Creating an International Joint Certificate in IT Administration

The University of Nebraska at Omaha (UNO) and the University of Agder (UiA), Norway, are collaborating on the creation of an undergraduate certificate in Information Technology Administration. The certificate is designed for students who are interested in managing the complex technical infrastructure of today\u27s organizations. The certificate will consist of approximately 15 credit hours of hands-on courses, covering such areas as systems administration, network administration, database administration, security administration, and distributed systems. All courses will be offered online, using a variety of collaboration tools and teaching techniques that reflect the best of current practice. Students will take courses taught by both UNO and UiA instructors and will have the opportunity to work with students residing in a country other than their own. The program is currently under development at both universities. Market research indicated that there is high current and future demand for the skill-set offered by the IT administration certificate. However, neither UNO nor UiA has the resources or capabilities of offering the full certificate on its own. By combining their resources, the institutions are able to expand their offerings not only to their own student population, but to those in other countries as well. By being a completely online offering, the certificate is available to students in multiple countries in delivery modes that are flexible and accessible. The online international collaboration behind this certificate will offer many opportunities for pedagogical research, blending teaching and research to create a learning environment in which students both learn from and participate in teaching and research processes. The courses are intensely technical, requiring hands-on access, often by teams of students, to sophisticated systems. Enabling the access and the real-time staff support that accompanies it is a challenge that must be met. Contemporary technologies of cloud computing, virtualization, and remote collaboration offer opportunities for creative solutions. Administratively, the two institutions have worked through issues of reconciling differences in credit production (student credit hours vs. European Credit Transfer System), course payment, semester schedule reconciliation, time zones, and teacher workloads

Ada in the Soviet Union

Over the last decade and a half, the Ada programming language has aroused more financial, technical, political, and emotional forces than any other programming language. Because the language is a product of more than just technical factors, its progress is heavily influenced by the surrounding social, economic, and political environment. Judging by the technical characteristics of the language and the goals for its use, one would expect that Ada would be the subject of intense development by the USSR, as well as by the USA. In practice, the Ada experiences in these countries differ considerably. We examine the state of Ada in the Soviet Union from four perspectives: the development of Ada technologies, training and educational efforts, technology transfer within the Soviet Union and from the West, and the levels of interest and support among practitioners, managers, users, and policy makers

Global Diffusion of the Internet - I: India: Is the Elephant Learning to Dance?

With his proclamation in 1998 that IT is India\u27s tomorrow , Prime Minister Vajpayee captured a vision of a 21st century India substantially different from that of the previous century, with its high levels of poverty, bloated bureaucracies, and protectionist policies. He envisioned the new India as a major IT power, fully integrated with the global economy, bringing about substantial domestic and international benefit. The Internet is a key to this vision, both as an enabler of technology-based change, and as an indicator of the vision\u27s fulfillment. Using an analytic framework developed by the authors and others, this study documents the growth of the Internet in India, from the pre-Internet networks through the boom of the Internet from 1998 to 2003. The Indian experience provides an example of how fundamental, focused changes in policy and legislation can unleash forces that accelerate Internet diffusion. Private sector initiatives greatly expanded the Internet infrastructure and Internet services market. At the same time, Government initiatives promoted the expansion of the Internet into parts of the country not well served by private ISPs. Poverty and limited telecommunications infrastructure currently limit the rate and extent of Internet expansion. However, time is an ally; the basic elements for continued growth of the Internet are largely in place

Introducing the Global Diffusion of the Internet Series

While there is no shortage of commentary on the nature and impact of the Internet, a deep understanding of this phenomenon and its diffusion must go beyond the collection of factoids, such as the number of hosts and users, to capture the context within which the Internet evolves. This paper introduces a CAIS series entitled The Global Diffusion of the Internet, which seeks to promote research efforts that contribute to our understanding of the diffusion of the Internet throughout the world, that create and apply analytic frameworks that permit comparative analyses, and that capture the rather perishable history of the Internet as it unfolds. Contributions by scholars from parts of the world that are under-represented among the AIS membership are particularly encouraged

