Assessment and Acceptance of ICT (May. 24)

Having covered some of the main aspects of the connection between ICT and society and the participatory approaches for designing socio-technical systems, we now consider one last topic: how do we assess or evaluate resulting ICT artifacts or information systems to anticipate (predict) or measure their success and / or acceptance? Assessment has long been a critical issue for ICT and information systems. Among other things, this is a result of suggestions or claims that ICT systems do not always work as expected. These claims belong to statistical or managerial accounts of IT project developments and their frequent ensuing failure, as in the so-called "software crisis" which began in the sixties, the Standish Group's Chaos Reports since the early nineties, and the pendulum-style attention devoted to the "IT-productivity paradox", which we have already discussed. In essence, the idea is that the majority of IT projects fail (in cost, in time, in actual usage, in benefits reported). But, as we have mentioned, many professionals and academics (most, of course, from the IT sector) have reacted against these reports or trends, arguing that they do not measure what needs to be measured, that they are not transparent, that they are not verifiable, that they are simplistic or that they actually contribute to a negative attitude towards ICT (especially from management circles), rather than suggesting improvements.As a result, several models for measuring ICT or information systems success or acceptance have been developed in the past years.

In the most general level, measurements for the digital divide or for ICT development have evolved from purely access or infrastructure oriented indices to more comprehensive and multi-topical models that go beyond technological determinism. We have covered this somewhat when discussing the digital divide, digital inclusion and the information/knowledge/network society (cfr. Spangenberg, 2005). In that same vein, Barzilai-Nahon (2006) discusses some existing digital divide measurements and proposes an improved contextual index that contains more useful information and better relations among factors to enable better policy-making. In order to build this index, she calls for a recognition of a specific level of analysis (determining whether the measurement is aimed at the individual, community, sector, national or international level) and a coherence between the structure of indices created at different levels (between levels the factors remain, but factor weights are adjusted depending on the context). In addition, the relationships (causality or correlations) must be carefully considered. As a consequence, she proposes an index for the digital divide constructed from the following interrelated factors: social and government constraints or support, affordability, use, infrastructure access, accessibility and sociodemographic factors. In addition to her specific proposal for a comprehensive digital divide index, her contribution is also geared towards suggestions for building any such measurement index.

In terms of particular information systems, several measurements have been employed to determine their success. As expected, initial focus was placed on financial measurements (ROI in particular) but as a consequence of the IT-productivity paradox and similar limitations, measurements have moved beyond these financial measures and embraced other models based, for example, on benchmarking or on the balanced scorecard. One such model that goes beyond financial aspects and has been widely used in the past couple of decades is the DeLone and McLean (D&M) model of information systems success, first proposed in 1992. As discussed in Petter, DeLone and McLean (2008), this model has gone through a series of challenges, revisions and additions from several scholars. The original model presented the influence that system quality, information quality, use and user satisfaction have on the individual impact (benefit) and subsequently on organization impact of the information system under study. Many researchers applied, revised and suggested improvements on that model (and continue to do so). As a result, the authors revised the model in 2003 and added service quality, grouped use with intention to use, and grouped individual and organizational impact into a single factor: net benefits. Through a comprehensive literature study (taking advantage of the popularity of the model) Petter et al. (ibid.) found that most of the hypotheses embedded in the model had been empirically supported throughout the years of use, albeit with some weak support for a couple of factor dependencies, as well as insufficient data for two more. Crucially, however, they found that the model had been used at the individual level of analysis (typically due to the fact that quality and use are determined by individual users via questionnaires) but very few studies had been carried out for the organizational level of analysis. Besides highlighting the recognition that a measurement index should be transparent about its aimed level of analysis, as Barzilai-Nahon also suggests, these results also mean that little has been done to actually empirically determine the organizational benefit of information systems. This goes far beyond an academic gap, since it basically suggests that we still cannot empirically prove that information systems are beneficial for organizations!

Another widely used model (also mentioned in Petter et al.) is the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) first proposed by Davis et al. (1989). Rather than focusing on the success of a particular system, TAM aims at assessing ex ante, whether a specific technological artifact is potentially acceptable. Perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use are the key factors which influence the attitude towards using the artifact, which in turn influence his or her intention to use it, which subsequently influence his or her actual use of the system. Actual use is here the final outcome which the model aims at predicting, whereas in the D&M model, use is actually an input factor for finding out the impact or benefit. The simplicity of the model, the fact that it has been built upon an existing, empirically supported, model from psychology (the Theory of Reasoned Action) and the fact that it is very useful for evaluating an artifact that has yet to be implemented (for example, a prototype) has made TAM into a very popular research model. This has resulted (as in the D&M model) in a plethora of variations of TAM, as reviewed in Legris (2003). Many of the alternatives have been centered around a contribution of specific factors that affect an individual's perception of usefulness, including: subjective norms, image, job relevance, output quality and result demonstrability, as in TAM2. In addition, abundant research uses TAM and adds modifier variables as additional factors that may influence the connection between perceived usefulness / ease of use and attitude or intention to use the system. For example, in Donaldson and Golding (2009) age and gender are added to the model to hypothesize about the influencing effect that those factors have on attitude and intention. As such, TAM can be used for evaluating or validating an artifact that is yet to be implemented; this is a frequent use in research that results in an artifact or prototype which requires some form of validation considering that the artifact has not yet been implemented (as in design science research). In addition, TAM can also be expanded to account for specific factors that represent new hypotheses to test and thus becomes not just a research (evaluation or validation) instrument but a research model. However, this has probably resulted in misuse or overuse of TAM simply as a way to add a "check" to the validation or empirical research model of a specific contribution. In addition, as in the D&M model, TAM is squarely aimed at the individual level of analysis and does not provide a way of assessing organizational acceptance, beyond the average or generalization of individual responses.

In sum, assessment or measurement of ICT, information systems and the information/knowledge/network society in general is still very much a work in progress. Moreover, current understandings of innovation or stock market behavior still push many people to focus on either financial measures or on market results as the real proof of the acceptance or success of ICT, but as we have seen throughout the course, it is not just a matter of assigning value to an artifact, but of being able to articulate it to a specific context of use. We may recall our early discussion of the inception of the socio-technical approach through the example of Lotus Notes, which indicated that use or success is completely dependent on context and, as such, cannot be generalized across organizations or even individuals. If, however, we still succumb to purely market-oriented technological determinism, we will once again face the fact that in a dynamic and accelerated technological environment, ICT artifacts carry little or no intrinsic value and that whatever value is attached to them is only ephemeral and context-dependent.

User-centered design and end-user development (May. 10)

Participatory design has been a part of ICT development for many decades, as we have seen earlier. But there are two specific strands that have become increasingly important and may well redefine the whole information systems or informatics discipline: user centered design and end-user development. User centered-design (UCD), according to Mao et al. (2005) is “a multi-disciplinary design approach based on the active involvement of users to improve the understanding of user and task requirements, and the iteration of design and evaluation”. By now, this shouldn’t sound surprising or revolutionary, most modern (agile) software development methods emphasize the active involvement of customers or users in an iterative fashion. However, the clear emphasis here is on user-centeredness and on multidisciplinarity. This means that beyond being participatory, the design effort is also focused completely on user needs, rather than the traditional system-centered design which may devote more attention to non-functional requirements, management input or algorithms. Multidisciplinary participation is also brought forth as a natural element in UCD, partly because users come from different disciplines, but more importantly, because different disciplines are required to capture their needs, coordinate their participation and translate requirements into technical specifications together with usage guidelines, manuals, training, change management, and economic and cultural viability assessments and transitions with an eye on sustainable usage and benefit.

Mao and others carried out a survey in which they found that the application of UCD means an improvement in usefulness and usability as well as time saving in the long run (mostly by reducing reworking deployed applications, which is significant given that between 70 to 90% of all software costs occur during “maintenance”). These arguments easily map to the pragmatic proposition behind participatory design (discussed in the previous entry), but it is also clear that the moral proposition is a key issue and that participatory, qualitative methods are required to carry it out in practice, including field studies, iterative design, focus groups, interviews, and task analysis. In an era where consumers are prosumers (well aware of technical trends and capabilities)and where alternative ICT tools may be just a click away, catering responsibly and effectively to users is no longer just desirable but mandatory. If we fail to do so, someone else will do it, including the users themselves…

End-user development (EUD) expresses precisely this behavior when the users themselves end up customizing (personalizing), configuring or even downright programming the software themselves, as discussed in Fischer et al. (2004) . As programming languages become lighter, more high level, easier to use, to access, to install and to get training for, this is becoming increasingly the case. For a user to develop his or her own webpage, not much more than a simple text editing software is required. A few hours browsing through tutorials on CSS, Javascript, PHP, XHTM or other similar tools or languages may be all that is required for more advanced functionality, not to mention the fact that actually getting it online can be completely free. More generally, data processing tools, statistical software, office suites, open source software have all become easier to use and full of customization possibilities, Wizards, or drag-and-drop features that make development at least seem less complicated and which has resulted in large amounts of amateurs developing their own systems. This is not new, there has always been the clerk or secretary that manages to create a very functional tools from simply tailoring a spreadsheet, but the scope and accessibility of languages and development tools is much wider now, enabling users to create ever more sophisticated applications by themselves. It is obvious that this is not without risks (heterogeneity, security, integration, quality, scalability, transferability are all potential issues), but it is also to be expected that the trend will continue. On a strategic level, IT professionals really need to look into this, as it may reshape their role and even their very livelihood. Today big software companies may end competing with basement teenagers that develop mobile applications in a matter of hours generating mass consumption software with much higher returns on investments. The gaming and entertainment industry is also a rich setting for end-used development , which is no small feat considering that games have for sometime been the highest grossing software applications on the market. But from a more operative point of view, the key is for IT professionals to rethink their role not as expert designers, but rather as facilitators of a collaborative process where techbnology os not the end but the means.

