Instructions for Coders working on ICT4D (Database)

The Information Communication Technology for Sustainable Development Database is one of the most comprehensive informational resources for projects reports, academic articles, and feature news articles about how new media information technologies are being used to solve social problems in developing countries.

Items in the database tend to be from international governmental agencies, non governmental agencies, country aid agencies, academic researchers, and in-country development practitioners.

The utility of the archive depends on the effort of “coders” who find relevant items, record basic archival information, and upload the items into the collection.

Structure of the Database

The URL for this database is http://www.com.washington.edu/ict4d. Following the link [ENTER DATA] will prompt you for to log in with your UW NetID. The main coding page is divided into three sections: the country list, a set of institutional and organizational labels, and the reference information.

A. Country List

In the first part you will see a list with ALL the countries that are recognized by the United Nations as of 2003. Some documents will date back several decades, so some non-existent countries, such as East Germany and West Germany are listed. When you select a country from the list the database highlights it in RED.

EXAMPLE. For Example, if you found the article Goodman, S. E. (1994). "Computing in South Africa: An End to Apartness?" Communications of the ACM 37(2). In the Country List there is one category: No Specific Country. The article is relevant for the database but it doesn’t make any reference to a country, region (Latin America, Africa, Asia etc.) development level (Emerging Economies, Developing Countries, Third World, Least-developed Economies etc.)

EXAMPLE. For example, for the item Coleman, S. (1999)."Can the New Media Invigorate Democracy?" The Political Quarterly 70(1):16-22, it would be coded as no specific country/region

EXAMPLE. For example, for the item Basit H., A. (2001). The Role of Information Technologies in Global Development. Analysis and Recommendations. New York, NY, United Nations. It would be coded as all developing.

You may enter multiple countries, but if no country is clearly identified in the title, abstract, or table of contents, then do not tick any country in the country list. Also, the document may make many passing references to multiple countries. It is not worth listing all of the countries so again leave this category blank. The item may refer to a cultural, economic, political or geographic groupings of countries, in which case you can still leave the country category blank and choose the appropriate grouping in the next section.

B. Institutional and Organizational Information

In this section there are many different cultural, economic, political or geographic groupings that may help classify the document you have found. For each type of grouping, there is an “add” and “remove” action that will retroactively select country groups by turning the relevant countries listed in section one bright red. There are seven types of groupings:

1. Geographic Region

2. Country Group

3. Governmental Organization Membership

4. Income Level

5. Debt Level

6. Trade Agreement

7. Multilateral Organization

And for each of these, you may “add” or “remove” one of the types.

Add	Choose One Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa, Northern Europe Europe, Eastern Europe, Western Central Asia Asia East Asia Southeast Asia South Asia Indian Subcontinent Middle East Pacific Islands / Oceana Latin America North America Caribbean South America Central America   Action: Added Africa
Remove	Choose One Africa   Action: None

These categories are designed to facilitate the coding of the articles you will find. To that purpose, the choices available in each of these seven categories are linked (in the database) to the countries listed in the previous section. If you choose, for example in Geographic Region, Latin America all the countries that belong to this region will turn BLUE. That way you don’t have to choose each one of them.

Please note that the actions buttons in this section, Add and Remove, are highly sensitive. When you make your choice be sure to click outside the box otherwise it will keep adding or removing options.

EXAMPLE. For example, for the item Proenza, J. F. (2002) Telecenters in Latin America and the Caribbean. Myths and Opportunities. Food and Agricultural Organization Report. United Nations, the geographic region would be coded as “Latin America and the Carribean”.

EXAMPLE. For example, for the item United Nations ICT Task Force (2003) Information Technology Revolution and the Opportunities for Developing Nations, the country grouping would be coded as “Developing Nations”.

EXAMPLE. For example, for the item Colle, R. and Roman, R. (1999) Using Smart Cards to open Microfinance Services to Communities in Highly Indebted Countries, the debt level would be coded as “highly indebted countries.”

