Reflections on Microsoft Research Summer School

Event:

Microsoft Research Summer School on Computing for Socio-Economic Development

Time and place:

13 June, 2010 – 27 June, 2010 (Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, India)

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/events/indiasummerschool2010/

Participation:

The selection of candidates was based on short listing of the applications. Applications procedure was composed of essay writing, supervisor’s recommendation, and CV. After selection, we were supposed to read the following 10 papers and one book,

http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/cutrell/ICTD%20Summer%20School%20Reading%20List.pdf

We discussed 10 research papers in two weeks. In my opinion, the selection of papers was excellent. The papers were composed of ICT4D concepts, economic behaviour of poor, research methodologies used in ICT4D research, and fundamentals of development. It provides the overall idea of multifaceted perspective of ICT4D.

Sessions I found particularly useful:

All the sessions were useful in terms of revisiting some of the ICT4D concepts and understanding the multifaceted meaning of development. Activities such as field trip to slums, field activity in small groups, and research methodologies were excellent. The objective of slum tour was to experience the portrait of everyday life in an urban slum. During the field trip to slums, we visited one telecenter project run by the slum community. We did observation and interviews with different stakeholders and community people to understand the role of ICT in their socio-economic development.

Field activity in small groups of three students was an exercise to conduct quantitative survey and qualitative interviews in the Bangalore street. The streets were assigned by the session leader. The purpose of the field activity was to understand the mobile phone usage pattern and income spending behaviour of poor people earning less than RS 10,000 (approx. 250 dollar per month). Subsequently, all the group data had been collected and analysed. Numerical data were analysed using quantitative techniques, such as t-test, correlation, and p-value. And, qualitative data has been analysed using grounded coding techniques. This session also discussed the pros and cons of both the techniques using collected empirical data. Finally, based on our field survey and qualitative interview, we made poster presentation. Furthermore, we wrote a research proposal, and presented to the panel.

Lectures by Tapan Parikh, Joyojeet Pal, and Indrani Medhi on design challenges in working with low-literate and disable people were new learning for me. The objectives of these lectures were to understand the need of low-literate and physically challenged people before designing information systems. Presentations showed that low-literate and disable people normally use intermediary to deploy any ICT artefacts, therefore, the system should be designed after understanding the perspective of both the users, and the intermediaries.

The paper discussion session was also good. We discussed 10 research papers in two weeks. In this session, all the participants were assigned with two papers (same) to read. And, these papers were discussed based on the list of questions prepared by the session leader. This model was effective in terms of paper discussion and learning. I would like to suggest this model in our course curriculum as well.

The lecture by Michael Best (editor-in-chief of ITID journal) was also helpful to understand the elements of writing good journal papers. Likewise, Jonathan Donner presentation on mobile phone usage pattern, such as the different meaning of beeping was very interesting.

Feedback and questions I received:

During the two weeks period I made a number of questions with different participants. My questions were mainly focused on understanding the link between ICT and development, how to measure the impact, and sustainability of ICT4D projects. I discussed my own research project and initial findings in Nepal. Most of the participants from India were from computer science background, so it was a bit hard time for me to explain them about the concept of social capital. However, they found it novel and useful as Nepal has been discussed a little in ICT4D literatures.

Networking experiences:

Microsoft Research India (MSRI) is running number of ICT4D projects in India. They have a group of team called TEM (Technology for Emerging Market). As per my discussion with the co-chairs,

Ed Cutrell

cutrell@microsoft.com

TEM, MSRI

Kentaro Toyama

kentaro_toyama@hotmail.com

University of California, Berkeley

We have an opportunity to visit their projects and conduct our research; in case of availability, they can provide us with office location in Bangalore, India. Similarly, I had an opportunity to discuss with the editor-in-chief of ITID journal,

Michael Best

mikeb@cc.gatech.edu

Georgia Tech

And, renowned researcher in m4D (mobile for development):

Jonathan Donner

jdonner@microsoft.com

TEM, MSRI

Overall experience:

I enjoyed the field study and slum tour. There, I got an opportunity to understand the portrait of slum poor of India. It gives me a comparative advantage to understand the role of ICT in the context of slum poor of India and mountain poor of Nepal. The only thing I disliked was no internet connection in the hotel. The main learning outcome from participating in this summer school is to understand the multi-perspective views and roles of ICT4D. The summer school was composed of people from different background, such as computer science, economics, social science, and information systems. Sometime we found complete disagreement in our understandings. For example, some computer science students were thinking that they will learn programming and software development. However, at the end, this summer school somehow succeed to convince majority of the participant that understanding socio-economic development context is very important to design ICT4D project.