For example, in a business organization in order for EUD to be successful, Fischer et al. argue that it should include sustained motivation from the developer (the user), it should be supported by the right tools and it should have management support. Furthermore, they argue for “meta-design” as a way to (under) develop systems such that the result is a socio-technical environment that empowers users to become active and continuously engaged in the development and evolution of the systems which they use. This obviously goes beyond the technical and as such is connected with the socio-technical tradition that has guided all our discussions throughout the course.  Indeed, meta-design can also be linked to the work of Maturana and Varela (which you may recall were deep inspiration for the Winograd and Flores book with which we started the course). For them, technology is not the issue, the issue is rather what kind of humans we wish to become and what kind of culture we should strive for. Rationality, for them, is not the answer, the answer is emotional – there is a whole cognitive, systemic, autpoietic theory to back this up, but it goes beyond this entry. We should aim at becoming homo sapiens amans. As such, we should start by empathizing, indeed loving, the users for which we are designing solutions, and getting off our high horses or our isolationist, detached expert positions (all too common in IT professionals). It should be a complex, challenging and evolutionary path, but certainly exciting.

Particpatory design of community informatics (May. 3)

By now, the case for participative design of ICT should be clear. Not only in the context of this course but for the information systems discipline in general. As a matter of fact, participative design or participative approaches have been around since the very outset of the discipline. It has been one of the main areas of work under the socio-technical approach; indeed the social aspect of socio-technical systems implies precisely an involvement of users, customers, people affected, managers, designers, experts, etc. in the design of information systems. Methodologies or approaches such as Action Research, Checkland's Soft Systems Methodology or Enid Mumford's ETHICS approach are all testament of this development that has continued through the work we have already discussed (Orlikowski, Walsham, Avgerou, among others). However, these approaches have yet to gain the recognition or widespread use they should have, especially outside academia. This is the same conclusion that Mumford herself reached, as expressed in her last published interview before her death a few years ago (Porra & Hirschheim, 2007). Mumford's career developed in parallel to the development of informatics. She in fact started out working in docks and mines and using participative approaches focused around industrial relations and job satisfaction. Having learnt anthropologically influenced methods from the Tavistock Institute, Mumford and her colleagues would do ethnographic type of research becoming deeply embedded or engaged with the actual work of clerks or miners at the operational level. You can picture her wearing a helmet and lying on the floor while interviewing a miner about his perception of his job, its conditions, management, etc. Her being a woman in a mostly male environment was difficult (not to mention risky) but it was also an asset in terms of gaining trust and appearing less threatening or less representative of management interests (which can of course hamper or downright impede interaction with workers).

Nonetheless, and despite having proposed ETHICS as one of the most influential and early contributions in participative design of ICT systems, Mumford still felt at the end of her career and life that the basic goal had still not been attained, that an ethical approach to IS development had yet to be realized or popularized. That early proposals (such as ETHICS or SSM) were still seen as utopian, or costly, or risky or something to be dealt with by "soft" professionals, but not be real hardcore engineers or designers. So despite the many advances in theoretical and methodological terms, the situation remains mostly unchanged and there are very few companies (whether big corporations, consulting firms, IT industry leaders) that have adopted participative ethical design as a core of their business or as the standard way to go about designing ICT. Mumford's recommendations are as valid today as they were more than forty years ago: (1) information systems should be designed to improve the quality of life for all; (2) individuals should participate in the design; (3) solutions to local problems have global consequences; and (4) all research should lead to problem-solving action. The connection to design science research is also evident and potentially a good sign that there might be a resurgence or strengthening of participative approaches. This might also be pushed forward by the popularization of agile development methods and the widespread use of IT that turns users into more skilled and knowledgeable co-designers.

Because community informatics is aimed at building systems for a specific group (NGOs, townships, etc.) and typically differentiates itself from business informatics, it is an especially rich setting for studying and applying participative design, as expressed in (Carrol & Rosson, 2007). For them, participatory design is supported by moral and pragmatic principles or propositions. The moral principle expresses the ethical compromise or responsibility that within a democratic society, people affected by a system should participate in its conception and design; that it is in fact their right to do so. The pragmatic principle simply states that participation is required in order for the systems to actually be effective, because there is no other way to design it in a situated context-dependent manner, under the understanding that there is no generic ICT for community informatics. Community informatics implies a diverse population, a diverse technological infrastructure, unpredictability in terms of future users and multiplicity of roles. On the other hand, it implies that whatever the intervention amounts to (a new ICT tool, a new system, a new process support), this will impact the lives of ordinary citizens. So it is evident that both the moral and the pragmatic principle hold for these types of interventions. While participatory design is aimed at inclusion (which we have already discussed), community informatics is aimed at self-actualisation (which we have also discussed as empowerment of individuals in line with Amartya Sen's ideas about capacities rather than resources). When combined, the result should be collective actualisation in the target community.

Now, in order for this to happen, there are a number of guidelines, issues and instruments available. First of all, motivation is a key ingredient for participation. If there are no community leaders to begin with, then the designer (as facilitator, not as expert) should contribute to generating the conditions for participation. On the one hand, the fear of technology should be reduced. This can be achieved, either by showing simple examples of easily applicable ICT tools (e.g. using Twitter or Doodle to quickly organize a meeting) or by previously training participants with an emphasis on appropriation and autonomous deployment of (web-enabled) tools. On the other hand, the participants should take control of the process through learning. Not just learning how to use or deploy ICT, but learning about participation through discussion on these issues. And more importantly, the community can share their learning experiences with other communities, helping them structure their own participative community informatics initiatives: this generates both recognition and reputation, which are fertile grounds for motivation and empowerment. Specifically, each intervention may be supported by observation, interviews, workshops, scenario-based design, case studies, forum or wiki based technology assessments, learning about simple open source or web authoring tools, and then on to cross-community workshops and training which may result in the emergence of sustainable steering committees through which the community adopts and takes charge of the design effort towards the future and in an extended network beyond the local context.

Towards a sustainable information society (Apr. 12)

Corporate social responsibility is, perhaps worryingly, a recent trend. I say worryingly, because it implies that being socially responsible is a recent recognition and it suggests that it may fade away. This "trend" is connected to another potential fad: sustainability. In both cases the matter is fundamental for society, because the point is that corporations should be socially responsible and strive for sustainability of their company and of the world at large. Of course, common sense dictates that this should be the norm. However, traditionally the problem has been that sustainability and social responsibility have often been seen as opposed to profit. In other words, a company can either act responsibly or make a profit. ICT enters the picture because some believe that it enables companies to be more effective in striving for both social responsibility and sustainability. But, as we know by now, ICT is usually a double-edged sword and its effects do not necessarily have a positive impact.

In Fuchs (2008) paper most of the myths surrounding the benefit of ICT for sustainability are debunked. Some still believe that ICT enables people to get in touch without the need for physically transporting themselves: this should reduce transport-related CO2 emissions. However, the fact is that telework has actually grown together with transportation requirements (not against it). A teleworker on average makes more trips to visit clients than an office worker, so commuting increases. In addition, the Internet helps us get in touch with old friends or create new social ties which increase our desire or need to make (longer) trips, which is aided by the fact that travel itself is made easier by the Internet (booking a cheaper trip, making plans, finding out requirements, getting tourism information, etc.). Another myth is that the post-industrial economy is a weightless one (as when Negroponte suggested a shift from atoms to bits in his 1995 book, Being Digital), which would imply a reduction in physical trade and thus CO2 emissions. This is far from the truth. To begin with, e-commerce platforms originally supported the buying and selling of tangible goods (from books and CDs to clothing and collectibles) which rather than being weightless, only worsened the problem, because it opened up the market from farther away, implying longer travel distances and often in small quantities (even today if I order a book from Amazon it will probably go through at least four different cities before reaching me). But the real omission is that the digital age by no means replaces the "old" economy, it only adds to it, or in Touraine's words rather than post-industrial, it becomes hyper-industrial (e.g. rather than saving paper we now have more to print and faster ways to do it). We have already observed that globalized capitalism is intertwined with ICT and this means, for instance, that traditional clothing brands which were usually produced and sold in Colombia are now produced in China and sold all over the world, increasing CO2 emissions. In any case, the fact remains that fossil fuels are still by far the energy behind modern industrial economies (with no signs of slowing down, except due to their exhaustion - peak oil, for instance) and the single largest contributor to material outflows (pollution). ICT itself, as an industry, is very resource intensive (and rapidly growing in terms of energy consumption through increased usage) and the fact that digital devices have a low life span only increases the amount of waste generated. This doesn't mean that ICT cannot result in benefits for sustainability. Despite the fact that it is still limited, ICT enables the distribution and sharing of information to increase ecological awareness and helps support the organization and deployment of environmental activism (which has led to actual results in terms of halting polluting enterprises or forcing a change in policy). This may be labeled as environmental informatics (coupled with cyberprotest) but its reach is still not widespread nor enough to contain or counterbalance unsustainable human activity...yet. For starters, the role of ICT with respect to sustainability needs to encompass not just ecological sustainability, but also technological, economic, political and cultural aspects.

