so visible in IS, such as quasi-experiments and ethnography. Thus researchers in this field are now able and willing to attempt a more diverse range of research methods. Combining methods can also be seen as a way of providing rigor and triangulation in a research study. Interestingly no paper was identified as purely conceptual in nature lending weight for calls to theorise the role of information technology in development (Sein and Harindranath, 2004).
The very first article in our list, published in 1984, used observations and archival documents. A survey was then used in 1985, and the case study method was combined with a survey in 1989 and 1990. Multiple methods used in papers published in 1984, 1989 and 1990 were not repeated again. Case studies (1993) and secondary data (2006) were the only methods that had multiple articles (2 articles each). See Appendix A1 for a complete list of articles referred to in Table 8.
4.5.1 Qualitative versus quantitative
When considering qualitative versus quantitatively oriented papers, our findings again question the widely held view that IS in developing country research is predominantly qualitative in nature; 19 out of 43 papers were self identified by their authors as belonging to this category. 20 papers were entirely quantitatively oriented with a further 4 using a combination of both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Of course, this could also suggest that mainstream outlets that normally favour more quantitatively oriented papers may be less welcoming of IS in developing country research, which tends to be generally more qualitative in nature.
Table 9 indicates that the journal publishing the most in both methodologies is Information &
Management. The UK based Journal of Information Technology is second in relation to the number of papers using a qualitative methodology (5 articles). DSS and JMIS were second in relation to quantitative methods. Interestingly, MISQ, which saw the appointment in 1990 of Alan Lee - a highly respected qualitative researcher and pluralist - as Editor in Chief in recognition of the need for alternative research approaches in the IS discipline (Chen & Hirschheim, 2004) has published more qualitative articles (4 papers) than quantitative (1 paper).
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ResearchMethodology Names of journal Total
Qualitative DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS 1
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS 1
INFORMATION & MANAGEMENT 8
JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 5
JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS 1
MIS QUARTERLY 4
Qualitative Total 20
Quantitative DATA BASE FOR ADVANCES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS 1
DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS 3
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS 2
INFORMATION & MANAGEMENT 7
JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY 1
JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS 3
JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS 1
MIS QUARTERLY 1
Quantitative Total 19
Quantitative and Qualitative DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS 1
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS 1
INFORMATION & MANAGEMENT 1
JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS 1
Quantitative and Qualitative Total 4
Grand Total 43
Table 9: Comparing research methods and journals
4.6 Popular Research Themes
The 43 papers in our list covered a broad range of research themes as shown in Table 10 below. The full list of papers is provided in Appendix A1. We found several papers dealing with the application of IS within specific domains such as health (4 papers) and public administration (3). Clearly there is more scope for work in this area to further explore the role played by IS within a developing context. The coverage of topics has grown beyond mere adoption (2 papers) to consider issues in IS development (3 papers), management (6 papers) and impacts (3 papers) in the context of developing economies. Work has also been undertaken in the area of policy and standards for IT use (2 papers) as well as the all important issue of evaluation (2 papers) but these are few and far between. Knowledge management and decision support systems also figure in the list of papers (2 papers in each category). Research on e-commerce in the developing world is also taking off with our list showing 4 papers in the area.
What is striking from the list is the absence of papers that are of a conceptual nature. While many papers in the list do provide evidence for the use of a variety of theoretical approaches, there is very little actual evidence of theorizing the field or engagement with conceptual aspects of the role played by IS in development.
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Topic covered Number of papers in this category
IS/IT applications in specific domains 8 (of which: Health, 4; Public Administration & e-Government, 3; Education 1)
Information systems management
issues
7
e-Commerce 4
Issues in information systems
development
2
Social implications of information
technology
3
Knowledge management 3
Decision support systems 3
IT adoption 4
IS evaluation 3
Policy and standards 4
Others 2
Total number of papers 43
Table 10. List of themes covered by papers in our study
Walsham and Sahay (2006) provided an overview of research on IS in developing countries and suggested that future research should focus more on “scalability and sustainability, on in-depth studies of specific technologies, and on society-based critical issues such as HIV/AIDS” (Walsham and Sahay, 2006:21). They also called for more critical case studies, cross cultural studies and for more theorizing on the role of information technology in development. Based on our findings, we still have some considerable way to go in fulfilling this call.
5. CONCLUSIONS
In this study we attempted to provide a preliminary overview of research being undertaken on ‘IS in developing countries’ using mainstream IS journals. By using a bibiliometric study of IS research in select, mainstream IS outlets, we found that although leading journals in the field are occasionally publishing papers on ‘IS in developing countries’, the frequency of such publications shows that this research area is still very much on the margins of the IS discipline for such outlets. This has incredibly important implications for researchers who are being pressurized to consider top journals as outlets for their work by academic institutions in countries such as the UK. This also has implications for established but niche, specialist journals that focus on ‘IS in developing countries’ as they now compete for at least some of the papers with mainstream outlets. For researchers, focusing on niche journals is likely to be more useful in relation to impact of such publications at least in the short run. Their desire to publish their work on ‘IS in developing countries’ in journals that are dedicated to the area is understandable given that this is likely to increase the chance of the work being read and cited by those actually interested in the field. In the medium to longer term however, communities such as IFIP WG9.4 could help by
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creating more awareness of specialist, niche journals that are not ranked in mainstream journal rankings and by pushing for such journals to be entered into the rankings; this approach assumes acceptance of the journal rankings game but is likely to take substantial time as niche journals get recognized in various rankings lists.
Our bibliometric analysis also showed that ‘IS in developing countries’ research is still very much dominated by American and European male researchers and institutions. The almost total absence of authors based in developing countries in our lists is also another striking revelation. Whether this is because of language barriers or the quality of scholarship or problems of wider access to research are serious questions to consider but beyond the scope of the current paper. There is plenty of scope to further grow this discipline in Asia, Latin America and Africa. Once again, communities such as IFIP WG9.4, AIS SIG-GLOBDEV etc may have a role in this regard to further enhance research and dissemination capabilities in regions around the world. It would also be interesting to see if research on developing countries follows more broader publication trends in the IS discipline such as, adoption and usage theories and stakeholder theory related articles or if it continues to focus more on themes currently in vogue such as social, cultural and management issues, the application IT in a variety of developmental contexts etc.
We recognize certain limitations of our study. In choosing to ignore the specialist journals in the field, our study can be seen as offering only a limited perspective of research on IS in developing countries. However while we accept that there is a vibrant research community dedicated to studying IS in developing countries, which includes several specialist, highly regarded journals and conferences, we have argued that the purpose of the current paper is to highlight the status of this field within the mainstream journals from the IS discipline. The second limitation of our study relates to our choice of database, Web of Science. In using this particular database we have inadvertently included at least two papers that do not directly relate to ‘IS in developing countries’ but are identified as relating to the field in the database. This is presumably because of references to ‘developing countries’ within these papers even though they cannot really be categorized as studying ‘IS in developing countries’. In future efforts, such papers will be discarded from analysis. Given that we found a limited number of papers using the term ‘IS in developing countries’, it would be interesting to see the results of a search using the term ‘IS and development or ICT and development’. Given that ‘IS in developing countries’ could deal with any organizational analysis of the use/adoption etc of IS in a developing country context, there are likely to be even fewer papers using the term ‘IS and development’ as the latter must relate specifically to how the technology affects development. This could be an avenue for future research.
One further suggestion for future research would be to identify and analyse more localized and regional publication outlets for ‘IS in developing countries’ research. These could include local language publications, for instance French, Spanish, and Portuguese. Local and regional networks of researchers interested in this research domain, such as the South African Computer Lecturers’ Association, or Indian Computer Society may provide one avenue for conducting such a study.
Future research could also conduct a similar bibliometric survey of specialist journals dealing with IS in developing countries with a view to highlighting the vibrancy of this research area as opposed to the limited nature of research on developing countries published by more mainstream
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journals. In undertaking such a project it would be useful to consider articles under the broad category of ‘Information Systems’, ‘Information Sciences’ and ‘ICT’ as these are more likely to capture specialist journals relevant to the field.
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APPENDIX A1: LIST OF PAPERS INCLUDED IN THIS STUDY
Decision Support Systems:
A process model to develop an internal rating system: Sovereign credit ratings, Van Gestel, T; Baesens, B;
Van Dijcke, P; Garcia, J; Suykens, JAK; Vanthienen, J, 2006, DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS
CURRENT STATUS OF DSS USE IN TAIWAN, HSIEH, CC; LU, MT; PAN, CC, 1992,
INFORMATION & MANAGEMENT
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Proceedings of the 11thInternational Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
Supporting factoring transactions in Brazil using reasoning maps: a language-based DSS for evaluating
accounts receivable. Montibeller, G; Belton, V; Lima, MVA. 2007, DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS
E-commerce:
Business-to-business adoption of eCommerce in China. Tan, J; Tyler, K; Manica, A. 2007,
INFORMATION & MANAGEMENT
eCommerce adoption in developing countries: a model and instrument. Molla, A; Licker, PS. 2005,
INFORMATION & MANAGEMENT
Information technology payoff in e-business environments: An international perspective on value creation
of e-business in the financial services industry. Zhu, K; Kraemer, KL; Xu, S; Dedrick, J. 2004, JOURNAL
OF MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS
The effects of infrastructure and policy on e-business in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa. Okoli, C;
Mbarika, VWA; Mccoy, S. 2010, EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Information Systems Management Issues:
FACILITATING THE ADOPTION OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY IN A DEVELOPING-
COUNTRY. YAVAS, U; LUQMANI, M; QURAESHI, ZA. 1992, INFORMATION & MANAGEMENT
Identifying software project risks in Nigeria: an International Comparative Study. Mursu, A; Lyytinen, K;
Soriyan, HA; Korpela, M. 2003, EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Information systems management issues in Central America: a multinational and comparative study.
Mata, FJ; Fuerst, WL. 1997, JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Managing information technology in modernizing 'against the odds': Lessons from an organization in a
less-developed country. Montealegre, R. 1998, INFORMATION & MANAGEMENT
Managing natural resources using GIS: Experiences in India. Madon, S; Sahay, S. 1997, INFORMATION
& MANAGEMENT
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ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT OF INFORMATION-SYSTEMS FUNCTIONS -
COMPARATIVE-STUDY OF SELECTED ORGANIZATIONS IN BAHRAIN. KHAN, EH. 1991,
INFORMATION & MANAGEMENT
WITH OR WITHOUT MICROCOMPUTERS - A DILEMMA. ABEBE, T; GRAD, J. 1990,
INFORMATION & MANAGEMENT
IS/IT applications in specific domains- Education:
A MANAGEMENT-INFORMATION-SYSTEM FOR A CHINESE UNIVERSITY. YING, QR; ZHU,
MX; BAILEY, TE. 1993, INFORMATION & MANAGEMENT
IS/IT applications in specific domains- Health:
Networks of action: Sustainable health information systems across developing countries. Braa, J;
Monteiro, E; Sahay, S. 2004, MIS QUARTERLY
STAGES OF GROWTH IN END-USER COMPUTING - APPLICATIONS IN THE HEALTH SECTOR
OF DEVELOPING-COUNTRIES IN ASIA-PACIFIC. JAYASURIYA, R. 1993, JOURNAL OF
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
THE RELEVANCE OF MICROCOMPUTERS TO HEALTH IMPROVEMENT IN DEVELOPING-
COUNTRIES. ELKHOLY, A; MANDIL, S. 1984, INFORMATION & MANAGEMENT
IS/IT applications in specific domains- Public Administration and e-government:
GIS for district-level administration in India: Problems and opportunities. Walsham, G; Sahay, S. 1999,
MIS QUARTERLY
Governance lessons from the experience of telecentres in Kerala. Madon, S. 2005, EUROPEAN
JOURNAL OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS
INFORMATION-SYSTEMS FOR DEVELOPMENT MANAGEMENT IN DEVELOPING-
COUNTRIES. HAN, CK; RENDER, B. 1989, INFORMATION & MANAGEMENT
Issues in information systems development:
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Proceedings of the 11thInternational Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
Developing health information systems in developing countries: The flexible standards strategy. Braa, J;
Hanseth, O; Heywood, A; Mohammed, W; Shaw, V. 2007, MIS QUARTERLY
Free/Libre Open Source Software development in developing and developed countries: A conceptual
framework with an exploratory study. Subramanyam, R; Xia, M. 2008, DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS
IT Adoption:
COMPUTER USAGE IN DEVELOPING-COUNTRIES - CASE-STUDY KUWAIT. IBRAHIM, RLR.
1985, INFORMATION & MANAGEMENT
Culture and Acceptance of Global Web Sites: A Cross-Country Study of the Effects of National Cultural
Values on Acceptance of a Personal Web Portal. Li, X; Hess, TJ; Mcnab, AL; Yanjun, Y. 2009, DATA
BASE FOR ADVANCES IN INFORMATION SYSTEMS
The impact of computer alienation on information technology investment decisions: An exploratory cross-
national analysis. AbdulGader, AH; Kozar, KA. 1995, MIS QUARTERLY
The situatedness of work practices and organizational culture: implications for information systems
innovation uptake. Igira, FT. 2008, JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
IT Evaluation:
The business value of information technology as measured by technical efficiency: Evidence from
country-level data. Lin, WT. 2009, DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS
The value of IT to firms in a developing country in the catch-up process: An empirical comparison of
China and the United States. Meng, ZL; Lee, SYT. 2007, DECISION SUPPORT SYSTEMS
Time series analysis in the assessment of ICT impact at the aggregate level - lessons and implications for
the new economy. Lee, SYT; Gholami, R; Tong, TY. 2005, INFORMATION & MANAGEMENT
Knowledge Management:
ICTs and poverty reduction: a social capital and knowledge perspective. Urquhart, C; Liyanage, S; Kah,
MMO. 2008, JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
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KNOWLEDGE WORKERS USE OF SUPPORT SOFTWARE IN SAUDI-ARABIA. RAHMAN, M;
ABDULGADER, A. 1993, INFORMATION & MANAGEMENT
Use of collaborative technologies and knowledge sharing in co-located and distributed teams: Towards the
24-h knowledge factory. Gupta, A; Mattarelli, E; Seshasai, S; Broschak, J. 2009, JOURNAL OF
STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Telemedicine in the Upper Amazon: Interplay with local health care practices. Miscione, G. 2007, MIS
QUARTERLY
Policy & Standards:
A standards war waged by a developing country: Understanding international standard setting from the
actor-network perspective. Lee, H; Oh, S.
2006. JOURNAL OF STRATEGIC INFORMATION SYSTEMS
DEVELOPING INFORMATICS POLICIES. PEREZ, VL. 1992, INFORMATION & MANAGEMENT
Telecommunications and economic activity: An analysis of Granger causality. Dutta, A. 2001, JOURNAL
OF MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS
THE OPPORTUNITIES AND CONSTRAINTS AFFECTING AN INFORMATICS POLICY - THE
INDIA EXPERIENCE. JOSHI, K; SAUTER, VL. 1991, INFORMATION & MANAGEMENT
Social Implications of Information Technology:
DECENTRALIZATION OF IS IN DEVELOPING-COUNTRIES - POWER TO THE PEOPLE.
WALSHAM, G. 1993, JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
From origins to implications: key aspects in the debate over the digital divide. James, J. 2007, JOURNAL
OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Reconstruing the digital divide from the perspective of a large, poor, developing country. James, J. 2004,
JOURNAL OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Others:
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Proceedings of the 11thInternational Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
Identifying software project risks: An international Delphi study. Schmidt, R; Lyytinen, K; Keil, M; Cule,
P. 2001, JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT INFORMATION SYSTEMS
The academic field of information systems in Europe. Avgerou, C; Siemer, J; Bjorn-Andersen, N. 1999,
EUROPEAN JOURNAL OF INFORMATION SYSTEMS
653
IFIP WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
76
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Latifov et al Practical Approaches to Designing Standards: the Case of a
District Hospital Information System in Northern India
Proceedings of the 11th
International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
PRACTICAL APPROACHES TO DESIGNING STANDARDS: THE CASE OF A DISTRICT HOSPITAL INFORMATION SYSTEM IN
NORTHERN INDIA
Murodillo Latifov ([email protected])
Department of Informatics
University of Oslo
Arunima Mukherjee ([email protected])
HISP India
Vasudha Chakravarthy ([email protected])
HISP India
Sundeep Sahay ([email protected])
Department of Informatics
University of Oslo
Abstract: This paper explores the issue of designing standards within the setting of a district hospital
system in the context of a Northern State in India. The aim is to develop a practical
approach to the design and implementation of standards during the course of the evolution
of a hospital management information system (HospMIS) first in one hospital, and later to
be scaled to a total of 20 such hospitals in the state. A three level framework of health
information standards comprising of information needs, software and interoperability as
been evolved through the HISP (Health Information Systems Programme) initiative is
drawn upon to approach this issue of standards. While this framework has indeed been a
very useful lens to understand standards, we have also contributed to its extension by
additionally focusing on issues relating to the process of development, implementation
and scaling of standards.
Key words: HospIS, Standards, OpenMRS, Scaling
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Latifov et al Practical Approaches to Designing Standards: the Case of a
District Hospital Information System in Northern India
Proceedings of the 11th
International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
PRACTICAL APPROACHES TO DESIGNING STANDARDS: THE CASE OF A DISTRICT HOSPITAL INFORMATION SYSTEM IN
NORTHERN INDIA
1. INTRODUCTION
While Hospital Information Systems (HospIS) based on Electronic Medical Records (EMRs) are
indeed a popular phenomenon in the West (Coiera 2003, Øvretveit et al., 2007), and also to some
extent in private hospitals in the developing world (Chae et al. 1994, Rotich 2003, Seedberg et al.,
2009), they have found limited use in district hospitals within the public health system of the
developing world. The reasons for this are both institutional and technological. Public health systems
by and large have focused on primary health care, and correspondingly technology development
efforts have been on the for aggregate facility
based statistics. District hospitals, which are predominantly curative in focus, have been largely
ignored in computerization efforts to date. Arguably, patient based EMR (Electronic Medical Record)
systems are more complex (at least technically) than HMIS, and since success in the HMIS domain
has been also rather limited across the developing world, some may argue district hospitals are not
ready for EMRs. S
McDonald 1997, Conn 2007) and from the developing world
(Shaw 2003, Fraser et al. 2005, Sheraz 2010) have been far from encouraging, and have till date
provided a strong deterrent to new developments, magnified greatly by their prohibitive costs.
There are strong arguments for strengthening HospIS of district hospitals in the developing world.
Firstly, district hospitals typically consume significant proportion of district health budgets, and also
provide a large chunk of primary health services related to antenatal, delivery and immunization.
Ignoring district hospital data makes the district database significantly incomplete. Further,
information about the working of the district hospital can provide useful insights into the effectiveness
of referral linkages with the primary health facilities in the district. Data on communicable and non-
communicable diseases required for national reporting to a majority extent are provided by district
hospitals. Given this need for stronger and more integrated HospIS, a point of debate that is pertinent
is not whether such systems are relevant but rather what kind of systems are appropriate? Should the
focus be -
records patient based episodic details without attempting longitudinal tracking, or a relatively full
blooded EMR but still not as may be seen in the West, say with electronic imaging?
Increasingly, as seen during the course of our work on health information systems implementation in
India, there is an increasing demand from state health departments for EMR systems in their district
hospitals. There is naturally a lack of clarity on what constitutes an EMR system; the hospital
possibilities as vendors continue to sell them dreams of
fully integrated paper less hospitals where patients in remote rural areas are scheduled for
appointments on SMS and X rays and scans are part of the electronic archive!! Without going into a
discussion on why these dreams are utopian, the important point in the context of this paper which
focuses on the issue of standards is to understand what constitutes relevant standards in a HospIS, and
what are practical approaches to their effective design and implementation. Standards are
increasingly being identified as being fundamental to the effectiveness health information systems
(Braa et al. 2007), in the context of both primary health (Hanseth et al. 2006) and also hospitals (Shaw
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Latifov et al Practical Approaches to Designing Standards: the Case of a
District Hospital Information System in Northern India
Proceedings of the 11th
International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
2009). However, given the relative novelty of HospIS in district hospital information systems in the
developing world, not much has been written about the nature of standards, and even less so about
how these are developed and implemented. Our experience of nearly 15 years of engagement with
health information systems in the developing world under the HISP (Health Information Systems
Programme) initiative (Braa et al. 2007), leads us to argue standards developed and implemented top
down and which seek to be universal are doomed for failure. Instead, the HISP philosophy has been
ibid) through engagement on the ground, representing
elativity on the other (ibid).
While these ideas and concepts have been developed primarily through our engagement in the
primary health care sector over the last decade, there are strong reasons to argue they will also find
relevance in the district hospital system. The aim of the paper is thus to understand the nature of
standards and approaches to their practical implementation in the context of a HospIS in district
hospitals. Our empirical site primarily is a district hospital in Northern India, which we anonymously
refer to as DDH. The broader empirical mission has involved the design and development of 10
modules (registration, billing, laboratory, radiology, pharmacy, inventory, out patient department
(OPD), in patient department (IPD), blood bank and finance) which need to be deployed as an
integrated HospIS first in DDH and then scaled to 19 other hospitals within the district system in the
state.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In the next section, we provide a brief overview of the
research context and methods used, followed by a theoretical section on standards how can they be
conceptualized within the domain of health information systems. Following which, we discuss the
empirical case including the processes of requirements gathering and its interaction with design and
development with a focus on standards. In the analysis section which follows, we use the framework
discussed in section 2 to outline the nature of standards with corresponding examples emanating from
the empirical work. In the discussion section, we discuss more broadly the issue of standards for
district hospitals in developing countries and the challenge in making them scaleable.
2. RESEARCH SETTING
The research is based in a state in Northern India which has developed a memorandum of
understanding (MoU) with HISP India for the design, development, implementation and support of
integrated HospIS, first in one hospital in the state capital to be subsequently scaled to the other 19
district hospitals in the state within a two year framework. There were various rounds of discussion
between the state and HISP about what should constitute the core modules of the HospIS which were
ultimately narrowed down to the 10 modules listed earlier representing a subset of 20 modules which
the state had scoped earlier based on a vendor initiated requirement analysis. Further, a broad
schedule was agreed upon for the implementation of the modules, featuring first the registration and
billing modules (which were important for DDH because of the public interface) and then followed by
other modules. It was agreed that OPD, being a complex module, would be taken up later.