The Internet in Turkey and Pakistan: A Comparative Analysis

The Global Diffusion of the Internet Project was initiated in 1997 to study the diffusion and absorption of the Internet to, and within, many diverse countries. This research has resulted in an ongoing series of reports and articles that have developed an analytic framework for evaluating the Internet within countries and applied it to more than 25 countries. (Seehttp://mosaic.unomaha.edu/gdi.html for links to some of these reports and articles.) The current report applies the analytic framework to compare and contrast the Internet experiences of Turkey and Pakistan, through mid-2000. Although historically these countries have not been closely related, there are significant parallels between the two that make them well suited for a comparative study of the absorption of the Internet. Turkey and Pakistan are among the largest non-Arab Muslim countries in the world. In contrast to most of their Arab counterparts, their governments were founded as secular, parliamentary democracies. Both countries have had stormy political histories, however, with periodic coups and authoritarian governments. Each country has firmly entrenched bureaucracies with closed and, to varying degrees, corrupt processes

Sustainability of Information Technology Therapy on Micro-enterprise Development.

The use of information technology in microenterprises has been shown to bring about improvements in accessing new markets, in achieving administrative efficiencies, increased productivity and competitiveness. To benefit from IT, micro-enterprises require specialized intervention and support. At the same time these micro-enterprises require skill sets that can translate their unique needs to IT solutions. This paper provides an IT Therapy approach to addressing micro-enterprise needs through IT. Following an action research approach to investigating micro-enterprises, this paper provides insights into how IT can bring about sustained improvements in micro-enterprises. The contribution of this paper is in guidelines of how IT can bring about development in micro-enterprises. This has implications for IT interventions to support microenterprises to achieve broader goals of sustainable development

An Information Technology Therapy Approach to Micro-enterprise Adoption of ICTs

The advent of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) has opened up new opportunities for micro-enterprises to improve their businesses. However the challenges to using ICTs are impeding these businesses from growing into the drivers for development that they can be. This suggests that a potentially important driver of development needs to be supported. This paper investigates the adoption of ICTs in eight micro-enterprises in an underserved community of Omaha, Nebraska. Following an action research study, this research provides insight into the key challenges and opportunities facing micro-enterprises in their use of ICTs to create value for their businesses. Its contribution is in the methodology for implementing ICTs in micro-enterprises

Scientific Computing in the Soviet Union

In the last decade, the Soviet Union has placed increased emphasis on the development of high-speed computers and networks for use in scientific, economic, and military applications. When Communist Party General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev labeled supercomputer development a top priority task for our science and economy in April, 1987, he added new urgency to the production of machines that would both support activities in these applications and also serve as high-profile standard-bearers for perestroika, his program of restructuring and modernization for the nation. The Soviets have also undertaken some major projects in networking, including the creation of a nationwide packet-switched network for the Academy of Sciences, work on network access to databases on scientific literature, and local area networks at a number of institutes

The Internet in India and China

This article compares the diffusion of the Internet in China and India. Using a six–dimension framework for characterizing the state of the Internet in a nation, we observe that, while both nations have made significant progress since our last comparison (in 1999), China enjoys a substantial lead over India. We also examine determinants of Internet diffusion. We find that the Chinese Internet has benefited from economic and trade reform begun in the late 1980s, a strong government commitment to the Internet, complementary human and capital resources, etc. The two nations have very different governments and policies, leading to differing approaches to the introduction of telecommunication competition and infrastructure development. China has pursued a strategy of competition among government–owned organizations while India has set policy via recommendations of publicly visible task forces. It remains to be seen whether India’s relatively transparent and market driven approach to Internet policy (and access) will prove effective in the long run. India and China have approximately 40 percent of the world population, and most of their inhabitants live in rural villages that lack basic telephone service. If the Internet is to succeed in raising the level of human development and curtailing migration to teeming urban centers, it must succeed in India and China. What we learn there may enable us to provide communication and information to the world\u27s 1.5 million unconnected villages