Encyclopedia of Developing Regional Communities with Information and Communication Technology

Encyclopedia of Developing Regional Communities with Information and Communication Technology

Stewart Marshall, Wal Taylor, Xinghuo Yu

Copyright: © 2005 |Pages: 804

ISBN13: 9781591405757|ISBN10: 1591405750|EISBN13: 9781591407911

DOI: 10.4018/978-1-59140-575-7

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Marshall, Stewart, et al., editors. Encyclopedia of Developing Regional Communities with Information and Communication Technology. IGI Global, 2005. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-59140-575-7

APA

Marshall, S., Taylor, W., & Yu, X. (Eds.). (2005). Encyclopedia of Developing Regional Communities with Information and Communication Technology. IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-59140-575-7

Chicago

Marshall, Stewart, Wal Taylor, and Xinghuo Yu, eds. Encyclopedia of Developing Regional Communities with Information and Communication Technology. Hershey, PA: IGI Global, 2005. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-59140-575-7

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In many international settings, regional economies are declining resulting in lowered opportunities for these communities. This result attacks the very fabric of cohesion and purpose for these regional societies, and increases social, health, economic and sustainability problems. Community Informatics research, education and practice is an emerging area in many countries, which seeks to address these issues.

The Encyclopedia of Developing Regional Communities with Information and Communication Technology is an important and timely reference source on all topics related to the emerging field of information and communication technology (ICT) and its role in developing regional communities. This single-volume provides a thorough examination of concepts, technologies, policies, training, and applications of ICT in support of economic and regional developments around the globe. With 171 leading international contributors from 40 countries, over 940 terms and definitions, and more than 2,200 references, this publication is the single indispensable source of knowledge related to ICT and its strong positive impacts on the economic development of regional communities around the world.

Table of Contents

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Front Materials

Title Page

Copyright Page

Editorial Advisory Board

Foreword

Preface

Acknowledgments

Articles

Article

Action Research Methods (pages 1-5)

Patrice Braun

To date, most research into the implications of the Internet for SMEs has focused on individual business barriers to ICT and e-commerce adoption. Such research has shown that SMEs tend to be time- and resource-poor, with their size...

Article

Adaptive Use of ICT in Response to Disintermediation (pages 6-10)

Pramod Sharma, Dean Carson, Andrew Taylor

Traditionally, the Australian travel agency sector has operated as the premium intermediary in a relatively simple distribution chain that can be depicted as follows: In such a system, it is estimated that travel agents have...

Article

Analysing a Rural Community's Reception of ICT in Ghana (pages 7-15)

John Pryor

The Fiankoma Project was a development awareness (DA) initiative run by the Video Educational Trust aiming to link the small rural community of Fiankoma (Ghana) with people and institutions in Brighton UK through Information and...

Article

Applying for Government Grants for ICT in Australia (pages 16-20)

Lynne H. De Weaver

The legend on the CTC@NSW Web site, http://www.ctc.nsw.gov.au/about/, defines Community Technology Centres (CTCs) as “computer enabled multi-purpose facilities based in the Main Street or main centre of a town. They provide access to...

Article

The Arab World, Culture and Information Technology (pages 21-27)

Mohamed El Louadi

In 801, Harun Rashid offered Charlemagne a water clock, the like of which was inexistent in all of Europe at that time; the King’s court thought that a little devil was hidden inside the clock. In the 1930s, King Abdulaziz of Saudi...

Article

Assessing Universal Access to ICT in Ghana (pages 28-34)

Godfred Frempong, Imoro Braimah

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)1 have become part of the key factors driving social and economic advancement. They have not only altered the way people live, work, communicate and entertain themselves but also...

Article

Assessment of E-Government Projects (pages 35-39)

Rahul De

This article considers the issues relevant to assessing the success or failure of large-scale e-government projects in India. Prior research has highlighted a number of possible reasons why e-government systems in Less Developed...

Article

Assimilation by Communities of Internet Technologies (pages 40-46)

Geoff Erwin, Wal Taylor

Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) are posing fundamental questions for society, government and commerce in economic, social, educational, cultural and democratic processes within and across nation states in terms of...

Article

Building a Framework for the Development of RMIT Learning Networks (pages 47-52)

Leone Wheeler, Cheryl Lewis-Fitzgerald

Learning networks is a unit within Community & Regional Partnerships (C&RP) at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology (RMIT University). Community & Regional Partnerships (C&RP) is charged with enacting RMIT’s mission to “make a...

Article

Building Human-Centered Systems (pages 53-65)

José L. Moutinho, Manuel Heitor

Within the current socio-economic paradigm, in which engineering systems are key for the sustainable development (Moses, 2003), the region is considered the place of untraded interdependencies, meaning “…conventions, informal rules...

Article

Cambodian Youth Making Connections (pages 66-71)

Kelly Hutchinson

This article explores how urban Cambodian youth are creating connections and exploring the opportunities that new technology offers for their social and community development within the Khmer diaspora. It contends that these young...