The study is based on action research principles of collaborative action (of the HISP team with the
state), where there is mutual engagement in defining problems, participation in identifying solutions,
and processes of interventions. There have been continuous and iterative cycles of action, review and
revisions based on mutual inputs. Outputs from this process have resulted in insights useful for
practice and also to help generate new knowledge, in this case related to standards in the context of
HospIS for district hospitals in developing countries. (Jacucci et al., 2006, Tierneya 2010, Øvretveit et
al., 2007).
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Latifov et al Practical Approaches to Designing Standards: the Case of a
District Hospital Information System in Northern India
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International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
The HISP technical team was comprised of 10 people with a 11th serving as the project coordinator.
Roughly half the team was responsible for implementation issues including gathering requirements,
documentation and communication with the development team, participating in design discussions,
and testing and training the hospital staff once the modules were in place. Developers comprised the
other half of the team, with the responsibility of finalizing design, carrying out development and
trouble shooting. As can be expected, there were challenges in defining these work boundaries and
responsibilities which were constantly subject to negotiation and redefinition depending on
personalities, availability, and the complexity of the task. In addition to the onsite team, there was
support sought from global HISP team especially on issues relating to technicalities of OpenMRS (the
chosen development platform), issues of server management, and more general questions on EPR
(Electronic Patient Record) design such as related to security.
The process broadly involved of initially creating a two person team for each module (one each from
development and implementation) with the implementer having the primary responsibility for
requirements and the developer for development of that module. There were various challenges
experienced in operationalizing this process, including knowledge gaps that existed between the team
members, and often the developers privileging technical knowledge over the health or
implementation systems. Trying to plug these gaps required a healthy atmosphere of mutual learning
and trust, which was often not forthcoming leading to frequent crisis situations and fire fighting
action. These created attritions in the team, but over time a reasonably steady state has been achieved
with a core group of dedicated team members in place having a reasonable understanding of both the
technology and the hospital systems.
As we write this paper, the first (and in some cases second versions) of 6 of the 10 modules have been
deployed in the hospital, which were officially inaugurated by the Health Minister of the state. The
plan is to have the completed integrated system in place for a March 31st inauguration by the State.
While there are many stories to tell about the various processes, our focus in this paper is on the issue
of standards.
3. THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVE: STANDARDS FOR HIS IN DEVELOPING
COUNTRIES
This issue of standards requires a conceptual understanding, and in the current empirical case they
manifest at different levels. At the first level, it is within a module of what should be the data
collected, their formats and frequency. At the next level is between the modules, as there must be
standards which enable different modules (for example billing and laboratory) to speak to each other.
This involves the challenge of understanding requirements, a problem magnified by the fact that the
hospital staff is unable to articulate them clearly (and for the implementation team to understand),
making it complex to both develop appropriate design, and then finding the appropriate software
solution. At the next level, the aim is for this application developed in the context of one hospital to be
scaled up to all the other district hospitals in the state, and further have it generic enough that other
states may also find it useful for their hospitals. At the next and more global level, since this
development is being carried out in the framework of the global HISP network, there is also the need
to consider how the application can have larger global implications. Standards provide the important
glue to understand these different levels of scaling.
3.1 A Framework to understand standards
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Latifov et al Practical Approaches to Designing Standards: the Case of a
District Hospital Information System in Northern India
Proceedings of the 11th
International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
The topic of standards and interoperability is not new in IT, but in case of healthcare (especially in
developing countries) it is still in a rather nascent stage and a subject of various debates. Beale (2004)
differentiates health IT from ITs in other domains in the way they treat persons: "It is often asked:
what is the difference between health IT and IT in other domains? One well-
travelers l
systems are anything but: their biological and social complexity is manifested directly in clinical
information, posing a far greater challenge than in other domains. ..." (p. 301). For example airline
reservation system may have a number of clearly defined procedures, like booking, purchasing or
cancellation, each consisting of predefined formats and number of data elements. Indeed, in an EMR,
the patient may undergo different routes of healthcare services depending on the illness and
procedures for that particular treatment. Moreover data collected for one process may vary from the
other; patient with positive X-ray results will have different prescriptions than with negative X-ray,
negative result may even lead to other X-ray tests and so on. In one word there is a need to uniformly
address these complex interactions in patient care relations. Over time, various standards have
emerged in the health domain to address representations, storage and transfer of patient records,
namely HL7 v3 (2003), ISO18308 (2004), ASTM Committee E31.19 (2004), CEN 13606 (2004),
HL7 Clinical Document Architecture (CDA) (2005) . Without going into
the details of these (see www.openclinical.org for more details), it can be broadly stated that most of
these standards have come into being largely in the context of Western hospitals, and making them
relevant to the context of developing countries requires a lot of adaptation work, or the creation of
new standards. In the last few months, the WHO has announced a standard called SDMX.HD
(www.sdmx-hd.org) that is specific to the developing country context, providing guidelines on data
transfer from patient systems to aggregated facility systems. But this touches upon only partially
(related to interoperability) the issue of standards from our perspective.
A general framework to understand the different levels of standards which has emerged out of the
HISP engagement with health systems over the last 15 years is depicted in Table 1 below.
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Latifov et al Practical Approaches to Designing Standards: the Case of a
District Hospital Information System in Northern India
Proceedings of the 11th
International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
Table 1: Three levels of the Health Information Architecture
This table can also be conceptualized as in Figure 1 below, with a focus on interoperability issues.
Figure 1: Three levels of standardization of increasing differences and complexities
Syntactic / technical level: Data transfer and interoperability. For example, the SDMX-HD
standard is a syntactic description of how to write the data for export in a file so that it can be
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Latifov et al Practical Approaches to Designing Standards: the Case of a
District Hospital Information System in Northern India
Proceedings of the 11th
International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
understood by the system importing the file thus compatible with both the sender and receiver.
In a manual system, paper based registers and data reporting formats will be similar. Also here the
data to be registered or reported are syntactically described so that it can be understood both by
the sender and receiver. The practical difficulties in changing paper based reporting forms make
up an important driving factor in the fragmentation of HIS and problems facing data
standardization. While SDMX-HD is software based, and therefore changeable, paper formats
are hardware based, not changeable!
Semantic level: Meaning and shared understanding. This is the level of standards for data and
indicators, data and indicator dictionaries and meta-data on e.g. procedures for calculating
indicators, health facility lists with related data and categories, ICD10, the international
classification of diseases.
Pragmatic organizational, political level: This is the level with decision making power when
it comes to deciding on standards at, mainly, the semantic level, the data and indicator standards.
The standards for interoperability at the syntactic and semantic levels will also be reflected by
-organizational level, in terms of procedures, mandates,
responsibilities and job-descriptions needed in order to effectuate the other standards.
3.2 Approaches to building standards and their acceptance in use
It has been studied (Shaw 2003) that implementing HospMIS in developing country is a challenging
task mostly due to socio technical complexity in healthcare domain including relating to how
standards are created and adopted.
, not by imposition from the top (Timmermans and Berg, 2000). Drawing from the case of
adopting of new medical pr universality
through local practices. Work practices are made more "efficient," professional practices are
supposed to become more "scientific," and technical practices should obey "universal" standards. The
disorder of current practices, according to such discourses, should be replaced by scientifically
established, rational, and universal modes of working and understanding (p 31, ibid). Shaw (2005)
demonstrates how an essential data set evolution
of standard, and influences other organization hierarchies to benefit from it. Braa at al., (2007)
proposes a flexible standards strategy and adapt to
the environment. A similar approach is used in OpenMRS Concept Cooperative (OCC), an online
repository created for the OpenMRS concepts dictionary. OCC tends to provide a global vocabulary
of well formed concepts from different implementations of OpenMRS worldwide (Martin 2006,
Mamlin 2007).
The issue of standards have also been discussed in detail within the domain of design science. For example, Owen (1997) describes the design research Knowledge is generated and
accumulated through action. Doing something and judging the results is the general model . . . the process is shown as a cycle in which knowledge is used to create works, and works are evaluated to
build knowledge our approach to standards see them as products of iterative actions of knowledge
ongoing design and implementation cycles, which over time are stabilized and accepted by concerned parties, for example in our case of interoperable modules of OpenMRS. So, knowledge gained in one module, could be used by other module, or there would be common patterns of knowledge gained, which could form standards that could be circulated from one setting to another. The figure 2 below represents such a practical approach to the development and implementation of standards.
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Figure 2. Illustration of shared knowledge (adopted from Vaishnavi
and Kuechler 2004/5)
In summary, our approach to develop and implement standards involves:
a. Enabling standards to evolve bottom up, based on practice, while adhering to global and
national definitions and guidelines.
b. Standards follow a hierarchy where the lowest level requires the most detailed standards and
subsequent levels above more abstracted.
c. The aim is to develop standards that are flexible and allows inputs from practices to be
incorporated over time and use.
4. CASE STUDY
We use the three level architecture framework to provide some examples from the case that can help
to understand the nature of standards.
4.1 Level 1: User and information needs
Each of the10 modules identified in the scope of work were subject to a requirement analysis with the
view to understand the information needs from the user perspective. The idea then is the module
Work Knowledge
Knowledge Work
Figure 3 - Billing module
Shared Knowledge
representing a
Module A
Module B
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functionalities could be identified and communicated for development. The functionalities would
need to cover at least two levels of information needs. The first is at the level of operational
transactions, for example what information should be captured while carrying out a registration
transaction for a patient. The second level is of the analysis reports that need to be generated for the
management. This would include both the transaction reports (for example, category wise break up of
patients registered in a day) and the indicator reports (say comparing registered patients with hospital
capacity in relation to beds, human resources, and financial outlays). Standards at this level then
require defining what data needs to be collected, periodicities, formats, and the formulation of various
reports and indicators. We illustrate this with an example from the requirement study carried out for
the billing module.
The billing module is one of the key and central modules as it represents the operational core at DDH.
We began the requirement analysis by first studying the existing system of billing, including the
underlying process and how it is inter-related to other processes such as registration and
investigations. We observed and analyzed the flow of patients to and from the billing counter and
identified all the possible permutation-combination of processes in the hospital, where the billing
process/counter played a role. This was followed by days of observation of the process of billing to
gauge the load of patients, per-patient time for billing and the average waiting time per patient in the
billing queue. A list of all the services, along with the unit prices was collected from the hospital.
Informal interactions were held with the billing staff and other hospital officials, regarding how they
work, the problems that they face with the existing system and what are the changes that they would
want to see in the system and the overall processes (see figure 3 above).
The empirical analysis
functionalities expected from the module. This draft was then
discussed internally with the team, revisions made, and then subsequently with the panel of officials at
the hospitals they were explained the existing working process and the proposed system, what were
the value additions and benefits they would get from the new system; and were asked for their
feedback on the mock ups presented. The draft was also presented to and discussed with the billing
staff, the actual users of the system for their feedback. Based on the feedback received from both level
of users administrative and operational - the requirement document was then revised and finally
written in the form of use-cases which explained in detail the required functionalities and features
from the module and provided the basis for the system development. In the box below we provide
example of two use cases.
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Box 1 Example of use-cases prepared for the billing module
As we started to work on the other modules, an important part of analysis and discussion was on the
role of this billing module in the overall system. As the box 1 above describes, operationally, the
billing serves at the central core. There was hence the dilemma of whether the module should serve
only the purpose of collecting the user charges, but also be a point of generation of orders, to be sent
out to other modules. Being a module serving only one major functionality (of collecting user-
charges, as opposed to the OPD/IPD modules that serve multiple functions), it was thus decided that
the billing module would also act as a point of generation of orders for various services to be
conducted, such as laboratory investigation. It thus became essential, that all the services provided by
the hospital, be populated as a part of the billing module. Hence, we needed to create hierarchy of
Use Case 1: Generation of a bill of services for each patient
Description
Billing Clerk should be able to generate a bill/ cash memo with the final amount to be paid by the patient/person which has details of service against which payment is made, name of person/id number and date
Work Flow
1 The patient should come to the billing counter with the name of the services to be availed on the OPD/ IPD/ discharge slip/ tender document/ambulance slip
2 The system should display 12 main categories (with sub-categories under each) under which billing can be done
3 The system should display the correct match for the patient record, in case of patient
4 The Billing clerk should the select the respective match 5 The Billing clerk should have the option of adding a new bill or only viewing the
previous bills 6 The Billing clerk should not be able to cancel or void any bill 7 To add a new bill, the Billing clerk should select the "add new" option 8 The Billing clerk should tag all the services to be billed 9 The system should display the names of all the services, amount of money to be
paid for each service as well as the total amount to be paid by the patient and date Use Case 2: Generating a work order for investigations
Description
Billing Clerk should be able to generate work order for all the investigations conducted in the hospital (under general lab, radiology, radiography, blood bank lab, ICTC lab, DOTs lab, IDSP lab). As soon as a service has been billed for, the respective laboratories, conducting the tests receive an alert that a test has been ordered for, for a given id number. Work Flow
10 The billing clerk should select the services that have to be billed
11 After all the services that have to be billed have been selected and the appropriate quantity of each service filled in, the system should generate the bill
12 As the system generates the bill, it should also send a request to the respective laboratory regarding the test to be conducted, for patient with id. No., the quantity of the test to be conducted and date of order of the service. (This should be displayed as an order, on the screen of the respective laboratory, to be accepted by the lab technician)
13 In case any investigation is non-functional in one of the labs (due to any reason), the lab technician should disable the particular test. The billing clerk should be able to view the enabled or disabled status of each test and bill/generate work order only if the test status is functional
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services , where all the services provided by the hospital, charged or free, were
incorporated in the design of the module. The various services were grouped under different
categories, based on the functionality of the service and the physical location of provision of the
service. 12 broad categories were identified, as described in the box below.
Box 2 12 Categories of billing
Taking the example of the general laboratory in the hierarchy, the general laboratory was divided into
5 sub-categories: Hematology, Biochemistry, Serology, Cytology and Urine examination. Under each
of these categories is listed, the individual tests. This categorization was done based on the work-flow
of the laboratory. Each of the categories of the tests are conducted together, at one physical location
within the laboratory and by one lab technician. Hence these tests were grouped together in the
hierarchy and the same categorization carried forward in the laboratory module (the work-lists for the
lab technicians and test results for each of these categories are entered together). The categorization of
the general laboratory is illustrated below:
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Figure 3 Hierarchy for general laboratory
Similarly, categorisation of hierarchy of X-Rays is illustrated below :
Figure 4 Figure for X-ray hierarchy
Billing module was also required to fill into the reporting needs of the hospital, especially accounting.
We categorized the reports into three categories transaction reports, management reports and
indicator reports. Transaction reports included the core one daily cash report (giving details of cash
collected under each of the 12 categories). Management reports from billing, included for example,
Investigation wise report giving details of money collections under each investigation type.
Indicator reports from billing included BPL (Below Poverty Line) services support this give
details of amount spent by the hospital on treatment of poor/BPL patients.
4.2 Level 2: Software application
After careful analysis of existing open source software hospital applications in developing country
settings, and also exploring the possibility of building an in-house application from scratch, we came
to the conclusion to build HospIS on basis of existing electronic medical record (EMR) system -
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OpenMRS. This decision was based on characteristics of OpenMRS a free and open source software
(FOSS) for EMR, which is collaborative effort between teams at Regenstrief Institute in Indianapolis
and Partners in Health (PIH), an NGO in Boston, USA. The ongoing collaboration has contributed to
the development of patient record based applications for HIV/AIDS and TB projects in developing
country contexts such as Western Kenya, Peru and Haiti (Mamlyn et al., 2006). The vision of
OpenMRS as stated in 2004 was: ...to provide the foundation and "building blocks" from which
fledgling implementations can begin constructing health information systems to meet specific needs.
nother stovepipe; but we hope that by using freely
available tools, employing modular design techniques, and sharing our work, we can seed something
bigger ibid). (pp. 529)
This collaboration itself provided the basis for the development of a new standard, and scaling it
bottom up to something bigger, This idea was
put into the foundation of OpenMRS design and development: flexibility and generatively the notion
concept and their data model; extendibility modular design and development; scalability
ability to increase in size and number of users, installation locations; gateways service APIs; and
deployment and interfacing with existing standards HL7, ICD10, LING, SNOMED and nowadays
SDMX-HD support as a module. Its scalability was evident in the fact that though OpenMRS had
been built originally for HIV/AIDS and TB (Seebergt et al., 2009), it had been applied to different
domains in more than 25 developing countries (Tierneya et al., 2010). This large user base was
supported by teams of collaborating IT and medical doctors, the use of active knowledge repositories
through mailing lists, web sites, workshops, and publications. In short, there existed a vibrant and well
supported user community around the application. Taking into account these technical and
institutional characteristics of OpenMRS and their focus on developing country contexts, this was the
platform chosen. In choosing this, we acknowledge that this platform was a clinic based system
suitable for a district hospital where patients visit a clinic, but not so for the primary health care
system which is based on outreach services.
Very briefly, OpenMRS is mainly organized as entities for recording encounters of patients with the
hospital, which leads to observations, each of which is linked to a concept, represented as an answer
or in the form of another question, which was answered at a later stage. A foundational feature here is
the concept entity with its hierarchical, referential and multi format data structure. There are two
other important entities to note: order and drug order, detailed also as concepts.
Using this core, we started the process of developing/customizing the 10 modules which were to
provide the building blocks for the HospIS. While some of these modules (such as billing and
finance) were external to the OpenMRS core, they still could use the core functionalities (such as
using concepts to store services, lab tests and drug orders to notify other modules, etc.) and feed other
modules with relevant information to help construct bottom up the overall hospital information
infrastructure. Given the challenge and aims of scaling, we tried to use the existing standards and
developed new ones to match our emerging needs.
As was noted earlier, the first two modules developed were registration and billing. Registration was
an addition to an existing patient registration functionality provided by OpenMRS, while the billing
module developed was completely new to OpenMRS. Also, the hospital had previous systems for
both these modules and staff was quite familiar with its use. The initial version of the billing module
had its own tables for services and pricing and corresponding concepts were linked to billing services.
In version two, the need for creating a hierarchy of services was demanded by hospital. This
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eventually led to using concepts as services. First, the concepts already had a hierarchical structure
which allowed us to generate hierarchy of various forms. Secondly, now we could uniformly use
concepts all over the system via the OpenMRS core APIs, eliminating redundancies. We then linked
prices to concepts and corresponding service concepts were created based on the services available in
the existing hospitals system, but now in a tree like hierarchy. Creating this hierarchy represented the
creating of a standard.
During iterative cycles of development and testing, the billing module started to undergo major
changes, conceptually, and with it the data structure and functionality. Now billing had to initiate and
trigger service delivery requests such as notifying the laboratory, radiology and blood bank modules
once the patient was charged accordingly. Billing thus became central to the HospMIS, and we are
currently debating how it should become a part of the hospital core. We also expect further changes to
the module as the OPD and IPD modules become functional. This represents the emergence of
standards through practice.
4.3 Level 3: Interoperability
The interoperability issue manifests at different levels, the first being sharing of data across modules.
An example of the interaction between the billing and radiology modules is described. While creating
for the billing module the concepts, which were either made new or selected from the pool of existing
ones (populated in the standard OpenMRS database), was done through series of discussions with
hospital doctors. There were mismatches in initial presentation of the module and existing hospital
practices, for example in setting hospital services for the radiology department. According to the
current DDH operations, radiology services patients were charged based on size and quantity of films
used. Mainly there were 3 types of film sizes to charge patients for irrespective of the type of
radiology and its complexity. But according to the design of the billing module, which had to follow
concept standards, this was not acceptable. First the billing module had to trigger an order notifying
radiology department for a x- -ray film
-ray type to perform.
Secondly, the billing clerk had no knowledge on what film size and quantity to assign to the case.
This is known only by the radiologist who selects film size based on x-ray type and age and body size
of patient. After bringing the issue to the attention of the hospital management, a meeting was
organized, where this issue was discussed. Next day the hospital came up with new list of x-ray
grouped into types, and views as subtypes. In total there were 74 x-ray types presented. Our baseline
concept database did
Creating this flexibility for the radiologist raised side effects for the billing module. It was hard and
time consuming for the billing clerk to find and select the appropriate x-ray from the 74 types. This
led to another round of meeting and discussions between the HISP team and hospital staff where it
was agreed to organize concepts in sets and redesign the graphical user interface to follow the same
hierarchy to make selection of x-rays easy for billing clerk. This example represents how the creation
of a standard involved various negotiations and agreements between the different interest groups.
At another level, interoperability involves the sharing of patient level data with the (aggregated)
facility level database. For example, valuable data collected through the everyday operation of
hospital such as related to patient details (age, gender), OPDs visited, diagnosis, tests conducted, date
and time of events need to be aggregated and summarized for being useful for managerial decision
making. For example, the Health Secretary wanted a report on how many patients were registered
from 8 pm to 8 am to examine whether the hospital provided efficient services during night time.
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Further, aggregated data also could need to be ported to other systems requiring both portability and
interoperability. In OpenMRS, each concept could be mapped to ICD10 standard codes, which while
providing semantic uniformity to enable data exchange, it still requires data to be made portable in
relation to metadata standards and well defined structure and syntax. SDMX-HD is a standard
released by WHO that seeks to enable this. SDMX-HD defines the structure of aggregated data as
well as validation rules for ensuring the completeness of the data.
5. DISCUSSION
We take the example of billing provided in this paper to describe the making of a standard in the
context of HospIS:
5.1 The name of the standard - Billable services in a district hospital
that
defines all these services in categories based on a hierarchy, which should be in sync with hospital
processes. E.g. for: the process of centralized billing agreed with hospital and now all billable services
are channelized through billing.
