I have paused before replying to the group in order that there isn't
more traffic than tolerance.. thanks to others who observed the same
protocol in replying to me... now one more round.... this is the most
vibrant discussion I can remember on the list for a long time :)..


>
> John - please see comments in red


I am using a unix machine with elm and mg with a vt100 telnet
session.... so I might be missing something... in this world the
threads are indicated by >, >> etc..... the reasons for this are
firstly that I travel a lot and I have found telnet by far the most
reliable general access method and secondly that I get a lot of
messages and I find unix command line arguments much much faster than
wimp  interfaces.... it seems to me these are precisely the issues
that those with an international development flavour need to be able to
discuss as our organisations make decisions about capacity building
which generally impact the network effect


>
> Simon Brown

I'm taking out odd bits of repetition and leaving in the substance of
what is now a third round

>
>
> >
> > John
> >
> > Please could you remind me what the purpose of this group is - does it
> have
> > a mission statement? I have been receiving BCS-DEVEL emails for some time
> > now, and I am finding it difficult to see how the work of this group is
> not
> > simply confined to conference halls and academic forums.



>
> the purpose of the group is to provide a forum for anyone interested
> in the relation of ict and international development, I think


>
> OK - thanks for making this clear.


>
> >
> > Regarding your email below, I don't know if you've ever been to Africa,
> but
>
> I lived there for twenty years and revisit frequently
>
> OK - apologies for this assumption.
>
> > I have spent some time doing charity work in a number of sub-Saharan
> > countries, and I am struggling to see the relationship between theoretical
> > discussions of abstract concepts in committees and the immediate IT
> > requirements of communities in developing countries such as Mozambique or

>
> i think this varies according to your approach... is a country an
> attribute of university would seem to me as detailed and practical as
> you can get
>
> Without wishing to descend into another academic debate (!), I fail to see
> how a country can be "an attribute of university", even by your
> representation below.
> Please explain.


yup.. got it in one.... and this was a coded but as polite reference as
I could make it to the core audience for the paper... the participants
in the SCOLMA conference... where in a presentation on a very big
internationally funded project to capture the PhD research of all the
universities in Africa, the informaion professionals had built a
database, already with 15k records incidently, where country is an
attribute of university

now it seems to me that there need to be core concepts of
understanding which we have to argue about, and every so often I have
to make sure that at least someone agrees with me :)..


>
>
> > Zambia. How, for example, is this group involved in the Computer Aid 2004
> > campaign to ship 25,000 reconditioned PCs to Africa by the end of the
> year?


>
> there are many of these things... the issue here is which are harmful
> and which do good?  ditto with shiploads of books
>
> OK, so give me an example of what is "harmful".


oh, don't start me :)... most investment in the NHS? the passport...
public accounts committee reports on failure.... and in my room is
possibly the national collection on the investment in information and
communication technology in developing countries....

it would be a much better first question... point me to something
which has worked.... then we can work out the social concepts of what
we consider "beneficial" and "harmful" to mean


>
> > How is it involved in supporting organisations such as VSO to recruit
> > unfulfilled IT professionals to ambitious projects in developing
> countries?
>
>
> VSO has been a member of the information for development forum for
> many years
>
> do you want ambitious projects?
>
> Well I believe there are quite a few unfulfilled IT professionals around...



that is undoubtably true.... but I am not sure they should be
fulfilling themselves at the expence of the third world poor....
solving our social problems on other people's backs, while at least an
honest approach still seems to me not what we should be doing


>
> >
> > I appreciate that lobbying decision-makers and discussing high-level
> policy
> > in the global arena is important, but surely what these countries really
> > need is direct, practical action as demonstrated by the CAI campaign, not
> > endless reports, rhetoric and pontification.
>
> I suspect both are needed.. if the british government wants to
> liberalise telecommunications policy or the world bank wants people to
> pay for metered water, are these good or bad... if you are going to
> work on a water metering project... are you going to?
>
> but the group is very open and you are welcome to attend any of the
> meetings
>
> I don't live in London.


but we don't meet in London particularly... it rather depends on what
is happening and where.... a meeting next year will definately be in
Harrogate if you want to put it in your diary

tho the group can pay travel to attend meeetings in London if that is
an impediment


>
>  and put forward positions... this is why I put my
> pontifications on the list.. so people know what I am saying at meetings
>
> My general point is: I can understand how people in their desire to see
> long-term solutions to the problems of developing countries are looking for
> frameworks and models, but  in the work of this group, the problem-solving
> seems to have been taken to such a high level of abstraction that we can't
> see the wood for the trees. I find it difficult to see how a conference on
> metadata can produce results which trickle down into effective social action
> meeting the ICT requirements of impoverished communities.
>


yup... and that was what I was trying to elicit.....

