Syftet med studien är att undersöka hur sju olika kommuner i Sverige utvecklar och anpassar sin besöksservice i allt mer digitaliserat samhälle. Studien grundar sig på en kvalitativ forskningsmetodik bestående av sju semi-strukturerade intervjuer med anställda inom respektive kommun. Det empiriska materialet bygger huvudsakligen på respondenternas svar kring ämnet, men även sekundärdata från respektive destinations webbplats som kompletterande material till studien. Resultatet indikerar att den traditionella turistbyråns roll har förändrats i takt med teknikutveckling. Turistorganisationernas utvecklingen av besöksservicen är därmed en anpassning till samhället och hur besökare söker information idag. Vidare visar resultatet att kombinationen av det digitala och personliga värdskapet är avgörande faktorer för att skapa mervärde till besökare. Det digitala värdskapet handlar främst om att vara tillgänglig på olika digitala kanaler för att möta besökarna före besöket och det personliga mötet handlar främst om att finnas på plats där besökaren befinner sig. / The purpose of this study is to investigate how seven different municipalities in Sweden develop and adapt their visitor services in an increasingly digitized society. The study is based on a qualitative research methodology consisting of seven semi-structured interviews. The empirical data is based mainly on the respondents' responses to the subject, secondary data from the respective destinations website as complementary material to the study has also been used. Results indicate that the role of the traditional tourist information centers has changed due to technological development. The tourism organizations' development of visiting services is thus an adaptation to society and how visitors seek information today. Furthermore, the result shows that the combination of digital- and personal interaction is a crucial factor in creating added value to visitors. The digital hosting is primarily about being available on different digital channels with the purpose of reaching out to visitors before their visit and the personal meeting is mainly about being in place where the visitor is located.

Masters in Public Administration - MPA / The essence of e-government is to link government activities with the advanced technology that the world is having today. This technology has already shown a remarkable job in bringing efficiency in private sector through e-business, e-banking, e-procurement etc.It is, therefore, recommended by this study that government and its agencies could utilize e-government initiatives to bring service delivery closer to citizens. By so doing government officials and citizens would become much closer and perform their duties well and efficiently.The experience from various countries shows that there are various Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and e-government initiatives even in poor countries. In rural areas of Tanzania where electricity has never been thought to reach where illiteracy rates are increasing and where poverty is high, people are using mobile phones for their activities. This is possible as the prices of mobile phones are low and networks are available in such rural part of the country. Tanzania enacted ICT policy in 2003 which, among other things, emphasizes the need to have success in e-government services. Experience on ground, though, reveals that this policy is often not implemented. What seems in the implementation of ICT policy in Tanzania difficult is the lack of political will and the will to agree to change.On the other hand, Tanzanian citizens have been for a long time ready for change. A good example may be advent of the mobile phone industry in the country. Many respondents in this research expressed the need to adopt ICT to advance ordinary people.These respondents recommended that government officials accept change with regard to ICT, to introduce developmental plans and be innovative and creative enough in establishing service delivery programmes. As borne out by this study, ICT can also be used to link the private sector, public sector and service delivery to citizens.Still though, poor countries, apart from having many priorities to contend with, have to acknowledge that the world is changing rapidly and in order to combat poverty more effectively, technology is useful as it makes people understand the trends and changes that the world is witnessing today. Indeed, Tanzania can use ICT to move ahead in e-government because it has a good telecommunication system, a factor that would allow for the success of online services.

This study investigated the integration of computer-assisted education (CAE) at Butterworth High School. Before 1994, may areas of the Eastern Cape remained neglected as far as education was concerned. However, with the advent of democracy, the new government is giving high priority to education to both the formerly privileged and underprivileged areas. This study investigated the extent to Butterworth High School has integrated CAE into its school curricula and the problems if any, that are preventing this school from becoming a full-fledged CAE school with their possible solutions. To appraise the integration of computer-assisted education at Butterworth High School the Evolutionary Model developed by Miller (1997) was adopted. Recommendations for further integration were made. / Dissertation (MEd (Computer-Assisted Education))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Curriculum Studies / unrestricted

