Learning with Information Systems

Learning Cycles in Information Systems Development

Simon Bell

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781134845217
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

In Learning with Information Systems the author takes the developing world as the context and through a series of case studies develops a commonly used systems analysis methodology. He demonstrates how this methodology can evolve and adapt as new ideas become prominent. Issues of sustainability of information systems, participation in systems design and user ownership of systems are all examined.
This book does not attempt to be prescriptive for all contexts nor does it focus on any particular technology. It addresses the essential questions and promises practical approaches which will help in the avoidance of the worst forms of disaster associated with the planning of information systems for developing countries.

Part I

INTRODUCING THE CONTEXT

1
INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

Examples of issues in information systems

Kathmandu area, Nepal, 1989. A road construction site some way from the city. Yet another landfall has occurred which has brought the road construction operation to a standstill. The road is closed but business goes on. In this area, so distant from modern forms of communication, within minutes hoards of sherpas have appeared and are carrying goods from stranded lorries, around the precipitous fall which has opened in the newly made road, and on to awaiting transport on the other side. The sherpas (the ones carrying cement sacks are snow white from the dust) appear to need no command hierarchy or logistics systems; they appear and disappear as the road network (or lack of it) requires and demands. Computers are used for the engineering side of road construction. The one in the site office is at this moment printing out a ten-page report detailing the nature and degree of the landfall. The indigenous system gets on with keeping business moving.

Lagos, Nigeria, 1992. The Head Office of one of the major banks. The bank is full of people attempting to do business. The temperature and humidity are making life very uncomfortable for those attempting to transact business. Queuing is the norm. Everyone queues for every item. You need to queue to get the approval of a bored and discourteous bank official in order to gain access to the next queue which might lead to the next bored person whom you actually need to do business with. Bribery (or ‘dashing’) or having a close relation who works in the bank helps. Overseeing the sweltering, uncomfortable bureaucracy hierarchically and literally from their gallery are a cadre of senior officials. They apparently have little to do. Indeed the bank seems to offer a paradox, queues of people being served by bored and underemployed staff. The interest of the senior staff is only kindled when there is a foreign currency transaction. Computers are around the place but seem to be underused. Business is done but it can take eight hours to withdraw a small amount of money.

Ethiopia, 1987, at the head office of an international agency on the outskirts of Addis Ababa. A meeting is taking place between a consultant and an agency official concerning the need for geographic information systems (GIS) to enhance the agencies’ analytical and organisational performance. The official turns to the consultant and says: ‘I’m sorry, I really do not have time for all this. We are dealing with crisis management not new toys. Why do you think we need GIS? The present crisis in Ethiopia would not have been helped by GIS. Everyone knew the famine was coming. It was political will which was required not technology’.

The three examples set out above indicate some of my experiences of information systems issues in developing countries. A vital point to identify at the outset is that the world is full of working, functioning information systems. Technology has opened up the possibility of automating and computerising these existing functions. What we have not effectively realised or planned for is that most computerised systems, real or proposed, are expected to replace and improve upon systems which may have been functioning (formally or informally, badly or well) for some considerable time. New information systems need to be sustainable, to be capable of adapting to changing circumstances. In these circumstances quick fixes and technical solutions are rarely effective or of lasting value.

Primarily this book is concerned with the evolution and development of an analysis and design methodology for introducing information technology (IT) to meet the needs of some contexts in some developing countries (DCs) and for providing an information system which will be sustainable and adaptable. Central to the research on which it is based is the linkage between the systems analyst, the methodology applied by the analyst and the context in which analyst and methodology operate. Initially, the book focuses on clarification of some key terms and ideas and, essentially, the linkage between information systems, systems theory and development studies theory¹ (see Figure 1.1). Although this book concentrates on the practical matters involved in information systems adoption and methodology adaptation, the nature of the context in which these activities take place needs to be set out. It is important to realise that behind the manifestation of problems in new systems adoption in developing countries, three lines of thought converge.

Figure 1.1 The linkage between development, systems and information systems theory

In Figure 1.1 the three lines are shown interacting in the process that represents the unravelling and development of the subject of information systems in developing countries. This chapter and the next review some of the issues within these three, and at the end of Chapter 3 some of the major elements are drawn out as aspects of the research question explored in the fieldwork. This chapter explores the nature of information systems, systems approaches and development studies.

The Developing Country Context

The developing country context is central to this work. An underlying contention is that there are specific factors at work in developing countries that require the reconsideration of methodological approaches to sustainable information systems provision.