The key point remains, however, there is still a widely held dichotomy between profit and sustainability. What is required is an explicit distinction between profit-pursuing and profit-maximizing. Profit making is legitimate and actually needed for sustainability, but the logic changes completely when it is led by profit-maximizing, because the latter implies stronger trade-offs where profit always takes precedence over people and planet. Hence the recent calls for a "triple bottom-line" of people, planet and profit (though it is still unclear whether they are truly given the same weight, or whether indeed people and planet should come before profit as sustainability would imply). For this to happen corporations need to embrace corporate social responsibility not as an appendix which they need to comply with (something they usually due by outsourcing their corporate social responsibility program!) but as a compromise which may (and in most cases should) lead to a critical examination of their business model and bottom line. This is because traditional business models are built under the profit-maximizing logic of capitalism and if this is not placed under scrutiny then real sustainability can hardly be achieved.

With respect to the ICT industry, this dichotomy permeates business models when the choice is between open or proprietary modes of production. In Busch (2010) the hypothesis is that open modes of production are more ethical and hence required of a corporate citizen (corporate citizenship is a term closely related to corporate social responsibility). On one end of the spectrum are the defenders of strong protection of intellectual property, who argue that this guarantees innovation and efficiency in the long run . On the other end of the spectrum lies the "free" alternative, where the argument is that open and free sharing of knowledge is at the basis of human good will and fosters a sustainable, inclusive society. Both positions, in Bush, are seen as libertarian, but not aimed at freedom in the liberal sense, because they refer to an arbitrary freedom and not a generalized and inclusive freedom. A more nuanced open alternative is one where free and open access conduces to cheaper software, reduces vendor lock-in, contributes technology transfer to the developing world and enables more effective teaching and learnign of new technology development and use. While ICT companies would claim to agree with these goals, their business models still mostly rely on exclusive licensing, proprietary source code and closed standards, not to mention prohibitive pricing which widens digital divides. In many cases, this leads to a systemic degradation of the ICT industry as a whole, as with the "Cold War" effect of patents. While patents are supposed to foster innovation, in practice big ICT companies end up building huge walls made up of hundreds of patents just as a threat or as a protection against lawsuits from competitors. Since the effect is a systemic Cold War, no single company has the power (or perhaps the willingness) to open up their modes of production. Since the early days, the major players in the ICT industry have sued and counter-sued each other to ridiculous levels. These lawsuits take time (often many years) and require sustaining a team of (very expensive) lawyers and may end up in costing companies hundreds of millions of dollars which could have gone instead into what the patents where supposed to protect: socially meaningful innovation. This is no mere localized or minor issue, just looking at the past few years and only looking at the mobile device sector, the fact is that most of the big companies are suing each other (Apple, Microsoft, Google, HP, Motorola, Oracle). A "few" examples:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/184474/apple_sues_nokia_whos_next.html
http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2371822,00.asp
http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/handheld/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=223101180
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/10/06/motorola_sues_apple/
http://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/desktop/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=229000550
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-07/nokia-sues-apple-over-technology-used-in-iphone-ipad-update5-.html
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/btl/htc-sues-apple-over-patent-infringement/34362
http://www.examiner.com/smartphones-in-national/microsoft-sues-google-over-android-os-patent-infringements
http://tech.gaeatimes.com/index.php/archive/google-sues-microsoft-over-hosted-email-battle/
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9180678/Update_Oracle_sues_Google_over_Java_use_in_Android
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13860_3-20018305-56.html
http://gizmodo.com/#!5677354/apple-sues-motorola-over-multitouch

Ethically, access to knowledge is a basic human right and copyright seems to be a failed ideology with no empirical or normative support. The trend towards a read-write culture, as opposed to a read-only culture, seems to be an unstoppable aspect of a sustainable information society, but one which is constantly under threat, with costly implications in terms of digital inclusion.

ICT in Latin America and Colombia (Apr. 5)

In order to contextualize ICT development within our region, we revised the ECLAC (CEPAL) document from 2003 by Katz and Hilbert indicating the "road towards an information society in Latin America and the Caribbean", which we had already seen when discussing the information society. The first noticeable idea is a clear and urgent call for a transition towards the information society in the region, framed almost as a "now or never" justified by a shortening window of opportunity. Not only is the window for entering the information society closing rapidly, they claim, but it would also be enormously costly for future generations if we do not heed this call. The authors also point out that we have wrongly adopted foreign (theoretical) models for understanding and pushing forward this transition. Wrongly, they say, because in our region there has been weak economic growth, unstable economic conditions, ICT has not been a national priority and public services and regulation are immature. This means that considering our peculiarities and priorities is critical for a successful reduction of international and intra-national digital divides in the region. For instance, we have the most unequal society in terms of income in the whole world and we still have pressing educational needs (high illiteracy in several countries in the region, such as Haiti). In addition, we have unequal conditions in terms of urbanization (ICT development has been highest in the most urbanized areas in the region). Moreover, we have a sizable (yet vulnerable) indigenous population which has been mostly excluded either due to specific educational or cultural considerations or because there is almost no indigenous (language) content for them (or generated by them) on the Internet. From a technical point of view, the region has not been successful in choosing or adopting strategic standards related to ICT (notably going against the majority of the world in the early adoption of the TDMA standard for mobile phone communication and not having a regional agreement in terms of digital television). Finally, in terms of software, we have been slow in adopting strategic applications for industry, given that the basic application services and software were not there in the first place to allow smooth evolution towards more sophisticated enterprise-wide systems. This is coupled to the lack of strategy and understanding of the risks and opportunities of free software (which may have a higher total cost of ownership when it is not adequately supported) vs. vendor-specific software (which may lead to a lock-in effect or potentially hurt technological sovereignty).

Things have changed since 2003 and we have made some important (yet unequal) progress in ICT in the region. Accordingly, we looked at another ECLAC document, this time from 2010 by Parada in order to have an updated view of ICT statistics and the current state of affairs. What is more meaningful in this document is that it contains the effect of national digital agendas which had mostly been put into place around the time of the first ECLAC document. The author reiterates on the main sectors that would benefit from ICT, as identified earlier by ECLAC: e-government, education, health care and productivity. The document clearly demonstrates an important increase in the number of Internet and mobile phone users in the region, though not evenly distributed and crucially still behind in terms of broadband access, with respect to OECD averages. A critical factor for this slow spread and adoption of broadband (and ICT in general) is the vicious circle between income and tariffs. The lower the income in a country, the higher the connection and access tariffs tend to be. This creates an obvious digital divide in which people from "rich" countries get to pay less for their broadband access than people in "poor" countries, which becomes even more apparent when it is considered as a percentage of GDP per capita. While in developed countries, consumers pay less than 1% of their income (GDP per capita) for broadband access, in our region it can be more than 95% of average income (e.g. Honduras and Bolivia). A major technical impediment for widespread broadband in the region are the main backbones of the Internet with submarine cables that do not reach beyond the coastline. This is part of yet another vicious circle: most Internet content is in English and based in the USA and even local content from Latin America is still mostly hosted in US servers, making traffic slower (to make a local connection or access local content, traffic often has to go back and forth through US-based servers) and again posing a threat to technological and information sovereignty.

