Title: ICTs in School Education - Outsourced versus Integrated Approach
Author: Gurumurthy Kasinathan
Pages: 4 pp.
Publisher: IT for Change (ITfC)
Date (published): 31/08/2009
Date (accessed): 02/12/2009
Type of information: policy brief
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
A number of state education departments in India are launching computer learning programmes in schools. The predominant model for this programme is to outsource the entire program to vendors. However a few states like Kerala have successfully insourced this program, by building in-house apacities to conduct this program. This paper "Policy Brief on ICTs in School Education", discusses outsourced versus integrated models in this area, drawing from our research in two states of India. The research learly demonstrates the superiority of integrated models to outsourced/PPP models. The implications of this study for policy are critical. This study can help education departments avoid the pitfalls experienced by earlier programs and help them make an informed choice in deciding a model for their computer learning program.

Title: ICTD – Is it a New Species of Development?
Authors: Anita Gurumurthy and Parminder Jeet Singh
Pages: 5 pp.
Publisher: CIVICUS: World Alliance for Citizen Participation
Date (published): 14/08/2009
Date (accessed): 02/12/2009
Type of information: research paper
Language: English
On-line access: yes (pdf)
Abstract:
This "Think-piece" based on an IT for Change Perspective Paper discusses issues of power in the field of information and communication technology for development (ICTD) and suggests reconstructing it from being based on a market economy model to being based on an 'open ICT ecology' model in which the global South has equal footing with the global North. From the Introduction: "The structural nature of what is a society-wide transformation, triggered by a new techno-social paradigm, makes it more and more evident that the core ICTD issue relates to the all important question of power; where the socially marginalised and disadvantaged groups are located in the new social configurations. A participant in a grassroots community video project for marginalised, [economically] poor women, describes the power shift associated with ICTs succinctly - 'But you cannot bribe videos; they tell honestly what our stories are'."

The emerging information society, according to the authors, is being shaped by a power struggle between a neo-liberalist faction that sees ICTD as an opportunity to deploy ICTs "in order to universalise market fundamentalism in all facets of life." Aided, as stated here, by its alignment with the worldview of those who see ICTs as neutral and equally beneficial to all, "...the hegemony of neoliberalism in ICTD has today been naturalised as the 'common sense' way of casting ICTD."

This article examines ICTD as a new species of development "between the two opposing poles of a socio-political understanding of 'development' on the one hand, and ICTD's dominant form as a neutral, apolitical and essentially moulded in market fundamentalist ideologies on the other. The arguments in this document are organised along three sections: the first unpacks the contested meanings of development that have informed ICTD through a political economy analysis; the second lays out defining attributes of the field and its study; and the third raises some issues for reconstructing this field."

via The Communication Initiative Network

Title: List of ICT4D books at Google Books
Date (accessed): 02/12/2009
Type of information: book list
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
via http://twitter.com/phat_controller

Title: Open Translation Tools
Date (published): 2009
Date (accessed): 02/12/2009
Type of information: manual
Language: English
On-line access: yes (HTML)
Abstract:
...For the the internet to fulfill its most ambitious promises, we need to recognize translation as one of the core challenges to an open, shared and collectively governed internet. Many of us share a vision of the internet as a place where the good ideas of any person in any country can influence thought and opinion around the world. This vision can only be realized if we accept the challenge of a polyglot internet and build tools and systems to bridge and translate between the hundreds of languages represented online.

Machine translation will not solve all our problems. While machine translation systems continue to improve, they are well below the quality threshold necessary to enable readers to participate in conversations and debates with speakers of other languages. The best machine translation systems still have difficulty with colloquial and informal language, and are most reliable in translating between romance languages. The dream of a system that creates fully automated, high quality translations in important language pairs like English-Hindi still appears long off.

While there is profound need to continue improving machine translation, we also need to focus on enabling and empowering human translators. Professional translation continues to be the gold standard for the translation of critical documents. But these methods are too expensive to be used by web surfers simply interested in participating in discussions with peers in China or Colombia.

The polyglot internet demands that we explore the possibility and power of distributed human translation. Hundreds of millions of internet users speak multiple languages; some percentage of these users are capable of translating between these. These users could be the backbone of a powerful, distributed peer production system able to tackle the audacious task of translating the internet.

We are at the very early stages of the emergence of a new model for translation of online content - "peer production" models of translation. Yochai Benkler uses the term "peer production" to describe new ways of organizing collaborative projects beyond conventional arrangements like corporate firms. Individuals have a variety of motives for participation in translation projects, sometimes motivated by an explicit interest in building intercultural bridges, sometimes by fiscal reward or personal pride. In the same way that open source software is built by programmers fueled both by personal passion and by support from multinational corporations, we need a model for peer-produced translation that enables multiple actors and motivations.

To translate the internet, we need both tools and communities. Open source translation memories will allow translators to share work with collaborators around the world; translation marketplaces will let translators and readers find each other through a system like Mechanical Turk enhanced with reputation metrics; browser tools will let readers seamlessly translate pages into the highest-quality version available and request future human translations. Making these tools useful requires building large, passionate communities committed to bridging in a polyglot web, preserving smaller languages and making tools and knowledge accessible to a global audience.

See also:
Recommend an online collaborative translation tool
Metafilter, 01/12/2009