Article

Capturing Community Memory with Images (pages 72-78)

Ted Leath

Around the world, communities are examining the issues of preserving cultural identity, documenting local history, promoting tourism and examining their shared heritage. Many communities have relied on official records, tradition...

Article

Caribbean Companies and the Information Superhighway (pages 79-84)

Simon Fraser

With the explosion of public awareness of the Internet in the early 1990s, much attention has been focused on ways in which these new technologies can be used in developing nations. Some of the primary proponents of these initiatives...

Article

Challenges to Community Informatics to Bridging the Digital Divide (pages 86-89)

Peter Songan, Khairuddin Ab. Hamid, Alvin W. Yeo, Jayapragas Gnaniah, Hushairi Zen

Community Informatics (CI) is the application of ICT to overcome the “digital divide” both within and among communities (Gurstien, 2000). Taylor (2004) further asserts that CI is a connection between theory and practice in community...

Article

Choosing Online Learning Communities or Collaborative Learning (pages 90-95)

Daniel Teghe, Bruce Allen Knight

The adoption and innovative use of computer-mediated communication (CMC) technology can have positive outcomes for regional development (Ashford, 1999; Harris, 1999; Mitchell, 2003). Especially when it involves the use of online...

Article

Citizen-Oriented Decision Making (pages 96-102)

Auli Keskinen, Tuomo Kuosa

The potential of information communication technology (ICT) opens up whole new sets of concepts and practical solutions to be developed when working with research and development (R&D) on new democratic praxis in the knowledge era...

Article

Civic Space Portal (pages 103-106)

Olesya Arkyhypska, Svitlana Bilous, Vitaly Yarinich

Internet use in Ukraine has grown rapidly over the past years. In January 2001, the number of Internet users constituted 4.6% of the Ukraine’s population, in January 2002—5.5%. In 2003, the number of Ukrainian e-users reached 8% of...

Article

Civil Society and the New Economy (pages 107-112)

Susana Finquelievich

During 1990s, the transformations that took place in the world economy, focused mainly on information and communication technology (ICT), were expected to mark the beginning of an era in which recessions would only be a memory of the...

Article

Clustering Dynamics of the ICT Sector in South Africa (pages 113-118)

Sagren Moodley

Both the production and use of ICT are unevenly distributed across countries and regions. While this is typical of emerging and fast evolving technologies, there are particularly significant spatial differences in the patterns of ICT...

Article

Cognitive Theories and the Design of E-Learning Environments (pages 119-123)

Bijan B. Gillani

The explosive growth of the Internet and the dramatic advances in the design and development of online technological tools in recent years have revolutionized the way students and teachers view technology in education. These...

Article

Connecting Dispersed Communities on the Move (pages 124-129)

Juliet Jain, Glenn Lyons

Travel assists the development and maintenance of social networks from the local to the global by connecting people to places. The time spent travelling has tended to be regarded by many analysts as a necessary sacrifice to achieve...

Article

Connecting the Unconnected in Rural Ireland (pages 130-134)

Anneleen Cosemans

How to integrate ICT into schools in an appropriate and meaningful way remains one of the most fraught questions in education today as teachers and policy makers alike strive to make the most out of the Internet and other...

Article

Convergence of ICT and Culture (pages 135-137)

Matthew Mitchell

Participants in development projects and programs that strategically utilize information communication technologies (ICT) are engaged in activities that have culturally-relevant impacts. At local and regional levels, there may be...

Article

Critical Mass and Self-Sustaining Activity (pages 138-143)

Martin R. Gibbs, Philippa Wright, Michael Arnold

Recent studies of community networks (CNs) have provided optimistic views of the potential of information and communication technology (ICT) to support and enhance community life in various ways, in a variety of urban settings (di...

Article

Crossing the Digital Divide and Putting ICT to Work to Improve People's Lives (pages 144-145)

Teresa Peters

Information and communications technology (ICT) is a key weapon in the war against world poverty. When used effectively, it offers huge potential to empower people in developing countries to overcome development obstacles, address...

Article

Cultural Barriers of Human-Computer Interaction (pages 146-151)

Deborah Sater Carstens

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) researchers and practitioners are well aware of the cultural challenges brought on by a global market (Smith, 2004; Smith, Dunckley, French, Minocha, & Chang, 2004). However, there are...

Article

The Definition Dilemma of E-Commerce (pages 151-158)

Aileen Cater-Steel, Shelly Grist

There is confusion among researchers, practitioners and policymakers about the meaning of terms such as e-commerce, and small and medium enterprise (SME) (Krochmal, 1998; Mesenbourg, 2001; Poon, 2002; Xydias-Lobo & Jones, 2003). The...

Article

Determining Whether ICT Improves Social Interactions (pages 159-163)

Raj Gururajan

Previous innovations, such as telephones allowed individuals to communicate on a one-to-one basis, or for powerful, central institutions to speak one-way to the masses (Burrows, 2000). New technologies such as the Internet are...