5.2 Process of development
155 billable services in DDH
patient services,
ambulance services, billing for tenders and a miscellaneous category of services. Taking the example
of X-ray hierarchy - hospital does 72 types of X-rays; these were divided into 26 types based on body
parts and further divided into views. (Figure 4 depicts this X-ray hierarchy)
The billing system is also catering to other kinds of billing services such as billing of tenders (floated
by hospital for purchase of various items), which is capturing data such as the name and address of the
company applying for tender, something the hospital did not have earlier. Similarly other billing is for
rent (being collected for leasing out space), student internship fees (being collected from nursing or
pharmacy interns); these items are now being billed and details being maintained under the
miscellaneous category of billing.
-work, for all the billable
services of the hospital. This when scaled to the other 19 hospitals in the state, would potentially serve
as a standard (or base), which could be customized to the specific requirements of the particular
hospital.
5.3 Process of implementation
This billing framework was implemented through the
Each of the billable services in the hierarchy has been defined as a concept, using the OpenMRS
dictionary. Concepts as defined in the OpenMRS framework are individual points of data collected
from each patient. Thus, through these concepts, data about the tests being conducted by each of the
patients is being gathered. Each of these services/concepts is in-turn assoc
triggered, to be sent to the respective department (module).
example for billing of all tests being conducted in the general laboratory of the hospital, the order
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at different locations and serving different purposes, are also link
encounter represents a single interaction of the patient with hospital
based on different locations have been defined such as a or a .
Based on the nature of the encounters, different security roles were developed and applied to the use
of information through an authorization process.
d us to understand the various processes and
practices that would need to be standardized at DDH. For example, X-rays, that were previously being
charged based on the size of X-ray films being used, was now changed to a standard price per film,
for all X-rays. Services such as tenders, rent, student fees, have now been standardized, with a specific
process in place and details of each of these transactions being captured.
CONCLUSIONS
The example of billable services presented above has been developed through the case study where
elements of its design, development, and implementation have been identified in the process of the
making of the standard. As we see standards to be developed and reified in practice, through use, it
may be still premature to conclude of how successful or effective this standard will be on this, time
will tell. Overall, the process described has helped to identify the framework within which the various
standards across all the modules can be identified. The three level architecture consisting of levels of
information, software, and interoperability will be drawn upon to sketch out the various standards.
While making this standard work in one setting through use in DDH is of course the primary
challenge, at the next level we need to see how this standard (and others) can be scaled to the other 19
hospitals in the state. Our approach would be to take the identified standards as the reference list as
we go to the other hospitals and then study the existing systems there within this background, and see
what is it that is additional or not. Through this process of analysis, the aim would be to develop a set
hospitals in the state would need to adhere to this core standard, while having the flexibility to add
something to cater to local requirements. They would however, not have the freedom to remove
anything from the core list. This is essence divides the process of the making and the scaling of
standards as envisaged by us for DDH in particular, and to the state more generally.
In summary, our understandings of standards from the domain of primary health care systems have
provided us with a firm foundation to approach the complex issue of standards in the district hospital
setting. As these standards are not being imposed from the top, but have evolved through practice
based on a strongly participative approach, we expect there is a higher potential of it being accepted
as something useful and useable. The future challenge would be to take these standards into the other
hospitals, where undoubtedly local practices and traditions will challenge these standards, which may
be then Continuing this participatoryy approach while allowing for
local flexibility within a defined framework will be our proposed approach.
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IFIP WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
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Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
NETWORKS OF NETWORKS COLLABORATIVE EFFORTS TO DEVELOP HEALTH INFORMATION SYSTEMS ACROSS DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
Abstract: The challenge of scale and sustainability in health information systems development, especially in resource-poor settings, is well known. Earlier studies have argued for organizing such development in networks to increase the chances of success, as well as the heterogeneity leading to better understanding and thus better products. This paper looks at ongoing efforts in West Africa, which have grown in scale to include networks of networks. This has large synergetic effects, much beyond linear growth. The study discusses these effects, as well as the strategies of achieving such second order networks, using notions of attractors, architecture, and standards. The specific case involved is the convergence of many efforts to strengthen health information systems across the region, linking networks whose primary focus vary from global to regional and local, from policies to software development and advocacy.
Keywords: health information systems, West Africa, Sierra Leone, networks, action research
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NETWORKS OF NETWORKS COLLABORATIVE EFFORTS TO DEVELOP HEALTH INFORMATION SYSTEMS ACROSS DEVELOPING COUNTRIES
1. INTRODUCTION
This article describes and discusses the way in which different processes and networks for strengthening Health Information Systems (HIS) in West Africa have developed, converged and mutually strengthened each other creating a significant momentum for change in the area of HIS in
(Braa, Monteiro, Sahay 2004), we describe the phenomena under development in West Africa as the
2004 as a response to the fact that individual pilots and action research projects tended not to survive in the longer run unless they formed collaborative networks with other similar projects and other activists. Based on the analysis of the case from West Africa, we bring this concept one step further; when already existing networks are coming together through mutual benefit and shared interests, their combined momentum, relevance and impact will by far go beyond the sum of the networks. The effect of networking existing networks of action is far greater than networking singular units and actors.
In this earlier study, it was pointed out that each one of the projects or initiatives may be too weak to survive alone, but by combining forces by building collaborative networks sufficient strength may be achieved to build further momentum (ibid.). Furthermore, the individual projects will need to scale in order to get beyond the pilot phase. In general terms this is about building tools, knowledge, trust and competence enough to actually convince user organisations that the results of the pilot need to be implemented and scaled up. More specifically in the area of HIS, an added complication is that country health administrations tend to require country-wide solutions, causing
this story: 1) create more strength by joining disparate actors, and 2) create momentum through scaling.
Networks range from the formal to the informal. The West African Health Organisation, to be described in the case section, is a formally organised network of 15 member states. The Health Information Systems Programme (HISP) network, also to be described, is much less formal, but with many nodes run by budgets and other formalities. Networks of second order, networks made up by networks, are rarely developing and converging by design, rather convergence and growth of networks seem to be emerging. Central to the emerging of such new order are attractors (Braa et al, 2007). Attractors may emerge and become de facto, industry standard such as MS Windows, or they can emerge as networks that are attracting increasing attention and following as the network around the open source DHIS2 software, which is one of the networks in our case material. The development of this network has not been by design; the interacting networks are too many to make it possible to see far into the future. Rather this network has emerged as an attractor through directional improvisations and an ability to align other actors and forge strategic relationships, and in applying an open architecture that allows networks to link up.
The strive to achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG), where 3 out of 8 goals are health related, has led to a strong demand for quality health information in order to be able to see if efforts to improve the situation are working (see for example Chan 2007, HMN 2010a). The availability of quality information depends on well-functioning HIS, one of the six pillars of a health system (WHO 2005, 2007). The MDG process has led to increased donor support for many programs (such as TB, malaria, vaccination programs, maternal health care,
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etc.). Unfortunately, donors often introduce particular systems for data collection and reporting that sidestep established reporting routines. The resulting complexity, coupled with poor human resources and infrastructure, easily leads to fragmentation and poor data quality.
This again has led to several international organizations specifically addressing these challenges with new strategies. The International Health Partnership1, aims to harmonize aid agencies, and align international efforts with national systems. The Partnership in Statistics for Development in the 21st Century2, helps countries adapt evidence-based policy making and implementation to reach the MDGs. The Health Metrics Network (HMN)3 was created to strengthen country HIS and information use, through integration of subsystems and data sources. Other international donors, the initial source of many of the fragmented systems, have as a result adapted a strategy of improving integrated national HIS rather than implementing new, narrow, specific subsystems. There thus seems to be a considerable consensus on the need for consolidation, integration and collaboration in health information systems globally (AbouZahr and Boerma 2005; Tierney et al. 2008).
Over the last 3-4 years more than 60 countries have applied tools developed by HMN to assess their current HIS, and then based on this assessment develop strategic plans for strengthening their HIS. The third phase of this HMN strategy is, obviously, for the countries to implement their strategic plans. The problem, however, is that there are no funds readily available to support countries to implement this. The current situation is thus that multiple countries are eager to get going with their HIS processes and are looking for partners and funding, while at the same time regional and global agencies and networks are increasingly looking for partners to assist countries. This is the fertile and enabling context for the building of networks of networks, which will be described and discussed in this article.
The development of the HISP network during the nineties and the early 2000s formed the basis for the concept of networks of action. HISP was engaged in HIS development, open source software, education and action research, and the development of the network during the period was more
-educational schemes were established in different countries, and HISP was engaged in the global debate on strategies for HIS development, of which there were no global consensus. This situation changed by the establishment of HMN in 2005, first more generally by gradually establishing a kind of global consensus on the need for integrated HIS approaches, and second, more specifically linked to key HISP software activities; making the use of a country data warehouse a standard approach to HIS integration. The DHIS2 Open source application suite being developed by HISP was well aligned with this new standard promoted by HMN, as were the ten years of experience from HIS development in many countries, leading to a significant increase in global interest in HISP. The concept of networks of networks are developed as a way to better explore and understand the current enabling global context for HISP and HIS network building, the topic for this article.
Outline of the article; first we present methodological considerations, then we present a conceptual framework focusing on networks and the role of attractors before describing the case, discussion and conclusion.
2. METHODOLOGY
This paper builds on case material from a set of global and local activities that converge in West Africa, and that are the operational results of a long-term, ongoing, action research project the
1 http://www.internationalhealthpartnership.net/en/home2 http://www.paris21.org/3 http://www.who.int/healthmetrics/en/
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authors are engaged in. Action research is a form of participative research where the researcher takes part in the change processes in an organization, actively trying to improve some stated problem (Checkland and Holwell 1998; Avison, Lau et al. 1999).
Our research then, centers on understanding the processes at work, while at the same time use this understanding to improve on the current situation. We are all, to various extents and changing over time, immersed in change-processes, working closely with the owners of the problems we try to solve. As such, we are involved in open-ended and continuous phases of design, development, implementation, and evaluation of interventions, with a stated aim at improving some given subject, as according to principles of action research (Susman and Evered, 1978). The authors have thus participated in most of the events described in the case description later.
In 2004, Braa, Monteiro, and Sahay articulated the networks of action approach for the HISP network, which discussed the value of learning and doing in networks rather than in isolated instances. The point of departure for this articulation was earlier studies of action research concluding with the need to situate the action within networks rather than on singular units because isolated action research projects did not manage to create enough momentum to attain sustainability. Therefore, the focus needed to be shifted ons and
(Engelstad and Gustavsen 1993, p. 209). Activities within an action research setting could be geared towards creating collaborative linkages, which would be harder applying a less participatory research method.
As the title of this paper suggests, the research in this study is even more broadly based, in networks of networks of action. In other words, the research described herein is based on activeparticipation by the authors in various change processes (organized as networks of implementation and research localities), converging in a common, larger, process involving several such networks varying in nature. The concept of networks and the four networks involved are described later; here it suffices to say there are differences in scope, location, approaches, and legitimacy, while the similarities are strong enough to foster strong collaboration towards shared aims.
The authors hold pivotal positions in three of the networks portrayed in this paper, and have thus
has enabled us to look at events and processes from different angles, and we have also a broader set of experiences as we approached these events with different agendas and backgrounds in the first place. Furthermore, three of the networks are global, with related work going on in many different localities. Conceptualizing the herein described events builds on comparative experiences from many other countries, a base of experiences that help discern particularities from generalities.
2.1. Data collection
The authors have all been part of a wide range of activities in Sierra Leone, West Africa, and other countries implementing the same HIS applications. Two of the authors have spent considerable time in Sierra Leone for the University of Oslo and Health Metrics Network, key nodes of two of the networks, traveling the country developing, implementing, and adapting software, and above all engaging in capacity building. This amounts to several months each over the last three years. Combined, the authors have been involved in all aspects of the Sierra Leone implementation, from the technical aspects to discussing data reporting harmonization among health development partners, presentations with the Ministry of Health to donors and partner organizations, and coordinating feedback to the global distributed user and developer community around DHIS2. At the regional level, supporting implementation of the two applications DHIS2 and iHRIS in several countries, participation in workshops, and working closely with other partners, has been undertaken. All these heterogeneous activities have put the authors in contact and communication with a wide range of stakeholders, from nurses and information officers in facilities and districts, to ministers and directors of large organizations. A range of field diaries, trip reports, scientific
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papers (see for example Sæbø et al. 2011) , reports for external funders (for example HMN 2010b), and email threads provide a rich source of information on the longitudinal processes.
2.2. Data analysis
The conceptualization of the events and processes described in this paper has taken place over many years. With all authors based in different geographical locations, recent workshops in relation to the work in West Africa were used to discuss the processes and events leading to the acceleration of scale and scope of implementation. The ideas around networks of networks, and more specifically how these meta-networks emerge, can thus be said to be greatly facilitated by these networks themselves, as they brought together the range of perspectives that shaped our understanding.
3. THEORETICAL CONCEPTS
In this section we briefly present some theoretical concepts that are useful for analyzing the networks of networks. Again, we draw on the research by Braa, Monteiro, and Sahay (2004), discussing and describing the growth of the HISP project into a network. The network was alreadythen heavily engaged in the real world politics of competing agendas. Being involved in the development of national health information systems in India and several African countries, HISP was everywhere caught in the cross-fire of different political interests, as donors, health programs and health authorities would all pursue their own interests. The political context of competing agendas was played out very much as the issue of which network will end up dominating the others. networks was used to formulate the agenda of HISP, which was working in several countries, as the making and growth of networks. Furthermore, it was used to pose the questions such as whose networks are these, and who gets included or marginalized by certain dynamics.
Building on this theorizing, in this paper we outline and discuss the concepts and values of an works of networks are qualitatively
different than singular networks. The difference is surely not in linear terms and based on numbers (of networks), but in qualitative terms based on the substantive interests and roles of the networks.
A network is a relatively loose construction consisting of individual, projects and organizations bound together and networked through a more or less shared agenda. For example, if we regard HISP as one network, other open source software groups working in health are also making up networks. Another such network consists of various projects and implementers related to the OpenMRS software. The Health Metrics Network (HMN) represents another typical network engaged in strengthening HIS in countries. While having their base formally located within WHO, a number of countries, organizations and individuals are being networked through the HMN and their activities. The notion of networks of networks is referring to the situation where such different networks are aligning their interests, or gravitating around an attractor, and formingexactly that; networks of networks.
To better understand how networks are being aligned and converged into networks of networks, we draw on the theories of complex adaptive systems (CAS). CAS is concerned with the dynamics with which complex systems, or networks in our case, evolve through adaptation. CAS are seen as being made up of semiautonomous agents with the inherent ability to change and adapt in response to other agents and to the environment (Holland 1995).
Of particular importance is to understand how order within such systems is created without a , but rather emerges. Central to the emergence of orders are attractors; a limited range of
possible states within which the system stabilizes. The simplest attractor is a single point (Braa et al. 2007; Eoyang 1996). Patterns exhibited during changes of complex systems are described as
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smaller planet that is attracted by two suns would have a more erratic path, being attracted at
Orders emerge around attractors through various feedback mechanisms, and through path-dependent processes of many small steps that may end in lock-in situations (David 1986). A de facto, or emergent, standard, such as MS Windows or the QWERTY keyboard, is a typical
en seeking to bring about changes in areas where there is only moderate certainty and agreement (Plsek and Wilson 2001). More generally, attractors are useful as they help describing the stages of the evolution of systems (Butz, 1997).
Attractors then provide a focus on which the different networks can converge. In the case study, we discuss the SDMX-HD standard on interoperability and how it has evolved into a status of an attractor to which different networks are converging. As contrasted to a singular network, in a network of networks the forces of convergence (as well as divergence) are magnified allowing the attractor to take on even more significant roles.
Networks of networks heighten the nature of indeterminacy of processes and with it both potentialand challenges to new efforts. When different networks are linked, new attractors may be created with potential to attract even others, as in the example of the SDMX-HD standard will show.
4. EMPIRICAL CASE THE CONVERGENCE OF NETWORKS
4.1. Summary of events
While the story in this article is unfolding in West Africa, two of the networks involved are of global nature. The Health Metrics Network (HMN) at WHO, initiated in 2005 to strengthen HIS globally, developed a set of three steps to be followed by countries; assessment, develop strategic plan, and implementation. Important in this story is that 1) they selected Sierra Leone, in West Africa, as one of five pilot countries to generate knowledge about implementation processes, and 2) they developed the HMN Framework; an overall HIS architecture describing different building blocks, all of which feeding data into a pivotal integrated data repository, building on general data warehouse principles. For the pilot in Sierra Leone, HMN required an open source applicationfilling the requirements of a data warehouse in the context of one of the poorest countries in the world, just recently emerging from civil war. Given these requirements, and the track records of the MS Office based DHIS v1 in other African countries, HMN chose to use the DHIS2 software, being developed by the HISP network, the second significant network in this story. Development of the web based and fully open source software DHIS2, started in 2004 and had in 2007 been implemented in pilots in India. During 2008-2009, the DHIS2 as well as the overall HIS in Sierra Leone developed into a best-practice project in West Africa, which was widely communicated by HMN as they approached the end of their first five years and needed to show results. Due to this, more countries in West Africa started to look into the DHIS2, with the Gambia as a first newcomer in 2009. International focus on interoperability led to a pilot setup of an integrated suite, starting in Sierra Leone, where the OpenMRS (medical records) and the iHRIS (human resource records) Open Source applications exported their aggregate data to DHIS2. At this point the West African Health Organisation (WAHO), the third significant network here, got interested. Their Human Resource department would like the member countries to use the iHRIS application,developed by the fourth network, CapacityPlus, who was in discussion with HISP, HMN, and Sierra Leone about iHRIS implementation there. WAHO started to use the fact that it was integrated with DHIS2 (by now well established as part of HMNs success in Sierra Leone) in theirpromotion of the use of iHRIS, which again was increasing the interest by countries to use the DHIS2.
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4.2. Presentation of the networks
The Health Information Systems Programme (HISP)4 is a loose network of universities, developers, implementing agencies, and individuals. Many nodes are formalized around certain budgeted activities, such as implementation of DHIS in a country, or managing programs of higher education at universities. The main activities are software development of DHIS, both v1 (South Africa) and v2 (distributed, coordinated from Norway), research, education at Master and PhD level in several countries, and HIS strengthening.
The Health Metrics Network5 is based at the WHO headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, and was established by this organization to strengthen HIS in countries. It has since 2005 supported more than 60 countries in doing HIS assessments, half of those leading to strategic plans for HIS strengthening, and been an important voice in advocating for investment in integrated information systems assisting monitoring and evaluation of the health systems as a whole in several seminal conferences and workshops.
WAHO, the West African Health Organization6, was officially created in 1998 as a health division of ECOWAS, the organization for political and economic integration and cooperation of West Africa. It consists of 15 member countries; 2 lusophone, 5 anglophone, and 8 francophone, and is mainly self-funded through regional import taxation. This makes it independent from changes in donor priorities, often a huge problem for national health initiatives. Being a fairly young organization operating in a landscape of shifting political stability, WAHO is still building capacity to help countries improve their health systems and meet the challenge of an increasingly integrated and mobile population.
CapacityPlus7 is a donor/project-driven network; the USAID-funded global project uniquely
focused on the health workforce needed to achieve the Millennium Development Goals. CapacityPlus helps partner countries achieve significant progress in addressing the health worker crisis while also having global impact through alliances with multilateral organizations. The project builds on the accomplishments of the Capacity Project, which worked in 47 countries.
The table below shows some important features of the networks in this study.
HISP WAHO HMN CapacityPlus
Main activities Research and implementation of HIS, specifically DHIS2, an open source HMIS platform
Guiding member states with policies, capacity building (workshops), and technical support
Assist countries in doing HIS assessments and make strategic plans. Standard setting and advocacy for HIS investment
Build country HRH capacity; strengthen health workforce information
Base of legitimacy Scientific, sustainable and participatory approaches. Capacity building in implementing countries. Proven success. Members from implementing countries.
Ownership and self-financing from member states (15). Health arm of ECOWAS, political support. Proximity and personal relations with key actors
Framework and Standards for HIS becoming both de facto and de jure standard. Partnership with WHO, professional for over 50 years.
USAID flagship global project for HRH, open source iHRIS software becoming reference implementation
Important actors in Universities, HIS Ministries of Health, WHO, global actors USAID,
4 www.hisp.uio.no/5 www.healthmetricsnetwork.org6 www.wahooas.org7 www.capacityplus.org
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network units in ministries of health, distributed development centres.
Donor organizations, ECOWAS politicalumbrella
like Global Fund, UNAIDS, CDC Other collaboration centres and initiatives
IntraHealth, TRG, Abt, LATH, IMA formal partners, many regional and country HIS partners
Table 1. Presentation of the networks
4.3. The first attractor Creating a success story
As mentioned, the first two networks to come together were HMN and HISP, collaborating on the implementation of a data warehouse at national and district level in Sierra Leone from late 2007.HMN had signed a letter of agreement with the Ministry of Health and Sanitation, forming a relationship at the highest political level, while HISP was contracted as an implementing partnerlargely working with the national HIS unit and in the districts. In early 2008, four out of 13districts were selected to pilot the new data warehouse, and substantial efforts were laid down to train district staff in using the application to collect, process, analyse, and use health information. By the start of 2009, the data warehouse had been implemented in the rest of the country. Consolidation of the implementation took place throughout the following year, with steadily increasing data reporting rates, and a few districts beginning to see results on health indicators from their use of information for planning. This was capitalized on by HMN, who sent an information officer to write up a story about the emerging success (HMN 2009a). The HMN secretariat also reported to the board, in October that yeardemonstrating the performance and utility of the information produced by the DHIS is a best practice that must be shared with other countries HMN was facing increasing pressure to document and disseminate results as their main financial grant was coming to an end. They had achieved much less success in their other pilot countries, reflected in the amount of weekly information bulletins distributed to around one thousand readers globally over the last 2 years; 3 on Sierra Leone, and 1 on another country building on the lessons from Sierra Leone, compared to 3 from the other four pilot countries combined8. HMN needed a success, and it was found in Sierra Leone. The country in turn dominated the HMN Results Report, summing up the achievements of HMNs investment in country support (HMN 2010b).
