[Telecentres] : Call for papers :: ICT4D and Universities

[Mikhail Doroshevich]

"Information Technologies and International
Development (ITID)" is a leading MIT Press journal
that focuses on the intersection of information and communication
technologies (ICTs) with international development. ITID invites
submissions for a special issue titled Information Technology, Higher
Education, and Sustainable Development: The Role of Universities in
Building Knowledge Societies in Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

This special issue will address how universities in
developing countries are implementing innovative
teaching, research and outreach activities that link
ICTs to the development-related needs and activities
of different local and national stakeholders,
including scientists, educators, entrepreneurs,
governments, civil society organizations, and rural communities.  The
issue will reflect how universities in developing countries are seeking
to contribute to ???ICT for Development??T (ICT4D) efforts, the impact
of their efforts upon society and universities, and the internal and
external challenges they face in realizing a productive and meaningful
place in the ICT4D movement.


The goal of this ITID issue is to lay a foundation for
research and policy making in this area. The issue
carries the same title as a conference recently held
in Manila (www.cis.washington.edu/manila2005
<http://www.cis.washington.edu/manila2005>). The
Manila conference itself built on previous
international meetings at Makerere University
(http://www.makerere.ac.ug/dicts/conference), Cornell University
(http://www.einaudi.cornell.edu/conf/2004/ict), and the 2003 World
Summit on the Information Society
(http://www.wsis-online.net/smsi/classes/ict4d/events/ict4d-events-28297
9/event-view)

that focused not only on building universities ICT
capacity, but their capacity to leverage ICT to foster
social and economic development.

**For example, some relevant topics could be (a) the institutional
capacity of universities to create knowledge tailored to different
outside stakeholders;
(b) the uses and effects of university involvement
in community projects such as telecenters; (c) the
creation of university programs that prepare students
to become professionals in ICT-enabled development, or
(d) efforts by universities to engage in local,
national, or international policy-relevant research on
emerging ICT issues.


The topic of this ITID issue is broad and inherently multidisciplinary.
The editors welcome a diverse pool of submissions from different fields
such as political science, information science, communication research,
education, rural sociology, computer science, telecommunications,
economics, public health, and public policy, among others.


The papers selected will present novel research that
is theoretically grounded and methodologically sound,
as well as those that relate to policy development and practical
on-the-ground approaches to realizing the Millennium Development Goals
and creating the building blocks of knowledge societies. Potential
contributors should submit a 750-word abstract of the proposed article
by May 31^st , 2005 to: itid-ed at mit.edu

Visit http://mitpress.mit.edu/itid for specific
instructions for authors.

The guest editors of this ITID issue (in alphabetical
order) are: Royal D. Colle (Cornell University),
Christopher T. Coward (University of Washington),
Colin M. Maclay (Harvard Law School), and Raul Roman (University of
Washington).
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