E-INCLUSION AND E-ACCESSIBILITY

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) continue to be a major driver of economic and social modernization. Europe is among the world leaders in the development of the digital economy, but there are few problems, like e-inclusion and e-accessibility. Digital convergence is now a reality and the Internet is an essential tool for our economies and daily lives. Broadband is becoming the standard mode of connectivity. Online content is developing fast, mainly in new and user-created content areas.e-inclusion, e-accessibility, digital economy, ICT

A conceptual study of the factors influencing e-inclusion

With the advancement of the Internet and supporting Information and Communication Technologies, e-inclusion has emerged as an effective means to create opportunities for all and to further individual autonomy and capability in terms of using online services offered by public agencies. The aim of this paper is to offer a critical discussion on the role of e-inclusion from the user perspective, which goes beyond the demographic factors when adopting e-government services. Further, this paper explains the fundamental differences between digital divide and e-inclusion and examines why research focus is now shifting towards studying e-inclusion rather that digital divide in Europe. Through a conceptual analysis the authors examine the relationship between social inclusion and e-inclusion and how they contributes towards promoting the use of ICT to overcome exclusion and improve economic performance, employment opportunities, quality of life, social participation and cohesion

The South Yorkshire e-Inclusion Projects

In July 2007 the South Yorkshire e-Learning programme approved investment in a series of one year projects designed to test and support use of technology to address social and educational exclusion and to identify ‘what works’ and support the adoption of this effective practice. By e-inclusion, we mean the use of appropriate digital technology to provide access to personalised learning for those isolated from the mainstream educational system. It was recognised that inclusion, even without the ‘e’, is a complex agenda with significant variations reflecting local partnerships and specialist learner groupings such as Looked After Children, hospital and home services and Pupil Referral Units. Effective projects would therefore need to be localised and specialised. However, it was clear that similar challenges of practice, effectiveness, empowerment and sustainability are experienced across the range of inclusion and re-engagement services, largely irrespective of partnership or client group. Furthermore the practitioners are often professionally isolated on account of their specialisms and the nature of their mission. They often lack the critical mass to share practice, to solve systemic problems and to access value added funding. The South Yorkshire e-inclusion projects were therefore explicitly structured to take both the specialism and common ground in to account. Each of the four local authorities was invited to plan and manage its own localised project or projects. These projects were then brought together within a formalised model for collaboration and evaluation. It was this wrap-around function, a model of collaborative self-help, which sparked the journey described here

Happy e-Inclusion? The Case of Romania

This paper investigates the determinants of adoption of ICT technology by households in Romania, using a probit model based on a time-series cross-section dataset. A particular attention is given to a few psycho-social factors in addition to the recognised role of usual socio-economic determinants, such as income, age, employment status, educational level or gender. The particular findings are that, together with an expected impact of the occupational status and of the educational level, the perceived wellbeing of individuals is one of the most important factors influencing the decision to acquire and use a PC at home. Gender does not seem to have the same importance as in other regions of the world and shows an opposite sign than elsewhere, whereas income influences the decision, but with a weaker effect.information and communications technology; e-inclusion; Probit model; Romania; determinants of PC use

The Evolution of E-Inclusion: Technology in Education for the Vision-Impaired

The 1970s and 1980s saw a rapid take-up in the use of personal computers. During the same time period, society began to move towards providing equity for people with disabilities. As legislators around the world created new disability and Information Technology policies, more people with disabilities were given access to education and the evolving computing tools provided unprecedented educational opportunities. These opportunities were due to the use of new technologies such as outputting of electronic text to voice synthesizers. The provision of assistive technology was not only helpful; it also provided education through a medium that was previously unavailable, particular to the blind and vision impaired. For much of the 1980s the development of text-processing sensory technologies, connected to personal computers, led to a closer equality between the educational services of the able-bodied and people with disabilities. Unfortunately this evolution as not without notable difficulties: issues surrounding the cost of products, the lack of support from large corporations and choice of platform resulted in substantial difficulties for educators in the assessment of appropriate technology. In addition, many of these products became largely redundant in the late-1980s as corporations began to place more emphasis on the Graphical User Interface (GUI). Although the GUI was remarkably successful in allowing the general public to gain better access to personal computing, it’s non-text nature once again caused a digital divide for people with disabilities. Although it is clear that the evolution of the personal computer has had a significant impact on the provision of education for people with disabilities, this paper highlights the historical repetition where innovation is prioritized above e-inclusion

E-inclusion in Finland and Italy in the light of statistical data.

