Begin forwarded message:
From: Michael Best <mikeb@media.mit.edu> Date: Wed Jul 23, 2003 1:43:21 PM America/Winnipeg To: gkd@phoenix.edc.org Subject: [GKD] IT and International Development Journal
Call for Papers http://mitpress.mit.edu/journals/itid/cfp.pdf
Reply-To: gkd@phoenix.edc.org
Dear GKD Colleagues,
We are delighted to report that the first issue of Information Technologies and International Development is now complete and is with the MIT Press. It should be printed and shipped by this October. This inaugural issue will be an exciting one with high-quality contributions from Anne Holohan, Sugata Mitra, Larry Press, Don MacLean, Nicholas Negroponte and others. In addition, two research contributions compare the IT activities in China and India which, given recent political activities, is more relevant and important than ever.
We are attaching (below) our editorial to the inaugural issue. This will give you a better sense of the upcoming material as well as the process.
Deadlines for the next issue are already coming fast upon us. We are continuously accepting submissions and hope you will send us your best work as well as encourage your colleagues to do the same. Instructions for authors can be found off of our website: <http://mitpress.mit.edu/ITID>. We also would be delighted if you or your institution can subscribe; subscription details can be received by email from journals-info@mit.edu.
Finally, we welcome your comments, suggestions, and questions by email to itid-ed@mit.edu.
With kind regards, Ernest J. Wilson, III Michael L. Best Editors-in-Chief
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Editorial Michael L. Best and Ernest J. Wilson III Information Technologies and International Development Volume 1 Number 1
Welcome to the inaugural issue of Information Technologies and International Development. Our vision is to become the premier journal in this emerging field, probing the multiple intersections between international development and information and communication technologies (ICTs). We enthusiastically submit to you this first issue in which we have engaged some of the field's best scholars and practitioners; we hope you find in ITID a helpful platform for rich and vigorous debate that advances the field.
We believe the time is right for Information Technologies and International Development. After a decade of often breathless and hyperbolic dialogue, there is a now a greater sense of realism about ICTs potential contributions to international development. The skeptics are starting to admit that under the right conditions ICTs can indeed play a positive, cost-effective role in development from the local level to the global. The enthusiasts better understand that technology is always deeply embedded in society, and that development conditions differ from one country to the next and always impose real constraints on the speedy roll-out of new applications. Furthermore, we now have a decade of accumulated experience upon which to draw for serious analysis and thoughtful reflection. At this critical moment, we are seeing more sustained interest from private firms, government agencies, foundations, and civil society organizations eager to learn from the experiences of others and to capture best practices.
From the vantage of this Journal these new conditions offer a tremendous opportunity: while we, frankly, remain optimistic about the critical role new information and communication technologies will play in international development there remains an extraordinary amount of theoretical and practical work to be done by social scientists and engineers alike. We see this issue as both a reminder of the promise and excitement of our field as well as a call-to-action since so much fundamental work remains.
The inaugural issue you have in your hands was nearly one year in the making. We happily received more than fifty submissions for consideration, and forty colleagues were kind enough to provide critical and insightful peer reviews. The end result is an excellent issue in which we are offering three Research Articles, three Research Reports, and four Forum essays. We continue to receive high quality submissions, and issue number two will also provide you with superior analysis of critical issues in ICT and development. We very much encourage you to send us your best work - and to spread the word amongst your colleagues. We accept submissions continually, on a rolling basis.
Please do visit our website, http://mitpress.mit.edu/ITID , which contains online versions of some of the articles, the Call for Papers, and the Instructions for Authors. Over time we anticipate the site will grow into a robust resource for the community.
The number of submissions for our inaugural issue was quite gratifying and the quality of the articles selected for publication in this issue is very high. However, we were disappointed with several aspects of the pool, and perhaps describing the reasons will be useful to potential authors. First, the diversity of the submissions was more narrow than we hoped. We did not attract sufficient submissions from Africa or Latin America. Second, the range of subjects was not nearly as wide as we had wished for, with too few reaching us on the more technical dimensions of ICT and development. Some of this is no doubt due to our own failings to publicize ITID and to develop networks into these areas; we pledge to do better by the next issue. Nonetheless, we ask for your help especially to support research across the South, and to encourage submissions from around the globe and across the professions and disciplines.
Furthermore, we were frankly disappointed with the overall quality of submissions to the Journal. We rejected nearly one half of the submissions prior to any peer review as they were not judged to be of sufficient quality to justify taxing our referees. Too many pieces were uncritical rhetorical calls for more and more ICT use in development, but without the supporting evidence to make the claims plausible. Too many submission lacked analytic depth or original primary research or failed to explain adequately the reasons they selected one methodology over another.
Happily, the editors and external reviewers were able to select works for this inaugural issue of the highest quality. In a very timely offering, Don MacLean reviews the efficacy and representativeness of global governance structures, especially the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) and suggests reforms for a more inclusive and transparent organization. Anne Holohan offers a striking example of ICTs in action as they facilitate the UN relief operations in Kosovo. In a Research Report Mitra, Tooley, Inamdar, and Dixon describe how they were able to improve English pronunciation amongst Indian school children through the use of a computer based instructional program. In the Forum, Nicholas Negroponte provides a controversial look at creativity and development and the role computers and the Internet can play. And Naveen Prakash and Madanmohan Rao offer companion book reviews of Gyandoot - The Model for Community Networks by Rajesh Rajora.
In a Forum essay, we argue that India and China are critical test countries for ICTs and development. The Research Article by Press, Foster, Wolcott, and McHenry gives a very useful comparison between these two Asian giants and demonstrates how they have pursued contrasting national ICT strategies. In a related Research Report, Mingzhi Li and Ming Gao describe the software sector in China, drawing important comparisons to India. These three pieces together offer a mini theme for this issue: the contrasting ICT strategies of the world's two most populous nations. We will occasionally offer several articles organized around a common theme in future issues of ITID as well.
Finally, our special thanks and gratitude go to our eminent Advisory and Editorial Boards who have already proven themselves to be essential partners in this enterprise. In that vein we invite all our readers to get involved with us and participate in growing and nurturing this new Journal. Please do contact us on itid-ed@mit.edu with your comments, your suggestions, and your offers to help build a truly global community of people who care about development and ICT.
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