Recommendation:

I will highly recommend the researchers, practitioners, and students concerned with ICT4D to participate in this summer school. The lectures in this summer school were balanced mixture of theory, practice, and empirical case studies. Likewise, in this summer school, we can experience real time field activities, and learn data analysis techniques. Overall, it is helpful to understand the multifaceted concept of information and communication technology for development (ICT4D).

Social Capital

The advancement of social capital concept can be traced back to the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries(Portes, 1998). The idea that involvement and participation in groups can have positive consequences for the individual and the community was raised by scholars, such as Tocqueville, Durkheim, Weber, Locke and Marx (Portes, 1998). Durkheim and Marx emphasized group life as a solution to social instability and self-destruction. The term “social capital” has been first coined by Hanifan in 1916(Huysman & Wulf, 2004). He defined the social capital as an instrumental to goodwill, fellowship, sympathy, and social interaction among the individuals and groups within a social unit. The concept of social capital, therefore, was more focused on the positive consequences of sociability and ignoring the less attractive features(Portes, 1998). However, their research on social capital concept was not systematic and did not attract wide attention of the scholars.

The contemporary proponents of social capital, such as Bourdieu, Coleman and Putnam, pull the attentions of the researchers to conduct a systematic research (Portes, 1998; Yang, et al., 2009). Scholars, who derived the concepts from academia into the wider media (Yang, et al., 2009), defined the social capital as “features of social organization such as networks, norms, and social trust that facilitate coordination and cooperation for mutual benefits” (Putnam, 2000). The studies of social capital can be categorized into two general sections based on level of analysis (Portes, 1998). Studies of Bourdieu, Coleman, and Burt that focused on individual (human capital) or small groups as the unit of analysis can be denoted as individual social capital, where they examine the benefits accruing to individuals from their relationships with others. On the other hand, those who extended the concept of social capital from individual assets to a community or national feature can be referred to as collective social capital, considering social capital as both individuals’ social networks and their moral attitudes, or social norms, which contribute to the common good of a community or even a nation(Yang, et al., 2009). The World Bank has categorized Social Capital into six dimensions, such as Groups and Networks, Trust and Solidarity, Collective Action and Cooperation, Information and Communication, Social Cohesion and Inclusion, and Empowerment and Political Action(World_Bank, 2006).

There is a need to investigate not only the positive consequences but also negative consequences introduced by the social capital perspective, as argued by Portes: “The research literature on social capital strongly emphasizes its positive consequences. Indeed it is our sociological bias to see good things emerging out of sociability; bad things are more commonly associated with the behavior of homo economics (economic human). However, the same mechanisms appropriable by individuals and groups as social capital can have other, less desirable consequences(Portes, 1998)”. Negative consequences are related to several issues, such as restrictions imposed on actors who do not belong to the network, lacking perception of environmental changes outside the network, negative social dynamics within the network and downward leveling norms, dependency on central actors and their loyalty towards the network, restrictions on autonomy and individuality resulting from demands for conformity, irrational economic behavior due to the feeling of solidarity towards partners in the network, and irrational economic behavior due to personal aversion(Huysman & Wulf, 2004).