Article

Developing Regional Communities in Turkey (pages 164-168)

Melih Kirlidog

Virtual Communities (VC), as defined by Rheingold (2000), are the social groups formed in the cyberspace when enough people carry on public discussions long enough and with sufficient human feeling. VC enabled by the ICT technologies...

Article

Developing Regional Destination Marketing Systems (pages 169-175)

Glen Hornby

Many regional and rural centres in Australia view tourism as an increasingly important area of economic opportunity (Commonwealth of Australia, 2002). With the Internet as an increasingly important source of information for travelers...

Article

Developing Regional Tourism Using Information Communications Technology (pages 176-181)

Dean Carson

Tourism and hospitality industries are heavily reliant on the effective exchange of information between suppliers, intermediaries, regulatory and marketing agencies, and consumers (Sheldon, 1999). Many technologies may be employed to...

Article

Digital Divide and the ICT Paradigm Generally and in Estonia (pages 182-187)

Tarmo Kalvet

A multitude of writings have appeared since the 1970s describing how societies have undergone “information revolutions” (Bell, 1973; Castells, 1998; Masuda, 1981), “the third wave” (Toffler, 1980), etc. Indeed, ICT development has...

Article

Digital Libraries and Development for the Illiterate (pages 188-192)

Maria F. Trujillo

Even though the information revolution is usually traced back to the 1960s in the United States with the convergence of ICT, it was only in the last two decades that these technologies diffused to most developing societies around the...

Article

Digital Library Structure and Software (pages 193-198)

Cavan McCarthy

Digital libraries (DL) can be characterized as the “high end” of the Internet, digital systems which offer significant quantities of organized, selected materials of the type traditionally found in libraries, such as books, journal...

Article

Distance Education in the Era of Internet (pages 199-204)

Giorgio Agosti

Let us start with a definition: distance education can be called an educational learning process or system where teachers or instructors are separated in space from students.

Article

Distance Learning, Telematics and Rural Social Exclusion (pages 205-209)

Matthew David

ADAPTthroughRATIO (AtR) was established to address social exclusion in the South West of the United Kingdom (Devon, Cornwall and Somerset) which has relatively weak employment opportunities. In this area, average earnings and...

Article

E-Africa Initiative for Good Governance (pages 210-213)

Gianluca Misuraca

There is no doubt that the need for all around improvement of performance is very urgent for African governments and that ICT is valuable in decision-making, planning and management support in all sectors of the economy. In this...

Article

e-Bario and e-Bedian Project Implementation in Malaysia (pages 214-219)

Jayapragas Gnaniah, Alvin W. Yeo, Hushairi Zen, Peter Songan, Khairuddin Ab. Hamid

The Malaysian government inspires the country to become a fully developed nation with an emphasis on knowledge-based economy by the year 2020. Though the government has been pushing aggressively for one household to own one computer...

Article

E-Business for SME Development (pages 220-226)

Éliane M.F. Moreau, Louis Raymond, Bernard Vermot-Desroches

In recent years, information communication technologies (ICT) have become accessible throughout the world, and appear to overcome both distance and time (Cairncross, 1997). ICT affects not only individual citizens, but also companies...

Article

E-Commerce and Small Business in Regional Australia (pages 227-232)

Wayne Pease, Michelle Rowe

E-commerce is considered to provide substantial benefits to business, particularly small business. It enables new ways of working to emerge and facilitates an organization’s reengineering. Benefits from e-commerce can be argued to be...

Article

E-Commerce and Small Tourism Firms (pages 233-238)

Patrice Braun

Today’s networked economy is a strategic combination of many factors, with electronic platforms and relationships underpinning competitive advantage. Enabled and driven by information and communication technologies (ICT) and...

Article

E-Commerce Challenges for Caribbean Businesses (pages 239-245)

Richard M. Escalante

The global environment of e-commerce is revolutionizing business practices and reshaping traditional business transactions over “computer-mediated networks” (Schmitz et al., 2001). Although fairly well-established in developed...

Article

E-Commerce in the Sub-Saharan Africa (pages 246-249)

Kenneth Msiska

Business firms continue to explore innovative ways of conducting business for many reasons. For electronic commerce (e-commerce) the reasons may range from the maximization of profits through an enlarged clientele to the reduction of...

Article

E-Democracy as a Contemporary Framework for Citizens' Deliberation (pages 250-255)

Ulrike Kozeluh

The emergence of new media has raised the hope of many politicians, citizens, political activists and scholars from various disciplines to establish a (virtual) space for free flow of information and communication for increasing the...

Article

Education Trends in Thai Businesses Utilizing Information Technology (pages 256-262)

Heather Arthur-Gray, John Campbell

There is a “deep-rooted inequality situation in the Thai economy and society” (Krongkaewa & Kakwanib, 2003). This inequality permeates all aspects of Thai society, highlighting Thailand’s current economic vulnerability as they try to...

