Launched in February 2004 and funded by the INTERREG IIIC programme, which aims to promote interregional cooperation in the European Union, the project looks to develop standard indicators for benchmarking the information society across European regions. While regional investment in ICT has been increasing, it became evident that there was a lack of data regarding the ICT policies adopted by regional authorities. Thus was born UnderStand.
Michael D. Williams, reader in e-business and management at University of Wales, Swansea, explained: "The idea was not to reinvent the wheel. It was to investigate existing projects and see which indicators have been used and reuse them through other regions across Europe. This is not an attempt to invent a new set of indicators."
Keynote speakers, Rebecca Hill and Chloe Chadderton, from the Information Society Evaluation Unit (ISEU), based at the European Business Management School at Swansea University, discussed the first phase of their research into citizens, the digital divide and local e-government in Wales respectively.
Hill kicked off the debate with an introduction of the methodology used in conducting the survey as well as a list of the diverse pre-conditions for an information society, including awareness, interest, access, skills and use.
The survey, undertaken at the end of 2004, and based on 600 face-to-face questionnaires with Welsh citizens, reveals that Wales has a high usage of public internet access points, but scores poorly when it comes to mobile phone, internet and broadband penetration.
However, Hill stressed out that the regional comparison was relatively high as the participating Swedish region, Vasternorrland, zoomed ahead of its European counterparts in term of ICT development.
Despite below average of mobile phone penetration, use of SMS text messaging is higher in Wales and a greater number of Welsh citizens are reported to use their mobile phone to access the internet, which suggests a sophistication of skills. Internet users in Wales are mainly interested in online shopping and accessing health information.
Unsurprisingly, the research also showed that people who are most likely to be digitally excluded, are women, lowest earners, old people and those who left school at the age of 16 or younger.
Hill concluded on an optimistic note by qualifying the future of Wales ICT society as "promising", before inviting Chadderton to move on to the domain of e-government.
Local authorities (LAs) showed little support in this research as only eight out of the 22 Welsh LAs bothered taking part. The number finally rose to 17 with a boost from the Welsh Assembly. However this still means that regional comparison was irrelevant.
Overall, Welsh LAs seem to do well in terms of web presence and accessibility, with 71 per cent of their websites accepting online payments. However services are mostly provided via call centres while the use of media channels such as digital TVs and WAP are practically non-existent in Wales.
Other findings showed that although Welsh LAs have an ICT strategy in place and are committed to using ICT, their employees undergo little ICT training. As for security, Welsh authorities have a wide range of security systems in place, but admit to a low usage of site data backup.
The use of intranets and Open Source software, as well as e-learning, was among the other broached topics. The main problem outlined in the debate was citizens' failure to use the e-services they have been provided with.
A torrent of questions followed both presentations, and the survey methodology was amply debated. Main concerns were raised regarding the lack of standardised methodology among the participating regions, which may have altered the comparison.
The issues of language, devolution, and income, were also questioned and will no doubt be considered by ISEU while conducting its second round of surveys at the end of this year.
Autor: Marjorie Delwarde
Quelle: Ping Wales, 30.09.2005