There is growing interest in applying information and communication technology (ICT) in healthcare. The attention to ICT stems from several factors: costs of healthcare, high prevalence of somatic diseases, longer life expectancy and technological advancements. The quest to meet the growing healthcare needs has led authorities to allocate resources to develop technological solutions. Although this research investment is helpful for the information technology sector, these projects face challenges in working with multidisciplinary teams, recruiting participants and moving research to practice. This dissertation investigates the potential of ICT use in psychosocial support communication designed for people with emotional distress associated with a somatic disease (PEDASDs). The research aims to deliver design principles (DPs) for these ICTs, for three stakeholder groups: nurses, therapists and PEDASDs. The DPs focus on communication between these stakeholder groups and not on the overall ICT design. An interpretative approach was adopted to investigate the stakeholders’ unique ICT requirements. This method allows insights into the stakeholder’s world. Three studies, using semi-structured interviews, at oncology facilities in two healthcare system models (Trinidad & Tobago and Sweden), provide the empirical data. The stakeholders revealed not only their communication support needs but also other issues including the practical distresses of living with a chronic disease, limited support, lack of information, unwillingness to associate with other PEDASDs, professionalism between healthcare providers and disconnected healthcare services. Common ground, bridges and weak ties provide the theoretical framework to explore the findings. Eight DPs emerged from the studies: the healthcare system model, need to educate the stakeholders, ICT customisation, support of stakeholders’ information needs, allow access to external resources, support multidisciplinary team communication, support for self-care and support for significant others. The findings could potentially serve as a guide for ICT projects that develop artefacts for psychosocial support and provide a theoretically grounded understanding of stakeholder communication and relationships. The potential for future work includes investigating the issues of legislation and ethics, studying the needs of significant others, exploring the potential for ICTs in other healthcare system models (particularly the out-of-pocket health system) and examining the impact of social media on psychosocial support. / Det finns ett växande intresse att använda informations- och kommunikationsteknologi (IKT) inom hälso- och sjukvården. Intresset för IKT påverkas av flera faktorer: sjukvårdens kostnader, prevalensen av somatiska sjukdomar, ökad medellivslängd och teknologiska framsteg. Utmaningen att hantera de växande sjukvårdsbehoven har lett till att statliga myndigheter har allokerat resurser för att utveckla teknologiska lösningar. Trots att forskningsinvesteringarna gynnar informationsteknologisektorn i stort möter de konkreta forskningsprojekten utmaningar såsom arbete inom tvärvetenskapliga grupper, rekrytering av deltagare till studier samt implementering. Denna avhandling undersöker möjligheten att använda IKT för kommunikation av psykosocialt stöd eller vård (care). Detta stöd är utformat för personer med emotionella problem relaterade till en somatisk sjukdom (PEDASD). Forskningen syftar till att leverera designprinciper (DP) för tre intressegrupper som använder IKT: sjuksköterskor, terapeuter och PEDASD. Designprinciperna fokuserar på kommunikation mellan de tre intressegrupperna och inte på den övergripande IKT-designen. Ett tolkande tillvägagångssätt har använts för att undersöka intressegruppernas unika IKT-krav och önskemål. Denna metod gör det möjligt att studera intressegruppernas upplevelser. Tre undersökningar, som baseras på semistrukturerade intervjuer, har genomförts vid avdelningar för onkologisk vård inom två sjukvårdssystemmodeller i Trinidad & Tobago respektive Sverige. Studiens empiriska data utgörs av intervjuerna. Data har sedan analyserats utifrån det teoretiska ramverket: Common ground, bridges och weak ties. I sina svar nämnde intressegrupperna inte enbart deras behov av kommunikationsstöd, utan också annat som till exempel praktiska problem att leva med en kronisk sjukdom, begränsat stöd, brist på information, ovillighet att förknippas med andra PEDASD, de professionella relationerna mellan sjukvårdens olika yrkesgrupper samt avsaknaden av koordination inom sjukvården. Analysen resulterade i åtta designprinciper: sjukvårdssystemmodellen, behovet av att utbilda intressegrupperna, IKT-anpassning, stöd för intressegruppernas informationsbehov, tillgång till externa resurser, stöd för kommunikation inom tvärvetenskapliga forskargrupper, stöd för självhjälp och stöd till närstående. Resultaten har potential att fungera som en guide för IKT-forskningsprojekt som utvecklar artefakter för psykosocialt stöd och som presenterar en teoretiskt grundad förståelse av intressegruppers kommunikation och relationer. Resultaten pekar också på behovet av framtida forskning om lagstiftning och etik, nära anhörigas behov, potentialen för IKT inom andra sjukvårdssystemmodeller (i synnerhet system där patienter betalar mer själva) samt sociala mediers inverkan på psykosocialt stöd.

