ICTlogy

Notes from the the II Encuentro Internacional TIC para la Cooperación al Desarrollo (Development Cooperation 2.0: II International Meeting on ICT for Development Cooperation) held in Gijón, Spain, on February 10-12th, 2009. More notes on this event: cooperacion2.0_2009. More notes on this series of events: cooperacion2.0.

Innovating in ICT for Human Development
John Dryden, Ex-Deputy Director Science, Technology and Industry. OECD

Main learnings from the OECD in the field of ICT4D:

OECD’s findings on the benefits of ICTs do not carry over easily to developiong countries.

• Global initiatives in “ICT4D” have been long on discussion and short on action
• ICT mainstreaming is indispensible to achieveing MDGs
• ICT mainstreaming is implicit rather than explicit in the push for “aid effectiveness”
• The conjuncture is very poor so current prospects do not appear good but there are a few developments that create opportunities both for development co-operation and for ICTs to enhance its quality and effectiveness

ICT in Development Cooperation institutions vs. ICT4D

ICTs in development cooperation

• ICT aids management and delivery of development assistance
• ICT “mainstreamed” as part of development assistance: ICTs integrated on what institutions “deliver”

ICT4D

• All of the above, plus ICT productgion and use to achieve economic growth, development and social welfare.

The Seoul Declaration, 2008

• Facilitate the convergence of digital networks, devices and services
• Foster creativity in development, use and application of the Internet
• Strengthen confidence and security
• Ensure the Internet Economy is truly global

For developing countries, this means

• more access to Internet and related ICTs
• competition
• use by all communities: local content and language, inclusion
• energy efficiency

Against the Solow Paradox: there is now evidence on the economic impacts of ICTs:

• macro-economic evidence on the role of ICT investment in capital deepening
• sectoral analysis showing the contribution of (a) ICT-producing sectors and (b) ICT-using sectors to productivity growth
• detailed firm-level analysis demonstrating the wide-ranging impacts of ICTs in productivity

Problems to implant ICTs in developing countries:

• Barriers of entry and different people needs
• The relationship between ICT investments and economic growth in OECD countries is complex and uncertain,highly dependent on complementary factors, many of which less apparent in developing countries: power supply, maintenance, skills and literacy, the degree to which society is networked, the extent to which its economy is reliant on services, etc.

The Genoa Plan of Action

• development of national e-strategies
• improve connectivity, increase access, lower costs
• enhance human capacity development, knowledge creation and sharing
• Foster enterprise, jobs and entrepreneurship

Mainstreaming ICTs

UN ICT Task Force Mainstreaming ICTs for the achievement of the MDGs: ICTs as an “enabler” of development, not a production sector

ICTs should be able to enable donnor coordination: need analysis, non-duplication of efforts and projects, etc.

Debate

Caroline Figueres: is effectiveness only top-down? aren’t we seeing bottom-up effectiveness? A: Yes, of course.

Notes from the the II Encuentro Internacional TIC para la Cooperación al Desarrollo (Development Cooperation 2.0: II International Meeting on ICT for Development Cooperation) held in Gijón, Spain, on February 10-12th, 2009. More notes on this event: cooperacion2.0_2009. More notes on this series of events: cooperacion2.0.

Innovating in the Use of ICT for Human Development: the Key in the Transition to a New Phase in ICT4D
Najat Rochdi, Deputy Director in charge of Policy, Communication and Operation at the UNDP Liaison Office in Geneva

The goal: achieve the Millennium Development Goals. Can we do it the proper way?

What’s the connection between ICTs and poverty alleviation? What does it really mean ICT4D?

And it’s not about the poorest ones only: the crisis that began in 2008 — and it’s absolutely blasting in 2009 — is also about how ICTs can contribute to alleviate its effects. Access should be able to enable people to progress. But access is unevenly distributed.

The private sector has lead innovations in the ICT field. The development sector should also be reached by such innovation processes: new ideas and new applications of old ideas. We need to leverage knowledge. We have to shape the changes, not be shaped by the changes.

A new digital aid is coming, based on the citizen, on the individual, empowered by the web 2.0 and the upcoming web 3.0.

Web 2.0, added to text messaging, is opening a new landscape of participation and democracy. The web 2.0 and mobile technologies do not only increase development by empowerment, but also create new markets that make it sustainable.

Sharing is the key to ICT4D success: share methodologies and instruments, best practices, research, data, etc.

But there’s urgency in pursuing these goals and putting hands to work in ICT4D related issues. And commitment is needed too. The resources, the human capital, the technology… everything is out there, but we need to bring it to the ones that need it, and we need to do it with a broad political support.

