Participation through communicative action: A case study of GIS for addressing land/water development in India

Attempts to alleviate land degradation and water scarcity in arid/semi-arid regions of India have historically been carried out within the ambit of government schemes implemented disparately by concerned departments. These sectoral methods are being increasingly replaced by a watershed-based approach in which local communities are encouraged to assume ownership of development programs, albeit within the government's overarching control. This decentralized model of governance has also in some cases had a positive impact on the more effective use of ICTs like Geographic Information System (GIS) in locally relevant applications. In this paper, the need for integrating disparate knowledge systems around GIS-based applications to mitigate land degradation, and the facilitating role of participation in achieving such integration, are discussed. It is argued that such participatory processes can be effectively enabled through communicative action whilst taking into consideration the historically existing power asymmetries. The Habermasian Ideal Speech Situation (IDS) provides a conceptual framework to argue how such communicative action can be enabled. This framework is applied to an empirical analysis of a GIS project for land management in India. The paper contributes to unpacking knowledge systems implicated in the use of GIS for addressing land degradation, foregrounding the importance of indigenous knowledge, and in espousing the crucial need to draw upon critical social perspectives in IS research.     

Collisions between the Worldviews of International ICT Policy-Makers and a Deep Rural Community in South Africa: Assumptions,Interpretation, Implementation,and Reality

The purpose of this paper is to understand and learn from the collisions between the underlying assumptions embedded in UNESCO's ICT Competency Standards for Teachers policy framework and the realities that face a deep rural Afrocentric community in South Africa. These collisions ultimately are about the manifestation of a deeper issue, namely collisions between worldviews. Although some preliminary issues regarding policy conflicts are highlighted, the primary focus is on understanding collisions that have emerged from the community entry phases of policy alignment and the introduction of the ICT for Development (ICT4D) artifact. A critical theoretical underpinning is presented which also constitutes the departing values and thinking pursued by a team of academics which, in collaboration with local community visionaries, facilitates ongoing ICT training initiatives in the community. The author writes from his position as the “outsider” champion in this project; and due to his commitment and the length of time that he has been immersed in the training and all other aspects of the project, an ethnographic approach is adopted. The paper contributes to ICT4D discourses by representing a South African perspective on the international ICT policy frameworks. Consequently, compelling issues for further research are highlighted, including examples and practical guidelines for international ICT policy alignment and implementation in the deep rural Afrocentric context.     

Epistemic Value Theory and Information Ethics

Three of the major issues in information ethics – intellectual property, speech regulation, and privacy – concern the morality of restricting peoples access to certain information. Consequently, policies in these areas have a significant impact on the amount and types of knowledge that people acquire. As a result, epistemic considerations are critical to the ethics of information policy decisions (cf. Mill, 1978 [1859]). The fact that information ethics is a part of the philosophy of information highlights this important connection with epistemology. In this paper, I illustrate how a value-theoretic approach to epistemology can help to clarify these major issues in information ethics. However, I also identify several open questions about epistemic values that need to be answered before we will be able to evaluate the epistemic consequences of many information policies.     

Predicting secondary school teachers’ acceptance and use of a digital learning environment: A cross-sectional study

In this study, secondary school teachers’ acceptance of a digital learning environment (DLE) was investigated. Questionnaires were taken on three times (T1/T2/T3) during the same school year, with the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) as theoretical framework. Next to questionnaires, user-logs were collected during the entire school year. A total of 72 teachers completed a questionnaire on at least one occasion: 64 teachers responded at T1, 41 at T2, and 55 at T3. We first investigated which factors influence teachers’ acceptance of a DLE. The main predictors of DLE acceptance were performance expectancy and social influence by superiors to use the DLE. Effort expectancy and facilitating conditions were of minor importance. We then investigated how well the amount of final observed use could be predicted, and found that at T1 about one third, at T2 about one fourth and at T3 about half of the variance in observed use was predicted by attitude, behavioral intention and self-reported frequency of use. Our study showed that to maximize use of a DLE, its usefulness should be demonstrated, while school boards or principals should strongly encourage teachers to (start to) use the DLE.