This work analyses the structure and the progression of the ICT market in the Czech republic. The first part deal with czech ICT market segmentation with regards to different methods of particular institutions. The next chapter describes specific environment of the Czech republic, factors and conditions influencing the ICT market and companies progression. It is especially focused on macroeconomic development, policy in relation to ICT market, grant policy, flow of foreign direct investment, availability of labour force and relevant information technologies. The work also analyses market progression and related economic indicators such as a market volume measured by expenditures into ICT products and services and share of these expenditures in total GDP as well as expenditures per one employee. In addition it offers a view of progression of foreign trade with ICT products. The main part of this work deal with the structure of companies on the information a communication technology market in the Czech republic. The aim of this part is to analyze basic structural indicators such as number of active firms a its structure in accordance with their residence, legal entity and time of estabilishment, number of employees, revenues per employee or value added generated in ICT sector. The chapter also contains survey of firms from relevant ICT segments ordered by achieved annual turnover.

This work deals with the questions of the analysis and management of the parts engaged in information and communication technology projects. The stakeholder (the term "stakeholder" is used in Czech as well) is a subject, i.e. an individual or a corporate body, that is concerned about the result of the project and has the possibility to influence the project. The main goal of the thesis is to map the contemporary approaches toward the stakeholders analysis and management in the ICT projects, to analyze the problems of the influence of individual parts from both technocracy and human (psychological) point of view and to subsequently suggest the methodology for an effective analysis and management of the engaged parts, which could be used at the management of the projects in the ICT field. It is convenient to introduce the used terms and notions , their history and the way of use in the first part. There are dissect the known methodologies and tools used for the analysis and the management of the engaged parts. Subsequently, the stakeholders are systematically divide, it is accomplished their analysis from different perspectives and discussed mainly the aspects which can be crucial in the project management. The most common interests and motivations of the particular engaged parts are presented, including the influence and interest groups and the ways how to procure these parts for the aims of the projects. In the second part a research is described, which is carried out among managers of ICT companies and participants of ICT projects. There are elaborated some hypotheses on grounds of practical experiences from ICT projects and these are verified by this examination. The third part is focused on the presentation of the methodology for the analysis and the management of stakeholders in the ICT projects, which should serve the project managers for the stakeholders analysis and management in the ICT projects. Practical use of this methodology in the project of the SAP system implementation is described in the last, fourth part. This thesis completes relevant sources with the practical experiences at work on the projects in the ICT field. The effected research attested the original notion that this issue is relatively little known in the Czech Republic. The outcomes of this work could be of use for the project management in the ICT field.

This thesis is devoted to recruitment and information technologies that support this process. The aim was to get recruitment process in concrete company more efective. The theoretical part deals with concepts and perspectives on the recruitment process as well as information technologies supporting HR field and webdesign innovations. In the practical part was analyzed the current status of the recruitment process and career sites, as the strongest source of candidates in a concrete company. There were identified weak points. Based on this analysis have been implemented new e-recruitment application and new career site that eliminate these weak points. The last part of thesis was based on real measurements evaluating the benefits of implemented changes.

This thesis deals with the issue of market IS / ICT, particularly focusing on the analysis of the current situation. The first part is devoted to a slight look into the past and then the market IS / ICT has been analyzed in terms of factors and market actors. The following part of the paper focuses on the analysis of the structure of firms implementing its activities in the market IS / ICT. The last part of the paper explores the potential market developments and tries to predict the development and the key trends for the future are seen dynamic network services, teamwork, mobile enterprise, security, and last but not least, green computing for sustainable development.

This research aims to explore students’ perceptions and their desired features on the use of blockchain technology for the management of education records. A literature review formed the basis of the theoretical background of this work by allowing to explore how education records are managed nowadays and the potential for the use of blockchain technology in this area, as well as the importance of user-centred design in order to achieve a higher user-acceptance. A qualitative research study encompassing a focus group interview with Linnaeus University students was conducted to answer the research questions. Computer assisted thematic data analysis yielded five key themes: current usage of university education records, understanding how blockchain works, sustainability of blockchain, security of blockchain and implementation of blockchain for education records. The discussion relates the empirical findings to the theoretical background of the research. Participants were generally positive towards the use of blockchain for the management of education records and saw it as one of the potential future solutions. Nevertheless, they voiced some reservations regarding the high energy consumption, costs and security towards a possible use of the blockchain technology. Therefore, careful implementation would be needed, with increased focus on usability, solving some security and sustainability issues and ensuring a fair and transparent access model. This master thesis contributes to the current body of knowledge within informatics by empowering students to share their point of view with regards to possible development of IT solutions based on blockchain technology. As found through this master thesis research, systems for the management of educational records have an impact on person’s life long past finishing a course or a degree, affecting people’s everyday experience in many areas of life and students would like to be included in any future development discussions. Therefore, the research study provides insights which could be used in the future in two ways: firstly, to achieve a more user-centred design of education records management systems and secondly, on the students’ perception of the use of blockchain technology in this area of life.