there are two levels... the first is that of information systems
design and Clare Short's approach to pro poor policies.... to make the
poor the agents of their own solutions is to fail to recognise that
our economic development came about through building municipal water
systems, sewerage, rail, ports and docks, canals, armies, hospitals...
none of this was done by the poor themselves but by the building of
systems using large amounts of capital... that is what is needed in
develolping countries' big cities too\

but there needs also to be a voices from below approach, small scale
easy to make improvements which make a difference.... in Britain this
was the public library for an example and it is strengthening the
capacities of public libraries, primary schools and so forth which
still makes a difference... putting a computer with internet access
into a public library or an hospital with the power cable for it to
work, the telephone cable for it to work, and then some sort of
software.. say netscape communicator as it is free... then means that
to be able to find a bibliographic record in a catalogue you need a
database, and if it has been built to dublin core you will be able to
do things you can't otherwise, then if it uses dewey in the subject
field you will be a huge distance forward....

it is using the developments which are appropriate that we have built
over the last couple of hundred years that we can make a difference..
this is what I argued in 1983 when I started this particular thread,
and I think 21 years later, is still the right path to follow...

which means we need professionals that understand that country cannot
be an attribute of university



> >
> > Regards
> >
> > Simon Brown
> > BA(Hons) MSc MBCS
> >
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: British Computer Society Developing Countries Specialist Group.
> > [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of John Lindsay
> > Sent: 26 May 2004 10:02
> > To: [log in to unmask]
> > Subject: metadata:: materia - SCOLMA
> >
> >
> > here is an approximation of the speech I gave at the SCOLMA conference
> > yesterday
> >
> >
> > Metadata and Africa - the obligations of the information professional.
> > A paper for the SCOLMA conference, 2004.
> >
> > John Lindsay
> > Reader in Information Systems Design
> > Kingston University
> >
> > The Declaration and action plan of the World Summit on the Information
> > Society are now available and there are less than two years to the
> > second summit in Tunis in 2005.  What will be delivered?
> >
> > Background
> >
> > We need to remember the White Paper on Globalisation and Development
> > which suggested that Britain's contribution to international
> > development is in knowledge and research, which argued for pro poor
> > policies and international public goods.
> >
> > We need to remember the development of the concept of civil society
> > and its participation in international development, the meetings
> > leading up to the Geneva summit, particularly those organised by
> > UNESCO, and the UK National Commission for UNESCO, in which were
> > developed the idea of information literacy, the meeting organised last
> > year and its report, and the concept of metadata and its
> > interoperability as an international public good.
> >
> > Foreground
> >
> > The declaration and action plan place emphasis on sustainable
> > development, on the digital divide, and on actions which can make a
> > difference.
> >
> > The UK National Commission on UNESCO has now been reconstituted which
> > provides us with a channel into which to report on activities and
> > attempt harmony.
> >
> > UNESCO is about to declare the decade on education for sustainable
> > development.
> >
> > It is not at all clear what the British government intends to do about
> > the information society or even which departments have which
> > responsibilities.  In a meeting with David Sainsbury, the Minister for
> > Science, he indicated at least four responsibilities without
> > mentioning modernising government, the cabinet office, information age
> > champions, education or health.
> >
> > If our contribution to international development though is through
> > knowledge and research then work on the electronic governance
> > interoperability framework, the government metadata framework,
> > category lists, the United Kingdom Archive Thesaurus, and similar
> > activities then comparing and contrasting with work in and on Africa
> > must form a real and present contribution to international
> > development, and this conference provides a benchmark opportunity to
> > capture the current state of knowledge and practice.
> >
> > We might point to the three pages of the contents of Hans Zell's
> > contribution to organising knowledge on Africa and wonder how much of
> > this really leads to sustainable development?
> >
> > Indeed we might suggest that the contribution to international
> > sustainable development of information professionals is suggesting the
> > integrated indicators and associations which are necessary and backing
> > them with the resources for evidence based reasoning which are
> > necessary.  Yet after twenty years work one would still be hard
> > pressed to point to the PhD theses which might make a contribution?
> >
> > In order to establish our current state of practice on metadata we
> > organised a meeting within the pattern of the information literacy
> > meeting, the report of which will be soon available.  The work of
> > SCOLMA could be a useful contribution to that work and in turn this
> > work could be used by SCOLMA to develop its action plan.
> >
> > Foresight
> >
> > It seems to me we have basically the same problem as we did when the
> > Information for Development Forum was launched twenty one years ago,
> > how to build the matrix of health or education or employment or
> > housing, or and, and Africa or Tekweni, or Harare or Mozambique.  In
> > other words, how to build a facetted approach using subject
> > descriptors, taxonomies, and controlled vocabularies.