Lastly, we considered Ngwenyama and Morawczynski (2009) in a paper that focuses on the key factors that affect ICT expansion in Latin American emerging economies (Argentina, Brazil, Colombia, Chile and Perú). For starters, they are critical about the role that ICT has for development in the region. On the one hand, ICT may have the spillover effects hoped for in ECLAC documents (health and governance, among others). On the other hand, development through ICT is not guaranteed and developing countries actually get less return on investments made on ICT than developed countries (the reasons for this include those discussed above in the ECLAC documents). Since their emphasis is on emerging economies, they assume that such economies are characterized by rapid growth together with liberalization and free market policies. The premise is that trough privatization and regulation, ICT expansion and use is more efficient. We must note, however, that they are saying privatization and regulation, not privatization and deregulation, suggesting that privatization needs to be coupled with effective regulation of the ICT sector in order for the benefits to reach more population. Although the authors are not specific about it, regulation means fighting monopoly, controlling tariffs, imposing standards and other measures which the US or the EU effectively use to promote a fair ICT market in their regions (for instance, enforcing a limit on roaming charges for mobile phone service providers as the EU did last year). Through a statistical study (using ITU and World Bank data), the authors test their hypotheses regarding the influence that (1) economic factors, (2) usage fees & tariffs, (3) human capital, and (4) geography & civil infrastructure have on ICT infrastructure expansion efficiency. Though the model mostly holds, it shows the limitations of such large-scale simplifications, producing results that are even surprising for the authors (Colombia was found as the most efficient between the five selected countries for the period 1994-2001). In the end, they suggest some policy recommendations centered around a careful assessment of local conditions and capacities, and a complementarity in the different ICT investment strategies through more synergistic nation-wide planning.

In order to bring down these macro-level analysis and data to the human level, we used a movie to illustrate some of the potential effects and perceptions of ICT for real people. When it comes to technology, a good source of critical thinking on its motivations and effects has often been found within a film genre which might be labeled "paranoid (post)apocalyptic sci-fi". This label includes movies (often based on books) such as Blade Runner, 1984, Brazil or Matrix. These films often serve as a social critique of current times, using the future as proxy and they vary between highly advanced futuristic technology (obviously gone wrong) to more plausible situations in the near future. In this case, and given our special interest in Latin America this week, we had a screening of Sleep Dealer, a Mexican film from 2008 which includes a water-based conflict together with the dystopian outcomes of social networks and outsourcing (virtual work) on a global scale, centered around the US-Mexico border. Although the film may be indeed placed as paranoid apocalyptic science fiction, it often seems disturbingly plausible in a not so distant future. That is, of course, unless we prevent it from getting to that point.

ICT for rural areas (Mar. 29)

One of the strongholds of ICT for development (las week's topic) is their introduction into rural areas. The belief is that ICT has the power to improve living conditions in rural areas and that, given their special context (being far from urban centers and having low or no access to infrastructure), they should have high priority in terms of digital inclusion.

As an example, we discussed Mathur and Ambani's paper on the opportunities for growth that ICT has shown or has promised in rural India. The main barriers that must be brought down, they say, are: costs, illiteracy and lack of awareness. This is critical in a country like India where (in 2005) 66% of the population is rural, which creates a strong digital divide (while millions of Indians have Internet access, millions more do not even have electricity). Given India's compromise with becoming an important global player in the ICT (especially the software) industry, an interesting aspect has been a transition from adapting foreign ICT to developing indigenous ICT solutions for rural areas. Some of the examples that the paper covers are:
- the Simputer: essentially an Internet accessing device offered at USD 200. Sadly, or perhaps, predictably, the Simputer is no longer in production. At the time it was being developed several countries or institutions had in mind a USD 100 computer to give many more people access to the Internet (and other applications) but given the dynamic and quick obsolescence of technology, none of these efforts were really successful and the advent of Internet-capable mobile phones made them less appealing and even less powerful comparatively.
-e-Choupal: an inititative from ITC India which sets up access points for farmers to access weather reports, market prices, and farming practices, among others, in Hindi. While e-Choupal is still working, a recent study by Dangi & Singh (2010, AJEBA, Vol. 2, No. 2) claims that the effect has not been holistic, since it has not included social, cultural or ecological issues. Moreover, while ITC itself has benefited, together with most farmers using e-Choupal, it has actually been harmful for those farmers not using it, bringing into question the development goals themselves and potentially furthering the digital divide they aim to close.

In any case, through these and other examples, the authors claim that ICT can empower farmers to compete in a globalized economy, by giving them access to key (mostly market) information which enables them to follow best practices, determine prices, take part in supply chains without being subject to wholesalers or truckers, and create farming enterprises. But for this to work, they suggest a contextual approach, involving not just the technology but also government initiatives and strategy, development organizations (NGOs, donors, etc.), the private sector (to strengthen the financial sustainability of each project) and individual entrepreneurs in rural communities, which become the actual leaders and promoters of projects at the local level.

A more critical account of ICT for rural areas is given in a Grimes paper from 2000. Though in this early stage of Internet adoption options were still wide open, Grimes had already encountered an important shift from optimism to pessimism, given the lack of context in existing (and mostly failed) projects. For starters, while ICT can indeed be an opportunity for local farmers and cooperatives to access market information and shorten their "distance" to global markets (buyers, providers, farming practices, etc.), it is also the case that this access (as all communication) is in two ways and the globalized market also gains access to these local rural communities, not always in their benefit. This may, of course, be said in general of accessing globalized markets, while they enable access to foreign or distant markets, they also open the door for the influx of products and services from those same locations or others, which may hinder or eliminate local producers.

One of the main sources of failed initiatives, Grimes point out, has been an excessive emphasis on technology push, as opposed to demand pull. This is crucial in rural areas where users are, like we noted above, more illiterate, poorer and less aware of ICT and its potential. This creates a difficult situation, because in principle there would be little or no demand for ICT in this context and hence when presented with donations or government initiatives, local authorities, NGOs or in general groups wanting to introduce ICT to rural areas find it very hard not to fall into the temptation of making the investment and installing the ICT artifacts only to find out months or years later that they are not sustainable (funding always runs out without a sound financial structure or business plan) or simply not used. Telecenters are a clear example of this. While they are aimed at providing all ICT access in a single point, closer to the rural population, very often they become simply Internet Cafe's where people are taught how to access the Internet and how to use Word and Excel, which rarely contributes to true development of the community (despite having obvious benefits for some individual users, such as students) and seldom find financial sustainability, since people are not really in the position to pay for the access or the training offered initially for free. Grimes then suggests that besides the initial investments in infrastructure, all projects should take into consideration further transitions into development of locally useful services, on to building awareness, then to promoting adoption, then to achieving effective usage and ultimately generating competitive advantage. This means moving away from the problems that we have studied earlier in the course: first, assuming a "technological determinism" position (one which assumes that plugging-in ICT artifacts has deterministic and positive impacts); second, ignoring or not adequately taking into consideration the context in which the ICT is to be deployed. Quick fixes almost always lead to wasted investments, and yet they are still broadly present in (especially rural) ICT development plans of many countries, including Colombia.

In order for ICT to really have the power to change rural communities for the better, the potential risks or dangers should also be considered and the human dimension should be given prevalence. ICT should be placed, studied and designed in collaboration and in context (local community, providers, investors, donors, social workers, government authorities, universities) and training should go beyond the tools to cater to the real business and empowerment opportunities offered by ICT in the local context. This means that training should go beyond explaining the parts of a computer and the interaction with popular software or Internet services and include functional literacy improvement in information.processing, electronic participation and democracy, privacy and security, content generation, entrepreneurship, marketing, and finance, among others.

Information systems in developing countires (Mar. 22)

Having covered the role of social and community informatics, we slightly shifted our focus this week towards developing countries in particular. The basic idea is the same: how to leverage ICT (information systems) to benefit a particular community. The change lies in the context of such communities, which in this case refers to developing countries or regions. Our first task then was to try to grasp the meaning of what a developing country is. Since development is by definition a progressive activity or movement, one could argue that all countries are developing in some sense, so this leads us to considering "developing" as coupled to a standard or desired state. In other words, developing means progressing towards the standard of development possessed by "developed" countries. The problem is that there is no such standard. We have mentioned Amartya Sen before, whose work puts the very notion of development into question. And going beyond the Nobel Laureates into the "alternative Nobel" (poor choice of label, by the way) Laureates, or Right Livelihood Awards, we can also mention Manfred Max-Neef's "human-scale development" which was designed specifically for Latin America and places the emphasis on people, not on objects as the units of development. As with Sen, the assumption that increased resources (such as GDP, sanitation or literacy) are indicative of development is criticized, because such resources do not automatically translate into increased quality of life for individuals, families and communities. Max-Neef explicitly includes dimensions such as freedom, protection, affection and understanding: human, rather than economic qualities.