The success of the new system in Sierra Leone was real. In 2009 a review of the current data reporting forms in Sierra Leone was done, and a harmonized, reduced, set of forms were implemented from 2010 (for a discussion on these processes, see REF comparative paper). The fairly instant improvements in data reporting rates were received positively by a domestic network of health development partners, consisting of the main donors and NGOs active in the country, including WHO, UNICEF, JICA, IRC, CARE etc. By late 2009, several of them agreed to rely on the national data warehouse for their reporting needs, thus discontinuing parallel information systems, and they were included in subsequent workshops to build capacity in the use of the system. In 2010 then, with the introduction of the latest generation of harmonized reporting forms, the system was acknowledged as the national HIS when it was decided that it, and only that system, would be used to track and evaluate a major initiative to offer free mother and child health care, a program funded by a major donor and in which the president put his prestige. These events undoubtedly represent a huge success, though there still are challenges as expected from such a long-term process to sustainably change a whole set of institutions. The important issue here is that HMN made this success visible, by using it for advocacy, self-legitimacy, and fund raising at
8 See http://www.who.int/healthmetrics/news/weekly_highlights/en/index.html for all bulletins
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the global level. An example had been pushed forward, and an attractor for other countries in the region had been created. This would grow to be a major force for bringing the networks together.
4.4. The second attractor Interoperability enabling modular architecture
In late 2009, WHO had initiated a process to develop a data exchange standard for health metadata and statistics, building on an existing standard for financial transactions. This new protocol, SDMX-HD9, was still not implemented by any application, far less in any real use-case setting by early 2010. Nevertheless, HMN and HISP decided to push this forward with implementation in Sierra Leone of a system that could both track patients on Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART), and share this data with the data warehouse running on DHIS2, as stipulated in the original strategic plan for the country. OpenMRS, a medical record application, was set up in the main hospital, and in the weeks before this took place in February 2010, major advancements were made to SDMX-HD, spurred by the fact it was now implemented in two applications. The main idea is that OpenMRS has the functionalities needed for doctors and nurses to track patients over time, while the aggregate data from this system is used for general health management at hospital, district, and national level. This two-level use applies to other domains and applications also, such as logistics management, human resource management, lab systems, health finances etc. With SDMX-HD set to go live in Sierra Leone at a given date, developers behind DHIS2 and OpenMRS not only pushed development forward by implementing this standard in the respective applications, they also contributed the necessary use-case to solve outstanding issues.
The development of SDMX-HD made an HIS architecture of various applications for different business domains a reality, through a standard developed and promoted by WHO. Anyone able to
important step was clearly associated with Sierra Leone, a fact which greatly spread the knowledge about the ongoing activities there. These two facts combined; the interoperability being possible and backed by WHO, and that it was seen as growing out of the Sierra Leone implementation, spurred further events.
While HMN and HISP were collaborating in Sierra Leone, CapacityPlus, a partner of HISP and HMN specializing in strengthening health workforce information systems, was partnering with WAHO to pilot open source HRIS software in Ghana.
In May 2010, fairly short after the first implementation of the simple interoperable architecture with DHIS2 and OpenMRS in Sierra Leone, WAHO presented the results of the Ghana pilot to the human resource and IS leadership of countries in the ECOWAS region. CapacityPlus participated in the meeting and encouraged WAHO to invite the participation of HMN to discuss the planned expansion of the architecture also with iHRIS, their suite of applications for human resource (HR) management. Since iHRIS was also implementing the SDMX-HD standard, aggregated data could be shared with DHIS2. Many of the participating countries planning implementation of iHRIS were by now also planning implementation of DHIS2, and WAHO, HMN, and CapacityPlus decided to host a joint workshop to offer training in both, and quickly included HISP and WHO in the planning.
With a tight schedule, the workshop being planned for September 2010, things moved fast. The prospect of demonstrating interoperability with DHIS2, which was attracting considerable interest in the region due to the Sierra Leone implementation being pushed as a big HMN success, led CapacityPlus to finalize SDMX-HD compatibility of iHRIS. WHO also sponsored lead developers to join, -HDthe previous year. Present were also organizations of other applications planning the implementation of SDMX-HD compatibility. At the end of the workshop, interoperability of DHIS2, iHRIS, OpenMRS, and the WHO Indicator Measurement Registry (IMR), was officially
9 see www.sdmx-hd.org
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launched, with one WHO representative pointing out the appropriateness of this taking place among countries adopting the standard-supporting applications.
During the workshop, several countries made more formal request to HISP, HMN and CapacityPlus representatives there for support of implementation of DHIS2 and iHRIS. WAHO was already supporting iHRIS implementation, and invited HISP, CapacityPlus, and HMN to the
Forum in November the same year, where HIS staff from all 15 WAHO member states were present. There, it was decided that HMN, WAHO, HISP, and CapacityPlus should collaborate to develop a centre of excellence at WAHO for supporting member countries in adopting the interoperable solutions which had grown out of Sierra Leone.
5. DISCUSSION
In this section, we would like to highlight two key aspects drawing upon the case study presented. The first concerns the synergies that have emerged from the creation of networks of networks. The second concerns our reflections on the strategies formal and informal that have helped enable these synergies.
5.1. The synergies emerging from networks of networks
In simple terms, synergies can be understood as the value added effects that arise when two or more singular events or parties come together (1+1>2), and in this process both events and parties benefit mutually. Through the case described, we can discern several kinds of synergistic effects from the creation of networks of networks.
Often health information systems implementations are impeded by the lack of political legitimacy from the multiple levels (global to local) that are needed to make them work. Local field efforts while building user level legitimacy run into roadblocks while trying to scale because they have not obtained the buy in from the national level. The HISP network for many years focused on small scale pilots, for example two districts in Cuba, which never scaled because of the lack of legitimacy of the central unit in Havana (Sæbø and Titlestad 2004). Similarly, often national level efforts require the endorsement of global actors like the WHO and HMN. For example, the routine immunization system in India could be mandated to every district in the country because it had the legitimacy of WHO behind it. Any one group of actors cannot come with the legitimacies representing these different levels, and fundamentally requires networking that creates such legitimacies and visibility that mutually feed on each other.
For example, in our case, HMN with its global legitimacy derived from its WHO links opened the possibility of the HISP network to work on the ground in Sierra Leone which again helped to create local legitimacy through the successes achieved. This success was important and used by HMN to showcase and enhance their own legitimacy, and of course both HISP and the country gained by showing what could be achieved in the most trying of conditions. The success was then spread to other countries in the region and then taken up by the WAHO network, leading to further invitations by them to support efforts of the WAHO countries. Creating and reinforcing such legitimacy at multi-levels, which becomes easily visible in the contemporary context with the help of the Internet and rapid movement of people, was a definite synergistic effort gained through the network of networks.
5.2. Self-reinforcing effects and the role of attractors
Attractors help to provide a consistent point of convergence which helps to bring a sense of order in a situation of relative chaos. Attractors can help to create self-reinforcing effects, where as events and people converge on the attractor, the legitimacy of the same gets reinforced which helps to attract more and create more order. And particular forces that converge to the attractor themselves gain in legitimacy and strength by aligning itself to the attractor. From the case, we discuss the role of two attractors that provided significant networked effects.
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region and the global HMN. The HMN started with 5 countries including Sierra Leone in which they sought to demonstrate their interventions with respect to health systems strengthening. For various reasons, efforts in the other countries did not show much positive results (except in Belize,
, and it was only Sierra Leone where positive results were in evidence. HMN needed to show some success, and onlySierra Leone qualified to be described as one, leading to HMN declaring it as a success. With this, it became more of a success, making it an attractor, and more of
We can further describe two s , first in the form of the DHIS2 software application, and then as the SDMX-HD standard developed by the WHO to enable the interoperability of aggregate data. The HMN technical framework, established as a standard for country HIS integration and strengthening, included the establishment of a country data repository to manage aggregate data from various sub-systems. The DHIS2 was the data repository used in Sierra Leone, and when Sierra Leone was declared a success, implicitly DHIS2 was also.Furthermore, there were no other open source software applications of generic and shareable nature used in other countries, so DHIS2 emerged as a key technical attractor from the Sierra Leone case during 2008 and 2009. In 2010 the WHO project to develop the SDMX-HD standard for interchanging aggregate data was first implemented and tested to transfer data from OpenMRS and DHIS2 in one hospital in Sierra Leone. A few months later, in September 2010, the standardwas officially launched at a WAHO workshop in Accra where the interoperability between DHIS2, iHRIS and OpenMRS was the case in question. The efforts to develop a standard for exchange of aggregate data had been ongoing in WHO for some time before without much success. But now that first the efforts in Sierra Leone had been initiated and had high visibility, itlead to a large focus on the workshop in Accra, and thereby to establish the SDMX-HD as a second technical attractor in this story. This time by bringing together the various networks of WHO, HMN, WAHO, iHRIS/CapacityPlus, OpenMRS and DHIS2/HISP, a strong and fundamental technical attractor was created.
The evolving of this second technical attractor has significant further implications the positioning of an architecture over an individual system solution. Although the DHIS2 is what the countries want to implement first, the fact that DHIS2 is a central piece of a larger architecture, the first step of implementing the DHIS2 becomes more inviting for others to join, it is more inclusive. The iHRIS network wants to plug in to this architecture, thus furthering the networking effects. Sierra Leone themselves are keen to explore how other systems like for example logistics management can also plug into the architecture. In this architecture approach, we may say that whole netw At the global level, WHO will like to showcase the success with the standard they have developed and this may lead to other effects.
However, it is also important to note that while attractors can trigger of self-reinforcing effects, they themselves can be redefined with time, and with different meanings for the actors that have been attracted to it. For example, as the focus of HMN is becoming redefined from health information systems strengthening to vital events registration, the attractors described above both technical and political will not have its original meaning, and may need to be redefined to the new setting of vital events for it to be useful.
5.3. Strategies enabling these synergies
What have been the HISP strategies to enable such synergies? Strategies have not been formal or well planned and documented which all members are trying to follow. Yes, despite this, there hasbeen a definite direction, a path in which constant movement has taken place. On reflecting over events say over the last 5 years or so, we can try to identify some key elements of our strategic effects.
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Directional improvisation is a term we coin to describe the process of our movement. In her (2007) describes the differences in approaches
of a European and Trukese navigator. While the former works by first creating a plan and then acts in relation to that, the Trukese has a vision of direction in place, and then takes advantage of the existing conditions (the wind, the waves, stars etc) to navigate the path. The HISP approach is akin to that of the Trukese, the broad direction (of wanting to create such enabling networks) is known, but the conditions such as political support, available technologies, resources etc are a product of the here and now which have to be acted upon with best effects.
To enable the above, we use the acronym of AAA. Awake means HISP tries to be present in situations where they perceive opportunities may arise. For example, being present in Dakar in the WAHO meeting provided the opportunity to network with 15 countries in one framework. Alert means to be alive to the different possibilities that exist given the conditions, and use the experience and understanding to make choices. Agile means the quality to act quickly and decisively, for example by being able to provide support to countries in the West African region that are in the process of implementing the DHIS2, such as Liberia, Ghana and Burkina Faso
The second element of the strategy can be seen as understanding and working towards the networking role of architectures. Architectures are not only technical artefacts as is described by many of the technologists today. The important and neglected aspect of architectures is that it creates networking effects and with it the resulting synergies.
The interoperability SDMX-HD standard not only brings three technical systems (DHIS2, iHRIS and OpenMRS) together, but with it the surrounding networks and their further networks. Such networking provides then the pooling of interests, resources, and opens up strategies for scaling.Put differently, the architecture approach, made possible by shared standards, allows not only technical artefacts to be integrated (in our case software), but so also the networks that surround and support these artefacts.
An important and conscious aspect of the HISP effort is to see how different actors through networks can leverage complementarities. In the WAHO-HISP relation for example, WAHO comes in with the strength of its political legitimacy and mandate to support the countries in the region. HISP has its legitimacy as a strong technical support group in HIS; with roots in theUniversity of Oslo and educational processes. Through its networking, WAHO gains in strengthening its technical capacities, HISP strengthens its presence in the region, while simultaneously their original capacities are reinforced.
6. CONCLUSIONS
In this paper we have described synergies arising from the growth of networks of networks of HIS strengthening. While the benefits of such networks are many, the question arises as to how such networks of the second order can come to be. We argue that attractors of several domains play a large role, as well as an application architecture promoting the linking up of several networks. In this context, directional improvisation, a proactive use of flexibility, is useful for taking full advantage of the emerging momentum, as well as directing where the momentum will lead. As for replicability in other regions and for other domains, the position held by WAHO seems so far to yield the crucial level and positioning of legitimacy for HIS scaling and sustainability, a lesson hopefully applicable with similar regional political units.
Future research on this topic in general should focus on how such networks of networks can be leveraged to strengthen local capacity in developing countries, an area where this approach has much potential. Also, given that one of the major networks described, the HMN, has recently scaled down operations and changed strategic direction, the landscape of global legitimacy and support for HIS strengthening has changed. How such a change influence the dynamics of the processes described is yet to be addressed.
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7. REFERENCES AND CITATIONS
AbouZahr, C, and Boerma, T, Health information systems: the foundations of public health Bulletin of the World Health Organization 2005;83:578-583.http://www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/83/8/578.pdf
Avison, D., F. Lau, et al. (1999). "Action Research." Communications of the ACM 42(1): 94-97.
Sustainable Health Information 004, PP 337-362
Braa, O., Hanseth, O., Heywood A, Shaw, V (2007) Developing health information system in developing countries: the flexible standards strategy. MIS Quarterly Vol 31 Special Issue August 2007
Butz, M. (1997), Chaos and complexity: implications for psychological theory and practice. Washington DC, CRC Press.
Castells, M. The Rise of the Network Society, Basil Blackwell, Oxford, 1996.
Chan, M (2007) Opening remarks at the Fourth Global Meeting of Heads of WHO Country Offices, November 12, 2007. Accessed March 4, 2011 http://www.who.int/dg/speeches/2007/20071112_geneva/en/
Checkland, P. and S. Holwell (1998). "Action Research: Its Nature and Validity." Systemic Practice and Action Research 11(1): 9- 21
David, P. A., and Shurmer, M. (1996) Formal Standards-Setting for Global Telecommunications Telecommunications Policy (20), 1996, pp. 789-815.
Engelstad, P., and Gustavsen, B. (1993)Human Relations (46:2), February 1993, pp. 219-248.
Eoyang, G. (1996) "Complex? Yes! Adaptive? Well, maybe..." Interactions (3:1) , pp. 31-37.
HMN (2009a)http://www.who.int/healthmetrics/HMN_Oct09_newsletter_web_new.pdf
HMN (2009b) [B2009/13/3], in board proceedings for the 13th
HMN Board Meeting, Geneva, 14-16 October 2009. accessed November 28, 2010, http://www.who.int/healthmetrics/HMN_13Board_Meeting_web1.pdf
y2010, accessed March 4, 2011 http://www.who.int/healthmetrics/news/weekly_highlights/MDG_targets_need_better_country_data/en/index.html,
HMN (2010b)November 28, 2010, http://www.who.int/healthmetrics/news/HMN_Results_Report_2010_web.pdf
Holland, J. H. (1995) Hidden Order - How Adaptation Builds Complexity , Addison-Wesley,Reading, MA,
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Plsek
British Medical Journal (323), September 2001, pp. 746-749.
Shaw, V. (2009), A complexity Inspired approach to co-evolutionary hospital management
Natural Sciences, University of Oslo.
Suchman, L. (2007). Human and Machine Reconfigurations: Plans and Situated Actions.Cambridge, Cambridge University Press.
Administrative Science Quarterly (23:4), pp. 582-603.
Sæbø, J., and Titlestad, O. (2004). Evaluation of a Bottom-Up Action Research Project in a Centralised Setting: HISP in Cuba . Paper presented at the 37th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Hawaii.
Sæbø, J., Kossi, E., Titlestad, O., Tohouri, R., Braa, J., (2011) health information systems following Information Technology for Development, Volume 17, Issue 1, January 2011
Tierney, W. M., Kanter, A. S., Fraser, H.S.F, Bailey, C. (2008) Partnerships to Promote eHealth in Developing Countries: Lessons from Africa available fromhttp://ehealth-connection.org/files/conf-materials
WHO (2005) "Health and the Millennium Development Goals", http://www.who.int/mdg/publications/mdg_report/en/
WHO (2007) "Everybody's business: Strengthening Health Systems to improve Health Outcomes: WHO's Framework for Action", Geneva
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11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
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EXPLORING THE LINK BETWEEN ICT AND DEVELOPMENT: A LITERATURE REVIEW
Devinder Thapa ([email protected])University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway
Øystein Sæbø ([email protected])University of Agder, Kristiansand, Norway
Abstract: The quest of relating information and communication technology (ICT) to development (D) is a topic of open deliberation and critical scrutiny. The objective of this paper is to
communities. Our findings indicate a similar view of the role of ICT in development in academia as well as development organizations. The organizations adopted different development approaches such as; modernization, dependency, neo-liberalism, and post-development, to relate ICT and development. Similarly, academia applied different theories, frameworks, and models to analyze link between ICT and development. In
both academia and development organizations to understand the link between ICT and
empirical case studies focusing on projects in remote and rural areas, utilizing the capability approach as our guiding framework. Based on our findings we suggest six gaps in current research and, accordingly, six suggested areas for future research.
Keywords: ICT4D, Developing Countries, Rural and Remote Communities, Capability approach Literature Review
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EXPLORING THE LINK BETWEEN ICT AND DEVELOPMENT: A LITERATURE REVIEW
1. INTRODUCTION
(Heeks, 2007). Information and communication technology (ICT) includes technologies like e.g. radio, internet, television, mobile phones, wi-fi, wi-Max, and information handling materials, such as CD and books (James, 2007). There is a need to understand the conceptualization of ICT artifact to clarify how and why social changes occur due to particular ICT artifacts (Sein & Harindranath, 2004). ICT4D is an multidisciplinary research domain(Unwin, 2009) which integrates wider perspectives of three study areas, such as computer science, information systems, and development studies (Heeks, 2008). Computer science focuses mostly on the technology and potential possibilities, the information system area focuses on issues related to the feasibility and organizational influences by introducing ICT, whereas development studies focuses mostly on what is desirable and what are the consequences of introducing ICT. Scholars in information systems acknowledge that both techno-deterministic and socio-deterministic approaches to ICT4D research have a lack of fidelity, as such; the notion of development is the consequences of interplay between these two (Dias & Brewer, 2009). Technology needs to be designed to be able to operate in a complex social, political, economic and cultural context. Thus, it is important to understand the multi - perspective approach of ICT4D domain (Dias & Brewer, 2009; Heeks, 2008).
The notion of ICT4D was introduced around 1980s. Technology-wise, it progresses through radio, television, Internet and mobile technologies. The dimension of applications proliferates around social, political, physical, natural, human, and financial issues. ICT is considered important to achieve the millennium development GOAL program, introduced by the UN (UnitedNations, 2000) to fight poverty, improve healthcare, provide better education, fostering gender equality, and extend global partnerships for development in developing countries (WorldBank, 2003).Despite an increased number of research publications from the ICT4D area more research is still needed to explore issues like implementation, scalability, sustainability, and macro level impact evaluations (Chapman & Slaymaker, 2002; Dias & Brewer, 2009; Heeks & Alemayeho, 2008), to increase the understanding of the role ICT may play for development. Our research address this call by focusing on how the development perspective is dealt with in project as well as research focusing on ICT- related projects.
There are a plethora of notions symbolizing the concept of ICT intervention and development in the research literature (Kleine & Unwin, 2009). A common perspective is to deploy information and communication technology for development. Development may have various meanings, referring to issues like changes in quality of life, empowerment, enhancing basic capability, equality and poverty reduction. The topic of ICT and development is discussed in development organizations and academia equally. For example, development organizations consider ICT as a means to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (Kuriyan, et al., 2008; Unwin, 2009).Similarly, academics consider ICT as a driver for development together with other factors, such as human, social, political, economical, and physical (Warschauer, 2003).
Some scholars have argued for more research focusing on understanding the link between ICT and development, exemplified by the work done on impact evaluation of ICT4D projects (Heeks & Alemayeho, 2008), or the quest to identify causal relationships between ICT and development(Avgerou, 2003; Avgerou 2008). From an organizational perspective, impact evaluation is
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essential to ensure that ICT strategies are relevant, and to keep governments accountable for their implementation of projects (Bank, 2009).
Despite the huge investment each year by the public, NGOs and private sectors in the ICT development projects, only minor impact on remote communities are identified. The rather disappointing results are explained by the lack of political will, motivation, and knowledge on how to evaluate impact of ongoing and initiated projects (Heeks & Alemayeho, 2008). Impact evaluation, when conducted, often emphasizes the measurement of technical and financial aspects, with less concern on potential impact on development issues in broader terms. Some few studies looks into the effects of ICT services through multiple perspectives (Heeks & Shoba, 2009), but still there is a need to undertake a holistic research approach to understand the relationship between ICT and the development process. There is a need to understand the interaction between technology, and social, political, natural, physical, financial, environmental and human capitals(DFID, 1999; Duncombe, 2006).
The role of technology is seemed important in different development paradigms. As we will argue later on (section 3), the emergence of alternative development and human oriented development
om a more technical oriented view towards a more social oriented view, focusing on the influence ICT may have on
development (Sen, 1992) argues that individual substantive freedom is both the primary end objective and the principal means of development (Sen, 2000). The capability approach suggests
qual(Sen, 2000).
Therefore, the capability approach put emphasis on the contribution technologies may have to increase capabilities (freedom and opportunities) of an individual to function in their societies (Zheng, 2009)
articles and presents results in the subsequent sections.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows, Section 2, illustrates the research methodology and discusses potential limitations of the review process. Thereafter, different development paradigm and role of technology is explained in Section 3 & 4. Section 5 and 6 illustrates the link between ICT and development using capability approach framework. Section 7 discusses research gaps and suggests future research areas, before we conclude in section 8.
2. RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Literature reviews can create a firm foundation for advancing knowledge, by identifying current status, research gaps and where more research is needed (Webster & Watson, 2002). Our selection process was guided by the suggestion made by Webster and Watson (2002). As shown in Table 1, articles were selected using ISI web of science library databases. In addition, to make our literature list more inclusive, we searched the literatures by topic across all relevant journals (Heeks, 2010)instead of some focused journals.
The search, based on keywords presented in Table 1, resulted in literatures from several disciplinary areas. This method generated a list of total 177 references. Thereafter, we performed backward and forward search of the five top most cited papers. We further conducted author-based search on the most cited authors, to make a cross check to confirm that we included probably most of the relevant articles. Although this search generated many redundant results, it extended our reference list to total 202 literatures. The authors independently read and shortlisted titles and abstracts of all the 202 literatures to identify a set of highly relevant ICT4D literature. We excluded the papers oriented towards software development, development in general, and not
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focused on third world countries. Based on the most relevant articles we finally selected the 80 papers, which are included in this review.
All literature reviews are based on some kind of selection strategies, running the risk of excluding potentially relevant articles and reports from sources, which is not included. The inclusion of more material might have provided additional information regarding contemporary research in the ICT4D area. Despite these limitations, we believe the selected journal articles provide a good summary of current status in the ICT4D area. There is an open opportunity to validate and elaborate our findings by extending the literature list.
3.
To understand how ICT influence and are being influenced by the development context we need to , the development perspective (Boateng, et al., 2008), since the design and outcome
of ICT4D projects are influenced by the development context (Prakash & De, 2007). Thus, understanding of development theory is important to facilitate and outline development strategies.
Development is a subject of academic and organizational discourse, and there are different competing theories to characterize the notion of development as illustrated in Table 2. Development is generally defined as an organized intervention in collective affairs according to a standard of improvement that varies according to class, culture, historical context and relations of power (Pieterse, 2001).
Up to around 1940 development was synonym to industrialization and colonization (Pieterse, 2001). In development thinking and economics in the post Second World War period, the core meaning of development was economic growth. Later on economic growth was combined with political and social changes and the meaning of development thinking was broadened to encompass modernization. Modernization theory characterized development as displacement of values, beliefs and actions of the traditional societies (Clarke, 2006; Pieterse, 2001). It advocates that development can be achieved through imitating the development strategies and ideologies
During 1960 dependency theory or structuralism came into existence that emphasizes the national or auto-centric economic growth with dependent or national accumulation. Marxism, supporter of dependency theory, viewed modernization as proponent of capitalism, and describe structuralism as a system of antagonistic relations between several social classes, including the capitalist, who owned the means of production and power to appropriate surplus, and workers, who had no power and had to sell their labor. He blamed that capitalism had the potential of increasing the productive capacities within the society, bringing workers together in socialized labor and engaging them in production processes to generate wealth. Marx envisaged, in the long run, that capitalism might
Search library ISI web of knowledge, ICT4D journals
Keywords ICT4D, information systems developing countries, information technology developing countries, ICT developing countries
Subject areas Computer science and information systems, Information systems social science, computer science methods and theory, computer science and interdisciplinary areas and telecommunication
Total Search 202
Selected and Reviewed 80
Language English
Inclusion/Exclusion Cross checking: most cited paper, most cited authors, backward & forward search
TABLE 1. Literature review process
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lead to class struggle between capitalists and workers. Consequently, worker would overcome the capitalists and take over the productive capacities, and eventually form new political movements. In between these grand theories of development, the concept of alternative development arose during 1970. It was oriented towards community participation, grassroots politics and human development. Alternative development argues against the capitalism and envisions a post-capitalist world. They advocated that development should be informed by the value of cultural identity, self-reliance, social justice and ecological balance. They envision a post-capitalist world of continued modernization toward a socialist world order, an alternative to the western model of development (Pieterse, 2001).
During the1980s two development theories appeared, namely the Neo-liberalism and the Human Development theories. The concept of Neo-liberalism argues that there are certain institutional constraints influencing market efficiency, and thus contributing to the lack of development (Pieterse, 2001). Neo-liberalism advocates that self-regulated markets and motivated individual entrepreneurs can achieve development. It further argues that market capitalism could offer individuals more opportunities for entrepreneurship and specialization. Neo-liberalism eliminates the notion that developing economies represent something different than other markets. Economic growth is to be achieved by allowing market forces to operate through structural reforms, liberalization and privatization.
The notion of development known as the post-development paradigm (Escobar, 1985) criticizes the whole notion of development. The proponents of post-development argued that development could be contradictory process that generates intended and unintended outcomes far from its promise of development.
Technology, during this developmental transition period, played a crucial role as instruments to achieve economic growth and development (Castells, 2000). As depicted in Table 2, technology at the beginning was seen important for exploring new territories, to extend colonization and exploiting the natural resources. After 1940s the role of technology was boosting industrialization and mass production. During modernization, innovation of new technologies was done for economic growth. Similarly, the role of technology keeps on changing from economic growth to knowledge management. The alternative development paradigm advocated the use of appropriate technology. The purpose of appropriate technology was to preserve local culture and extract indigenous knowledge.
After the arrival of internet and ICT based services in the 1990s, the role of technology changed from a tool view, to a more holistic understand of how technology could act as a central force in the discourse of economic and social development (Castells, 2000; Orlikowski & Iacono, 2001).
well- (Heeks, 2002a).
All the development theories have their own history and context. Even the perceptions of modernization are different in different nations and communities based on class, culture, historical context and relations of power (Pieterse, 2001). Existing development theories are extended largely state-led (modernization, and dependency), market-led (neo-liberalism) and society-led (alternative development). A prominent definition of development in the contemporary ICT4D discourse is human-centered development based upon the theowork on capability approach. In the context of ICT4D project, particularly focused on rural and remote communities, the human development approach (Pieterse, 2001)approach (Sen, 2000) could be argued to be more relevant, as we will discuss more in the next section.
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4. CAPABILITY APPROACH (CA)
The capability approach is a broad framework for the evaluation and assessment of individual well-being and social arrangements, the design of policies, and proposals about social change in society (Robeyns, 2005). The major constituents of capab
-being, whereas, capabilities are opportunities and freedom to achieve those functionings (Sen, 1992). Sen criticized the individual and social evaluation based on such variables as primary goods, resources or real income. He mentioned these variables a means rather than ends to freedom (Sen, 1992) and argues that individual substantive freedom (capabilities) is the primary end objective and the principal means of development (Sen, 2000). The UNDP has adopted such basic insights from capability approach and formulated statistical measures of human development based on it (Robeyns, 2005), for example, human development index (HDI), gender development index (GDI), gender equity measure (GEM), and human poverty index (HPI).
In terms of ICT4D research, the capability approach put emphasis on the contribution technologies may have to increase capabilities of human beings to function in their societies. For example, in addition to providing ICT services there is a need to create social and institutional environment so that poor and needy can access and assess information, build knowledge, and take decisions, in other terms, enhance their basic capabilities. The capability approach calls for an alternative e-development beyond the space that centers on economic growth or modernization (Zheng, 2009).Alternative e-development should focus on the space of substantive freedom where ICT may add to development by influencing change in quality of life through innovation and diffusion of human oriented technologies. Thus there is a need to add knowledge from other research disciplines besides welfare economics and development studies, like information systems area, to understand how ICT relates to development through capability approach (Zheng, 2009).
between ICT and development. As shown in Figure 1, capability approach makes a distinction between means, such as ICT artifacts and services, on the on hand, and functionings ends, such as education, healthcare and social capital, and capabilities (freedom and opportunities to achieve functionings) on the other hand. The basic importance of resources, such as ICT services, is needed to enable people to do and to be. Goods and services refer here not only to exchangeable for income or money, but the characteristics, which interest to people. For example, setting up
PERIOD PERSPECTIVES MEANINGS OF DEVELOPMENT ROLE OF TECHNOLOGY
1870> Latecomers Industrialization, catching up Boost industrialization
1850> Colonial economics Resource management, trusteeship Exploration of new territories
1940> Development economics Economic growth Industrialization Innovation, mass production
1950> Modernization Theory Growth, political and social modernization Mass production Innovation and Increased productivity
1960> Dependency Theory Accumulation national, auto-centric Creation of domestic product
1970> Alternative Development Human Flourishing, Participation Enhancing local communities and cultures
1980> Human Development Develop human capabilities
1980> Neo-liberalism Economic growth-structural reform, deregulation, liberalization, privatization
Enhance Market efficiency
1990> Post-development Authoritarian engineering, disaster Strengthen localization, extract indigenous knowledge
TABLE 2. Various development perspectives and roles of technology, adapted from (Pieterse, 2001)
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alized contents to the community people, though telecenters are essential as well.
FIGURE 1. Core elements of capability approach (figure adapted from Robeyns, 2005).
Three groups of conversion factors personal, social, and environmental influence the relation between commodities (goods and services) and the functionings to achieve certain beings and doings (Sen, 1992). Personal conversion factors denote the personal characteristics, such as physical conditions, sex, reading skills and intelligence to convert commodities into a functioning. For example, an illiterate users cannot use the text based user interface (Medhi, et al., 2007).Social conversion factors are features like social norms, public policies, gender roles, caste systems and power relations. For example, priorities of dominant caste groups may determine information systems design and implementations that leads to the exclusion of marginal and non-dominant castes . Likewise, environmental conversion factor means geographical location, climate, and infrastructure. The achieved functionings is the combination of means to achieve, freedom to achieve them, and personal preferences and social influences on decision making mechanisms (Sen, 2000).
5. CONTEMPORARY RESEARCH ON ICT4D
Based on the presentation of various development perspectives we will now discuss how current research on ICT4D is approaching the link between ICT and Development, the main objective for this paper.
ICT4D research focuses on different subjects such as diffusion of ICT artifacts (Oyelaran-Oyeyinka & Lal, 2005), infrastructure building and implementation of ICT services (Braa, et al., 2007; Braa & Hedberg, 2002; Klosterman, 1995; Kshetri, 2007; Madon, et al., 2007; Meso, et al., 2005; Meso, et al., 2009; Sahay, et al., 2009; Walsham & Sahay, 1999), impact evaluation of ICT intervention (Daly, 2000; Kanungo, 2004b; Kumar & Best, 2006; Lee, et al., 2005; Thapisa, 1996; Thorpe, 1984; Wang & Chien, 2007), linking ICT and development, (Avgerou, 2003; Boateng, et al., 2008; Johnstone, 2007; Ngwenyama, et al., 2006; Urquhart, et al., 2008), and digital divide(Cullen, 2001; James, 2005, 2007; Warschauer, 2003). Researches related to implementation issues analyze the different social and technical factors as well as actors that impede the implementation process. Several authors argue that ICT4D projects may suffer if socioeconomic, political, cultural, and financial factors are ignored (Kraemer, et al., 2009; Lishan & Wood, 1999; Thapa & Sæbø, 2011). Likewise, diffusion of the ICT products and technologies from one pilot-study to a broader context might be obstacle by focusing on more on technology and vision, ignoring other socio-cultural, political and economical factors (Kraemer, et al., 2009).
Studies indicate that inaccessibility of Internet is enhancing the digital divide between those with access and those without. Different factors, such as various access to telecommunication infrastructure, education and employment opportunities are increasing the digital divide (Cullen, 2001). Proponents of ICT4D in academia suggest that concept of digital divide should be re-
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conceptualized to widen the perspectives to include not only technological gaps, but also the intersection of socio-economic factors, gender, age, language, geographic location, various cultural dimensions, inadequate infrastructure and shortage of manpower (James, 2005; Johnstone, 2007). Broader term of digital divide may also include cognitive issues such an attitude of community people towards technology and their daily usage patterns (Cullen, 2001; James, 2007; Warschauer, 2003).
Existing research explained how numerous projects of ICT innovation in developing countries failed to achieve anticipated benefits (Corea, 2007; Heeks, 2002b). Some of the factors identified are poor management, resistance to change, and complex power structures (Silva & Hirschheim, 2007). Not only for impact analysis, but also for the successful penetration of IT artifact in the developing countries, socially oriented implementation policies have been recommended (Braa, et al., 2007; Heeks & Stanforth, 2007; Walsham & Sahay, 1999).
Different theories and frameworks has been introduced to understand the ICT4D projects, such as Structuration theory (Barrett, et al., 2001; Madon, et al., 2007; Sahay & Walsham, 1997),eCommece model (Boateng, et al., 2008; Kshetri, 2007), Social Capital (Díaz Andrade & Urquhart, 2009; Urquhart, et al., 2008; Yang, et al., 2009) Communities of practice (Puri, 2007),livelihood approach- sustainable framework of analysis, Information Chain (Heeks & Kanashiro, 2009), Complexity Science (Braa, et al., 2007), and Actor-network theory (Braa & Hedberg, 2002; Braa, et al., 2004; Gao, 2007; Heeks & Stanforth, 2007; Sahay, et al., 2009; Walsham & Sahay, 1999). However, there is a call for undertaking more empirical studies to understand how such projects influence the societies (Avgerou, 2003; Boateng, et al., 2008; Heeks, 2008), particularly, in the context of rural and remote communities (Aitkin, 2009; Díaz Andrade & Urquhart, 2009; Heeks & Kanashiro, 2009).
Multiple research methodologies are also introduced in the papers investigated. Both qualitative and quantitative research methods (Kalu, 2007; Kraemer, et al., 2009; Meso, et al., 2009; Walsham & Sahay, 1999) are utilized to understand the local context, and socio-cultural issues. Quantitative methods are used to identify how different factors, such as internal capacity building, enhanced public access to information, and technology infrastructure affects the successful implementation of ICT services. Quantitative techniques are helpful to identify causal relationships, but it may not be sufficient to deliver rich data that are necessary to build theories explaining complicated phenomena, such as interaction process between ICT and social capital and its consequences for development (Urquhart, et al., 2008; Yang, et al., 2009).
(Avgerou, 2003; Heeks, 2007; Sein & Harindranath, 2004; Unwin, 2009). Misalignment between development context and the design and implementation of the ICT4D project may lead to project failures (Heeks, 2002b; Prakash & De, 2007) and, consequently, little or no impact on the development of the local communities.
6. EMPIRICAL CASE STUDIES ON RURAL AND REMOTE
COMMUNITIES
In order to explore how the capability approach may be used to analyze ICT4D projects, and to learn the context of rural and remote areas more in depth, we examined ten of the research papers
discussed earlier the capability approach can be used as a common framework to relate ICT and development. The examination reveals the primary objectives of ICT4D projects, the opportunities (capabilities) they provide to the community, and the conversion factors that hinder achieved functionings. Due to space limitations the analyzes are summarized briefly in table 3, below.
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ved
Fu
nct
ion
ing
(Hee
ks &
K
anas
hiro
, 200
9)T
o su
ppor
t cul
tura
l, ec
onom
ic a
nd s
ocia
l de
velo
pmen
t
Lac
k of
spe
cifi
c ex
ecut
ion
plan
, lac
k of
rel
evan
t in
form
atio
n as
wel
l as
asse
ssm
ent
abil
ity,
lack
of
tran
spor
tati
on a
nd o
ther
res
ourc
es, l
ow s
elf-
effi
cacy
in
wom
en a
nd o
lder
peo
ple,
lack
of
tech
nica
l kno
wle
dge
and
skil
ls, l
ack
of lo
cal p
arti
cipa
tion
, lac
k of
inco
me
gene
rati
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ctiv
itie
s
Pro
vide
tec
hnic
al t
rain
ings
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se a
war
enes
sP
rodu
ce lo
cal c
onte
nt
Pro
mot
e to
uris
m
Sha
ring
info
rmat
ion
Ext
end
soci
al n
etw
ork
(Fac
e-to
-fac
e co
mm
unic
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caus
e of
lang
uage
ba
rrie
rs)
Rei
nfor
ced
bond
ing
soci
al ti
esF
acil
itat
ed p
osit
ive
info
rmat
ion
flow
2(D
íaz
And
rade
&
Urq
uhar
t, 20
09)
To
prov
ide
tim
ely
and
usef
ul
info
rmat
ion
to l
ocal
far
mer
s,
busi
ness
men
and
gov
ernm
ent
agen
cies
to
buil
d up
ca
pabi
liti
es f
or lo
cal
deve
lopm
ent
Lac
k of
phy
sica
l inf
rast
ruct
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such
as
road
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tric
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tel
epho
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wat
er, e
tc.,
lack
of
educ
atio
nal
oppo
rtun
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s, g
ende
r pr
oble
m, l
ack
of r
eadi
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abit
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ck o
f in
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e ge
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ivit
ies
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ortu
nity
to
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lop
indi
vidu
als
skil
l and
kno
wle
dge
Sha
ring
info
rmat
ion
Ext
end
soci
al c
apit
alS
tren
gthe
ning
inst
itut
ions
(Pri
orit
y to
far
min
g ra
ther
than
lear
ning
and
usi
ng
com
pute
rs)
Fac
ilit
ated
hum
an c
apit
al b
uild
ing
proc
ess
Sha
ring
info
rmat
ion
Ext
ende
d so
cial
cap
ital
Inst
itut
iona
l dev
elop
men
t, s
uch
as p
easa
nt
orga
niza
tion
3(D
onne
r, 2
006)
To
deve
lop
busi
ness
and
so
cial
con
tact
s(m
icro
-ent
repr
eneu
rs)
Edu
cati
on, h
ighe
r co
st, t
elec
omm
unic
atio
n in
fras
truc
ture
, Inn
ovat
ions
Ext
endi
ng a
nd r
einf
orci
ng e
xist
ing
busi
ness
an
d so
cial
net
wor
ks, f
lexi
bili
ty o
f ti
me
and
spac
e
Mic
ro-e
ntre
pren
eurs
rei
nfor
ced
thei
r so
cial
ties
and
fa
cili
tate
d ne
w c
onta
cts
wit
h bu
sine
ss p
artn
ers,
su
ppli
ers,
and
cus
tom
ers
4(J
ense
n, 2
007)
To
redu
ce p
rice
dis
pers
ion
and
was
te(F
ishe
rmen
)
Lac
k of
inf
orm
atio
n an
d tr
ansp
orta
tion
infr
astr
uctu
reIm
prov
ed f
unct
ioni
ng o
f m
arke
tsIn
crea
sed
earn
ings
and
pur
chas
ing
pow
er
5(W
alsh
am &
S
ahay
, 199
9)T
o ai
d w
aste
land
de
velo
pmen
t usi
ng G
IS
tech
nolo
gy
Cul
tura
l (e.
g. la
ck o
f tr
adit
ion
for
usin
g m
aps)
, pol
itic
al
(pow
er d
ynam
ics)
, soc
ial (
lack
of
educ
atio
n an
d te
chni
cal s
kill
s), e
cono
mic
al (
cost
)
Was
tela
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anag
emen
t, p
rovi
de p
latf
orm
for
an
alys
is a
nd a
ctio
n in
the
envi
ronm
enta
l are
na(C
ultu
ral i
deol
ogy,
soc
ial p
refe
renc
es a
nd s
ecur
ity
issu
es in
dec
isio
n m
akin
g pr
oces
s)
6(K
umar
& B
est,
20
06)
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prov
ide
com
pute
r ed
ucat
ion,
e-g
over
nmen
t se
rvic
es a
nd h
ealt
h se
rvic
es
Age
, gen
der,
rel
igio
n, c
aste
, inc
ome,
ow
ners
hip
of
hous
ehol
d as
sets
, edu
cati
onal
lev
el, p
olit
ical
and
in
stit
utio
nal s
uppo
rt
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over
nmen
t se
rvic
es s
uch
as b
irth
ce
rtif
icat
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ld a
ge p
ensi
ons,
com
pute
r ed
ucat
ion
(Soc
ial
norm
s w
omen
lack
s de
cisi
on m
akin
g po
wer
s, c
omm
unit
y pe
rcep
tion
)In
form
atio
n sh
arin
g7
(Dun
com
be,
2006
)T
o re
duce
pov
erty
Soc
ial,
hum
an, g
eogr
aphi
cal,
fina
ncia
l, po
liti
cal,
phys
ical
, nat
ural
, pub
lic
and
priv
ate
inst
itut
ions
Impr
ove
info
rmat
ion
and
com
mun
icat
ion,
suc
h as
acc
ess
to tr
aini
ng/n
ew k
now
ledg
e,
info
rmat
ion
abou
t fi
nanc
e, in
form
atio
n ab
out
tech
nolo
gies
, and
info
rmat
ion
abou
t nat
ural
re
sour
ces
Info
rmat
ion
shar
ing
8(K
anun
go,
2004
a)T
o av
ail s
ocia
l and
eco
nom
ic
eman
cipa
tion
Pol
itic
al a
nd s
ocia
l fac
tors
, poo
r in
form
atio
n in
fras
truc
ture
, wom
en li
tera
cy,
Pro
vide
acc
ess
to c
apit
al a
nd s
uppo
rt s
ervi
ces,
fo
ster
gro
up a
ctio
n, a
cces
s to
vit
al in
form
atio
n,
part
icip
atio
n, T
rain
ing
oppo
rtun
ity
(soc
ial c
onst
rain
ts o
n w
omen
par
tici
pati
on)
Ext
ende
d in
form
atio
n ch
anne
l, va
lue-
adde
d in
form
atio
n, lo
cal c
omm
erce
opp
ortu
niti
es,
info
rmed
abo
ut g
over
nmen
t pro
gram
s, e
nhan
ced
part
icip
atio
n9
(Med
hi, e
t al
., 20
07)
To
desi
gn t
ext-
free
use
r in
terf
ace
for
illi
tera
te a
nd
sem
i-li
tera
te u
sers
Illi
tera
cy, l
ow i
ncom
e le
vel,
lang
uage
Job
sear
ch f
or d
omes
tic
labo
rers
, gen
eric
map
of
the
cit
y(c
ultu
ral,
reli
giou
s an
d ps
ycho
logi
cal f
acto
rs)
Job
sear
ch in
form
atio
nP
rovi
de g
eogr
aphi
c in
form
atio
n 10
(De
& R
atan
20
09)
To
impr
ove
fiel
d-le
vel
mic
rofi
nanc
e op
erat
ions
Pol
itic
al is
sues
, tec
hnol
ogy,
hum
an a
ctor
sE
ffic
ienc
y en
hanc
emen
ts a
nd tr
ansp
aren
cy(U
ser
self
-int
eres
t an
d so
cial
con
text
infl
uenc
ed
the
achi
eved
fun
ctio
ns),
Red
uced
tra
nsac
tion
cos
tsT
AB
LE
3R
ES
EA
RC
H F
OC
US
SU
MM
AR
IZE
D I
N I
CT
4D
PA
PE
RS
FO
CU
SIN
G O
NO
N R
UR
AL
AN
D R
EM
OT
E C
OM
MU
NIT
IES
69
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Thapa & Sæbø EXPLORING THE LINK BETWEEN ICT AND DEVELOPMENT
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
Our analyses identifies how the ICT4D projects were initiated with the objectives of contributing to social, cultural, economic, human, and political problems, like the reinforcement and extension of social ties and building human capital, providing computer education and e-government services and reduce poverty. The projects, however, faced different obstacles (conversion factors), such as illiteracy, poverty, lack of physical infrastructure and political pressures that hinder the relation between ICT (means) and capabilities (freedom to achieve).