When young people drop out of school they are in great danger of being marginalized in society. Immigrants are another group of people who for several reasons often find it difficult to become integrated into their new home country. In both cases some less formal way of learning might help these groups avoid social exclusion. Well thoughtout development and application of new advanced technologies would be likely to level the way for continued education, communication and democratic participation in society. The term e-inclusion refers to these electronic means and how they could be applied to hindering social exclusion. This study compares the situation of school drop-outs and immigrants in Finland and Italy in the light of statistical data. It paves the way for a European research and development project whose aim is to study problems of e-inclusion in Finland and Italy empirically as well as develop technological and pedagogical solutions to them.mobile learning; e-inclusion; disadvantage groups; immigrants; drop outs

E-Inclusion: Opportunities and Challenges

Розглянуто поняття електронної інклюзії, що визнана світовим співтовариством як ефективна стратегія забезпечення відкритості освіти, її доступності для різних верств населення незалежно від національності, раси, рівня доходу, соціального становища, місця проживання, функціональних обмежень і т.д.The concept of e-inclusion, which is recognized by the world community as an effective strategy to ensure the openness of education and its accessibility to different segments of the population regardless of nationality, race, income level, social status, residence, functional limitations, etc., is considered

Taking Prahalad high-tech: the emergence and evolution of global corporate citizenship in the IT industry

In this paper, I analyse the emergence and evolution of e-Inclusion, HP’s flagship global corporate citizenship programme, as a landmark in the history of corporate citizenship in the IT industry. This programme, which existed from 2000 to 2005, was the first explicit attempt by a major high-tech company to operationalise the theories of C.K. Prahalad, by implementing a direct and an indirect bottom-of-the-pyramid (bop) strategy. The first led to the development of pilot programmes that worked directly with the rural poor to test bop products, services and business models and to create new sources of income for project participants. The second strategy saw e-Inclusion establish collaborations with public-sector organisations which until then had been peripheral to HP’s business, but were recognised as vital for e-Inclusion’s operations and HP’s emerging market success. I argue that important lessons can be drawn from this flagship corporate citizenship programme, which can make current IT initiatives more sustainable and meaningful

E-inclusion: Beyond individual sociodemographic characteristics

The changing demographic structure of the population, resulting in unparalleled growth of the elderly population, means that e-inclusion of this population group is considered to be a social and political priority in the context of the Information Society. Most research studies have only considered individual variables -such as age, gender, education, income and health- in the explanatory models of e-inclusion of senior citizens, while ignoring macro variables, such as the welfare systems and public policies in each country. Simultaneously, most studies focus on small-scale samples, lack international comparisons and do not consider the combined effect of several variables that influence Internet use. This study aims to analyse possible differences between two countries that have different welfare systems and public policies, after controlling for the effects of the individual variables that have been identified in the literature as relevant for Internet use. The study focuses on a sample of 8639 individuals, aged 50 years and over, residing in Portugal and Estonia, who participated in the SHARE project (Survey of Health, Ageing and Retirement in Europe). The results of the logistic regression analysis demonstrate that welfare systems and public policies have an impact on the likelihood of Internet use, thus reinforcing the importance of developing public policies to foster e-inclusion of senior citizens.The Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT

Happy E-Inclusion? The Case of Romania

This paper investigates the determinants of adoption of ICT technology by households in Romania, using a probit model based on a time-series cross-section dataset. A particular attention is given to a few psycho-social factors in addition to the recognised role of usual socio-economic determinants, such as income, age, employment status, educational level or gender. The particular findings are that, together with an expected impact of the occupational status and of the educational level, the perceived wellbeing of individuals is one of the most important factors influencing the decision to acquire and use a PC at home. Gender doesn¿t seem to have the same importance as in other regions of the world and shows an opposite sign than elsewhere, whereas income influences the decision, but with a weaker effect. Keywords: Information and communications technology; E-Inclusion; Probit model; Romania; determinants of PC use JEL classification: O33, O52, L86JRC.DG.J.4-Information Societ