Research
Information System Development and Use Practices in Khyber Pakhtoon Khwa (K.P.K) Pakistan
There is no doubt in the reality that Information Technology (IT) is revolutionizing organizations on unprecedented proportions thereby stimulating others to adopt it but despite this fact research indicates that a large number of information system development projects are failing to achieve their objectives in toto. Thus, there are partial and total failure stories of IT projects. Furthermore, information system (IS) failures are common to all types of organizations: public, private or small, medium and large irrespective of operating in a developed or developing country. The research on IS failure frequently cites non-technical issues as the most decisive factors in the success or failure of any IT project. That is, IT can do miracles but all this requires ‘adequate management of the ‘demographics of an IT project.’ Non-technical critical success and failure factors are catching wider attention during the last decades among the IS research community. One can understand that technology can be imported but not the demographic of the organization thus, non-technical issues are ‘local in nature, structure and intensity,’ which definitely need local studies of ISD and use practices so as to dig-out ‘customized ISD and use process. This research is an effort in the same line of thinking.
eLearning Opportunities & Prospects in Higher Education Institutions of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan
Both opportunities and prospects are sometimes used interchangeably however, in this paper, opportunity refers to the ‘availability of eLearning resources and service’ while prospects denote ‘futuristic expectations about the role of information and communication technologies (ICTs) in higher education institutions (HEIs). The empirical findings suggest that people score lower on opportunities but significantly high on the prospects showing that they are not quite happy with the facilities and services available (due to the development, implementation and use problems – or simply management problems of eLearning). But they can clearly foresee the significant role of ICTs or education technologies (ETs) in future in the context of developing countries like Pakistan. Furthermore, these differences are attributed to the demographic diversities of the respondents, meaning that the demographic variation changes the power and direction of the user-attitudes towards eLearning. This paper uses stepwise regression to gradually glean-out the most significant predictors of opportunities and prospects from a group (eight) of demographics.