Such a multidisciplinary and human-centered view of development is connected to another problem of classic understandings of development. Typically, development is attached to countries or regions, as when we say "Norway is a developed country". However, it is not always possible or desirable to make such generalizations, especially for "developing" regions. If we take Colombia as an example, we find that it is already ranked by the UNDP as a country with "High Human Development" (using 2010 statistics). This should mean that we are developing with respect to countries with Very High Human Development (e.g. Norway, Australia, New Zealand, USA...), but it also implies that we are developed with respect to countries with Medium (e.g. China, El Salvador, Sri Lanka...) or Low Human Development (e.g. Kenya, Bangladesh, Ghana...). Oversimplifying development like this completely hides the complex and unequal nature of development. Bogota is far more developed than Quibdó (a city in one of Colombia's poorest regions). In Bogotá, the northern part of the city is more developed than the south of the city. But it is also the case that even within a single neighborhood you can find a high standard of living comparable to that in developed countries side-by-side with slums with extreme poverty and basic necessities unfulfilled. You could say the same of China: while it is ranked as less developed than Colombia by the UNDP, its major cities far surpass most of Colombia's cities in terms of infrastructure, transportation or economic growth. And you could also say the same about developed countries: the US is increasingly showing neighborhoods or cities where poverty and unemployment are on par with some of the poorest countries in the world. In sum, "development" faces the same challenges we have seen when studying the digital divide: an overemphasis on material or economic indicators and an oversimplified resulting categorization.

Nonetheless, the broad and simplistic label of "developing" countries or regions has still been widely used within the information systems discipline as a way to study the implications of IS innovations in a context that is different from that in which most IS innovations have originally been created. In a 2008 paper, Chrisanthi Avgerou (working out of the LSE, as Walsham, whom we have already read) provides a critical review of the work that has been published in this domain. She classifies the contributions in terms of the discourse in which they most likely fit and which reflects a particular understanding of innovation and of information systems. The following figure presents a map summarizing Avgerou's review (click on the image for a full-sized view).

In class we used this map as an analytical tool to classify another paper presenting the case for ICT in developing regions (Brewer et al., 2005). In this IEEE Computer paper a series of ICT initiatives are presented for the reader to be convinced of the role of ICT in development (specifically referring to the UN Millennium Development Goals). The authors "travel the globe" presenting evidence of successful (?) ICT innovations in developing countries in the areas of healthcare, education, disaster management, e-government and economic efficiency, pointing out some of the challenges and future directions for further initiatives to be designed and adopted. The task was to attempt to classify this overview as either centered on a diffusion, socially-embedded or transformative discourse (as per Avgerou's proposal). The idea is not so much to question the authors' intentions (indeed it is possible that they exhibit traits of more than one discourse) but rather to be critical with respect to the assumptions behind the role that ICT has for development (as we have previously suggested in our discussions of the information /network society and the digital divide). The aim is to prevent us from becoming "victims" of our own discourse, which may happen if we uncritically and perhaps unconsciously adopt a specific view that may imply several ethical, philosophical and social worldviews. This risk, by the way, is pervasive in all design and engineering activities; hence the point of our course on ICT and Society. Each group is asked to post their analysis as a reply to this entry.

Community and Social Informatics (Mar. 15)

We have covered the background of what ICT is, what its relationship to society entails and what the consequences might be if a digital divide is present. We moved to the positive or proactive stage when we framed this within digital inclusion, but it still remains mostly conceptual in order to raise awareness of the issues and of the complex relationship between ICT and society, taking into account its diversity. We now need to focus on opportunities for ICT to benefit society and methods to make it happen.Community informatics and social informatics have been around for a while as a way to frame these opportunities and make sense of how to go about developing systems that are truly aimed at improving people's lives.

Social informatics (pioneered and led by Rob Kling) is the "interdisciplinary study of the design, uses and consequences of information technologies that takes into account their interaction with institutional and cultural contexts" (Kling, 2007, originally published in 1999). In order to present his case, Kling starts by focusing on uncritical positive views of technology as exhibited by the "IT pundits". These are people who see technology through successful exemplars and then make the case that this means that IT should imply profound (and positive) social change. Usually, their assertions are bold, their data is cherry picked and their analysis is not systematic or in-depth. Of course, IT pundits are not researchers, they are simply opinionated writers that produce interesting "sound bites" for magazines or blogs. Kling then moves on to discuss the "IT productivity paradox", which questions the very assumption on which most IT (at least in business) is built: that it leads to increased productivity. Back in the late 80s the Nobel Laureate Robert Solow questioned this assumption, triggering a widespread discussion on the actual returns of IT investment. This paradox has not completely left us; in 2003 Nicholas Carr, as editor of the Harvard Business Review published an essay reviving this paradox and telling us that "IT Doesn't Matter". In his view, IT does not provide any competitive advantage and has becomes an infrastructure commodity (like electricity) which is a must-have but not a strategic asset, and he went as far as suggesting that IT investments should be cut down and that management should focus on the risks, rather than on the opportunities brought on by ICT. Some have questioned this negative view either by suggesting that it is a problem in measurement (we don't know how to measure ICT's indirect benefits) or a shortsighted view of ICT (while some is indeed common infrastructure, some other is more strategic and unique). Kling, for his part, suggested that the problem was neglecting the social explanations behind ICT success or failure. Building on top of the socio-technical tradition (the same from which Orlikowski's understanding f ICT comes from) the idea was to shift the emphasis on technological determinism ("I plug in system X and I should obtain benefit Y") towards an emphasis on contextual inquiry. For example, the success of a system may be linked to occupational power or to incentive structures in the organization (not to the ICT alone). There are no fixed effects of technology: the same tool may be useful and successful in one organization (or user group) and a failure in another (for example, when he describes the use of Lotus Notes in PriceWaterHouse as opposed to Ernst & Young, a case used by Orlikowski too in developing her theory many years ago). This focus on social context and work practices as critical for the understanding and assessment of ICT was then labeled under "social informatics" by Kling and others. The idea was to produce a broad body of knowledge based on empirical (and typically qualitative and in-depth) research in order to contribute concepts to help in designing, using and configuring ICT systems. It is interesting to note that the two journals he uses as example (same IT infrastructure but different level of success based on work practices - e.g. the review process - rather than on technology) are both extinct now, meaning that even with a contextualized understanding of ICT, success is not guaranteed in the long run. It should also be noted that social informatics received some criticism and did not pick up as fast or spread as wide as Kling intended, perhaps due to a counter-movement against critical theory and its associated disciplines (cf. Latour, 2004 "Why Has Critique Run out of Steam?", Critical Inquiry, 30: 225-248).

Community informatics is a closely related field (maybe contained within social informatics) with perhaps a more applied perspective. It is defined by Gurstein as a field of interdisciplinary scholarship and practice devoted to enabling communities with ICT. Thus, the emphasis is placed explicitly and emphatically on the benefits of ICT for particular communities. Indeed, the community, not the ICT, is the unit of analysis (Bishop and Bruce, 2005). Carroll et al. (2009) give an account of several research projects aimed precisely at enabling (scientific, emergency response, and student) communities through ICT. Their re-hashing of finished or ongoing projects is aimed at revising the notion of design as problem-solving. Roughly speaking, while "design-as-problem solving" (based on Herb Simon's tradition) is backwards looking given that it is aimed at satisficing solutions to given requirements through selection, "design-as-possibility" is oriented towards creative new possibilities through exploration. To illustrate this, they take collaboration technologies: on one hand, they may use face-to-face communication as the "gold standard" which ICT should aim at emulating; on the other hand, the may be built to go "beyond awareness" and provide mechanisms that improve on face-to-face interaction. Going beyond awareness means finding uses for ICT that support different stages of "activity awareness" starting by a shared common ground, going into communities of practice, then on to social capital generation and finally for human development (individual and group capabilities). For example: social bookmarking may be used to build on existing common ground in scientific collaboration; case studies and role playing may be used to emulate communities of practice in a university course; social capital may be improved around improvisation in emergency response by allowing annotations of rationale (logic of reasoning behind decision-making) in shared GIS-based maps; and human development may be improved in the same university course by allowing students to document their projects in the same space which they use to find their cases.

In sum, both community and social informatics focus on the relationship between ICT and society, and integrate this understanding in their methods of inquiry and design. As we have said before, this means using participatory approaches, looking creatively at the uses of ICT, and recognizing that these are shaped through their interaction within a specific context of use. For our course, it is expected that each group use these ideas in trying to find new ways to interpret, design and use ICT in their specific case settings. Also, since we are using design science research to guide our projects, then it is advisable to look at design from a more positive perspective (design-as-possibility), while at the same time, tempering creative ideas by also looking at design from a problem-solving point of view in order to consider real-world possibilities and restrictions and avoiding disappointments - beware of the IT paradox...

Digital inclusion (Mar. 8)

We have already established the complex and dynamic nature of the digital divide. It is more than access and it cannot be established as a binary attribute between countries or groups, since there are several dimensions which also create divides within countries and groups. But going further, we must question whether focusing on a digital divide is truly useful, not only due to the simplistic understanding of the divide, but also due to its negative connotation. We might use "digital inclusion" as a more appropriate notion or as the natural progression from diagnosis to action. Specifically, we can look at digital inclusion from the point of view of those that may potentially be excluded from any of the benefits of the knowledge-based network society. Four papers guide us by proposing particular conditions, risks and agendas in terms of senior citizens, gender issues, children and young people, and groups with special needs (people with disabilities).


