Enhancing ERP Adoption in Government Training Institutions for Effective Financial Management: A Case of Tanzania Institute of Accountancy (TIA)

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system is the largest application software that increasingly being adopted by Higher Learning Institutions (HLI) both private and public institutions in developing countries. However, there is high rate of failures of ERP system implementation in higher learning institutions specifically in the strategies of integration with other information systems like Student Management System (SMS), human resource management and Accounting information systems for the purpose of enhancing financial management. Thus, this study aimed at enhancing the ERP system adoption in higher learning institutions with a special attention to government training institutions in Tanzania. Initially information was collected through literature review; primary data was gathered through structured questionnaires received from a total of 40 respondents working with Tanzania Institute of Accountancy (TIA) which implement ERP system (Epicor). The study revealed several factors that slow the process of implementing ERP system at HLIs. These factors are; lack of technical awareness about the system, user of the system are not involved in the system requirements, top management support, ERP system implementations strategies, IT-infrastructure and experience in IT adoption process. Furthermore, it is found that phased adoption strategy is more suitable approach for adopting new ERP system in the government training institutions environment. Similarly the study revealed that ERP system plays important role in enhancing financial management in HLIs. Conclusively, the study proposed the integrated ERP system implementation framework using phased approach to suite the government higher training institutions environment. Keywords: ERP system, Government training institutions, adoption strateg

FEeSU - A Framework for Evaluating eHealth Systems Usability: A Case of Tanzania Health Facilities

Adopting eHealth systems in the health sector has changed the means of providing health services and increased the quality of service in many countries. The usability of these systems needs to be evaluated from time to time to reduce or completely avoid the possibility of jeopardizing the patients’ data, medication errors, etc. However, the existing frameworks are not country context sensitive since they are designed with the mindset of practices in developed countries. Such developed countries’ contexts have different cultures, resource settings, and levels of computer literacy compared to developing countries such as Tanzania. This paper presents the framework for evaluating eHealth system usability (FEeSU) that is designed with a focus on developing country contexts and tested in Tanzania. Healthcare professionals, including doctors, nurses, laboratory technologists, and pharmacists, were the main participants in this research to acquire practice-oriented requirements based on their experience, best practices, and healthcare norms. The framework comprises six steps to be followed in the evaluation process. These steps are associated with important components, including usability metrics, stakeholders, usability evaluation methods, and contextual issues necessary for usability evaluation. The proposed usability evaluation framework could be used as guidelines by different e-health system stakeholders when preparing, designing, and performing the evaluation of the usability of a system. Keywords: Usability metrics, Usability evaluation Contextual issues eHealth systems Framework for usability evaluation FEeSU. DOI: 10.7176/CEIS/10-1-01 Publication date:September 30th 202