Take hold of the future or the future will take hold of you.

Debate

Q: how do we know we’re really addressing the real needs? A: It’s a collective responsibility. We have to abandon the idea that development agencies and organizations know everything, and that there’s so much to learn from local communities, that we have to engage them in the making of the projects.

Caroline Figueres: Participation and communication is already happening on the field. The problem is that is not being known elsewhere. We have to make it sure everything is well known.

Q: What happens when there’s no infrastructure? A: Mobile technologies seem to be helping in the infrastructures issue. On the other hand, it’s important to catalyse the demand, so that the private sector sees there’s a niche, a need to be covered that can report benefits. A holistic, multi-stakeholder approach is what has to be solved beforehand.

Q: Why is there not an international political commitment to apply the same energies to poverty alleviation than to the financial crisis? A:

Manuel Acevedo: Next step? A: We need scalable initiatives. To do so, from the beginning a quantitative approach has to be made so that sustainability can be (sort of) calculated and know that there is a potentially high probability of success. We do not use to document projects, to see whether we can share outcomes and learnings, specially methodologies. We have to end up with experimentation, and go to the field scientifically prepared. We have to innovate (i.e. apply tested things), do not experiment.

Anriette Esterhuysen: (re: Caroline Figueres) it’s not already happening. There is no continuity, hence there is no scalability. On the other hand, there’s lack of capacity and ability to communicate knowledge. And, in this time of crisis, what will happen to ICT4D projects and institutions? A: ICT4D is not marketing issue you can cut down to reduce costs. Is a matter of international survival, so commitment will (hopefully) stand. The private sector is playing a most important role in developing countries and is there to stay, it’s boosting and changing a mindset change.

The research (partly) belongs to E-Health and Society: An Empirical Study of Catalonia, at its turn belonging to the Project Internet Catalonia (PIC).

Introduction

Francisco Lupiáñez-Villanueva

Historically, the concepts of health, healthiness, public health, etc. lack of consensus. The scientific revolution brings a new approach to these concepts, secularizing the way it is dealt with drawing the biomedical model. But social sciences imply a disruption in the building of consensus and a separation from the usual biomedical model, relating it with society, the relationships of power, human structures, etc. Castells goes one step further stating that the informational paradigm, within the Information Society, brings in yet another change: how (specially) the Internet newly interrelates the different authors around the concept of Health.

The thesis wants to identify and characterize these authors and how and why they use the Internet to get informed and interact amongst them.

Hypotheses

• The Internet is a space for information
• Decision taking determines the uses of the Internet for Health related issues
• A new profile arises between the health professionals: the networked health professional

Methodology

Data come from surveys answered by patients, physicians, nurses and chemists.

(Complex) Information is simplified by factor analysis and cluster analysis.

Binomial logit regressions are used to find the determinants of Internet use for health related issues.

Results

Citizens

patients tend to browse the Internet to get information about their diseases or other health related issues, somewhat limited by the lack of personal infrastructures (hardware, connectivity, skills, etc.). This means that patients are empowered by the Internet to decide about their health based on better grounds. Those are the connected citizens. At the other end, we have the disconnected citizens, mainly due to their socio-economic background: income, education… The relationship (not the causality) between connected citizens, better health and higher socio-economic status is evident.

The Health digital divide excludes 40% of the total population.

Interaction does not happen: Internet is out of the equation in the physician-patient relationship.

Physicians

Three types of Internet use: focus towards research, health information dissemination and institutional information.

The network physician: uses the Internet to get information and communicate with their peers, disseminate their research and spread information about their institutions. These are just 5% of the total physicians.

Networked physicians believe that the Internet is good for their patients, but only half of them encourage their patients in browsing the Internet.

Orientation towards research and intensive search and use of international information mostly determines a physician being or not being a networked physician.

Nurses

The networked nurse follows a similar path than the networked physician: focus on research and lowest proportion in relation to the whole population of nurses (4.5%). As the physicians, networked nurses also believe that the Internet is good and empowers their patients.

Chemists

Just like the prior professional profiles, the networked chemist is research and international information focused, and they also believe that the information in the Internet is good for their patients and has a positive impact on them being autonomous.

Conclusions

1. Internet is a space for information, not interaction.
2. The e-patient is determined by access to information and intensive use of the Internet to get information about health.
3. The health e-professional is determined by orientation towards research and access to international information.

