• The Partnership Health of ICT Projects in Developing Countries

There have been, generally speaking, for many years high expectations that information and communication technologies (ICTs) can make a contribution toward development. However this is not always achieved and, as has been found by several researchers, this unfavourable outcome is, amongst other things caused by partnership problems between partners. The basic argument of this paper is that successful contributions in developing countries that are made with, and through, ICT are partly dependent on the health of the relationship between partners. It would therefore be necessary to study the factors that may influence the health of the relationship between partners in ICT related projects in developing countries. This could eventually serve as a foundation for some form of framework of partnership issues in such projects. This framework could then serve as the foundation for further research into developing a diagnostic instrument for this purpose. The research was conducted in 10 projects involving multinational ICT companies, which were studied as separate case studies. Qualitative data was collected using the case study method and the data was analyzed for emerging patterns. It was found that problems with partner cooperation revolve around six core categories namely driving force factors, skill factors, input-output factors, socio-cultural factors, systems factors, and trust factors. These are explained in this paper. It is suggested that further research can serve to interrogate the proposed factors

Public Service Delivery: Role of Information and Communication Technology in Improving Governance and Development Impact

The focus of this paper is on improving governance through the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in the delivery of services to the poor, i.e., improving efficiency, accountability, and transparency, and reducing bribery. A number of papers recognize the potential benefits but they also point out that it has not been easy to harness this potential. This paper presents an analysis of effective case studies from developing countries where the benefits have reached a large number of poor citizens. It also identifies the critical success factors for wide-scale deployment. The paper includes cases on the use of ICTs in the management of delivery of public services in health, education, and provision of subsidized food. Cases on electronic delivery of government services, such as providing certificates and licenses to rural populations, which in turn provide entitlements to the poor for subsidized food, fertilizer, and health services are also included. ICT-enabled provision of information to enhance rural income is also covered

Co-innovation: the future of telemedicine in developing countries

Telemedicine which has been widely adopted in developed countries to reach all its citizens irrespective of their location is only being used for education purposes or disaster relief in developing countries. Since developing countries already suffer inadequate healthcare provision especially in remote areas, it would be essential to implement telemedicine practices for daily clinical uses rather than education use. This research argues that to understand the future of telemedicine in developing countries, both well-established technology innovations adoption factors as well as co-innovation factors should be addressed. In the context of healthcare provision, we propose a conceptual framework that integrates the healthcare resources and the organisational affiliations in co-innovation

Offshore education : offshore education in the wider context of internationalisation and ICT: experiences and examples from Dutch higher education

This report presents a study on offshore education conducted by a consortium of Dutch higher education researchers and commissioned by the Digital University (DU). The study explored the extent to which Dutch higher education institutions are involved in offering their educational services abroad (offshore education). After thoroughly embedding offshore education in the wider contexts of internationalisation and ICT policies, the study particularly explores the practical experiences with a number of real-life offshore activities of Dutch higher education. As a warm-up to this report, a few interesting cases are briefly touched upon below

Human computer interaction for international development: past present and future

Recent years have seen a burgeoning interest in research into the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the context of developing regions, particularly into how such ICTs might be appropriately designed to meet the unique user and infrastructural requirements that we encounter in these cross-cultural environments. This emerging field, known to some as HCI4D, is the product of a diverse set of origins. As such, it can often be difficult to navigate prior work, and/or to piece together a broad picture of what the field looks like as a whole. In this paper, we aim to contextualize HCI4D—to give it some historical background, to review its existing literature spanning a number of research traditions, to discuss some of its key issues arising from the work done so far, and to suggest some major research objectives for the future

EGovernance implementation model: Case study of the federal government agencies of Pakistan

Copyright @ 2013 EMCIS.This study examines the eGovernance potential to bring about structural changes in the way in which government agencies operate, interact and communicate internally and externally with its citizens. Public sector needs to adopt eGovernance that is focused on the citizen satisfaction. In many developed countries, the types and quality of public services provided by a Government to its citizens have evolved over time, due to their change in thinking regarding the role of Government, from being a traditional government to that of being a modern service provider. Thus, this study will focus on the complaint management information systems of the selected federal government agencies in Pakistan. Authors were able to derive the implementation model of eGovernance only after doing analysis of all of the data obtained from questionnaires, interviews and observations at the federal government level in Pakistan. Authors found that the overall outcome of the validation process indicated that the model is highly satisfactory to improve the overall eGovernance system to provide modern services to its citizens

Accomplishments of the Partnership for Higher Education in Africa, 2000-2010

Details the investments and impact of a funder collaborative focused on higher education in nine African countries, and each foundation's contribution. Discusses enduring improvements, increased resources, value added, and additional foundation efforts