From the point of view of gender, Caprile and Serrano start by pointing out that debates surrounding the benefits of the knowledge-based society (KBS) have concluded that there is no linear causality between technological development and social equality (or inequality); in other words, there is no guarantee that new ICT will increase or decrease social equality. What this suggests is that the belief in ICT as a source of social progress is perhaps little more than wishful thinking. Since their focus is on gender, they deconstruct the assumptions behind the belief that women will specifically benefit from the KBS. As it goes, the belief is that since women are closing the educational divide and even surpassing men in accessing higher education (in the EU), then they will come out as winners in the KBS. However, statistics show that there are still gaps in terms of payment (men still earn more than women), in terms of ICT usage (due to negative attitudes, a dominant masculine culture and communication styles), in terms of hi-tech employment (women are underrepresented in ICT-related occupations and virtually non-existing in executive positions due to a masculine culture and pre-existing expectations and stereotypes surrounding the ICT profession), and in terms of job requirements (hi-tech occupations undervalue the so-called 'feminine' skills). Furthermore, they highlight the fact that instead of resulting in more work flexibility, the KBS has actually worsened working conditions, including: information overload, workload, time-pressure, increased responsibility at lower levels, stress, and fuzziness in the barriers between work and private activities.This is especially detrimental to women, because while working conditions have worsened, it is also the case that on average there is imbalance between the domestic work done by women as opposed to men - in other words, women end up carrying a dual burden and get paid less for it. Thus, the authors propose a wider notion of inequality that can encompass educational equality together with employment equality, childcare equality and pay equality. This should help tackle the uneven progress in gender equality within the KBS. However, their view is still limited, because as we know it should also be part of an even wider approach that goes beyond employment - for instance, does their study really apply to women in the developing world? Moreover, Caprile and Serrano's account focuses on women vs. men, disregarding other social and cultural factors associated with gender in the KBS; for example, they do not consider the full spectrum of gender (the so-called LGTB community is not mentioned).

Moving on the children and youth, we find yet another assumption with respect to the digital divide: it is believed that since they are the "internet generation" then there will be no significant divide to speak of in their case. However, through a study done in the UK, Livingston and Helsper find that most frequent Internet use is present in boys and older teens, suggesting some form of a divide among children and youth. They also propose using a wider spectrum to uncover potential divides, by moving from access (or use) to different kinds of use. In doing so, they find that children go through four different steps of adoption and use: first; only for information seeking; second, for gaming and e-mail; third, for instant messaging and downloading music; and fourth, a broad use of the internet. They also uncover some aspects that may hinder the use of the internet: experience, frequency of use (use encourages more use), skills, and self-efficacy (confidence). An interesting finding that connects this paper to the last one is that when girls enter their teens, they experience a fall-off in use with respect to boys, suggesting the impact of the masculine dominated culture and pre-existing stereotypes.Despite their effort in considering this often neglected population group, there are some equally important issues surrounding youth in the knowledge-based network society that the authors do not discuss, especially regarding privacy and vulnerability.

Another age group, which constitutes a serious source of exclusion in the knowledge-based society, is made up of senior citizens. Mordinin et al. discuss their place in terms of digital inclusion (they say e-inclusion) from an ethical point of view. For them, e-inclusion is not just about access but rather a necessity for social justice and equity in the knowledge society. As such, they depart from the material access view, which they relate to a market-based ethics according to which e-inclusion should be a matter of contributing to the common wealth as well as receiving from it accordingly; in this view, inclusion is a matter of opening up the market to previously marginalized sectors. This is a limited and harmful view with respect to some senior citizens, because it assumes that only people who can produce or consume are worthy of being included. They follow this by discussing the changing view of old age itself. Though we are all aware that we live in an aging society (not just in the developed world), it is also the case, that age has gained a new meaning: in recent decades life expectancy and quality of life have improved bringing forth a new "middle age" which simply means that mental and physical abilities remain unaltered (though the person may be aging). For example, Jürgen Habermas is 81 and still lecturing strong, but the Brazilian architect Oscar Niemeyer is over 100 and still designing! So rather than artificially dividing population into numerical age groups, the strata should focus on other factors and should explicitly differentiate between the young-old and the oldest-old. For the young-old, e-inclusion goals should be aging well at work and aging well in the community; for the oldest-old, the goal is aging well at home. Ethically, inclusion (of the elderly) is a matter of justice (distributive, procedural, retributive and restorative justice) and of human rights (liberty, claim, participation and privacy rights). But inclusion shouldn't just be a passive attitude towards the potentially excluded, ICT also has a positive role in developing assistive and anti-aging technologies, so long as they guarantee participation and consent from those that should benefit from it.

Finally, Toboso's paper discusses the place of the special needs population (those with disabilities) within the knowledge-based network society. As with senior citizens, disability has also gone through changes in its perception. The so-called medical model of disability considers it as a disease that can be cured in order for the person to be normalized (rehabilitated) back into society. The social model of disability places the focus on society (not on the disabled individual) arguing that the limitations are societal and that its is society that must be 'normalized' in order to cater to the needs of all people. Toboso, however, proposes an alternative: the diversity model of disability, based on Amartya Sen's "capabilities and functionings approach". Sen's contribution, which earned him the Nobel Prize in Economics, shifts the view of human development from a traditional focus on GDP increase, towards what people are actually able to do or be (functionings) and the opportunities they have to freely choose and live the way they wish (capabilities). This is a meaningful shift, because additional resources do not automatically translate into a capability to function (especially, in this context, with regards to people with disability). In terms of ICT the emphasis also shifts from an instrumental view towards one that we already know: ICT as a human action system (ICT modifies human actions and human actions modify ICT). Toboso then proposes developing ICT through "design for all". As in Mordini et al. the idea is that new ICT should be designed through a participatory process and with the aim of making the ICT accessible for everyone. This is no easy task when we consider that persons with disability have different characteristics which sometimes conflict with each other (last week, for example, we looked at a system to help eduction of blind children by providing an auditory environment... this naturally would be of no help for a blind and deaf child). Moreover, we should consider the other user groups mentioned above. Accordingly, design for all should not (cannot) be aimed at designing normalized systems for a standard user (who does not exist), but rather focus on diversity, understanding it not as a barrier to ICT development, but as an opportunity for making it richer and more inclusive so that it can really deliver on its promise of cerating a knolwedge-based network society open for all.

The task this week is then to be inspired by these different population groups and recognize the open, complex, multifaceted and dynamic nature of the digital divide, or rather of digital inclusion, and propose your own version of a "Digital Inclusion Manifesto".

The digital divide (Mar. 1)

We've already seen in our previous material on the information, knowledge or network society that the "digital divide" is presented as one of the major risks or problems in this new form of society. Essentially, this divide refers to some part of the population being left out from this new societal structure, usually due to lack of access to ICT. In most cases, the digital divide is seen as a quantitative gap between those who have access to the (new) ICT and those who don't (for example, in Castells and in ECLAC). Others posit that the digital divide is a continuation, extension, symptom or even euphemism for what is actually a long-standing social divide between the haves and have-nots (as in ALAI).

If we go back to our initial understanding of ICT in practice then it becomes evident that emphasizing either the quantitative nature of the divide or the focus on the access to infrastructural or material elements is insufficient, especially given the fact that the ICT (re)shapes social structures and the social structures (re)shape ICT. Today we discussed the view of van Dijk and Hacker which explicitly address this issue by considering the digital divide as a "complex and dynamic phenomenon". To begin with, the complexity stems from different barriers to access, besides the material ones related to computers and network connections. These are: the mental access barrier, the digital skills access barrier and the usage access barriers. Mental barriers relate to lack of interest, computer anxiety or unattractiveness in the technological artifacts which lead to differences in elementary digital experience. Digital skill barriers are often caused by lack of user friendliness or insufficient education or social support surrounding ICT; an adequate level of these skills should enable the person to search, select, process and apply information in the context of superabundance (the Internet) and with a strategic aim (one that actually generates value or benefit). Usage access is limited by a difference in usage opportunities; this is often thought of as a matter of individual choice (some regard ICT as useful for entertainment, others for work, others for education, etc.) but the fact remains that these divergent uses crucially determine the value that ICT has for the individual and for society.

The dynamic aspects of van Dijk and Hacker's proposal is related firstly to the dynamics of technology itself. We have already discussed the major role that quick obsolescence has in understanding, using and measuring ICT (with a faster rate of obsolescence than any other previous technology). They stress that newer ICTs do not follow a normal S-curve of innovation because it is not the case that all ICTs become broadly adopted (some simply die out before being fully adopted) and because they become part of the configuration of existing technologies (on top of the computer go many different applications which replace, complement or alter the behavior of old ones, for example). The other important aspect of the dynamic nature of the digital divide is that it does not provide clear lines of separation, since it is present between countries, but also within countries and is dependent on many different contextual factors, such as gender, race, education level, income level and age.