Bridging, bonding, and linking social capital:

Social capital can be conceptualized into different forms, such as bridging, bonding and linking social capital (Cote & Healy, 2001; Putnam, 2000; Woolcook, 2001). The notion of bridging social capital is a relation among distant friends, associates and colleagues, civil rights movements, and ecumenical religious organizations, for example. Conversely, bonding social capital is a relation amongst homogenous groups such as family members, close friends, ethnic fraternal organizations, and religion based groups, for example. The linking social capital refers to relations between individuals and groups in different social strata in a hierarchy where power, social status and wealth are accessed by different groups (Cote & Healy, 2001). The concept of linking social capital is extended to include the capacity to leverage resources, ideas and information from formal institutions beyond the community(Woolcook, 2001).

Bonding and bridging social capital have resonance with the ideas of “strong ties” and “weak ties” respectively (Granovetter, 1973). For instance, weak-ties are loose connections between individuals who may provide useful information or new perspectives for each other, without emotional support. Tightly-knit ties are bonding social capital between individuals in emotionally close relationships, such as family and close friends. Bonding social capital is good for maintaining the existing relations. However, strong bonding social capital may sometime have adverse impact and serve to exclude and create a context for the growth of reactionary ideology. The bridging social capital is crucial for extending social networks, and it could be an important resource in facilitating mobility opportunities.

ICT and Social Capital:

Despite abundance of research in social capital from social, political, economic and organization scientist, the attention from the side of IS research lacks far behind (Huysman & Wulf, 2004). However, the interdisciplinary nature of IS research and growth in networks within and between organizations makes research into the relationship between ICT and social capital even more important. Social capital in relation to ICT could be categorized at the individual level which is known as connecting and enabling social capital (Yang, et al., 2009), examining the impacts of ICT on individual’s social networks and the possible benefits generated by such networks. The collective level is aiming to identify the role of ICT in social capital building in communities. This paper is focused on the collective level study; it explores how ICT facilitate remote communities to build their social capital.

Research shows that ICTs facilitate the building of social capital through increasing flows of information(Adam & Urquhart, 2009). A number of anecdotes advocate that ICT facilitate to create and maintain bridging, bonding and linking social capital. Some research has been done, studying the role of ICT and its impact on social capital. For instance, the impact of ICT on individual social capital has been studied, examining the impact of online social networking sites (SNS) on formation and maintenance of social capital (Ellison, et al., 2007). Focusing on both the maintenance of existing social ties and the formation of new connections, they identified a positive relationship between certain kinds of SNS use and the maintenance and creation of social capital. Such studies illustrated the impact of ICT on social capital and vice versa (Frank, et al., 2004; Shah, et al., 2005; Simpson, 2005). Studies show that ICT facilitate interactions among community participants that helped to generate and maintain the trust, acceptance, and alignment necessary for successful cooperation (Syrjånen & Kuuti, 2004). A case study on Iranian NGO shows how computer based centers facilitate to build e-community and extend the community networking through improved transparency and participation (Rohde, 2004).

ICT Intervention and Development in remote Nepal

The remote communities in the mountains regions in developing countries are among the poorest, most-remote and most-excluded in the world. They are socially, politically, and economically excluded. This has widened educational, healthcare, information and communication gap. Studies show that availability of information and communication technology (ICT) in a remote community is significant to facilitate the flow of information and knowledge that can provide an opportunity to connect them with the main streamline of development. To explore the role of ICT in socio-economic development of the Mountain regions, we conducted a case study in two villages of Myagdi District. In this study, we have explored how Nepal Wireless Networking Project (NWNP) may help to overcome these shortages. There is a great deal of optimism, exemplified by one villager from Tikot who stated that:

The Internet cannot help us with plowing, sowing, and harvesting. But by using the Internet, we can engage in a lot of other educational and financial development, I believe.

We argue that the NWNP provides a promising opportunity to create social, human, physical, financial, and political capital. People may access data resources and they are offered training to improve their competence. Social networking may also be facilitated. Now they no longer have to travel long hours to make a phone call to their relatives. Due to the NWNP, people living in the villages have better access to medical competence. Transaction costs are reduced and there are some promising opportunities to empower marginalized groups, especially women, through training programs.