Article

E-Government and E-Democracy in Latin America (pages 263-268)

Ester Kaufman

Latin America is suffering from many of the negative consequences of globalization, without benefiting from many of its advantages. Among the advantages are those derived from the increasing availability of ICT and from the potential...

Article

Electronic Government in Small Island States (pages 269-274)

Janet Toland, Fuatai Purcell, Sid Huff

The capabilities provided through electronic government (e-government) opens up the potential for government’s worldwide to improve the services they offer to their citizens. However, a move towards e-government offers particular...

Article

E-Mail as a Teaching Supplement in Tunisia (pages 275-281)

Mohamed El Louadi

Learning and knowledge dissemination using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is becoming increasingly prevalent in schools and universities around the world. Most institutions of higher learning now invest heavily in...

Article

Employability Management of ICT Professionals (pages 282-288)

Dora Scholarios, Esther van der Schoot, Beatrice van der Heijden

The article describes work conducted as part of the Indic@tor project funded by the European Commission (IST-2000-31070) and supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO) (Aspasia program 015.000.114). The...

Article

Establishing a "Knowledge Network" of Local and Regional Development Subjects (pages 289-294)

Olexandr Molodtsov

Efficiency of collective action, aimed at social development, in many ways depends on the level of being well-informed and the intensiveness of knowledge sharing between the social agents, which are the professional corporate...

Article

Expanding E-Commerce into E-Ducation (pages 295-298)

Kirk St. Amant

The fall of the Soviet Union created a series of new economic situations in Eastern Europe. Soviet-style Communism quickly gave way to a radical and unbridled form of capitalism that led many outsiders to refer to the region as the...

Article

Extended Democratic Space for Citizens' E-Participation (pages 299-304)

Andriy Pazyuk

Having appeared and rapidly developed in all human environments, the computer and telecommunication sphere considerably changed the structure and organization of social institutions and interaction between social actors.

Article

Forging Partnerships to Provide Computer Literacy in Swaziland (pages 305-309)

Cisco M. Magagula

The challenges facing the world, especially developing countries like Swaziland, are many and varied. The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) estimates that over two billion people, out of a global population of six billion...

Article

Formation of a Knowledge-Based Society through Utilization of Information Networking (pages 310-315)

Hakikur Rahman

“Information society,” “knowledge network” and “digital divide” are terms becoming increasingly common in many parts of the world over recent years. The key element in these concepts is that of “information,” and its fluidity in the...

Article

Free/Libre Open Source Software for Bridging the Digital Divide (pages 316-320)

Yu-Wei Lin

As some scholars claim, the digital divide, referring to the perceived gap between those who have access to the latest information technologies and those who do not, entails that not having access to this information is an economic...

Article

Government Procurement ICT's Impact on the Sustainability of SMEs and Regional Communities (pages 321-324)

Peter Demediuk

SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises) are a dynamic force for sustainable economic growth and job creation within developed and developing communities (MFT, 2001; NOIE, 2003; BRTF, 2003). SMEs stimulate private ownership and...

Article

How the National E-Strategy Shapes Competitiveness in the Information Economy (pages 325-330)

Alf Neumann

The ongoing discussion on what e-strategy does and what it can do for national information and communication technology (ICT) development has brought up a variety of government functions for the ICT environment, readiness, and usage...

Article

ICT Aided Education for People's Empowerment (pages 331-336)

Ashok Banerji, Saswata Basu

It is widely recognised that knowledge and education are the key factors that need attention to eradicate poverty. Yet the poorest sections of the community have the least access to conventional means of gaining knowledge and...

Article

ICT and Developing Social Capital (pages 337-341)

Kate Sutcliffe

The Gulf Savannah region (Invest Australia and Gulf Savannah Development, 2003) of north Queensland covers 186,000 square kilometers, an area 80% the size of Victoria. The population of 8,000 live in small towns or Aboriginal...

Article

ICT and Distance Learning for Agricultural Extension in Low Income Countries (pages 342-347)

Colin R. Latchem, Ajit Maru

About 2 billion people in low-income countries are dependent upon smallholding farming for their livelihoods. These are among the world’s poorest people. Most of them lack land tenure and farm in regions with limited land and water...

Article

ICT and Regional Development in Australia (pages 348-352)

Wayne Pease, Michelle Rowe, Lauretta Wright

Hervey Bay is located in the Wide Bay Burnett region of Queensland, Australia. Based on a number of economic and social indicators, the region can be described as disadvantaged (Planning Information Forecasting Unit, 2001). The...

Article

ICT and the Efficient Markets Hypothesis (pages 353-359)

A.J.A. Roofe

This article represents a preliminary attempt to indentify the variables influencing the relationship between technological development and efficiency in the financial markets of a Caribbean economy. The analysis uses qualitative...