Individual preferences, such as priority to farming rather than learning computers and social and cultural ideologies, such as women roles in decision-making process may also affect the achieved functioning. The summary shows that social, cultural, religious, political, and economical context are important while designing ICT4D projects. The common achieved functioning of all the projects is access to information and communication services, which can be helpful in creating social and human capital in remote communities.
7. GAPS IN EXISTING RESEARCH AND FUTURE RESEARCH
DIRECTIONS
Based on our analysis we identified six research gaps and, accordingly, six future research directions, summarized in Table 5.
Even though several researchers emphasize the need to understand this connection (Avgerou, 2003; Nair & Prasad, 2002; Urquhart, et al., 2008) , little is done to address this call. A main reason why this is not addressed so far is the difficulty to identify and isolate factors that explain how ICT contributes to development, since there is an ongoing interplay between ICT and other factors, such as social, cultural, political and economic related issues. Therefore, future research is needed to identify challenges and potential benefits of introducing ICT for development. We argue a stepwise approach is needed to address this call. First, there is a need to understand interaction processes between ICT and social, organizational and economic factors. The understanding of ongoing processes and interaction could be a first step towards better understanding of the outcome of implementing ICT in a developing context. Several research strands and approaches may be introduced to understand the interaction and interplay between various factors. For example, by combining social capital (Urquhart, et al., 2008) and capability approaches (Ibrahim 2006; Zheng & Walsham 2008) with actor network theories (Walsham, 1997; Walsham & Sahay, 1999), we may increase the understanding of social changes and the role of various stakeholders and technologies.
Second, there is a need to clarify and explore the concept of development in the ICT4D research area. We argue there are two major reasons for why this is important. To be able to understand differences and similarities across several research projects, we need to know to what extent these
like a black box, without considering how various objectives influence projects design, implementation, use or effects (Prakash & De, 2007). Thus it is difficult to compare and learn from one study to another, which is essential to build a cumulative tradition in the research area. Moreover, more research is needed to identify how various views on development influence project outcomeshence, to what extent they share objectives and visions. Future research may for instance investigate the views of different stakeholders like donors, project owners, developers and project users, may increase our understanding of how various views on development influences project outcomes.
Third, social-cultural issues like de-politicization, corruption, caste structures and context-dependent power structures are so far less investigated in the ICT4D area. Such social-cultural factors may help to explain the failure and successes of such projects.
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Thapa & Sæbø EXPLORING THE LINK BETWEEN ICT AND DEVELOPMENT
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
Fourth, current research in the ICT4D research area is mainly conducted in sub-Saharan countries, India and Latin America. More research is of course still needed from these regions, but since huge areas in the developing world is not investigated, the common understanding of concepts, challenges and opportunities in the ICT4D area may be based only on some few areas, without considering contextual differences between these regions and others, like for instance developing Arabic countries and other countries in Asia, such as e.g. Nepal. More research is needed to understand challenges, opportunities and contextual issues from a wider variety of countries in the developing world. More research is also needed focusing on mountain regions, where one third of the world population resides (Heeks & Kanashiro, 2009).
Fifth, there is a need for more research on digital divide introducing on a broader understanding of the concept. Current research focus mainly on issues related to literacy rate, education and economy. By investigating issues related to e.g. gender and rural versus urban areas, the ICT4D area could gain a more coherent understanding of digital divide related issues, hence increased opportunities to design and implement and organize ICT systems able to address such barriers.
Finally, the ICT4D research literature is so far dominated by case studies. Such studies are clearly needed to explore and explain the complexity in ICT4D projects. The above discussion of research gaps and identified areas for further research do actually call for the use of qualitative research methodologies to gain a broader and wider understanding of issues related issues like digital divide, social-cultural aspect and various view on development. However, to identify causal relation between ICT and Development, our literature review clearly indicates needs for more quantitative research to be able to generalize and compare results to develop a cumulative tradition. Moreover, there is a need to conduct more studies using mix-method approaches, to combine e.g. in-depth understanding of the concept studied and generalization to population investigated (Kaplan & Duchon, 1988; Orlikowski, 1993).
For a research field to progress it is essential to develop a broad understanding of the phenomena studied, and introduce methods and common concept to extend a cumulative tradition. Our analyses, identified research gaps, and suggested areas for further research is a step to guide future research opportunities based on a synthesize of current knowledge.
Identified Research Gaps Suggested areas for future research
Missing understanding of the relationship Investigate the interaction between these components before focusing on outcomes. Theoretical lens of social capital can be a better interpretive lens
View on development is only implicitly stated, missing knowledge on how various views influence projects.
Clearly state the development perspective, explore views on development from various stakeholders in ICT4D related project
Socio-cultural issues less emphasized Explore the influence of issues like corruption, de-politicization and caste-systems
Part of the developing world and mountain regions are not included
More research focusing on other part of the developing world and on mountain regions
Only some characteristics related to digital divide are investigated
Broaden the concept of digital divide by including issues like remoteness and gender
Missing diversity concerning research method, theories and frameworks used
Diversify selection of methods, including mix- method approaches and action research; deploy theories and framework to understand causal process of socio-technical interaction and its consequences on socio-economic development.
Table 5. Research gaps and future research directions
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Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
8. CONCLUSIONS
Until 1990s researcher were more tended to focus on development and ignore the ICT or isolate the ICT from mainstream development into separate policies and ministries (Heeks, 2008).However, it is apparent in the contemporary society that there is a strong interplay between ICT and society, and it influences the development (Huysman & Wulf, 2006; Johnstone, 2007; Lamb & Kling, 2003; Ngwenyama, et al., 2006). There is a gap in existing literatures of ICT4D domain to denote these issues. Therefore, in this literature review, we aimed to identify the role of ICT in socioeconomic development of developing countries. We reviewed 80 research articles and found
practitioners and researchers trelation, we selected ten papers that discuss empirical case studies and analyzed their development
ed six gaps in current research and, accordingly, suggested six areas for future research.
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Chawani et al. Scrutiny of EMR Integration and Standardization in Malawi
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
A SCRUTINY OF THE INTEGRATION STATUS AND STANDARDIZATION PROCESS OF ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORD SYSTEMS IN MALAWI
Marlen Stacey Chawani ([email protected])University of Oslo
Shawo Mwakilama ([email protected])Baobab Health Trust
Chipo Kanjo ([email protected])University of Oslo
Jens Kaasbøll ([email protected])University of Oslo
Abstract: Achieving integration remains a challenge in many developed countries partly attributed to the presence of many different EMR systems which makes standardization and achieving interoperability a difficult and complex undertaking.Unfortunately, there is a lack of literature on whether and how developing countries in Africa are addressing issues related to integration of EMRs in their HIS agendas. A study was therefore conducted to assess the integration status, efforts and strategies in the implementation of EMR systems in Malawi in order to identify integration strategies and processes appropriate for the Malawian context. Thus, this paper presents the integration status and standardization efforts in Malawi and makes recommendations on how to progress towards standardization.
Keywords: Electronic Medical Record systems, integration, standards, Malawi.
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A SCRUTINY OF THE INTEGRATION STATUS AND STANDARDIZATION PROCESS OF ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORD SYSTEMS IN MALAWI
1. INTRODUCTION
Throughout time paper-based medical record systems have proven to become more and more inefficient and are continuously failing to meet the care provider's needs (Kalogriopoulos, Baran, Nimunkar, & Webster, 2009). In particular, the use of paper-based systems combined with challenges caused by the human resource crisis in most developing countries, have resulted in limited availability of reliable healthcare data. Hence, Electronic Medical Record (EMR) systems are being implemented in hospitals in developing countries in efforts to improve the accuracy, availability, completeness and timeliness of healthcare data (Chetley, 2006; Douglas, 2009; WHO, 2006; WITSA, 2006).
In the western world, the increased adoption of EMRs by different healthcare service providers has resulted in a large pool of independent EMRs within the healthcare systems (Brailer, 2005). Unfortunately, this has resulted in patients’ medical information being fragmented in different EMR systems as patients obtain health services from different healthcare service providers. In turn, this fragmentation poses a challenge in continuity of patient care by the different service providers. Thus, there is need for EMRs to be integrated to enable sharing and exchanging of patient data to ensure continuity of care (Ellingsen & Monteiro, 2008) and Brailer (2005) warns that without integration, EMR adoption will further strengthen the information silos that exist in existing paper-based medical files. In addition, the collaborating nature of healthcare work between different types of healthcare service e.g. clinical, radiology ward, pharmacy etc,emphasizes the central need for integration and data exchange between EMRs and other information systems (IS) (Aanestad, Grisot, & Nilsson, 2002).
It is clear that many studies that have analyzed EMR integration in developed countries acknowledge the complexities associated with the process (Arnold, Wagner, Hyatt, & Klein, 2007; Brailer, 2005; Ellingsen & Monteiro, 2008; Grimson, Grimson, & Hasselbring, 2000; Hanseth, Jacucci, Grisot, & Aanestad, 2007). The challenges are partly attributed to the presence of many EMR systems and vendors and other stakeholders which makes standardization and achieving interoperability a difficult and complex undertaking. However, studies related to EMR implementations in developing countries of Africa have mainly focused on identifying how EMRs can be implemented and used to improve healthcare service delivery in independent hospital settings (Douglas, 2009; Fraser, et al., 2005; Rotich, et al., 2003) . However, in order to avoid fragmentation of patients’ medical records caused by independent EMR system implementation, we believe there is need to address the integration requirements as the EMRs continue to be implemented in these developing countries. We argue that if EMR integration strategies and plans are delayed, achieving integration at a later stage will be more complicated and costly learning from the experiences of the developed world. Unfortunately, there is a lack of literature on whether and how developing countries in Africa are addressing issues related to integration of EMRs in their HIS agendas.
Therefore, in this paper, we present an assessment of the EMR integration status, efforts and strategies in Malawi, a developing country in Sub-Saharan Africa, with the intent of contributing to the literature on how EMR integration and standards development is unfolding in developing country contexts. Since EMR systems also interact with other IS, related information systems will also be included in this study.
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Furthermore, this paper intends to provide recommendations on integration strategies and processes appropriate for the Malawian context that would inform government and various stakeholders concerned with the processes.
To achieve these objectives, the study set to answer the following research questions:
1. What EMRs have been implemented in Malawi?
2. What is the status of integration of EMRs in the country?
3. What strategies and processes are in place to ensure integration of EMRs?
4. What integration approach is required/ appropriate for the Malawian context?
2. LITERATURE REVIEW AND CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
2.1. IS Integration
Integration is an ambiguous concept which has been interpreted in various ways leading to different approaches for implementation (Ellingsen & Monteiro, 2008). Previously, integration in IS has been predominantly conceptualized as a technical challenge, involving assembling of hardware, software and having a software bridge to bring together diverse elements (Zaitun, Mashkuri, & Wood-Harper, 2000). Hasselbring (2000) describe IS integration as focusing on three dimensions:
1. Distribution focuses on hiding the geographical distribution of systems. This can be achieved by using middleware components, which provide solutions for the technological interconnection of distributed systems. The aim is to make common data and facilities accessible to applications through standard interfaces thereby facilitating the management of the information common to the whole organization (Grimson, et al., 2000).
2. Heterogeneity is concerned with hiding the differences in hardware platforms, operating systems, database management systems, programming languages, programming and data models as well as the differences in understanding and modeling of the same real-world concepts (Hasselbring, 2000). For instance, information can be exchanged through interface engines via standardized messages (Grimson, et al., 2000).
3. Autonomy is focused on the extent to which the systems are independent. This can be achieved by using standard messaging as well as data warehousing whereby data from individual systems is integrated and homogenized in a single repository, the data warehouse (Grimson, et al., 2000). However, data warehousing is that it is not designed to support operational functions therefore the data in the individual IS is duplicated in the warehouse.
However, Chilundo & Aanestad (2005) explain that integration is not only a technical issue but also a social issue which requires that multiple institutional influences and different, possibly competing, rationalities should be aligned. Thus, a socio-technical approach towards integration is advocated for.
2.2. Integration of EMR systems: Approaches and Challenges
In the developed world, the approaches for integrating EMRs within the healthcare systems have evolved as the underlying objectives for pursuing the integration also evolved(Ellingsen & Monteiro, 2008).
Safran & Perreault (2001) indicate that most early attempts to achieve integration within hospitals adopted the philosophy that a single comprehensive central system could best meet the information needs of the healthcare organization. The focus here was to eliminate heterogeneity caused by different technologies. Hence, in this approach, implementing a standard software
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system is seen as the means for achieving integration within the organization and this can be viewed as some kind of tight integration (Aanestad, et al., 2005). However, the main challenge with this approach is the inability of the system to accommodate the diverse needs of individual application areas. For instance, Hanseth, et al. (2007) show how attempts to implement one integrated EMR that replaced different clinical IS failed as it was impossible to include functions of all systems into the integrated EMR. A similar approach aimed at integrating EMRs between a group of hospitals through implementation of a common standard system in all the hospitals faceda similar challenge to accommodate the different work routines across the hospitals (Hanseth, et al. 2007). Thus, in the end, these (tight) integration efforts led to even more fragmentation.
With such unsuccessful attempts in achieving tight integration, an alternative approach adopted was the implementation of modular systems whereby different software application modules carryout specific tasks and a common framework defines the interfaces that allow data to be shared among the modules (Safran and Perreault 2001). Thus, this approach leans towards some form of loose integration whereby enabling interoperability of the different EMR systems is the key to achieving integration.
One approach for achieving interoperability is through the use of a gateway which is defined as a link between different elements (Hanseth, 2001). These gateways are a means to enable heterogeneity and autonomy; however, this solution is only appropriate at small scale e.g. when looking at a few systems within a hospital or between two hospitals and is unworkable when looking at a number of systems (Grimson, et al., 2000; Hammond & Cimino, 2001). Alternatively,interoperability at a large scale can be achieved through the use of standards such as the HL7, DICOM, and ISO/TR 18307 (Begoyan, 2007). However, the challenge is that the standards are not very stable as they evolve and change in parallel with the systems content and structure due to change in technology (ibid.). In addition, each standard has specific focus, for example HL7 is concerned with data exchange whilst ISO is concerned with content and structure, yet there is no consistency and coherence (ibid.).
Other than integrating into a single system or having different interoperable systems; another integration approach is to use a single data warehouse where operational EMRs and other clinical IS are kept (Grimson, et al., 2000). This enables the data collected by different systems over time to be mirrored in a central repository. Thus, the hospital systems maintain their autonomy and heterogeneity but must conform to set standards. However, the challenge with this approach is that data warehouses are not meant to support operational functions, and if they become operational systems, keeping data that is replicated consistent is a challenge (ibid.).
Thus, we see that each of the approaches above has its own limitations: a single system does not accommodate diverse needs of individual application areas; interoperability using gateways requires high engineering support and is not scalable whilst available interoperability standards arenot stable; the data warehouse approach introduces duplication and in some cases, inconsistencies..Thus, the underlying objectives and dimensions which the integration intends to address play a crucial role in choosing the integration approach.
2.3. Development of Standards
Achieving integration of various heterogeneous and autonomous systems requires different types of standards to which the systems must conform to and according to Conrick, Walker, Scott, & Frean (2006), these standards can be categorized in four main areas as follows:
4. System standards which are required to achieve interoperability, integration performance and availability.
5. Vocabulary standards which are required for information management and meaningful collection, exchange storage and re-use of clinical data. This includes standards on data description and structure (i.e. nomenclature, classifications and terminologies)
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6. Messaging Standards which are required to establish the format and sequence of data during transmission.
7. Security standards which are required to identify the practices necessary to maintain confidentiality, integrity and appropriate availability of health information.
In addition, Hammond & Cimino (2001) highlight that standardized identifiers for individuals (i.e. patients), healthcare providers, health plans and employers are pre-requisites for ensuring that such participants can be recognized across systems. Thus, standardized solutions are required for issuing identifiers, maintaining databases of identifying information, and authorizing access to such information (ibid.).
According to Hammond & Cimino (2001), there are four ways in which a standard can be produced:
1. Ad hoc method whereby a group of interested people/organizations agree on a standard specification which is accepted through mutual agreement of the participating groups.
2. De facto method whereby a single vendor controls a large proportion of the market to make its product a standard.
3. Government-mandate method whereby a government agency creates a standard and legislates its use.
4. Consensus method in which a group of volunteers representing interested parties work in an open process to create a standard.
Furthermore, Hammond & Cimino (2001) indicate the process of creating a standard goes through the following stages:
1. Identification of the need for the standard.
2. Conceptualization which involves defining characteristics of the standard.
3. Discussion stage involves defining content, critical issues, pros and cons and a time line.
4. Early implementation which requires maintenance and promulgation of the standard to ensure availability and continued value of the standard.
5. Conformance during which agreements are made on compliance with the standard.
6. Certification whereby a neutral body certifies that a product complies and conforms to the standard.
However, Hammond and Cimino (2001) are not explicit and do not provide details on whether and how the process differs in each stage for the different methods. For instance, in our view, the defacto method is not expected to go through the stages as described above.
3. RESEARCH CONTEXT AND APPROACH
3.1. Research Context- The Malawi Heath System
The research was conducted in Malawi, a developing country in Sub-Saharan Africa. The country is administratively divided into three regions namely North, South and Central and these regions are further divided into 28 districts countrywide.
The Ministry of Health (MoH) has overall responsibility for developing policies, planning strategies and programmes, and ensuring that all providers follow the national policies and standards so that quality health services are provided to the population. The ministry has several technical departments: Preventive Health, Clinical, Nursing, Health technical, Finance and Administration; and Health Services Planning. One of the divisions under Health Service Planning is the Central Monitoring and Evaluation Division (CMED) which is responsible for the
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management of the country’s Health Information Systems and for the oversight of all monitoring and evaluation activities carried out in the health sector in Malawi(CMED, 2009).
There are three main agencies providing healthcare services in the country: the Ministry of Health providing 60% of health service, the Christian Health Association of Malawi (CHAM) provides 37% and the Ministry of Local Government provides 1%. In addition, there is a small private-for-profit health sector but this is limited to the urban areas(MoH, 2007).
There are three levels in the health system i.e. primary level comprising of health centres, health posts, dispensaries, and rural hospitals; second level made up of district and CHAM hospitals; the tertiary level consisting of the central hospitals and one private hospital with specialist services (MoH, 2007).
3.2. Research Approach
This study adopted an interpretive qualitative case study approach in its assessment of the integration status and strategies in Malawi and data was collected through interviews, document review, workshop participation, informal discussions and observations.
Semi-structured interviews were conducted to different professionals at health facilities to obtain data on existing electronic systems and their associated mechanisms for sharing and exchanging data. 8 individuals working in five different health hospitals were interviewed (4 in Lilongwe district and 1 in Mzimba district). The hospitals included Government-owned central hospitals and CHAM hospitals which were known to have EMRs through the authors’ involvement in HIS-related forums such as the National Data Standards Workshop in November 2008 (two authors attended). In addition, data from other hospitals was obtained through the authors’ participation; in particular, one of the authors is involved in EMR implementation projects in various hospitalswithin the country, thus, in this case “researcher as employee” method was used (Easterby-Smith, Thorpe, & Lowe, 1991).
Documents reviewed included proceedings of relevant workshops and meetings related to HIS standards development.
Data was also obtained through the authors’ participation in meetings and HIS related projects within Malawi. In particular, three of the authors are part of a national health data standards taskforce that was established in 2008 and have been attending meetings of the taskforce.
The data analysis was guided by the research questions whereby themes/focus areas were identified within each question. The data collected was analyzed by coding and authors' interpretation techniques resulting in the data being organized according to the themes identified of which some were presented in tabular form as demonstrated in the findings section below.
4. RESEARCH FINDINGS
4.1. Electronic Health Information Systems in Malawi
The research identified different electronic IS implemented within the healthcare sector (see table 1 below). Most of these implementations are donor-funded and research-driven. Due to donor interest mostly on HIV/AIDs, most EMR systems are geared towards this area. However, the study discovered that new EMR systems are also being developed, some of which are focused on other health areas such as Maternal and Child Health. Some of the existing systems have been scaled to other sites and the systems developed by Baobab Health Trust, a Malawian NGO, are the most widely scaled thereby, making Baobab a leader in EMR system implementation.
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Electronic HIS Purpose Developer & Underlying Technology
Site
Patient Registration
Register out-patients and gather data on patients' daily attendance
Developed by Baobab Health Trust
Underlying Technology
o Ubuntu
o MySQL
o Ruby-on-rails + other JAVA based development tools
Central hospitals: KCH, QECH & ZCH
District hospitals: Bwaila, Dedza, Kasungu,Ntcheu, Machinga & Mangochi
2 Rural health centres: Mbang'ombe and Ngoni
ART clinics: Lighthouse at KCH, Martin Preuss Centre at Bwaila
Out-Patients Diagnosis (OPD)
Captures patient diagnosis information
Baobab Health Trust
Underlying technology is the same as Patient Registration system
Central hospitals: KCH, QECH & ZCH
District hospitals: Dedza, Kasungu, Ntcheu, Machinga & Mangochi
2 Rural health centres: Mbang'ombe and Ngoni
Radiology System
Capture data on patient’s requested examinations, results, and resources used.