Future lines of research

1. What are the determinants of innovation processes in the health system, including its impact on productivity.
2. What are the determinants of the state of health in the framework of the Information Society
3. What are the public policies to improve the health system in the framework of the Information Society,
4. How the biomedical paradigm evolves within the framework of the Information Society

Discussion

Answers to Joan Torrent

There is a lack of available data about the impact of the use of the Internet on the health of the patients. It is, undoubtedly, a future line of research.

The e-patient paradox: the networked patients are the ones — because they are healthier — that benefit less from e-Health.

The public health system tends to use the Internet to inform, while the private health system has a more intensive use of information technologies for management issues (e.g. e-invoicing), though not necessarily related with physician-patient — or interaction — focused applications.

While physicians see the Internet as a gate to access better information, they are also threatened by a potential use of authority in front of their patients. Thus why they are intensive Internet users, but only for information related issues, not for interaction with their patients. On the other hand, chemists have to ensure their customers’ loyalty, so they have more incentives to share information and open new channels of interaction with them, which might explain why they are more eager to encourage their customers/patients to enter the Internet.

Answers to Gustavo Cardoso

It is very likely that both the methodology and the findings of this research can be applied into other economies that are in their transition towards the Information Society, provided their health and social systems are similar.

It seems there is a new health paradigm: the technoscientific health paradigm, where technology plays an important part along with health infrastructures (e.g. hospitals), culture, etc.

Internet does not replace — in the eyes of the patient — the professional: it’s complementary. Actually, patients are fully aware on who’s behind the information on the Internet, and asks for a professional backup of this information to consider it quality information. But the professionals don’t usually feel alike. A further research, indeed, should analyse the actual relationships of power between patients and professionals, and how these relationships change or can change due to the Internet and the information that it makes broadly available.

A technological layer, in combination with an evolving social layer, has enabled Health “getting out of the closet” and being present in all aspects of life, way beyond the walls of the hospital. This is new, and this issue should be addressed seriously in further research about society in general and Health especially.

Answers to Miquel Àngel Mayer

It’s very difficult to define “quality” in the Internet, specially when speaking about websites about Health. Maybe, the focus should be not quality of the information, but the skills of the one that searches and accesses this information. Indeed, the concept of quality is closely related with the authors that issue and access the information, thus why the stress in capacity building, digital skills and, in general, digital literacy.

Internet is becoming not an exogenous, dependent variable of the Health system, but an endogenous, independent one that should be included in the equation of Health studies.

Answers to Eulàlia Hernández

The e-patient, unlike the networked professionals, cluster around patient associations, engaging into interaction amongst them and not restricting themselves only to access to and use of information.

Answers to Ferran Sanz

There are dire problems in most researchers about Internet uses: how to define the population, how to define the actual use, how to define authorship, how to define jurisdiction, etc. These problems make it difficult to state with statistical significance some findings that might be perfectly valid for the sample.

Bibliography

For a complete listing of references for the PhD Dissertation, please see The definitive references’ collection of my thesis.

NOTE: summa cum laude. Congats!!

Extended information

Thesis defense: The Internet, Health and Network Society, by Francisco Lupiáñez-Villanueva.

Third session — and second teamwork session — at the Open EdTech Summit. This second teamwork session focuses in converging the ideas of the brainstorming session and try and come up with 5 “plus” ideas and 5 “idealistic” ideas.

(reprise and gather up from the previous session)

Focus on mentoring as the added value in the learning process

Microcredit structures, besides personalization, allow the evaluator and the evaluate to be different entities. Right now the system is self-referential, as the output is evaluated by the same one that facilitated the inputs.

Education institutions could split in three different institutions: the ones that provide content, the ones that provide guidance and the ones that provide certification.

The added value is in mentoring, not in content. So we should concentrate in mentoring. And open content and open technology to support it play a crucial role in this part.

And quality also has to do in this scheme of things: we have to go open to reach high quality standards.

From teaching to learning

The “bolonization” (convergence) of educational systems, shifting responsibility to the student, and putting more stress on learning rather than on teaching. Focus also in capacity and competences. If just e.g. 25% was standarized or compulsory, that will leave plenty of room for personalization within assessment.

Capacity building

On the competences side: empower people to do things.

On the choice side: allow people to do their choices.

Learner motivation

How to engage the student: personalization would actually be a good way to keep students engaged.

Quality

Quality assurance systems that foster innovation, or testing innovation in quality assessments, act as a bottle neck as normally do not include technology in their evaluation system. Their assessment map is closed. How much space for subversion, for innovation, can we find.