The NWNP has provided several opportunities to the Nangi and Tikot communities. However, in order to realize the macro level socio-economic impact, the community people should not only be able to access and assess the information; they should also be able to convert it into relevant knowledge, and to make decisions. At the same time, they should be able to generate local content that can be used for revenue generation activities. In the content development and revenue generation program, this project is still in its infancy. They need to work on local content generation. Although they started local bulletin and eCommerce services, this information is still not exported to the outside community. Access to local data and information by external market is important in order to generate revenue and long-term sustainability.

Overall, the NWNP has created a positive wave in the Nangi and Tikot villages. The extension from what were initially two villages to currently more than seventy indicates its importance. Despite some challenges, the NWNP is an important example of an ICT for development (ICT4D) project in remote areas in a country which is rarely discussed in the ICT4D literature. Conducive government policies, infrastructure development, and public-private partnerships may support the replication of the NWNP across other mountain villages in Nepal. Further development of business models to attract eco-tourism, and to sell cultural and agricultural products through the Internet may generate revenues and further add to the socio-economic development in the long run.

This article has been published in the Nepalnews.com (21-07-10)
http://www.nepalnews.com/main/index.php/component/content/article/13-top-column/7746-ict-intervention-and-development-in-remote-nepal-.html

Qualitative Research Interviews

Twelve aspects of qualitative Research Interviews:

1. Life world: the topic of qualitative interviews is the everyday lived world of the interviewee and his or her relation to it.

2. Meaning: the interview seeks to interpret the meaning of central themes in the life world of the subject. The interviewer registers and interprets the meaning of what is said as well as how it is said.

 

3. Qualitative: the interview seeks qualitative knowledge expressed in normal language; it does not aim at quantification.

4. Descriptive: the interview attempts to obtain open nuanced (a subtle difference in meaning or opinion or attitude) descriptions of different aspects of the subjects’ life worlds.

 

5. Specificity: descriptions of specific situations and action sequences are elicited, not general opinions.

6. Deliberate Naiveté (An artless, credulous, or uncritical statement or act): The interviewer exhibits openness to new and unexpected phenomena, rather than having readymade categories and schemes of interpretation.

 

7. Focused: the interview is focused on particular themes; it is neither strictly structured with standardized questions, nor entirely “nondirective”.

8. Ambiguity: interviewee statements can sometimes be ambiguous, reflecting contradictions in the world the subject live in.

 

9. Change: the process of being interviews may produce new insights and awareness and the subject may in the course of the interview come to change his or her descriptions and meanings about a theme.

10. Sensitivity: different interviewers can produce different statements on the same themes, depending on their sensitivity to the knowledge of the interview topic.

 

11. Interpersonal situation: the knowledge obtained is produced through the interpersonal interaction in the interview.

12. Positive experience: a well carried out research interview can be a rate and enriching experience for the interviewee, who may obtain new insights into his or her life situation.

Seven Features of Interview Knowledge:

1. Knowledge as produced: Interview knowledge is socially constructed in the interaction on the interaction of interviewer and interviewee.

2. Knowledge as relational: The researcher can focus on the knowledge produced inter the views of the interviewer and interviewee or concentrate on the interaction between two participants. The research interview establishes new relations in the human webs of interlocution, with the goal of producing knowledge about the human situation.

 

3. Knowledge as conversational: If we follow Socrates, we understand qualitative interviews as having potential of producing descriptions and narratives of everyday experiences as well as the epistemic knowledge justified discursively in a conversation.

4. Knowledge as contextual: the interview takes place in an interpersonal context, and the meanings of interview statements relate to their context. Interviews are sensitive to the qualitative differences and nuances of meaning, which may not be quantifiable and commensurable across contexts and modalities.

 

5. Knowledge as linguistic: Language is the medium of interview research, language is the tool of the interview process, and the resulting interview product is linguistic in the form of oral statements and transcribed text to be analyzed. Knowledge is constituted through linguistic interaction, and the participants’ discourses and their effects are of interest in their own right.

6. Knowledge as narrative: The interview is a key site for eliciting narratives that inform us of the human world of meanings.

 

7. Knowledge as pragmatic: when human reality is understood as conversation and action, knowledge becomes the ability to perform effective actions. Good research is research that works.