Baobab Health Trust Central Hospital: KCH
Maternity Registration System
Register and collect data on maternity patients
Baobab Health Trust Bwaila Hospital
Computer Radiography system
Capture digital X-ray images which are sent to Belgium for consultation.
Belgium-based organization
Kamuzu Central Hospital
District Health Information System (DHIS)
Capture and process aggregate data for health facilities.
Developed by HISP
Underlying Technology
o MS Windows
o MS Access
All Central hospitals and District Health Offices in Malawi
Lab Information System
Captures and manages patients' Lab data (tests, results, reports, etc)
University of North Carolina (Short et al.) –USA
Underlying Technology
o MS Windows
Kamuzu Central Hospital
Captures and manages patients' Lab data (tests, results, reports, etc)
Pre-Link and Liverpool-Welcome Trust
Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital
Lab Database Management System
Tracking specimens UNC- USA Kamuzu Central Hospital
E-data system Manage clients data UNC- USA Kamuzu Central Hospital
Data Fax Scan and manage case forms.
UNC- USA Kamuzu Central Hospital
Pediatrics ART EMR
Captures and manages patient data and M&E.
Baylor Children's Foundation
Kamuzu Central Hospital
Baobab ART (BART)
Captures and manages ART patients data on
Baobab Health Trust KCH Lighthouse & Bwaila Martin Press Centre
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treatment and M&E District hospitals: Dedza, Kasungu,Ntcheu, Machinga & Mangochi
St. Gabriel's Hospital
SPINE Capture in-patients diagnosis data in wards
Baobab Health Trust Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital
Diabetes Mellitus and Hypertension (DMHT)
Collect and manage data of diabetes patients
Baobab Health Trust Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital
Rainbow/ TESTMART
Captures and manages ART patients data on treatment and M&E
Developed by Luke International Norway (LIN)- Malawi
Underlying Technology
o MS Windows
o MSSQL
o Delphi
Mzuzu Central Hospital
District hospitals – Karonga, Nkhatabay and Rumphi
Lab Information Management System
Capture and manage Lab data (tests, results, reports, etc)
LIN
Technologies same as TESTMART
Mzuzu Central Hospital
Drug Store System
Tracking, monitoring and ordering drug supplies
LIN Mzuzu Central Hospital
Afyapro Patient registration, billing, diagnosis, admissions, discharges, and lab information management,
NPK Technologies Nkhoma Mission Hospital , Lilongwe
MS Excel Captures patient data and health statistics from the hospital departments
MS Windows Daeyang Korean Mission Hospital – Lilongwe
FUSHIA Captures and manages ART patient’s data on treatment, TB and nutrition and M&E
MSF 2 District Hospitals: Thyolo and Chiradzulu
Table 1: Existing Electronic Health Information Systems in Malawi
4.2. Integration Status: data exchange between/across systems
The study discovered that there was indeed a need for data to be shared and exchanged between different systems especially those operating within a particular health facility e.g. at the central hospitals. For instance, one health professional providing ART to children born to HIV positive women explained:
“It would be important for us to access the data from the [Maternity] system in order to
obtain details on which ART treatment was given to the mother during pregnancy so as to
provide the appropriate treatment to the exposed child”
In addition, the study also discovered that it was necessary for different health facilities to exchange patient data especially where there was collaboration and support in provision of specific services. For instance, it was indicated that there was need to exchange data between Partners in Hope, Daeyang hospital and Nkhoma hospital which are all CHAM hospitals located in Lilongwe district.
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Several mechanisms were indicated as being used to enable the exchange of data between the systems and this is summarized in table 2 below; however, the most common was the use of paper-based records between the health providers. For example, examination results from the Radiology department at Kamuzu Central Hospital (KCH) were printed out from the electronic system and sent to relevant departments in paper format. Nevertheless, some of the existing electronic systems were able to exchange and share data in cases where the systems were developed by the same provider, e.g. Baobab, LIN and UNC. Furthermore, LIN have a data export module as part of their systems that is able to export data to HL7 format and thus other systems following this standard can import this data; however, this import functionality is not implemented in any of the systems yet. Hence, in general, exchange of data between electronic systems was limited and paper-based forms/tools act as gateways for sharing data between the different systems.
Furthermore, aggregated data from different systems, both electronic and paper-based, was made available to Ministry of Health (national level) and District Health Offices (district level) in paper format.
Electronic HIS Data Exchange mechanisms within a health facility
Data Exchange with other health facilities /organizations
Baobab Systems - Print-outs and paper-based forms
- Centralized Patient registration system for the different Baobab systems (at QECH)
- Print-outs and paper-based forms
Computer Radiography system - Unknown - Emailing of digital images
UNC systems - All UNC systems are integrated and data can be accessed through Patient Identifier by different types of health workers at UNC.
- Print-outs and paper-based forms
- Print-outs and paper-based forms
- Centralized system accessible to other health facilities through VPN connection to their network at KCH
- Scanning of case files and sharing through email
Pediatrics ART EMR - Print-outs/ paper-based forms
- Print-outs and paper-based forms
LIN systems - Paper-based print-outs and forms
- Data export module
- Paper-based print-outs and forms
- XML format (HL7 standard)
- Spreadsheets or Rich Text File.
Afyapro - Paper-based print-outs and forms
- Import and Export of reports, tables or actual database
- Paper-based print-outs and forms
- Import and Export of reports, tables or actual database
MS Excel - Spreadsheet sharing
- Paper-based forms
- Spreadsheet sharing
- Paper-based forms
FUSHIA - Unknown Unknown
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Table 2: Data Exchange Mechanisms across systems
4.3. Existing Integration Efforts
The study identified several efforts to integrate the existing electronic systems at hospital level, between/across hospitals, and between different levels of the health system.
At the hospital level, the study discovered that some stakeholders had seen the need to integrate their systems with that of other service providers. For instance, Kamuzu Central Hospital was planning to have its Computer Radiography system (digital x-ray, picture archiving and communication system) linked to the Baobab systems in order to enable other departments in the hospital to view patient’s examination results electronically. At Queen Elizabeth Central Hospital,Welcome Trust was seeking to have their Lab system, linked to Baobab systems, to enable electronic requesting for lab tests and retrieval of lab results for patients However, even though these various stakeholders had expressed their interests in integration, there was no evidence of concrete plans or activities towards the integration of these systems.
Luke International Norway (LIN) and Baobab had also been discussing on how to enable exchange of data between their systems and the development of the module that is able to export data to HL7 format is a step forward towards this goal. Work still remains to develop the corresponding import module.
At a national/sector level, the efforts to have an integrated health information system were strengthened through a National Health Data Standards workshop held in 2008 that was organized by MoH (CMED) in partnership with CDC and the WHO. Participants of the workshop were from various organizations within the private and public health sector that were involved in health service provision, financing, monitoring and HIS software providers which included international partners/donors. During the workshop, priority areas, including standards, required for the Malawi Health Information System were identified and the following were some of the areas/activities that were considered of high priority:
1. Implementation of a national Patient Identification Scheme for the entire health system
2. Implementation of a Facility Identification System for generating and maintaining a complete, accurate list of health facilities with correct naming and unique identifiers.
3. Implementation of a centralized data repository (i.e. data warehouse) that would initially be able to handle patient level data along with aggregate data.
4. Development of standards for messaging of patient information between different systems.
5. Connectivity
As a result of this workshop, a national health data standards task force was established, consisting of different stakeholders within the health sector, with the overall responsibility to facilitate the development of required standards for the HIS. The Task Force is part of the SWAP Governance Structure, nested under the Monitoring and Evaluation Technical Working Group (M&E TWG). The taskforce was further divided into three subgroups: the Data subgroup, Architecture subgroup, and Security subgroup- the data subgroup being responsible for ensuring that data being collected have uniform definitions; and each health facility has a unique identifier among other things. The architecture subgroup was given the responsibility of designing and implementation of a national data warehouse using the data identified by the data subgroup and the security subgroup was responsible for defining security and identification schemes.
The taskforce has been holding regular meetings (almost every three months) since its establishment in 2008 and thus this has provided a forum whereby stakeholders have shared their ongoing and planned activities in relation to HIS, share experiences and various collaborations have emerged through these meetings. However, in one of the meetings (held almost one and a
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half years since the taskforce establishment), it was noted that the subgroups had not been working as they had been expected due to lack of clear Terms of Reference (TOR) and tasks defined for the sub-groups. Thus, the framework for the taskforce was defined (see figure 1) and TORs formulated for each group. Each group was then required to define its own objectives, specific activities, outputs and desired outcomes. In addition, the taskforce has been working towards formulating a work plan to guide the activities of the taskforce and the subgroups.
Even though, no standards have been produced yet by the taskforce, several activities are underway that are geared to the development of standards for the HIS. One of the main activities is the ongoing development of a national patient identification system which is at a piloting stage. The development of the national patient identification system was led by a group of the taskforce members who developed the requirements for an identification system. This team consisted of three members who were from the following organizations: MOH, CDC and Baobab. These requirements were then shared to all members of the taskforce for inputs and feedback. Later on, Baobab, based on their experience in similar systems development, led the formulation of the technical specifications/requirements of the identification system and developed the system that is being piloted in Zomba district in Malawi in collaboration with other stakeholders. Throughout this process, other members of the taskforce were constantly consulted through taskforce meetings and provided feedback on the identification system.
In addition to the patient ID system, a group of members of the taskforce are currently working towards developing an integrated concept dictionary that would facilitate standardization of the medical vocabulary across different systems within the health sector. This activity was initiated by two organizations (Baobab and Partners in Health-Neno) that were working in partnership in the implementation of EMRs based on the OpenMRS (data model). The development of the dictionary
Figure 1. Health Data Standards TaskForce (Adapted from BaobabHealthTrust, 2010)
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is currently at a standstill awaiting a consultative meeting with other stakeholders particularly clinical health professionals.
Furthermore, in-line with the taskforce’s priority to establish a central repository, the application DHIS2, which is a web-based free and open source application recommended by WHO HMN, is being piloted by the Ministry of Health, in collaboration with College of Medicine, as a data warehouse that would integrate aggregated data from different electronic and paper-based systems within the health sector at district and national levels.
5. ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION
5.1. EMR Integration Status, Efforts and Approach
The findings indicate that different EMR systems have been developed by different health software developing organizations using different underlying technologies. Some of the software developing organizations have more than one system e.g. Baobab has EMRs for OPD, ART, Maternity, Diabetes, Radiology. Some of the systems have also been implemented in more than one site thereby resulting in geographical distribution of the systems.
This implies that within our context, all three dimensions of integration as defined by Hasselbring(2000) are required. In particular, the systems that are geographically dispersed need to exchange information if a patient moves from one place to the other. This is currently not feasible for all the systems and therefore integration strategies have to address distribution of the systems.
The existing systems are heterogeneous mainly in two ways: 1) they are developed by different organizations, using different technologies and 2) they are addressing different healthcare areas. Thus, addressing heterogeneity implies that the different system from e.g. LIN and Baobab ART systems should be able to exchange data; and ART, OPD, and LAB systems should be able to exchange data. Currently systems that are able to exchange or share data are limited to those developed by the same organization, i.e. Baobab, LIN and UNC.
Autonomy of the systems within the healthcare system is also evident, for instance, the Radiology system and Computer Radiography system at KCH are being used independent of each other. This is common with systems that have been developed by different organizations, though the implementations are in the same hospital. Hence, autonomy is an issue that also has to be addressed.
In general, we see that efforts to achieve/incorporate integration in the implementation of various electronic patient-based systems in the health sector have been limited. Integrated systems that are able to exchange or share data are limited to systems developed by the same organization. This has been achieved through their modularized implementation of their systems resulting in loose integration. The modularity in the systems can be attributed to the limited availability of fundingand the focus on specific health areas for the implementation projects.
The findings also reveal that different types of gateways are beings used to enable exchange of data between the existing systems. Shaw, Mengiste, & Braa (2007) indicate that gateways could be paper-to-paper, paper-to-computer, or computer-to-computer. We see that computer-to-paper gateways are common as data from electronic systems is made available through paper print-outs. These print-outs then act as inputs to other electronic.
The findings also show that there are some organizations such as LIN, working towards a computer-to-computer gateway to enable export of data from one system to the other. The gateway is in form of a data export module within the systems that is able to export data to HL7 format. This requires that other systems should be able to import the data in these formats to their various systems. Hence, interoperability will be achieved through the use of the HL7 standard.
However, at a national level, a data warehouse has been adopted whereby the data from various EMRs implemented is expected to feed into a centralized database (warehouse) at a national level.
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However, the details of this data warehouse architecture have not been defined yet and are part of the responsibility of the Architecture sub-group of the taskforce. As this process unfolds, challenges related to the networking infrastructure that would affect synchronization mechanisms will be of paramount importance.
Thus, we see that a combination of integration approaches are evident i.e. in practice, systems implementation is leaning towards interoperability whilst at a higher level data warehousing has been adopted.
5.2. The Development of Standards in Malawi
It is clear that the need for standards in the achievement of any integration and interoperability of EMRs within the health sector is well recognized in Malawi; hence the establishment of the Health Data Standards taskforce to facilitate the development of required standards. Among the required set of standards, standards for unique patient identification and hospital/facility identification have been given priority as they are central for integration to occur.
Through the establishment of the Health Data Standards taskforce it is clear that a consensus method has been adopted as defined by Hammond & Cimino (2001). However, looking at the actual process for the development of standards, progress made so far on the development of a patient identifier system was facilitated by few interested stakeholders who defined the requirements for the system. Similarly efforts to develop a concept dictionary were facilitated by members who were interested in the formulation of the standard. Therefore, this demonstrates evidence of the adhoc method within the taskforce. In addition, the overall framework of the taskforce provides for the establishment of adhoc committees.
The case also has demonstrated aspects of a de facto approach whereby, Baobab, as leaders within the local HIS software industry, are developing the software for a National Patient ID system based on their technologies, thus, in a way, their adopted technology e.g. the bar-code scanner/printer become part of the standard.
Therefore, from this case, we see that even though the overall approach is identified as a consensus method, analyzing the standards development process shows characteristics of other methods i.e. adhoc and de-facto are also evident. Thus it is not either one or the other but a combination of methods is at play.
Looking at the patient identification standard development process based on Hammond & Cimino (2001) staging, the identification of the need for the standard was done through a consensus at the data standards workshop as well as during the taskforce meetings. Discussions on the required characteristics of the system began through one of the taskforce meetings, however, it was agreed to hold a separate meeting where interested parties would continue discussions. This, in turn, resulted in a smaller group being formed that continued with the conceptualization and the discussion stages. As indicated in the findings, the outputs of each of the stages were shared with the whole taskforce thereby ensuring that taskforce members prove their input.
The case demonstrates one advantage of using the adhoc within this taskforce and that is - it is easier and faster to make progress towards development of the standards as the involved parties are more committed and have keen interest in the outcome as seen in the implementation of the patient ID system. On the other hand, the subgroups that were formulated have not beenproductive as expected due to lack of commitment probably facilitated by the lack of clearly defined activities and work plans. Hence, it is anticipated that the development of the taskforce and sub-group work plans that is underway will guide the groups in the development of the required standards.
Furthermore, the case of the development of the concept dictionary demonstrates the delays that are associated with the consensus building through consultative process especially when considering stakeholders that are not represented/part of the taskforce. Thus we recommend that
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there is a need to re-identify the different types of stakeholders that are essential in the standards development process and ensure they are part of the taskforce.
Since the taskforce is operating under the M&E TWG, it is expected that this group will be responsible for the approval/ accrediting of proposed standards developed by the data standardstaskforce. Once these standards are in place, it will be essential that a body is identified that monitors and certifies that systems comply and conform to these standards. We propose that this body should be under MOH, having the appropriate authority to monitor existing and new information systems and certify their compliance to the standards. This will require that the body consists of individuals with the appropriate skills/knowledge in the different types of health information standards.
6. CONCLUSION
This paper has clearly demonstrated that there are different players with their own EMRs in the health-sector in Malawi. It has shown that EMRs implemented at one health facility are unable to exchange patient data electronically; where they do it is typically from electronic to paper transfer of data (i.e. paper print out), which in some ways defeats the whole purpose of having an electronic system. Integration of distributed system is completely lacking and integration of heterogeneous systems is limited to those that are developed by the same organisation. Therefore, the findings re-enforce the need for a strategy for integration of EMRs in the Malawi health-sector sooner rather than later, because if the status quo continues it will be very costly as well as very cumbersome to achieve integration and interoperability of EMRs in the future. The foregoing literature has shown how difficult it is to undertake this process at a late stage.
The establishment of the National Data Standards taskforce is a positive adventure towards the integration of EMRs within the health sector and the Data Warehouse approach seems appropriate for the context in Malawi as it has the potential to address the dimensions of integration that are required. However, whether this approach is able to achieve this will depend on the design of the Data Warehouse architecture which remains undefined. We see that careful thought will have to be given to the infrastructure and synchronization mechanisms in order to address challenges associated with this data warehouse approach.
It has been noted that adopting a consensus approach in the development of standards is beneficial in ensuring that interests of various stakeholders are taken on board so that the standards address their needs. In the absence of clear objectives and plans for the Data Standards Taskforce, the adhoc approach to standards development within the taskforce has proven effective in making progress towards the development of standards as involved members had full commitment in the process. In addition, we see a de-facto standard in the making in form of the National Patient ID system. Thus this case shows how characteristics of different methods can unfold during thestandards development process based on various factors.
Nevertheless, as a way forward for Malawi, we argue that once clear objectives have been defined for subgroups, the commitment of the individuals within the subgroups- which is largely based on their organisational interests- will be an important factor on the pace of development of the standards. Therefore, it is essential that commitment from members is affirmed.
We also recommend that an assessment of the required types of stakeholders needs to be done and the missing groups to be represented in the Data Standards Taskforce. Furthermore, there is need to establish clear procedures which will ensure that Ministry of Health is able to approve EMRs to be implemented in the country (including private and CHAM Hospitals) and thus, have the capability to monitor and certify compliance with the developed standards.
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7. REFERENCES AND CITATIONSAanestad, M., Grisot, M., & Nilsson, A. (2002). Electronic Patient Records - an Information Infrastructure for
Healthcare. Paper presented at the IRIS 25. from http://heim.ifi.uio.no/~margunn/Publications.htmlAanestad, M., Monteiro, E., Kimaro, H., Macombe, E., Macueve, G., Mukama, F., et al. (2005). Strategies for
Development and Integration of Health Information Systems: Coping with Historicity and Heterogeneity. Unpublished Working Paper. University of Oslo.
Arnold, S., Wagner, J., Hyatt, S. J., & Klein, G. M. (2007). Electronic Health Records:A Global Perspective.
Overview.BaobabHealthTrust (2010). TOR Data Standards Task Force: A Framework. Lilongwe.Begoyan, A. (2007). An overview of interoperability standards for Electronic Health Records. Integrated Design and
Process Technology.Brailer, D. (2005, 19 January 2005). Interoperability: The Key to the Future Health Care System. Health Affairs.Chetley, A. (Ed.). (2006). Improving Health, Connecting People: The Role of ICTs in the Health Sector ofDeveloping
Countries: InfoDev.Chilundo, B., & Aanestad, M. (2005). Negotiating Multiple Rationalities in the Process of Integrating the Information
Systems of Disease-Specific Health Program. Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing
Countries, 20(2), 1-28.CMED (2009). Central Monitoring and Evaluation Division Website Retrieved 1 September 2010Conrick, M., Walker, S., Scott, P., & Frean, I. (2006). Health Information Interchange. In M. Conrick (Ed.), Health
Informatics: Transforming Healthcare with Technology. Victoria: Thomson/Social Science Press.Douglas, G. (2009). Engineering an EMR System in the Developing World: Necessity is the Mother of Invention.
Unpublished PhD, University of Pittsburgh.Easterby-Smith, M., Thorpe, R., & Lowe, A. (1991). Management research: an introduction. London: Sage.Ellingsen, G., & Monteiro, E. (2008). The organizing vision of integrated health information systems. Health
Informatics Journal, 14(3), 223-236.Fraser, H. S., Biondich, P., Moodley, D., Choi, S., Mamlin, B. W., & Szolovits, P. (2005). Implementing Electronic
Medical Record Systems in developing countries. Informatics in Primary Care, 13.Grimson, J., Grimson, W., & Hasselbring, W. (2000). The SI Challenge in Health Care. Communications of the ACM,
43(6).Hammond, W. E., & Cimino, J. J. (2001). Standards in Medical Informatics. In E. H. Shortliffe & L. E. Perreault
(Eds.), Medical Informatics: Computer Applications in Health Care and Biomedicine. New Yor: Springer.Hanseth, O. (2001). Gateways - just as important as standards.How the Internet won the “religious war” about
standards in Scandinavia. Knowledge, Technology and Policy, 14(3), 71-89.Hanseth, O., Jacucci, E., Grisot, M., & Aanestad, M. (2007). Reflexive integration in the development and
implementation of an Electronic Patient Record system. In O. Hanseth & C. Ciborra (Eds.), Risk, Complexity
and ICT. Northampton: Edward Elgar.Hasselbring, W. (2000). Information System Integration. Communications of the ACM, 43(6).Kalogriopoulos, N. A., Baran, J., Nimunkar, A. J., & Webster, J. G. (2009). Minneapolis Patent No. Engineering in
Medicine and Biology Society, 2009. EMBC 2009. Annual International Conference of the IEEE MoH (2007). Road Map for Accelerating the reduction of Maternal and Neonatal Mortality and Morbidity.Rotich, J. K., Hannan, T. J., Smith, F. E., Bii, J., Odero, W. W., Vu, N., et al. (2003). Installing and Implementing a
Computer-based Patient Record System in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Mosoriot Medical Record System Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association, 10(4), 9.