Empowering teachers

Make lower design statements to that the learning materials can be acted upon, that feedback from experience can be adapted and sent back to the material or the lecture.

(for “plus” ideas and “idealistic” ideas, please see next session)

(Continuation from: From Social Networks to Virtual Communities of Practice. Beyond e-Inclusion through Digital Literacy (I): the Case of the Crafting Community)

In a seminar on Tuesday 21st October 2008 — ICTs, development and e-government 2.0: empowering the citizenry — I extended the case of the crafting community and compared it to several civil society actions closely related to e-government, mainly projects led by MySociety.org, but also others about political campaigning, or Health and Education.

Some of those examples came from existing communities, or ended up in the creation or communities that built around interests in common.

The Case of the Catalan e-Justice Community

Compartim [let’s share] is a grassroots-born initiative now led by the Justice Department of the Government of Catalonia (the Spanish region whose capital is Barcelona). It’s aim is to share knowledge, by promoting learning by practice sharing. It’s original promoters and target — now spread to the whole Department — were public servants working in the Justice system in Catalonia (professionals from different specialized branches directly dealing with the public: psychologists, lawyers, criminologists, mediators, trainers…) that needed and wanted to share questions and doubts, procedures, solutions… everything that could make their works easier and to provide a better service to the citizen.

The already existing (explicit, though informally though the hierarchies) community, went online and created a blog to keep the community informed, built several communities of practice at the Justice Portal where interaction would take place (the portal includes also “official” blogs closely related to the activity on the portal) and engaged in a richest exchange of knowledge which, at the moment, has produced several main outcomes:

• an increase in the flow of information and knowledge within the Justice Department
• a higher implication of the community members, both in quality (more implication) and in quantity (more people involved)
• impact on the “real” lives and works of the community members
• reaching consensus on key issues at the practical level (no hierarchies involved, no power stresses implied)
• articulation of the real community, the one that exists “offline”

After the grassroots stage, now the Compartim Programme has been institutionalized — in a perfect shift from a push to pull strategy — and communities of practice are but a part of the institution’s strategic plan and training plan.

e-Justice: opening the Administration to the citizen

But, does the community of the Justice system ends with the public servants? Should it include the citizens?

Hence, the Compartim Programme goes open and is inviting the whole community and citizenry to debate about knowledge management in the framework of the Catalan Justice system in their III Jornada del programa Compartim [III Compartim Open Conference]. As in the case of the crafting community, what is important is the real community, made up of real people with real life goals. The Internet is enhancing the debate by:

• Keeping the Gestió del Coneixement – Programa Compartim del Departament de Justícia blog as the nodal meeting point
• Using a digg-like social blog to discuss, ex ante, possible topics for the conference and their relevance

The goal of the Conference is to reflect about the community itself with two workshops:

1. Ideas to improve communities of practice.
2. Using Internet tools for knowledge management.

The conference will take place on 4th December 2008, which means that the online preparation of the event will take place during the preceding 10 weeks of the meeting.

It is my opinion that this is a perfect public-private partnership to improve the Justice system specifically and e-Government and e-Administration in general. The difference being that the private counterpart is not, as usual, a firm, but each and every citizen acting in their own interest.

More information about the programme and the event (in Spanish or Catalan)

• Redes horizontales, CoPs en nuestro entorno: Compartim
• Compartim. Gestió del coneixement

IDP, Revista de Internet, Derecho y Política has published a paper of mine entitled Towards e-Government 2.0: Review of the IV Internet, Law and Politics Congress – Political Track. The paper — original in English, despite the title of the review — is an overview and personal insights of what took place at the 4th Internet, Law and Politics Congress in June 2008.

Abstract

Review of the Political Track of the IV Internet, Law and Politics Congress, held in June 2008, organized by the Department of Law and Political Science, Universitat Oberta de Catalunya. An overview of the latest work by researchers and professionals in the field of political dialogue between institutions and citizens on the Internet was presented, specifically that involving the new participation-rich environment of Web 2.0.

More info and Downloads

• Towards e-Government 2.0: Review of the IV Internet, Law and Politics Congress – Political Track (full text in English)
• Hacia el gobierno electrónico 2.0: repaso del IV Congreso sobre Derecho y Política en Internet – Bloque de Política (full text in Spanish)
• Monográfico “IV Congreso Internet, Derecho y Política (IDP). Software social y Web 2.0: Implicaciones jurídico-políticas” (full text access, in Spanish, to the monograph the paper belongs to)
• Proceedings-like blog posts of the Congress (the original source of the article)