Elton Mayo’s Method of Interviewing:

1. Give your whole attention to the person interviewed, and make it evident that you are doing so.

2. Listen – don’t talk.

 

3. Never argue; never give advice

4. Listen to:
1. What he wants to say
2. What he does not want to say
3. What he cannot say without help

5. As you listen, plot out tentatively and for subsequent correction the pattern (personal) that is being set before you. To test this, from time to time summarize what has been said and present for comment (e.g.,” is this what you are telling me?”). Always do these with the greatest caution, that is, clarify in ways that do not add or distort.

6. Remember that everything said must be considered a personal confidence and not divulged to anyone.

Seven Stages of an Interview Inquiry:

1. Thematizing: formulate the purpose of an investigation and the conception of the theme to be investigated before the interviews start. The why and what of the investigation should be clarified before the question of how method is posed. For example, formulation of hypothesis about the influence of grading on pupils on the basis of precious studies.

2. Designing: plan the design of the study, taking into consideration all seven stages of the investigation, before interviewing. Designing the study of undertaken with regard to obtaining the intended knowledge and taking into account the moral implications of the study. For example, planning the interviews with 30 high school pupils and 6 teachers.

3. Interviewing: conduct the interviews based on an interview guide and with a reflective approach to the knowledge sought and the interpersonal relation of the interview situation. For example, a detailed guide was used for the individual interviews, each of which lasted about 45 minutes and was tape-recorded.

4. Transcribing: prepare the interview material for analysis, which generally includes a transcription from oral speech to written text. For example, all 36 pupil and teacher interviews were transcribed verbatim, resulting in about 1,000 pages of transcripts.

5. Analyzing: decide, on the basis of he purpose and topic of the investigation and of the nature of he interview material, which modes of analysis are appropriate for the interviews. For example, the 30 pupil interviews were categorized with respect to different forms of grading behavior. The interviews with pupils and the teachers were also subjected to more extensive qualitative interpretations.

6. Verifying: ascertain the validity, reliability, and generalizability of the interview findings. Reliability refers to how consistent the results are, and validity means whether an interview study investigates what is intended to be investigated. For example, reliability and validity checks were attempted throughout the project, including interviewer and scorer reliability, and validity of interpretations.

7. Reporting: communicate the findings of the study and the methods applied in a form that lives up to scientific criteria, takes the ethical aspects of the investigation into consideration, and results in a readable product. For example, the results were reported in a book and in journals articles.

 

Source: (Interviews - learning the craft of Qualitative Research Interviewing, Steiner Kvale & Svend Brinkmann )

ICT and Educational Gap

Educational gap

The educational gap in Nepal between urban and rural schools, public and private schools, and private and private schools is deteriorating. For example, there are hundreds of private and public schools in urban areas. However, if we travel across the rural areas where transportation facilities are available, we can find a few private schools and a few public schools. Likewise, if we climb across higher altitude or mountainous region, the number of private schools disappears, and we can find around one or two, so called, public schools that is mostly run by communities, scattered between different distant villages. It shows a strange negative correlation between altitude and number of schools in Nepal. Now, if we think about the educational gap between public and private schools then we can find differences in syllabus, differences in the language of instructions, differences in the skill of teaching staffs, differences in the infrastructure, and differences in the fee structure. Once again, there is an educational gap within private schools. Some private schools look like multinational corporate houses, others look like particular schools, and rest are difficult to consider as a school. This gap extended to delivery of quality education as well.

Educational gap and its consequences

The gap is creating two classes of people: one who can afford private schools, and one who cannot afford it. Those who can afford private education concern more about tuition fee and quality of education, on the other hand, those who cannot afford concern sending their children to public schools or employ them in household work. However, it does not mean that they don’t want a better education for their children. To provide better education people are migrating to urban areas. Ironically, it is the general opinion in Nepal that private schools are better than public schools. Furthermore, statistics shows that less than 20% of the public schools students are able to pass the school leaving certificate (SLC) exam because of the poor quality of the education. In fact, this kind of educational disparities will continually enhance the socioeconomic gap between rural and urban, and between haves and have-nots. We believe that today’s children are tomorrow’s citizen, and education is the key driver to create better citizens. The prevailing educational gap indicates that it will create a defunct society in the future, if not taken care of soon.