Article

ICT and the Tourism Information Marketplace in Australia (pages 360-366)

Andrew Taylor

n November 2003, the Australian Government released the Tourism White Paper, a medium- to long-term strategy for the Australian tourism industry. The Paper provides for funding to improve the availability of high-quality information...

Article

An ICT Enabled "Community" in Rural Nigeria and the UK (pages 367-369)

Pamela McLean

Development initiatives in Nigeria tend to be delivered down through layers of administration, from federal government, to state government, to local government, before they get implemented. Often developments are concentrated in...

Article

ICT for Ethiopian Community Development (pages 370-376)

Solomon Negash

Ethiopia is the home of Lucy’s discovery claimed by science as the oldest female in the search for human beginning—dated 3.2 million years (Johanson & Edey, 1981; Foley, 1997, 2004); headquarters for Organization of African Union...

Article

ICT for Social and Cultural Capital in Pacific Island Communities (pages 377-381)

Usha Sundar Harris

When new technology arrives in a society, it enters an already existing order of social hierarchies, power relationships and a knowledge base. The adoption of the technology can enhance the position of individuals or groups in the...

Article

ICT in Medical Education in Trinidad and Tobago (pages 382-386)

Marilyn Lewis

Information and communication technology (ICT) allows users to access information without taking geographic position into account. These users are also unconstrained by time, volume, or format of the information. ICT applications...

Article

ICT in Regional Development (pages 387-392)

Saundarjya Borbora, Mrinal Kanti Dutta

Economic development and information and communication technology (ICT) are found to move together in the present day era of globalization. ICT can contribute significantly in economic development of a region by providing adequate...

Article

ICT, Education, and Regional Development in Swiss Peripheral Areas (pages 393-398)

Chiara Giorgi, Dieter Schürch

Since the end of 20th Century, the introduction of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) has deeply influenced many aspects of everyday life, leading to the creation of new meanings for the traditional concepts of...

Article

ICT-Based Community Development Initiatives in South Africa (pages 399-404)

Nicole Arellano, Wallace Chigona, Jeanne Moore, Jean-Paul Van Belle

South Africa has seen many changes in the decade since the mid-1990’s but it is still struggling to rectify the damage caused by apartheid, which aimed to maintain white domination while extending racial segregation and emphasising...

Article

Imagining APNA Punjab in Cyberspace (pages 405-411)

Anjali Gera Roy

Akhil Gupta and James Ferguson have observed a motif of discontinuousness in modernist organizations of space. The modern map, which splits the world into a number of discrete, separate formations best illustrates the modernist...

Article

Impact of PFnet Services on Sustainable Rural Development (pages 412-419)

Anand Chand, David Leeming

PFnet in the Solomon Islands is the first attempt to introduce rural e-mail stations in remote rural villages in isolated islands. It was established in 2001 under an UNDP-UNOPS project and was initially partly funded by UNDP. Since...

Article

Implementation of a Health Information Systems Programme (pages 420-426)

Zubeeda Banu Quraishy

In general, developed countries in the world is where Information and Communications Technology (ICT) is in an advanced state, governments in developing countries particularly in the Asia- Pacific region are only in the initial...

Article

Improving Electronic Information Literacy in West African Higher Education (pages 427-432)

Ibrahima Poda, William F. Brescia

Electronic information literacy has gained increased importance with the advent of the new information and communication technologies which, driven by the convergence of computers and telecommunications media, are crucial for...

Article

Industry-Relevant Smart Community Partnerships (pages 433-438)

Colin Baskin, Michelle Barker, Peter Woods

Logan City (population of 400,000) is Queensland’s third largest city and one of the fastest growing in Australia. The population is expected to grow to almost 500,000 by 2011 (Logan City Council, 2001). Other characteristics of the...

Article

Information Communication for Child Development Service (pages 439-444)

Malathi Somaiah, V. Vijayalakshmi

Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) is a comprehensive package of services for early childhood care and development, targeted to the poorest areas of the country. The government of India launched the most important...

Article

Information Literacy for Telecenter Users in Low-Income Regional Mexican Communities (pages 445-450)

Antonio Santos

The purpose of this article is to propose a methodology to increase information literacy among people who attend telecenters in low-income communities in Mexico. The Mexican government created telecenters, or community technology...

Article

The Information Society in Ukraine (pages 451-455)

Serge S. Azarov

In order to assess the prospects for the development of the information society in Ukraine, there is a need to consider the possible directions or approaches that such development might take. In The Diversity within Unity,Etzioni...

Article

Information Technology Standards in China (pages 456-457)

Michelle Rowe

“If you want to access my market, you have to use my standards.” This seems to be the approach adopted by some in China and certainly is the line promoted by the Director of the Ministry of Information Industry’s research institute...

Article

Innovation in Wireless Technologies (pages 458-462)

Diego Ragazzi

There is no doubt that wireless communication technologies have been one of the most interesting innovation fields in the telecommunications industry in recent years. The spectacular rate of innovation in this field has enforced the...

