1,721,044 research outputs found
Digital Resilience for What? Case of South Korea.
No full textResilience has become an emerging topic in various fields of academic research. In spite of its widespread use, there remains conceptual confusion over what resilience means particularly in multi-disciplinary studies including the field of ICT and Development. With the potential of digital technology, research is needed to critically question what key socio-institutional values related to resilience are being strengthened, for what and for whom through the different conceptualizations of resilience. In this study, we conduct an interpretive case study on South Korea’s response to the pandemic and construct a chronological narrative to identify key aspects of digital resilience. We identify agility, diversity, and plurality - enabled by active roles of various stakeholders, including citizens, research communities, and private sector - as keys to digital resilience to the pandemic. Findings from the case of South Korea provide implications to ICT4D research while discussing how developing countries, where a national single window platform is typically implemented with greater level of homogeneity, achieve digital resilience with inclusive innovation with plurality of diverse platforms
Assessment of the ability of the health management information system in India to use information for action
Full text linkMagister Public Health - MPHThis thesis explores the interconnected problems of ―why health information is not used in practice?‖ and ―what can be done to address this problem?‖ The primary aim of the thesis was to make an assessment of the existing Health Management Information System (HMIS) in India with respect to its ability to support the use of information for action in priority areas identified by the national and state governments. The problem of lack of effective information use in health management has been fairly well documented in the literature, but much less has been said about what can be done about it, other than the rather superficial advice of increasing the levels of training. The empirical setting for the examination of these research questions was within the public sector in India, where the research took place within an action research framework. The author was actively engaged as a participant with national and state authorities in the process of redesigning of the HMIS, building and deploying to the states various HMIS reform systems including the software, capacity building and making systems sustainable and scalable. A key focus area of the action research was aimed at enabling systems that would promote the utilization of the routine data being collected through the HMIS, and integrating the same with action areas such as related to planning, monitoring and evaluation. Data collection was carried out through various methods including interviews with key stakeholders, observations, formal and informal discussions carried out face to face and through emails or telephone communication, and the writing of various reports which were then commented on by various people including the state and national level user departments. Both quantitative and qualitative data was collected and analyzed. Quantitative data collected through the ―Readiness Matrix for Information for Action‖ across the three dimensions of human resources, technical infrastructure and institutional conditions helped to see how states performed individually and how they ranked compared to each other on information generation and use. The matrix also helped to diagnose the dimensions for strengthening in order to improve the overall readiness to use information for action in the states. This diagnosis was supplemented through qualitative analysis to further probe into ―the why‖ of the performance of the states at various rankings and what could be done to improve matters. The readiness matrix,12 arguably, could be used by researchers in other settings to help diagnose key areas that need to be strengthened in order to improve information use, and also evaluate where a state is in terms of its maturity towards the same. While progress was noted in areas of data coverage in that some sporadic examples of information use were present and enhancements in capacity and infrastructure were accumulating, challenges still remained. Key ones included poor data quality, the unfulfilled promise of integration and a continuing weak culture of information use. Some key strategies identified to address these challenges included the promotion of decentralization of information to support decentralized action, the adoption of a data warehouse approach and strengthening collaborative networks. Achieving this however, requires some structural interventions such as the broad basing of education in public health informatics, institutionalization of a cadre of public health informatics staff within the Ministry of Health, and promoting the use of software which is open source and based on open standards such that widespread local use is supported
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Global software alliances: the challenge of ‘standardization’
Full text linkGlobal Software Alliances (GSAs) are a relatively new organizational form that firms are increasingly adopting to meet their software development needs. These relationships are fraught with complexity given the temporal, spatial and cultural separation of the firm contracting out the software development work and the firm doing the development. In this paper, we focus on the challenge of standardization that contributes significantly to the ongoing complexity. The nature of the standardization problem is elaborated, and the tensions that are associated in their implementation are analyzed. A key implication arising from the paper is the need to broaden the technical focus on standards that have existed in prior research, and to give increased emphasis on management practices. Latour’s idea of “circulating reference” is introduced to analyze the question of “what is lost, what is gained, and what remains invariant in the process of translation?
Beyond Utopian and Nostalgic Views of Information Technology and Education: Implications for Research and Practice
Full text linkEducation is in a state of rapid change. The influx of new information and communication technologies (ICTs) lead us to question: ¡°How do we find the balance between continuity and discontinuity whilst critically renewing our educational traditions?¡± The paper develops a philosophical understanding that transcends utopian and dystopian claims that IT is either ¡°becoming education¡± or ¡°destroying the essence of education,¡± respectively. This philosophical perspective is developed around: (1) the question of student autonomy and the potential of its being undermined through ICT and (2) the processes through which students can potentially resist these threats. The paper develops and applies the philosophical understanding to the question of student autonomy. First, the paper emphasizes the importance of considering student autonomy in the debates around the relationship of ICT and education. Second, the paper proposes a conceptual model of autonomy, drawing upon some important ideas of Habermas and pragmatist thinking. Third, the paper identifies some systemic threats on educational processes arising from globalization and corporatization. Fourth, I outline the Habermasian response to these threats as a means to understand the nature of student response. Finally, drawing upon the conceptual ideas of autonomy presented, I consider five specific approaches to examine the question of the reform of MIS education
Social construction of Geographic Information Systems. (Volumes I and II)
No full textGeographic Information Systems (GIS) is an emerging information technology (IT) which promises to have large scale influences in how spatially distributed resources are managed. It has had applications in the management of issues as diverse as recovering from the disaster of Hurricane Andrew to aiding military operations in Desert Storm. Implementation of GIS systems is an important issue because there are high cost and time involvement in setting them up. An important component of the implementation problem is the meaning different groups of people who are influencing the implementation give to the technology. The research was based on the theory of (theoretical stance to the problem was based on the) Social Construction of Knowledge systems which assumes knowledge systems are subject to sociological analysis both in usage and in content. An interpretive research approach was adopted to inductively derive a model which explains how the meanings of a GIS are socially constructed. The research design entailed a comparative case analysis over two county sites which were using the same GIS for a variety of purposes. A total of 75 in-depth interviews were conducted to elicit interpretations of GIS. Results indicate that differences in how geographers and data-processors view the technology lead to different implementation patterns in the two sites
Big Data and Public Health: Challenges and Opportunities for Low and Middle Income Countries
Full text linkBig data is creating the potential for a revolution in many domains, including public health. However, big data represents only one of the ingredients to materialize this revolution, and we need to surmount many other socio-technical elements required to enable it and other various challenges. From the perspective of ministries of health in low and middle income countries (LMICs), I examine some of the drivers of this data revolution and some of the challenges and opportunities big data provides for strengthening health systems. Based on this analysis, I draw some key implications for LMICs governments on how they could seek to harness the potential of big data to address public health concerns they are currently engaged with or expect to do so in the future
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
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