Safran, C., & Perreault, L. E. (2001). Management of Information in Integrated Delivery Networks. In E. h. Shortliffe & L. E. Perreault (Eds.), Medical Informatics: Computer Applications in Health Care and Biomedicine
(Second Edition ed.). New York: Springer.Shaw, V., Mengiste, S. A., & Braa, J. (2007). Scaling of Health Information Systems in Nigeria And Ethiopia -
Considering the Options. Paper presented at the 9th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries.
WHO (2006). Medical Records Manual: A Guide for Developing Countries.WITSA (2006). Health Care and Information and Communications Technologies: Challenges and Opportunities.Zaitun, A. B., Mashkuri, Y., & Wood-Harper, A. T. (2000). Systems Integration for a Developing Country: failure or
Success? A Malaysian Case Study. Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries, 3(5), 1-10.
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IFIP WG 9.4: Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries
11th International Conference: Partners for Development - ICT Actors and Actions
Kathmandu, Nepal, 22-25 May 2011
Paper
82
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Wahid et al. Unlikely actors: religious organizations as intermediaries in Indonesia
Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Kathmandu, Nepal, May 2011
UNLIKELY ACTORS: RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS ASINTERMEDIARIES IN INDONESIA
Fathul Wahida, b
, Maung K. Seina, Bjørn Furuholt
a
aDepartment of Information Systems, University of Agder, Kristiansand, NorwaybDepartment of Informatics, Universitas Islam Indonesia, Yogyakarta, IndonesiaE-mail: {fathul.wahid, maung.k.sein, bjorn.furuholt}@uia.no
Abstract: Intermediaries play a vital role as actors who help provide access to the vast majority of population in developing countries. The literature has identified severaltypes and categories of such intermediaries and conceptualized their roles, characteristics and sustainability criteria. In this paper, we identify an unlikely actor in the specific context of Indonesia, namely, religious organizations (ROs). Our examination indicates that there are several factors that make these organizations sustainable and successful intermediaries. Moreover, they have wide reach and are trusted by the populace they serve. At the same time, they also can be potentially dangerous because of the threat of religious extremism.
Keywords: ICT4D, intermediaries, religious organizations, developing country, Indonesia.
1. INTRODUCTION
The literature on Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D) has identified several lenses through which an ICT intervention can lead or at least positively affect development of underdeveloped countries. A review of this literature is beyond the scope of our paper; we simply direct the discerning reader to the table of contents of these proceedings which illustrates the many facets of this discourse. In our paper, we focus on the aspect highlighted by the theme of the conference, namely, actors and their actions in fostering development through ICT.
For ICT4D initiatives to succeed, actors other than the government or aid agencies have to play a vital role. These actors are variously termed as intermediaries (Sorrentino and Niehaves, 2010;Sein, 2009; Sein and Furuholt, 2009; OECD, 2010) and activists (Sein et al., 2008). They can be individuals or organizations and even partnerships. Their main purpose is to provide access to the Internet to the common people who do not have resources to have private access. This is not just physical access, but also access to information through actually locating and then disbursing this information to the users.
Intermediaries come in all shapes and sizes. They could be one-stop shop, consultants, professional tax preparers, telecenters, public Internet access points, or even friends and family members (Sorrentino and Niehaves, 2010). While this categorization is useful, it is not clear if it applies universally or whether there are other possible actors. This is an intriguing question especially since underdeveloped countries are not homogeneous and more importantly, rich in specific cultural, religious and economic contexts.
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In this paper, we seek to identify such actors in a developing country, Indonesia. While we identified several such actors, we discuss one specific type that has not received much attention in the literature, religious organizations (ROs). Such faith-based organizations can play an important role in development (Clarke, 2006). We evaluate ROs in Indonesia using conceptual frameworks and models on intermediaries that have recently been proposed in the literature.
The rest of the paper is organized as follows. First, in Section 2, we briefly describe the current state of ICT development in Indonesia. In Section 3, we identify possible ICT4D intermediariesin Indonesia. In section 4, we introduce and describe ROs and in the subsequent sections, we first evaluate them vis-à-vis conceptual frameworks and models in the literature and then examine them to gain some insight on why they are successful as appropriate intermediaries. We concludethe paper by presenting implications for research and practice.
2. SETTING THE SCENE: ICT4D IN INDONESIA
With a population of around 238 million people, Indonesia is the world's fourth most populous country, and has the world's largest population of Muslims. The country consists of 17,508 islands, about 6,000 of which are inhabited, scattered over 1,919,440 square kilometres, in which, 60% of it is sea. This geography demands for a good transportation and communication infrastructure, including ICT. However, in 2008, ICT expenditure per capita was USD 73.92, which is very low when compared to, for instance its neighbouring countries, Singapore (USD 2,663.05) and Malaysia (USD 796.65) (http://www.tradingeconomics.com).
In spite of this state, the Internet has diffused rapidly in Indonesia and Internet cafes are still the most popular venue to access the Internet. Currently, there are more than 10,000 Internet cafes scattered throughout the country that facilitate around 40% of the Internet users (http://www.apjii.or.id). Although the rate of Internet diffusion has been very high during the last decade (from 1.9 million users in 2000 [http://www.apjii.or.id] to 30 million in 2010 [http://www.internet worldstats.com]), the percentage of users to the total population is still only 12.3%, which is much lower than the world average of 28.7%). The situation is even worse due to the fact that inequality emerge in almost all sectors, including ICT infrastructure and literacy, between developed and less developed parts of the country. For example, although Internet cafes have recently begun to spread into more rural areas, most of them are still concentrated in large cities, such as Yogyakarta, Bandung, Jakarta, Surabaya, and Semarang (Wahid et al., 2004).
A similar portrait of inequalities also emerges in the case of ICT in the government sector(Furuholt and Wahid, 2008). Although e-Government initiatives in Indonesia started in 2003,both at national and local levels, adoption has been slow. The United Nations e-GovernmentSurvey 2010 (United Nations, 2010) put Indonesia on 109th place among the 192 surveyed countries. While it is possible for the general public to benefit from e-Government services through various channels, the variation between districts is still very high, due to a number of reasons, including availability and quality of infrastructure, political leadership support, and human factors that vary across this large and heterogeneous country (Furuholt and Wahid, 2008).In such a context, the role of non-governmental actors becomes crucial in getting citizens access. In general, the advent of actors serving as ICT4D intermediaries is posited to improve e-inclusion (Sorrentino and Niehaves, 2010; Milliard, 2007). Our study was aimed at identifying such actors who could act as intermediaries.
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3. IDENTIFYING POSSIBLE INTERMEDIARIES IN INDONESIA
Data used in this study were collected from various sources: anecdotal notes of one of the authors from informal discussion with key players (e.g., head of e-Government taskforces in a province, a city, and a district in Indonesia), the authors' previous research in the relevant topics (e.g., Internet adoption/diffusion, ICT4D intermediaries, and e-Government) and secondary data available online and in the literature. One of the authors has been involved to some extent in various ICT related activities, such as providing ICT training for RO activists and government officers and actively participating in various ICT forums (attended by private sectors, government agencies, ICT entrepreneurs/activists, NGOs, and academicians). Table 1 summarizes our findings.
Actors Explanation
Internet cafes There are more than 10,000 Internet cafes scattered throughout the country. Around
40% of users access Internet from these venues.
One-stop services Many local governments have established one-stop services to improve their public
services and transparency.
Private sectors Public private partnership can be found in various ICT4D related initiatives, such as
increasing accessibility of Internet and developing e-Government application that can
be used either for free or on "profit-sharing" basis.
Non-governmental
organizations (NGOs)
NGOs have been engaged in various ICT related activities, from providing ICT training, establishing telecenter, to taking part in emergency responses during natural
disasters using ICT.
Post offices Pos Indonesia (the state-owned postal authority of Indonesia) runs Internet Service Provider with a national coverage, operates many Internet cafes especially in
peripheral areas, and manages around 30,000 payment points for various services, from
land tax payment, consumer credit payment, credit-card payment, to insurance, and
utilities bill payment
Religious organizations. To be elaborated in the next section.
Table 1. Possible intermediaries
As Table 1 shows, we could map all the actors into the categories identified by Sorrentino and Niehaves (2010). The one surprising and intriguing finding was the last category in the table, namely, religious organizations (ROs). This category has seldom, if at all, received attention in the literature. In the following, we delve deeper into ROs and discuss how they have been serving as intermediaries and how they map into the current literature.
4. RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS AS INTERMEDIARIES: THE CURRENT
PICTURE
Recent development in Indonesia shows that ROs have embarked on using ICT to support their operations in giving services to the society (Winarko, 2007). For example, some masjids(mosques) provide free Internet connection to their jama'ah (constituents). The first and foremost intention is to attract as many as constituents, especially youngsters, to be more frequently joining activities in the places of worship called masjids. A good example is the Masjid
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Jogokaryan in Yogyakarta1. Other examples are Masjid At-Tin in Jakarta2, Masjid Al-Akbar in Surabaya and Masjid Agung An-Nur in Pekanbaru. Masjid Al-Akbar also runs a series of Internet training for its constituents3.
There is no exact statistics on the number of masjids in Indonesia, but the Ministry of Religious Affairs (http://bimasislam.kemenag.go.id) estimates the number to be in the 700000s. The Board of Indonesian Masjids recently announced that they would collaborate with Indonesian telecommunication providers to take advantage of masjids' minarets as base transceiver station (BTS) for cellular phone services4. The income earned by the masjids from this will then be used to run micro-finance initiatives by establishing people credit banks (Bank Perkreditan RakyatSyari'ah). While not a common portrait of masjid management in Indonesia, the number of masjids providing free Internet access are increasing especially in large cities with the support of skilled human resources who show high concerns of how to optimize the function of the masjids
not just as a place for worship, but also as a venue for learning and social activities.
In addition, more than 14,0005pesantrens (Islamic boarding schools; affiliated to Nahdlatul
Ulama or Muhammadiyah or independent) scattered throughout the country could be empowered to serve as ICT4D intermediaries. The e-Pabelan, a telecenter established in 2004 in a pesantren
in Magelang, is an example of an intermediary. Using e-Pabelan, chilli farmers in the neighbourhood, are able to gather information related to chilli cultivation and market price6.Several pesantrens have run their own Internet cafes to provide low-cost Internet access to their santri (students of the pesantrens) and the public in their surroundings. Similar pictures emerge in Pesantren Al-Mizan in Majalengka7, Pesantren Ma'dinul Ulum in Tulungagung8, PesantrenRaudhatul Muttaqien in Sleman9, Pesantren Persis 31 in Bandung10, and Pesantren Darunnajah in South Jakarta11. Recently, the local parliament of Northern Sumatera asked the local government to set-up Internet cafes in Islamic boarding houses12. The kyais (local Islamic scholars) are also attending training to catch up with ICT development, especially Internet13. Madrasahs, schools, and universities under the management of ROs can obviously be powerful channels to disseminate ICT related awareness, knowledge, and skills.
The same initiatives may also be applied in Christian churches, which are also easily found in Indonesia. Statistics from Ministry of Religious Affairs (http://www.kemenag.go.id) shows that the number of churches in Indonesia is more than 25,000 spread across the country. Christian ROs also run schools at various levels and universities throughout the country.
1 http://www.masjidjogokariyan.org2 http://dennimeilizon.blogdetik.com/index.php/2009/08/02/3 http://www.surya.co.id/2010/08/10/masjid-al-akbar-gelar-ngaji-internet.html4 http://www.republika.co.id/berita/dunia-islam/islam-nusantara/10/07/19/125402-bts-bersama-di-menara-masjid 5 http://www.kabarindonesia.com/berita.php?pil=20&jd=Pesantren%2C+Pendidikan+Islam+Khas+Indonesia+(2) &dn=200811181405046 http://www.idrc.ca/en/ev-127123-201-1-DO_TOPIC.html7 http://edukasi.kompasiana.com/2010/02/21/membuka-pintu-pesantren/8 http://tulungagung.olx.co.id/pondok-pesantren-salafiyah-ma-dinululum-campurdarat-tulungagung-jawa-timur-indonesia-iid-218074589 http://www.pprm.or.id10 http://www.republika.co.id:8080/berita/27286/imbangi-pemurtadan-melalui-internet11 http://dennimeilizon.blogdetik.com/index.php/2009/08/02/12 http://www.medansatu.com/node/258213 http://gatra.com/2002-10-28/artikel.php?id=21232
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5. EVALUATING RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS AS INTERMEDIARIES
5.1 Roles
Intermediaries may play a variety of roles, from helping the government agencies to provide infrastructure and improve the services offered (Sein, 2009; Arendsen and Hedde, 2009), to broadening the coverage of services and increase possibilities to benefit from the services offered by the government (Sorrentino and Niehaves, 2010; Sein, 2009). More specifically, the roles of intermediaries can be stated as facilitation, matching, trust, and aggregation (Griffin and Halphin, 2002). Other identified roles are matching demand and supply, information processing, providing trust, and provide interoperability (Arendsen and Hedde, 2009). Similar roles are also proposed by Al-Shobi et al. (2010) who list providing access and increase availability, empowering decision making, enhance trust and identification, and providing help and support. Finally, Sein(2009) proposes a more generic categorization that incorporates facilitating, direct, enabling, and transforming. Table 2 summarizes the possible roles that may be played by ROs in Indonesia. Their roles can vary from providing physical access, information searching, information processing and exchange, to providing help and support. They may also have a transforming role by raising awareness.
Roles Reference Example in the Indonesian context
Facilitating/providing access and increase
availability
Griffin and Halphin (2002); Sein (2009);
Al-Shobi et al. (2010)
Pesantrens run Internet cafes or telecenter and masjids
provide free Internet access to their jama'ah.
Transforming Sein (2009) Schools/madrasahs and universities run by ROs include ICT in their curricula. Masjids organize ICT training to
their jama'ah.
Information processing Arendsen and ter
Hedde (2009)
Pesantrens run their websites to provide aggregated information and consultation. Internet in many cases is also
a source of information for face-to-face Islamic
teaching/preaching.
Provide help and support Sein (2009); Al-Shobi
et al. (2010)
Operators in Internet cafes and telecenters run by ROs
usually are very keen to help the users to access the
services provided.
Table 2. Possible roles for ROs
5.2 Sustainability
For any intermediary to be successful, it first must be sustainable. In simple terms, it must be able to meet its expenses in order to survive. In a study on evaluation of ICT4D initiatives, Seinet al. (2008) propose four conditions necessary for the sustainability of such initiatives. Firstly,to be sustainable, the initiatives should have a steady flow of financing or have appropriatepositioning for finance flow condition. In the Indonesian context, a majority of ROs have a steady financial flow. The sources vary, for example, from charges from the users of Internet cafés they manage, fees from the santries or students, revenue from other businesses (such as cantinas, shops, cooperatives), donation from jama'ah or individual donors, or through partnership with private sector or entitlements from government. Pesantrens often are considered as one of the targets of corporate social responsibility (CSR) programs from the private
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sector14,15. The national government promotes ROs, especially pesantrens and madrasahs, butalso Christian ROs. Secondly, to be sustained, the initiatives should have appropriate content or service offerings. ROs that have grown have historically attained the trust of the society and subsequently received support from it. This they have done mainly by providing services that are useful and fulfil the needs of the society they serve. The ROs also respond to the ICT development by integrating ICT into their education curricula, offering ICT related services such as providing free Internet access and establishing Internet cafes.
Thirdly, Sein et al. (2008) contend that to be sustainable, the initiatives should offer content and service that are highly localized and contextual which ROs are well positioned to meet. Most ROs are strongly attached to local societies and they open their doors for local activists to take part. The e-Pabelan telecentre mentioned above is one example of this. Religious values often guide the content and services provided. For example, a pesantren provides Internet training to its santries to provide correct information about Islam, which often is seen only from a one-sidedperspective and thus misunderstood. Fourthly, Sein et al. (2008) contend that to be sustainable, the ICT initiative must be viewed as an ensemble (i.e., it cannot be viewed simply as technology)and as enabler (i.e., it empowers users to achieve their goals). By its very nature, ROs envelop any offering around socio-religious as well as educational aspects. ICT is simply a means of achieving their larger and principle goal – propagating the faith. For the users, the Internet is a means of getting vital information such as price information for their products or learning about Islam. In summary, ROs in Indonesia seem to meet very well the four sustainability criteria set by Sein et al. (2008).
6. EXAMINING RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS AS INTERMEDIARIES
Our analysis in the preceding section indicate that ROs are well placed to act as ICT4Dintermediaries at least in the Indonesian context. In this section, we examine why this is the case.
6.1 ROs as development and socio-political organizations
Religious or faith-based organizations, according to Clarke (2006), may manifest in five different forms: (1) representative organizations, (2) development organizations, (3) socio-politicalorganizations, (4) missionary organizations, and, (5) illegal or terrorist organizations. As actors serving as intermediaries in ICT4D, two of these forms are particularly relevant. The first form is as development organizations which mobilize the faithful in support of the poor and other social groups. In this form, they fund or manage programs which tackle poverty and social exclusion.The second relevant form is as socio-political organizations which interpret and deploy faith as apolitical construct. In this form, they organize and mobilize social groups on the basis of faithidentities but in pursuit of broader political objectives. Alternatively, they promote faith as a socio-cultural construct, as a means of uniting disparate social groups on the basis of faith-basedcultural identities (Clarke, 2006).
The two largest Islamic organizations in Indonesia, namely Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah are good illustrations. They can both be considered simultaneously as faith-
14 http://www.telkom.co.id/telkom-peduli/kegiatan-pendidikan-budaya-olahraga/ponpes-gontor-sambut-pelatihan-santri-indigo-telkom.html15 http://gatra.com/2002-10-28/artikel.php?id=21232
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based development organizations and faith-based socio-political organizations. While they are subtly different, (e.g., Rao (2004) terms NU as democraticizer and Muhammadiyah as modernizers), the role of such organizations are very important in creating common awareness, strengthening networks, and establishing trust in the society (Rao 2004). NU, which was established in 1926, has now more than 35 million followers and manages more than 7,000 pesantrens and other schools/madrasahs or universities (Rao, 2004), while Muhammadiyah, which was established in 1912, manages more than 7,000 schools/madrasahs, 67 pesantrens,more than 150 universities, and more than 900 hospitals, orphanage houses, and elderly houses (http://www.muhammadiyah.or.id). Thousands of masjids are also under the management of these two religious organizations. Similar smaller organizations have been established in various places in Indonesia with limited coverage of services.
These ROs have been proven to have an important role in promoting development in Indonesia.Islamic values can be used as an instrument of modernization by assigning Muslim leaders particular roles in promoting development (Federspiel, 1985). For instance, the pesantrens have been serving both as places for religious teaching and as community centres (Rao, 2004), while kyais (local Islamic scholars) are widely consulted and highly respected for spiritual and religious matters as well as for matters concerning health, career, family, and community (Candland, 2000). Local ROs, i.e., masjids, have played significant role in culture and community-driven development in Indonesia (Bebbington et al., 2004). Candland (2000)considers faith or religion as social capital for community development. Bebbington et al. (2006)argue that collaboration between ROs with others development actors such as NGOs mayincrease capacity to provide training, advise, information, and affecting social changes.
When it comes to ICT, attitudes to information technology and the Internet may be influenced by religious opinions. For example, Furuholt (2009) found in East Africa that many people would not visit the Internet cafés because of religious reasons, while his experience was the opposite in Indonesia, where students told him that their religious leaders encouraged them to go to the Internet cafés and use the Internet in order to find religious information.
6.2 The “other side” of ROs as intermediaries
Our discussion so far has focused on the reasons why ROs appear to be successful as intermediaries. They provide useful services, have wide reach and high trust and appear to fulfil the conditions for sustainability. However, there are potential pitfalls and negative aspects as well.
Intermediaries do not operate in vacuum and are not value free. As Sein and Furuholt (2009)point out, there is the ”dark side”; what motivates the intermediaries? ROs exist primarily to propagate religion which in the case of Indonesia is predominantly Islam. The current global political situation and the threat of religious extremism (though by no means limited only to Islamic extremism) cannot be overemphasized. The recent Moluccan conflict between Muslim and Christian communities provides evidence that ROs can use the Internet to propagate hate (Bräuchler, 2003). In this case, both Muslim and Christian ROs used the Internet to disseminate their one-sided opinions, often by insulting each other. However, this case may not be overemphasized. A recent survey conducted in Indonesia indicates that only 2.1% of the Internet
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users may be considered as so-called Net Terrorists, i.e., users who spread negative contents and hate over the Internet16.
Nevertheless, in this environment, regarding ROs with suspicion is quite understandable. What, one may ask, is the point where a faith-based organization perceptibly, or imperceptibly, morphs from the more ”benign” of Clarke’s (2006) categories to one that is a terrorist organization? In such a grim scenario, ICTs become a potent and powerful weapon in the hand of trained and highly skilled terrorists. Obviously, these are questions of grave concerns and need to be addressed at the policy and political levels.
7. CONCLUSION
This paper has presented, examined and evaluated religious organizations as possible actors who serve as ICT4D intermediaries in the context of Indonesia. This unlikely actor has not received much attention in the literature. We thus add to the categorization of intermediaries, such as theone by Sorrento and Niehaves (2010).
Interesting research directions arise from our paper. An obvious avenue is to empirically verify and validate the concepts and postulations made from our analysis. Another research question is to investigate the balance between the positive and negative aspects of ROs as intermediaries: how can the characteristics that make ROs sustainable and effective intermediaries be leveraged while averting the danger of religious extremism? Another question relate to the sustainability of intermediaries in general: Can the “business model” of ROs be duplicated or adapted for other types or intermediaries?
Our conceptualizations also need to be grounded on theoretical premises. Two theories that have been widely used in ICT4D literature, Actor Network Theory and Structuration theories are particularly appropriate to understand the dynamics of enrolment and legitimation of ROs.
Providing trust is an important role for ICT4D intermediaries, and ROs seem to fulfil this role. It will not be surprising if their Internet accessibility and reach are broadened in the future. Bringing in other actors, such as governmental offices, private sector companies, and NGOs to provide necessary assistance to religious institutions that lack resources and capabilities in ICT may be an effective way of closing the digital divide.
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