Article

Intentional Online Learning Plans (pages 463-467)

Susan Crichton

The literature suggests a strong tie between literacy and job security; education and poverty. We know that those with higher literacy skills are able to participate more fully in the economy and society (Crichton & Kinsel, 2001, p....

Article

Introducing Electronic Governance in the Philippines (pages 468-470)

Vicente D. Mariano

The Philippines has recently identified five key reform packages where information and communications technology (ICT) will play a key role: job creation through economic growth, anti-corruption through good government, social...

Article

ITC Policy and Practice in the Fiji Islands (pages 471-474)

Graham Hassall

Since the establishment of Internet access in the Republic of the Fiji Islands in 1995, Internet policy has been developed in the country in the context of both national and regional development. Fiji has a significant tourism sector...

Article

Leveraging Digital Multimedia Training for At-Risk Teens (pages 475-480)

Timothy Shea, Craig Davis

The digital divide exists in poor countries and wealthy countries, the country side and cities, and across age groups. Useful solutions when trying to “bridge” the digital divide should include collaboration with local groups in...

Article

Measuring the Maturity Level of a Community Portal (pages 481-487)

Lejla Vrazalic, Peter N. Hyland

Social interaction is a fundamental to human beings. In an effort to facilitate social interaction, various tools and technologies have been designed and developed over the centuries to connect people and create better means of...

Article

Medical Education in the 21st Century (pages 488-493)

Stefane M. Kaben, Jatinder Takhar, Raymond Leduc, Rick Burjaw

As with many disciplines, the fields of healthcare in general and medicine, in particular, have made vast strides in improving patient outcomes and healthcare delivery. But, have healthcare professionals and medical academia been...

Article

Mobile Ad Hoc Networks (pages 494-496)

Jiankun Hu

he history of computer networks can be traced back to the early 1960s, when voice-grade telephone networks dominated the communication networks. With the increasing importance of computers, as well as the ever-increasing expense of...

Article

Mobile E-Work to Support Regional and Rural Communities (pages 497-500)

Sirkka Heinonen

Telework, or e-work as it is now more frequently called in Europe, means working outside one’s regular workplace, utilising sophisticated ICT. E-work is an alternative form of organising work, a “love child” of the information...

Article

Modern Tools and Technologies for the Visually Impaired (pages 501-505)

Anirban Lahiri, Anupam Basu

Today, people all over the globe are reaping the fruits of modern technology. One can now use a hoard of devices, ranging from desktop PCs (personal computers) to handy palmtops, for accessing information in one’s day-to-day life....

Article

National Competition Policy and Broadband Provision in Australia (pages 506-511)

Alicia (Lucy) Cameron

National Competition Policy (NCP) implemented in Australia from 1995 has had a profound effect on the mode and level of service delivery in nonmetropolitan regional and rural areas. The implementation of NCP followed the lead of...

Article

The Need for Community Informatics in Malaysia (pages 512-517)

Jayapragas Gnaniah, Peter Songan, Alvin W. Yeo, Hushairi Zen, Khairuddin Ab. Hamid

The Malaysian government, through many initiatives, has seriously looked into reducing and if possible eliminating, the digital divide that exists between the developed urban and the technologically impoverished rural communities....

Article

NetTel@Africa (pages 518-522)

Matthew Mitchell

NetTel@Africa (NetTel) is a transnational capacity development program focused on improving the policy and regulatory environment for the information communication technologies (ICT) and telecommunications (telecom) sectors....

Article

New Frontiers for The New Australian Institute of Music (pages 523-527)

Greg Whateley, Ian Bofinger, Peter Calvo

Universities, both public and private, in Australia (firmly encouraged by higher education authorities) are currently concerned with the mind-set, mechanisms, and practices that are necessary for universities to reinvent and...

Article

One Village One Computer Campaign in India (pages 528-532)

Anil Shaligram

For social development to take place in rural areas it is necessary to involve the people and assist them in becoming technology-enabled and knowledge-enabled because knowledge is always held collectively (Hayek, 1945). It is said...

Article

Open and Distance Programme for Rural Women (pages 533-537)

Sylvie Siyam Siwe, Clarisse Loumou Loe

In the Upper Nkam culture in Cameroon, with about 200,000 inhabitants, women (51% of the population) are the core of the community, in charge, from generation to generation, of the management of the household and the transmission of...

Article

Participatory 3D Modelling (pages 538-543)

Giacomo Rambaldi

Mapping is a fundamental way for displaying spatial human cognition. “It is a representational medium that both has a history and is part of the practice of history” (Herrington, 2003). For centuries and increasingly with the advent...

Article

Pedal Powered Wireless Internet in the Laotion Jungle (pages 544-549)

Neil Anderson

A chance meeting with Jhai foundation founder, Lee Thorn, over breakfast during the 2003 “UN World Summit on the Information Society” in Geneva has led to the author becoming very interested in an exciting, innovative project...

