The Changing Field of ICTD: Growth and Maturation of the Field, 2000–2010

Abstract

We report the results of a content analysis of 948 papers from selected peer reviewed journals and conferences published between 2000 and 2010 in the academic literature on the interdisciplinary field of Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICTD or ICT4D). Results indicate that the field has grown and matured dramatically since its early days, and traces some of the most salient shifts over time and across journals and conferences. Results indicate that the majority of the literature focuses on business and empowerment as the primary domains of ICTD work, and on ICT in general and on information systems as the most common technology objects of analysis, with a growing trend toward mobile phones. The dominant types of research questions are of descriptive, or of measurement or social change in nature, while the preferred paradigmatic stances overall are interpretivist, positivist and pragmatic. The preferred research methods are qualitative, mixed methods and quantitative. There is a predominance of technological approaches to ICTD rather than social ones, and the most frequent types of recommendations are related to more ICT infrastructure. Furthermore, most of the literature consists of studies of individual countries or of organizations, and the most frequent contributions are field studies and best practices, with a growing trend towards contributing theory and policy recommendations. This is the first‐ever comprehensive analysis of the ICTD literature across multiple sources over ten years; it offers important insights about the trends and directions of research in the ICTD field.

Systematic Mapping Study of Information Technology for Development in Agriculture (The Case of Developing Countries)

“…This review also confirmed with Gomez (2013) findings from reviewing 948 ICT4D papers demonstrating that only 6% of the publications were related to ICT for agriculture. Given the fact that agriculture is the main economic backbone (more than 80% of labor force engage in agriculture) the current ICT for Agriculture researches are very few.…”

“…These data extraction variables were purposefully defined to answer the research questions. In order to keep consistency and improve validity about data extraction variables, other systematic mapping studies (Gomez, 2013;Chepken et al, 2012) were considered as a benchmark. Figure 3, depicts the classification used to analyze and categorize the reviewed papers.…”

Electronic Journal of Information Systems in Developing Countries (2000 – 2013): A Bibliometric Study

“…In this case, content analysis was excluded because Gomez (2013) and Gomez et al (2012) had conducted an ICT4D content analysis for the period 2000 to 2010 that included the EJISDC.…”

“…Lund and Sutinen (2010) define ICT4D as "the opportunities of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) as an agent of development". Information systems, human-computer interaction, communication studies, agriculture, sociology, anthropology, computer science, information science, economics, medicine, engineering, telecommunications, health, education, social work, public management and development studies are just a few of the disciplines contributing to this subject area (Gomez, 2013;Walsham and Sahay, 2006).…”

Guest Editorial

“…Weber [5] identifies challenges to building useful ICT4D models of reality in that the phenomena of interest are not always clearly defined, the theories that underpin the research are not articulated carefully, and the research methods and data-analysis methods used do not conform to norms for conducting highquality empirical research. An analysis of academic ICT4D literature demonstrates that the majority of contributions are focused on best practices (including lessons learned, or success factors); field experience (including description, evaluation or analysis of an experience or project); and policy recommendations, while theory and methods, design and testing have received less attention [6]. Therefore an improved understanding of interdisciplinary communalities and differences is needed to identify the standards applicable across disciplinary and methodological distinctions for high-quality research.…”