> >
> > But we now have a new problem: the political economy of scholarly
> > publication has changed as a result of the internet.  The consequence
> > is a much greater flow of what is called information with out any
> > evidence that any information is happening.  Indeed the issues of here
> > there, now then, this that is only exacerbated.  If a resource is
> > constructed for cancer specialists in Britain, under what circumstances
> > and with what circumspections might it be made available in Africa,
> > what do the specialists practicing in Africa need to know, and what do
> > the information professionals need to know?
> >
> > More seriously, when it comes to education, what now do educators need
> > to know about electronic learning and the availability of scholarly
> > publication, how do learners and teachers in higher education build a
> > framework for sustainable development? And is higher education part of
> > the problem rather than part of the solution?
> >
> > It seems to me we might build a little representation of how to proceed.
> >
> > ooooooooo
> >
> >     O O
> >
> > ========
> >
> >     O O
> >
> > ooooooooo
> >
> > Let us start at the top.  These are communities in Africa who are
> > trying to build their capabilities which means clean water, basic
> > health, education, income generating capacity, social capital,
> > sustainable livelihoods, call it what you will.  Then below them are
> > the institutions of knowledge and research.  These might be
> > universities and higher education, they might be NGOs, they might be a
> > variety of different forms.  My experience tells me that universities
> > in developing countries are more interested in copying first world
> > ideas of universities, and these have little interest in sustainable
> > development or community participation.  My experience tells me that
> > NGOs are more interested in satisfying the needs of their funders than
> > in contributing to sustainable development, but one cannot paint
> > everything into the shadows.  As Clare Short said, the enemy of
> > international development is negativism and cynicism.
> >
> > The line in the middle is government both at the local and
> > international level.  This seems to be both a barrier and an
> > opportunity for we have to ask government by whom, for whom?  If we
> > are to have pro poor policies and sustainable development then the
> > methods and the matters need cases and tools which can turn experience
> > into learning.
> >
> > Then the larger and smaller objects below are the mirror of those
> > above, but they are those in the north.  Putting the south on top is
> > an exercise in whose reality counts though it also by putting the
> > north on the bottom stretches the geomorphology.  In the north the
> > issues for sustainable development are those of excessive consumption,
> > waste disposal, obesity, armaments industries, pollution, motorism,
> > giganticism. Here too we attempt to learn and teach sustainable
> > development and gather methods and matters for cases and evidence.
> >
> > To use again Clare Short's words. we need to gather people of moral
> > worth who are committed to learning and practicing but in our context
> > it is information professionals with our relations with our users,
> > customers, clients, consumers, citizens, comrades, victims who have to
> > build the material using metadata and it is our architectures of
> > metadata which will make the difference which makes the difference.
> > So at the most basic level, is country an attribute of university?
> >
> > Let us build another simple model.  Construct this as a matrix with
> > the first four along the vertical axis and the second four along the
> > top.  Now the relation for each pair has to be filled in, in your
> > context.  Our contexts might be those of competition for that is the
> > dominant ideology, but they might be those of co-operation or
> > collaboration for we are going to have to decide which information
> > objects are going to play which roles in our information society but
> > we also have to be sustainable.  They might also be relations of
> > conviviality for part of the reason we come to a meeting like this is
> > not only that we are paid to be here, and someone is paying, for the
> > room, for the projector, for the network connection, for the version
> > of power point, even for the lunch, but because we think we are going
> > to get something out of it, and we are going to contribute something.
> > That out of that relation comes conviviality.
> >
> > Our core concepts which we need to organise, are people, projects,
> > places and papers.  Each of these is a high level entity about which
> > generically we can build a reusable object, indeed many have done so
> > many times, and Dublin Core and the UNESCO thesaurus might provide a
> > starting point.  Then along the top put pay, price, profit and
> > purpose.  You might in turn use a logical framework, which suggests an
> > objective, an intervention logic and a source of verification.
> >
> > But whether it is telecommunications policy, competition, standards,
> > liberalisation of markets, universal access, or it is health policy,
> > or education policy, or private sector investment opportunity,
> > information professionals are going to have to decide what entities
> > and permitted what relations with what entities.
> >
> > The open access initiative might quite profoundly and quite quickly
> > change the model of scholarly publishing and this core concept of
> > information is the matter for SCOLMA rather than all the other
> > meanings of information.  Each of us in our own institutions has a
> > role to play in this matter and it might turn out to be the most
> > important one in the near present.  But whichever, it is only an entry
> > in a field.  All we have to decide is which the entry and which the field.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > ends
> >
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> >
> >
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