Article

Planning for Electronic Government in a Remote Malaysian Site (pages 550-556)

A. Lee Gilbert

A regional government IT master plan sets out a viable path for the use of information technology (IT) to support local government operations, align local IT use to national initiatives, and build the organizational capacity...

Article

Political Online Communities in Saudi Arabia (pages 557-563)

Yeslam Al-Saggaf, John Weckert

The Internet was introduced in Saudi Arabia in late January 1999 after a long period of discussions and consultations within the Saudi authorities. Finally, it was agreed that a tailored version would be made available to the public....

Article

Potential Implications of IPv6 for Regional Development (pages 564-568)

Savvas Papagiannidis, Joanna Berry, Feng Li

The Internet started as a project by the Advanced Research Projects Agency of the U.S. Department of Defense in the late 1960s. Since then, it has evolved to be the biggest network of all, although its core function, to create a...

Article

Poverty, Inequality and New Technologies in Latin America (pages 569-575)

Simone Cecchini

Poverty and inequality represent two enormous challenges for the countries of Latin America. In 2002, about 220 million people (44% of Latin Americans) were poor, and the average incomes of the richest 20% of the population were...

Article

Preparing African Higher Education Faculty in Technology (pages 576-580)

Wanjira Kinuthia

One of the most difficult challenges facing African higher education institutions (HEIs) is the successful resolution of the inherent tension that underlines efficient and effective utilization of existing resources on one hand and...

Article

Problem-Based Learning and the Design of E-Learning Environments (pages 581-586)

Bijan B. Gillani

There is tremendous pressure today for faculty in academic environments to use Web-based technologies to deliver online instruction. One reason for such pressure comes from the fact that technology can be an effective tool to deliver...

Article

Producing and Sharing Free Advanced Scientific and Technological Knowledge Using the Internet (pages 587-592)

Jean-Philippe Rennard

During 1998-2000, the UK published 4,729 scientific articles per million inhabitants, the Czech Republic published only 1,401 and Turkey 278 (Sandelin & Sarafoglou, 2003). Each year, researchers produce about 2,000,000 refereed...

Article

Promoting the Culture and Development of Regional Communities with Digital Libraries (pages 593-597)

Cavan McCarthy

Libraries and archives have always been major information sources for the history, culture and literature of regional communities. It is quite natural that in an increasingly electronic world, these rich collections are becoming...

Article

Radio for Social Development (pages 598-602)

Patrick Craddock, Peggy Duncan

“Tell me a story” is an established educational technique. “Tell me a story” using radio is an application of this technique, but instead of having one or several listeners, it is possible to reach thousands or millions of people...

Article

Regional Tourism and the Internet in Australia (pages 603-607)

Patrice Braun

With economic agents operating in global networks of interaction, we now have a global economy, in which the use of ICTs and e-commerce has an impact on entire industries, regions, and firms of all sizes (Lundvall & Archibugi, 2001).

Article

Remote Indigenous Australian Communities and ICT (pages 608-613)

Laurel Evelyn Dyson

Australia has approximately 1,291 indigenous communities, of which 1,210 are geographically isolated or located in rural areas some distance from centres of population (ABS, 1999). These remote communities are characterized by low...

Article

The Role of Multinationals in Recent IT Developments in China (pages 614-617)

Michelle Rowe

Many multinational firms have located in developing countries to develop their overseas and industrial markets and to take advantage of the low cost environments that exist there. In addition to locating internationally, companies...

Article

A Rural Multi-Purpose Community Centre in South Africa (pages 618-623)

Jonathan Trusler, Jean-Paul Van Belle

There is an increasing focus on the growing disparity between the involvement of developed and developing societies in the new “information age.” ICT are often seen as being the critical link to bridge this gap (Chapman, 2002). An...

Article

Satellite Technology in Schools (pages 624-627)

Anneleen Cosemans

SchoolSat1 was an initiative to utilise advances in satellite technology to improve access to the Internet for Irish schools. It was partially funded by the European Space Agency under the ARTES 3 Multimedia Programme and ran from...

Article

Schools-Based Community Networking in Uganda (pages 628-634)

Daniel Stern

Our NGO, Uconnect1, is distributing hundreds of refurbished computers to dozens of mostly rural primary and secondary schools in Uganda, training teachers and students to set up their own computer labs, assisting them in getting...

Article

Selling Singapore's E-Lifestyle Initiative to Late Adopters (pages 635-639)

Ian Weber, Eric T.K. Lim

Singapore’s transformation to a knowledge-based, information and communication technology (ICT) hub in the Asia-Pacific region began in 1992 with A Vision of an Intelligent Island (The IT 2000 Report) initiative. This blueprint for...

Article

Sociocultural Animation (pages 640-645)

Marcus Foth

The emergence of global computer networks and the widespread availability of advanced information communication technology (ICT) since the mid-nineties has given rise to the hope that the traditional disadvantages faced by regional...