Information technology, and therefore information systems, have a growing presence in developing countries. The introduction of any new technology can be expected to bring with it a range of problems, and information technology is no exception:

Many developing countries are now waking up to the potential of information technology and the role it plays in the pace of development. In an effort to bridge the gap that exists between them and the developed societies, many developing countries resort to hurried actions and formulate policy which may not have the desired impact.

(Bhatnagar and Bjørn-Andersen 1990, p. vii)

The comments cited above raise many issues, including the ideas that:

• Developing countries have a unique experience of both the value and impact of new technology.

• The importation of such technology to developing countries is an aspect of this unique experience.

• The formulation of policy for technology planning is also a major element of the experience.

The latter two of these issues are developed more fully on pages 11–15 and 15–17. Before looking at them in more detail I will venture to discuss briefly the meaning of the ambiguous term ‘developing country’.

What are the ‘developing countries’?

Various attempts have been made to block together the nations of the world into generalised groupings (e.g. developed and underdeveloped, Frank 1978). To describe the economically less powerful nations, terms such as ‘developing countries’, ‘less developed countries’, and ‘Third World’ have been created. It is, however, becoming increasingly difficult to put groups of nations, for example Kenya, Malaysia, Bolivia, Argentina, Botswana, under a single heading. Harris (1988) argues that:

The Third World is disappearing. Not the countries themselves, nor the inhabitants, much less the poor who so powerfully coloured the original definition of the concept, but the argument. Third Worldism began as a critique of an unequal world, a programme for economic development and justice, a type of national reformism dedicated to the creation of new societies and a new world. It ends with its leading protagonists either dead, defeated or satisfied to settle simply for national power rather than international equality.

(Harris 1988, p. 200)

Therefore, according to Harris, concern over national power (e.g. power over food production, education, health) is now the fundamental attribute of a Third World nation (or a developing country). If developing countries require ‘national power’, then it can be argued that its achievement will in part depend on an interventionist, development policy which will provide national wealth where at present there exists poverty, homelessness and disease. The understanding of development policy will be shown to be critical in understanding where the adoption of information technology fits into the process of development as a whole. However, if the idea of a discrete unity called a developing country is problematic, is development theory itself any easier?

How is ‘development’ perceived?

Perceptions and related value judgements colour individual actions: we see the world differently. It is argued here that the individual’s perception of the values and problems implicit in development will structure his or her approach to specific development projects and issues. A number of development theory schools of thought which attempt to explain the nature and consequence of development activity have arisen to accommodate generalised views of development. Authors have attempted to organise taxonomies whilst recognising the difficulty of the task. Hettne (1990) provides us with an ‘attempt at outlining the birth, evolution and transformations of this nebulous branch of social science: development theory’ (p. 232). He categorises development studies in terms of two dimensions:

• Positive Normative, where positive ‘deals with the world as it is’ and normative ‘as it should be’ (p. 234).

• Formal Substantive, where formal ‘is defined in terms of a limited number of universal goals and quantifiable indicators which can be combined in a predictive model’ and substantive is ‘where development involves historical change of a more comprehensive, qualitative and less predictable nature’ (p.236).

Hettne combines these in the model shown in Figure 1.2. His diagram is instructive in indicating the number and range of theories which attempt to describe development. So (1990) organised development theory along chronological lines. He is not interested in bracketing all theories in development into three pigeon holes but refers to there being three dominant schools of thought in development studies:

In the late 1950s, the field of development studies was dominated by the modernization school. In the late 1960s, this school was challenged by the radical dependency school. In the late 1970s, the world system school rose up to offer an alternative perspective from which to examine the issue of development.

(p. 12)

Figure 1.2 A tentative summary of orientations in development theory

Source: Adapted from Hettne 1990, p. 240

Each school of thought has distinct features and comprises a number of different theories. For example, the modernization school was derived from social scientists in the USA:

Heavily influenced by the evolutionary theory…(it saw) modernization as a phased, irreversible, progressive, lengthy process that moves in the direction of the American model.… American social scientists proposed that Third World countries should copy American values, rely on US loans and aid, and transform their traditional institutions.

(pp. 261–262)

In contrast the dependency school ‘had its roots in the Third World’: ‘the dependency school conceptualized the linkages between Western and Third World countries as a set of externally imposed, exploitative, dependent, economic...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Halftitle
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Acknowledgements
• List of Abbreviations
• Summary of Contents
• PART I. Introducing The Context
• PART II. The Question and the Approach
• PART III. Action-Research Learning
• PART IV. Overview and Conclusions
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index