In groups we discussed the implications of this framework in a specific case which narrates the story behind a successful case of "e-inclusion" in an article by Alfonso Molina. He also calls for a more "embracing approach" of the digital divide which goes well beyond the quantitative difference in access and which should lead to an "e-inclusion" movement. As an illustration he describes a successful effort in adapting ICT for the use of Chilean blind children, through which they are taught to structure their surrounding space out of an auditory representation, rather than the visual focus which is given in traditional settings. This should contribute to including a potentially excluded group by using one specific ICT application. He recognizes the fact that we have pointed out before: no one has complete control over the information society and any effort will appear like a drop of water in the ocean. Nonetheless, the hope behind an e-inclusion movement is that through increasing the sharing of those experiences, increasing awareness (of the potential exclusions) and taking advantage of the networked nature of the information society (cf. Castells), those efforts can be replicated or enhanced (faster than without ICT) into a global movement of inclusion. Within the groups we talked about specific opportunities to tackle the challenges involved in these kinds of projects: (1) the university offers a nurturing, albeit limited, environment given its societal role and its emphasis that goes beyond or besides profit; (2) "rich" countries are a good source of funding for these kinds of projects, especially if we can continue to push them towards fulfilling their compromise in setting aside resources to contribute to development in other less developed regions; (3) the increasing prevalence of social corporate responsibility is also a good source of support for these kinds of projects from companies that may be willing to invest in inclusion. In sum, anything that can be done (at different levels, places and for different purposes) should be done to turn the digital divide into a digital inclusion movement, which we will discuss in more detail next week..

The informational network society (Feb. 22)

We've seen how the "information society" concept, despite its popularity, is limited and how a "knowledge society" might be a better label that includes context. There is, however, a third alternative, proposed by one of the most influential scholars in the subject, Manuel Castells, which is the "informational society". Castells has published already three editions of his gigantic three-volume work "The Information Age" where he established the informational society as more meaningful and radical than the information society. He compares this to the industrial society to indicate that we don't say the "industry society" (one in which society uses industry or in which industry is present), but rather an industrial society which is modeled according to an industrial mode of development. In the same way, the informational society indicates a society shaped according to the interaction between ICT and economy, culture and politics; rather than an "information society" which might only indicate a society where ICT is present and influential.

Moreover, this "informationalism" also agrees with ALAI in that it is by nature a capitalist model of society. In other words, we are speaking about informational capitalism, where informationalism is the mode of development and capitalism is the mode of production. Informationalism is linked to the expansion and rejuvenation of capitalism on a global scale: flexibility in management, decentralization of firms, empowering of capital as opposed to labor, increasing individualization and diversification of working relationships, massive incorporation of women to the labor force, deregulation of markets, and undoing of the welfare state. This, of course implies also that the capitalist mode of production shapes social relationships over the entire planet, and accordingly that socialism ans statism are not part of this informational society. This is due in part to the failure of socialist countries to embrace emerging ICT at the right time, but also to the fact that informationalism and capitalism fit each other better.

However, Castells does not go as far as ALAI in saying that this is a result of an hegemonic imperialistic project. Though the Internet did indeed stem from a military-industrial complex during the Cold War, it did not grow into a global phenomenon until 20 years later. In fact, Castells is clear in saying that no country (nor society as a whole) can determine technology; it is, as we have discussed earlier, a mutually interrelated evolutionary process. The notion of an American Empire can thus be critically re-examined in Anotnio Negri's terms as a simplification of the real Empire which goes well beyond the USA. Indeed, for Negri the US, as well as the rest of us, are all "within Empire", indicating this globalization of a capitalist mode of production tahat acts, as Castells would say as a "global automaton" which cannot be controlled by any given nation-state (in fact, one of the consequences of the informational society is the decline of the nation-state or of its capacity to control and regulate social action). Accordingly, there is increasing consensus that the era of superpowers is over because it belongs to the "industrial society". Neither China, nor Europe, nor any of the emerging countries will take over the position of the US in this new multi-polar informational society.

The "network society" then enters the picture because the structure of the informational society, its shape and properties, are based on (or rather result in) a network model. This (open and dynamic) network is a natural instrument for a capitalist economy based on innovation, globalization and decentralization, where the power of flows replaces the flows of power. But this network has also contributed to restructuring capitalism itself. Instead of the traditional mode of capitalism where capitalists are the owners of the modes of production, today we have many different capitalists at different places and with different roles: corporate managers, the bourgeoisie, bankers, speculators, entrepreneurs, tycoons, public corporations and even mafia organizations. It is a "faceless collective capitalist", rather than a class. Accordingly, in Castells view, it cannot be identified, it cannot be fought, it cannot be regulated. The financial crisis that erupted in 2008 is a clear example of this which Castells uses to prove that his original ideas (from the 1996 1st edition) still hold in his latest 2010 edition.

He still, however, believes in the role of civil society and in the influence of rational meaningful social action. For example, he points out the feminization of the work force and the reduction of the digital divide in recent years (through it is still a huge gap as we saw using the ICT Development Index figures from the ITU). Rather than assuming that the trend indicates the already discussed "end of history", Castells says that "history is just beginning". The problem, though, is that we are not sure where it is heading, so the first step is to understand it if we want to influence its evolution towards the benefit of humanity.

From an information to a knowledge society (Feb. 15)

Today we debated whether the "information society" is a worthy frame of development, especially for Latin America. Half the group represented the point of view of the Economic Commission for Latin America (ECLA, or CEPAL in Spanish) as expressed in the book by Katz and Hilbert ("Los caminos hacia una sociedad de la información en América Latina y el Caribe", 2003). The other half represented the point of view of the Latin American Information Agency (ALAI) as expressed in the book by Burch et al. ("Se Cayó el Sistema", 2003).

CEPAL's view of the information society may be seen as the "official" version aimed at policy makers, where ICT is understood as a source of economic and social development. In order for Latin America to become integrated into the information society, they recommend considering three kinds of prerequisites. First of all, there is the ICT infrastructure itself (TV, telephone, fiber optics, and wireless networks) together with the generic service applications that run on top of it (software, browsers, remote storage, etc.). Second, there are vertical sectors which use the infrastructure and services to become digital: e-commerce, e-government, e-health, e-learning, ... Third, there are diagonal areas which establish the rules and resources: regulation, finance and human capital. The starting point is a recognition of the digital divide (understood as the dividing line between those who benefit and those who do not benefit from ICT) as it is especially pronounced in Latin America. Thus, they recommend generating public policy which can reduce this gap by placing the emphasis on the individual and the community in order to reap benefits in terms of: economic development (productivity and competitiveness), social development (learning, health, culture), poverty reduction (sanitary assistance, early warning systems) and political participation (human rights, freedom of speech). The key, they argue is striking a balance between areas that may be in conflict (for example, using ICT for economic development may not be aligned with using it for democratic participation). What's not to like?

Well, the ALAI holds a more pessimistic (dare I say, paranoid?) view of the information society. They start by retracing the origins of the Internet as tied to the hegemonic, imperialistic aims of the United States of America. The military provenance of the original Arpanet during the Cold War was motivated by the need to have a resilient network in case of a nuclear attack. But they go beyond the technology itself making a well-known connection between ICT and globalization (where it is not clear which is the the enabler of the other). This means that the "information society" in ALAI's view is based on an instrumental notion of information which goes hand in hand with similar models of society, such as the "post-industrial society" or the "service economy". These views are connected to the ideas of the "end of ideology" (from the recently deceased Daniel Bell) and the "end of history" (Francis Fukuyama), according to which the end of the Cold War signals a significant step in the linear progression towards a new global information society where humanity converges into a unique, neutral, apolitical and technological project. ALAI, of course, holds that this covers up for the real strategic, geopolitical, unipolar aims of the information society, where all countries and peoples are to be absorbed under the values of the market democracy and specifically the neoliberal ideas contained in the Washington Consensus (liberalized trade, privatization, deregulation, reduction of the size of the state, labor market flexibility and the protection of private property, among others). As such, the digital divide is used to cover up what is in fact a social divide and ICT is seen as a solution to this problem, when in actuality it perpetuates these inequalities by embodying an unfair development model. Moreover, ICT can actually be used for exploitation, surveillance and social control. For example, the fact that we aim for increasing access to ICT needs to be coupled to the quick obsolescence of such ICT, making Latin American countries dependent upon every new technological configuration which is sold and controlled by foreign companies. The fact that public policy in terms of ICT includes, for instance, specific goals in increasing the number of cell phones or internet connections is excellent news for Internet Service Providers and telecom companies (which in Latin America are mostly multinational corporations) but says nothing about the improved living conditions of our citizens and assumes that an increase in ICT adoption means an increase in socio-economic conditions (which ALAI claims is simply not true by just looking at the economic and ethical meltdown surrounding the "dot-com bubble" a decade ago).