How, ICT can help to bridge the educational gap?

If we ask government, they can show us hundreds of rhetoric policies, such as free education to poor, budget allocation to remote areas, monitoring of private schools, and bridging gaps between private and public schools, etc.,. However, they are not able to implement these policies even inside the Kathmandu valley. In this situation, what should we do to bridge the educational gap in community level? And, what role information and communication technology (ICT) can play? To understand this phenomena, we conducted a case study of three schools, namely, Himanchal Secondary School, Tikot Middle School, and Sri Devi school in Myagdi and Hetauda district respectively. These were public schools run by the local communities and located in the remote areas. Mahabir Pun, team leader of Nepal Wireless Network project, installed computers in these schools and provided internet connections through Wi-Fi technology. Now the students and teachers of these remote areas can connect and access to the resources and information not located in their sites. Likewise, the computers in these schools have been loaded with interactive digital educational content prepare by OLE Nepal. These educational contents are based on the curriculum approved by the Ministry of Education.

During our interview with teachers and students of these schools, we found some interesting facts. Teachers of these schools think that it is easy to teach using computers because all the study materials are installed in the computer, and there are interactive graphics based lessons that are easy to read. To teach the concept they don’t need to put much effort, however they have to be well prepared before taking classes. There are detailed notes for the teacher that explain which learning objective the activity is designed to meet, which chapter in the book the activity correlates to, how the activity can be integrated in classroom teaching, and how to use the activity. 
Children were very enthusiastic to use laptop and try to explore materials by themselves. The explorative habit of children was cultivating and they were more active than before. There were game based exercises, and they were trying to achieve more scores in the game. Which can help them to be more competitive, at the same time, it can enhances the possibilities of self-evaluation and self-learning. According to the Rabi Karmacharya, executive director of OLE Nepal, ICT has changed the teaching and learning process, it is more student centric rather than teacher centric. It also makes the teaching and learning process faster, and accessible. He also told us that ICT is a different medium of educational delivery, but the core principle of teaching and learning is the same.The use of ICT based technology has helped these public schools to increase the attendance rate of students. It also helped to improve the availability of textbooks on time, with the use of internet the text book contents can be downloaded anywhere and anytime.

Challenges and Suggestions to implement ICT based educational model

There are social, economical, political, geographical, physical, and human challenges to implement ICT based educational model. Karmacharya stated," putting computer at schools and connecting internet will not bridge the gap, but we need to produce the useful contents that can be understood by the students living in the rural areas." Two main challenges they described were resistance by teachers and expansion of the ICT based educational program. Karmacharya quoted," Our first and foremost target should be to convince the government organizations because we are not doing this forever. Our role here is more of catalyst, we [OLE Nepal] are sitting here and bringing all the stakeholders together to discuss the possible solutions, for example, to find different ways of doing it, and to find how best to do it, and how best to take this [ICT based education] to the mass." He said that involvement of local community is also important. Therefore, the solutions they are employing besides building technical infrastructure are teachers training, capacity building of the government employees, and approaching community leaders.

Conclusions

Finally, I would like to put the quote of social activist and educationist, Dr. Mahabir Pun, at this juncture.

”… this is a pilot study to learn about future possibilities, what’s wrong, what’s good, we need to learn. Right now, we are not doing any big things or it is not a magic. What we are trying to do simply is to tell that this [ICT based education] is very important and necessary for the future. In future, those who will not know ICT will be like a blind man. Therefore, we are trying to open their eyes right now. If they learn about computers in the beginning stage of their primary level classes, then their ability to search information in the computers will improve. They will develop the habits to search and learn using computers. Therefore, we are preparing them for the future. So we cannot say the result of this project will be seen after one or two years. The impact can be seen after 10 or 20 years, when these students will go to college level. In that stage, the lesson they learned now will be very useful to them, therefore, in the long run this technology will help to reduce the educational gap in Nepal.”