Article

South African Women's Rural Development and E-Commerce (pages 646-652)

Jo Rhodes

Increasingly, social, economic, and political progress is linked with the ability of countries to make informed, knowledge-based decisions with ICTs performing an increasingly crucial role in many societies in this regard. While the...

Article

The South Australian Common Knowledge Community (pages 653-654)

Helen Robinson

Online communities can have useful international dimensions because of the very nature of the World Wide Web’s networking capabilities. However, while developing our South Australian community services and practice requirements, we...

Article

The State of Internet Access in Uganda (pages 655-658)

Peter G. Mwesige

n recent years, Uganda has witnessed an astronomical growth in the information and communications technology (ICT) sector. For example, between December 1996 and December 2003, the number of cellular phone subscribers rose from 3,000...

Article

Sustainability Issues for Australian Rural Teleservice Centres (pages 659-664)

Karin Geiselhart, Peter Jamieson

The overall economic, social and environmental health of rural communities is one of the critical issues facing Australia. Without access to basic services, a small community can be left with a standard of living more like that of a...

Article

Sustainable Telecentres for Local Development (pages 665-670)

Michele Cocchiglia

The telecentre movement is not at all old, having been born only in 1985 in Velmdalen, a small farming village in Sweden (Gomez et al., 1999). The concept is recognized and known by a large number of very different names: telecentre...

Article

Technology Leapfrogging in Thailand (pages 671-676)

Louis Sanzogni, Heather Arthur-Gray

The phrase “leapfrogging development” reflects the belief, especially in the 1980’s, among policymakers and theoreticians that information technologies, especially telecommunications, can help developing countries accelerate their...

Article

Telecentres in Low-Income Nations (pages 677-682)

Colin R. Latchem

Dial-up Internet access, wireless mobile services, cybercafés, etc., are fundamentally changing the nature of communications and knowledge and information access for millions around the globe. However, many remote, rural, and...

Article

Telecommunication Problems in Rural Areas of Armenia (pages 683-686)

Gevorg Melkonyan

The Synergy Project “Priorities in the Development of Telecommunications Sector in the South Caucasus” (2003) has the task of modernising the telecommunications system.

Article

Telecommunications Sector and Internet Access in Africa (pages 687-691)

Vanessa Phala

The “information revolution” has not only transformed the world as we know it, but also its future potential. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), with their major technological advances, have affected the lives and...

Article

Telework and the Canadian Environment (pages 692-697)

Stefane M. Kabene, Raymond Leduc, Rick Burjaw

Information and communication technology (ICT) is constantly changing the world around us. This not only affects the way that we conduct our personal lives but also our business lives. It is changing the very make up of society...

Article

Transforming Democracy through ICT (pages 698-703)

Andy Williamson

This article explores the potential of ICT to be used to transform the processes of citizen engagement such that a citizen-centred approach to e-democracy becomes both viable and desirable. It will do so by exploring three tensions...

Article

Trans-Urbanites and Collaborative Environments in Computer Networks (pages 704-708)

Alfredo Eurico Rodrígues Matta

Since the first manifestations of what was agreed to be called civilization, humanity has been considering cities and urbanity relations the main centers for socialization and political interaction in people’s lives and daily...

Article

Urban Information Systems in Turkish Local Governments (pages 709-714)

Koray Velibeyoglu

Since the end of 1980s, different sectors have implemented geographical information systems (GIS) in Turkey. A study on GIS market in Turkey indicates that municipalities are the primary customers (Gülersoy & Yigiter, 1999). One of...

Article

Using Virtual Mobility to Alleviate Aspects of Social Exclusion (pages 715-722)

Susan Kenyon

People’s ability to participate in the activities that are necessary to ensure their economic, political and social participation in the society in which they live is dependent upon the accessibility of the activities. Accessibility...

Article

Voice Over IP for Rural Telecommunication Provision (pages 723-728)

Thomas Wilsdon, Jill Slay

With the continual convergence of analogue technologies with those either simulated or implemented in digital based equivalents, future benefits usually involve better reliability and lower costs. As current technical limitations are...

Article

Web Site Development in Action Research (pages 729-734)

Maximilian C. Forte

Ethnography has traditionally involved the sustained presence of an anthropologist in a physically fixed field setting, intensively engaged with the everyday life of the inhabitants of a given site, typically, a village or other...

Article

Wireless in Vietnam (pages 735-740)

A. Lee Gilbert

Although every infant industry is risky, investors are attracted by the growth potential for wireless data services in emerging economies. Access to these markets demands substantial investment capital and scarce skills, plus a solid...

Article

Workarounds and Security (pages 741-744)

Fiona Brady

The project uses an actor network (ANT) framework. The value of this approach in relation to the adoption of technology is well established (Callon, 1987; Latour, 1996; Star, 1991; Law, 2000). ANT presents an alternative to the...

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