The debate had no clear winner and solid arguments can be seen in both versions of the "information society". As a way to move beyond this dichotomy, Spangenberg's paper "Will the information society be sustainable?" (2005) offers a "third way". The problem, he says, is with the conceptual foundations of the "information society": by definition, information is meaningless unless it is placed in a social and cultural context where it can become knowledge (and ideally understanding). Thus, he claims that the information society is not sustainable and we need to move towards a "knowledge society". This model should be based on normative (imperative) premises, rather than on positive (empirical) data, because we are taking about how society "ought to be". He agrees with ALAI that such imperatives should not come from a neoliberal ethics, according to which, for example, knowledge is framed as the key production factor, rendering labor and capital less important and implying that those with appropriate knowledge are believed to find work anytime and not doing so is their own fault. Instead, he suggest that sustainability offers a better normative framework for the knowledge society. The main imperative of sustainability is striking a balance between the present (or the short term) and the future (or the long term). This signals a shift from the "technology push" embedded in other technocratic "information society" models towards a social "demand pull". In terms of policy, this means changing the emphasis from ICT-based or purely economic indicators (such as, number of cell phones or GDP growth) towards a more complex and interrelated set of indicators aimed at sustainability. Grounded in complexity science, Spangenberg proposes a draft set of indicators classified according to economic, social, environmental and institutional dimensions, coupled with a set of inter-linkage indicators: socio-economic, economic-institutional and socio-institutional. Each indicator, in addition, has a knowledge and an ICT component; for example, an institutional knowledge indicator (e.g. education expenditure) needs to be considered together with an institutional ICT indicator (e.g. capability to use ICT infrastructure and content). Such indicators, he argues, need to be coupled with clearly defined policy targets in order to guide the transition towards a "sustainable knowledge society".

In terms of the course project, each group is asked to use Spangenberg's draft indicators as a source for identifying the current state of the case and for identifying gaps, problems or opportunities where such indicators are missing or poorly achieved.

Human and social aspects of ICT (Feb. 8)

This Tuesday, we talked about  two different (but related) aspects of ICT development and use. Firstly, by focusing on Armour's "The Spiritual Life of Projects" we consider the human dimension that should be part of ICT (specifically software) development. Armour calls for a critical revision of the way in which we carry out software projects, in order to consider a more complete understanding of the people that make the software. This stems from how the Jesuits understand the dimensions of a human being. According to Armour, these are the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual dimensions, but a more complete account would also include the ethical, communicative, aesthetic and socio-political dimensions as well. Regardless of the number of dimensions or their terminology, the point is obvious: humans are not just their body, nor their thoughts. What separates us from machines, according to Armour, is the spirit (expressed, for example, as courage, tolerance, compassion, honesty).

This brought us to a discussion of identity, which was defined by some on Tuesday as what makes us unique or separates us from the rest - sadly, in Colombia we also tend to think about our national identity number as our identity and we are asked for this number even when we are buying toothpaste or a t-shirt, supposedly for taxation reasons, but obviously as a result of what still is mostly a society of distrust and, to a lesser extent, bureaucracy. Identity, however, need not imply difference or uniqueness, it can also mean relationship and belonging. Am I my name, my body, my job, my age, my religion, my gender, my nationality, my sport, my hobby, my family role? I am all those things and all those things link me to a group, actually to many different groups. It is precisely a limited understanding of identity (focusing on race or religion, for instance) which has created monstrous ideologies throughout history, including the still buoyant idea of the Clash of Civilizations or the so-called failure of multicultural societies (as if a mono-cultural society were possible / desirable). It is not about us vs. them, because there is no them once you consider a multidimensional identity as Amartya Sen (Identity and Violence, 2006) or Herbert Marcuse (One-Dimensional Man, 1964) have argued. Schizofrenia, for example is not really about having multiple personalities, it is about not being able to integrate those multifaceted features of personality into a coherent whole. This coherence is what creates a logical unity which becomes our identity, but it is merely a mental image of ourselves made up of our multiple dimensions and associations to groups. What does this have to do with developing software or ICT? It means that in order for a project to be succesful, it needs to ask more than just how to cut costs or increase efficiency or productivity; it also requires clarity in terms of norms of conduct, higher purpose, morale, mutual support, leadership, solidarity, etc.

Moving on from the human to the social dimension, Walsham's paper on development and global futures asks not how to consider the human-aspect of an ICT project but the social impact of ICT once implemented. As with identity, Walsham claims that a simplistic notion of development guided by ignorance and self-interest can also lead to a one-dimensional view in which "development" is a feature possessed by a group or country. Actually, he argues, development (again, as identity) is a complex and mutli-level concept. Thus, the recognition that there are multiple possibilities in terms of "global futures" enables us to rethink the role of ICT as a source of development, focusing on its impact against the digital divide, against ethnocentrism and against gender bias (meaning, male dominance). Let's join Walsham (and Armour, and Sen, and Marcuse) in celebrating diversity, not a source of conflict, but as a source of richness conducing to an increase in the likelihood of success of ICT development projects and to an increased likelihood of the positive effects of ICT. In other words, let's embrace this diversity so that ICT (technology in general) can be put to use for what it is meant, improving the lives of people and the future of the world.

Now, in order to join this program, we will focus on one specific case in which to apply these notions, together with the rest of the concepts, models and methods offered in the course. This will constitute the course project in two phases: (1) identifying problems or opportunities (for example to reduce the digital divide or gender bias) in the specific context of the case; and (2) designing a specific artifact or set of artifacts that can contribute to solving the problem. The cases are: WikiLeaks, the Colombian national ICT policy, our faculty's own social program, ICT offshoring and call centers, free software, and the role of ICT-enabled social networks in the ongoing socio-political crisis in Egypt. A full description of the cases and the project can be found on BlackBoard (UVirtual). It is expected that each group comment on this entry indicating which case they will use and why they consider it as a potentially rich setting for studying the human and social dimensions of ICT development and use.

Technology-in-practice (feb. 1)

In today's lecture we discussed the primary understanding of ICT that will guide the rest of the course. On the one hand, we have Wanda Orlikowski's concept of "technology-in-practice". Stemming from structuration theory (Giddens), this notion argues that technology (ICT in particular) cannot be understood in isolation; it has to be placed into a context of situated action. As with structuration, it claims both a bottom-up, as well as a top-down effect of the use of technology. Through "agency", users shape the meaning and utility of technological artifacts as well as modifying the set of installations, norms and interpretation schemes that guide its understanding and usage; as a result "structure" (rules and resources) emerges from the bottom-up. But it works the other way around as well, this emergent structure also influences further enactment of the technology by imposing limits to this (re)shaping of technology through use. As a consequence, ICT cannot be understood as embodying a particular structure, since such structure is continually changing and alternative structures emerge out of different uses of the artifacts. Furthermore, ICT cannot be said to stabilize after adoption, since it is continually being modified as well as modifying the user itself though changing his or her way of doing things. The example of the cell-phone was an obvious choice to illustrate this: a cell-phone is not the same today as it was ten years ago (or will be next year); it is also not the same for a teenager than for his grandparents; even though it may be the same exact model, they have different intent, frequency of use, satisfaction, emotional attachment levels, etc.

On the other hand and in parallel, we discussed the work of Terry Winograd and Fernando Flores from their seminal 1986 book on Computers and Cognition. Few authors have been able to capture the role of ICTs within organizations so lucidly and with such lasting impact. In fact, it could be said that little progress has been achieved in such broad understanding of ICT since its publication over twenty years ago. By rooting their work in cybernetics, systems theory (autopiesis in particular), hermeneutics (Heidegger, Gadamer) and philosophy of language (Searle), they proposed an understanding of organizations as networks of conversations. Nothing gets done without orders, promises, commitments or requests being made through speech acts. In fact, all conversations are action-oriented. ICT, of course, comes in as a way to support, shape or reconfigure these interactions. As with Orlikowski, ICT is not given a meaning in isolation but rather through use. The importance of ICT is thus not centered on its inherent (physical) properties but in the way in which it can alter the way people communicate. Moreover, as with any other technology, it remains hidden (transparent) when users are absorbed in (semi) automatic tasks (like driving or typing). It is only through breakdown that technology becomes visible and forces the users to be aware of it. Thus, Winograd and Flores suggest an emphasis on identifying contexts of breakdown as a way to both anticipate failures and provide mechanisms for preventing or dealing with them, as well as using such context as a basis for constructing a domain or context of application. Such context is best understood as an ontology which represents recurring patterns of interaction and failure and can be the basis for the design of the technological means through which such ontology can be employed in (re)shaping conversations.

In sum, we start from an understanding of technology which is dynamic and in continuous interaction with the user. ICT is not a device in isolation whose effects can be designed and measured directly. This should re-frame the design activity and the role of the designer and the user towards participatory, iterative (open ended) means. It should also provide the philosophical underpinnings for understanding ICT and society together.