C. REFENCE INFORMATION

The first category in the document section is the reference type. There are 24 different options (journal, book, book section, magazine, newspaper, report, case study, etc.). Please enter all the details about the publication, including author, year of publication, and title. This information is particularly important because it allows people who search the database to retrieve information about items if they have specific details, like an author’s name. Most items will have an opening abstract, so it will often be possible to cut and paste the abstract information directly into the box that asks for abstract information. For some feature news articles, the first paragraph can serve as the text for your abstract. The “sector” category refers to the sphere of political, economic, or cultural life that ICT is playing a role in.

EXAMPLE. For example, for the item Khelladi, Y. (2002) What Works: Educ.ar sustainability Model. World Resources Insitute, Digital Dividend Case Studies. July 2002, the reference type would be coded as “case study” and the sector would be coded as “e-education”.

EXAMPLE. For example, for the item Abbott, J. L., Roy (2001). "Democracy and Internet Asia? The challenges to the emancipatory potential of the Net: lessons from China and Malaysia." Third World Quarterly 22(1): 99-114, the reference type would be coded as “journal article” and the sector would be coded as “politics”.

EXAMPLE. For example, for the item Afzaal H. Seyal, (2000). "An Empirical Investigation of Use of Information Technology among Small and Medium Business Organizations: A Bruneian Scenario." The Electronic Journal on Information Systems in Developing Countries 2(7): 1-16, the reference type would be coded as “journal article” and the sector would be coded as “medium enterprises”.

EXAMPLE. For example, for the item Accenture (2002). e-Government Leadership - Realizing the Vision, Accenture, the reference type would be coded as “report”, and the sector would be coded as “e-government”.

If you are not totally sure where to categorize the article you are entering, we trust you to make your best judgement about how the item should be coded. If you want to draw attention to an item that was particularly difficult to code, make a note at the end of the page in the section “coder note”.

· Technology à There are many innovative technological applications of ICTs for development, not all of them use exclusively the Internet, although usually the use of Computers and the Internet is the most popular one. In this section, we put as many categories as we thought possible to make the database not only inclusive but refined when people do the searches.

EXAMPLE. For example, for the item Reijswoud, V. v. and C. Topi (2003). Alternative Routes in the Digital World. Open Source Software in Africa, Open Source MIT papers. 2003, the reference type would be coded as “working paper” and the technology would be coded as “open source software.

EXAMPLE. For example, for the item Baker, S., S. Gelston, et al. (1990). The Third World is getting cellular fever. Business Week: 80-81, the reference type would be coded as “magazine”, and the technology type would be coded as “mobile phone”.

EXAMPLE. For example, for the item Jhunjhunwala, A. (2003) What Works: N-Logue’s wireless Rural Connectivity Model, World Resources Institute. Digital Dividend Case Study. The reference type would be coded as “case study”, and the technology would be coded as “wireless”.

· Document URL à This is the document URL if it is available online. Even if it is online, please upload the document anyway to preserve the item in our collection.

· Document Language àThis is the language the document is written in.

· Organization Name à This is the name of the organization that paid for the research, publication or dissemination of the document.

· Organization Type à This is the type of organization that paid for the research, publication, or dissemination of the document. For this option you can check the organization’s website in the section About Us to find out what type it is.

· Project Funds à This is the source of funding for the project being reported on. This option doesn’t apply to all the documents. The most common entries that would need this category are Case Studies since they have specific information about the organizations that are founding the project. You can choose multiple options if it is applicable for the reference you are entering or Not Applicable if the article doesn’t make reference to a particular project or contains no information about the sponsorship.

· Research Organization à to come

· Research Funds à to come

· Upload Document à In this section you have to upload the file to the database, if this is available. Simply save it to the PC and click on the Browse button to search for the file. This action works exactly like attaching documents to Emails.

Once you have entered all of the relevant information, including any notes you have about the item, you may upload the document. The items you enter will be reviewed by the archive administrator.

Add human resources? Add general infrastructure? Make date of access as well as date of publication?