Thesis (Ph. D. (Administration)) -- University of Limpopo, 2016 / The thesis drew from a combination of phenomenology, interactionism and critical theories because South Africa in itself consists of a polity with national dynamics, within the matrices of globality in which connectivity plays a determining role, especially in terms of the capacity to competitively participate in the global knowledge economy. Guided by reading collectively and critically from the economic, physical development, policy analysis, interpretative as well as collaboration planning approaches, among others, and the mono-centric, multilevel and adaptive models of governance, the thesis constructed a conceptual argument that the primate enablers for modernized infrastructure, skills and culture attached to the preconditions for blended pedagogies, are modernized planning and governance. However, the attainment of planning, governance, infrastructure and skills is in itself inadequate to inculcate the culture necessary for the integration of elearning with conventional didactics. This observation is confirmed through international experiences that involve the developed countries that are in the very high and high Human Development Index (HDI) categories such as Australia, Poland and Korea as well as Thailand, Brazil and Algeria, respectively, where the presence of planning, governance, infrastructure and skills has not automatically precipitated a culture required for blended pedagogies. This evidence does not seek to underplay the significance of planning, governance, infrastructure and skills in the integration of e-learning with conventional didactics, but the thesis has established that the existence of modernized planning, governance, infrastructure and skills are a necessary, rather than a sufficient, condition. From the literature review, the thesis deduces that e-culture is a virtually sufficient condition for the establishment of blended pedagogies. Hence, variables such as GDP per Capita, Gross Fixed Capital Formation, Average Annual Growth of General Government Final Consumption Expenditure, Research and Development Expenditure and Public Expenditure on Education, that demonstrate the level of human development of a country, do not necessarily reflect capacity to enable the establishment of blended pedagogies. Such conditions do not always coexist with pre-eminence of communication using Internet and/or Mobile Phones, characteristic of the “Net Generation Culture”. The vi latter, as a specific form of e-culture, is heavily dependent on infrastructure and skills which are, among others things, reflected in Gross Fixed Capital Formation, Employment to Population Ratio, Labour Force Participation Rate, Labour Force with Tertiary Education, Total Electrification Rate as well as Employment to Population Ratio. The observation made above is corroborated by the experiences of developing countries such as Vietnam, Zambia and Kenya, which are in the medium and low HDI categories, wherein the absence of appropriate and adequate infrastructure, skills and e-culture together with planning and governance imperil the evolution of the national culture into that of the “Net Natives”. From an empirical perspective, consistent with the hybridization of philosophy, the thesis conveniently selected a target population that consisted of a total of 15 countries, wherein 14 of these observations provide a backdrop against which South Africa’s relative readiness and appropriateness of planning, governance, infrastructure, culture and skills for blended pedagogies are determined. A combination of purposive and quota sampling procedures was adopted to select the 15 countries across the four HDI categories. The 15 countries are classified in terms of the 2015 United Nations Development Programme HDI conceptions, which produced four levels of “very high”, “high”, “medium” and “low”. A total of 28 variables were selected for Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The thesis used secondary data sources for textual and empirical data, where the latter was largely drawn from the United Nations Development Programme Reports. The textual data were analysed qualitatively through thorough descriptions, classification and drawing of connections, the statistical data were organized into a 15 (observations) by 28 (variables) raw data matrix and analysed through the PCA. Verbal tools were used to provide thick descriptions of contexts regarding historical, social, demographic and economic backgrounds in order to situate the motive underlying the planning and governance of blending e-learning pedagogies with conventional didactics in South Africa. From a quantitative perspective, PCA was used for statistical modelling that standardized the data and produced a variety of useful statistical summaries such as Principal Components, Eigenvalues, Communalities, Correlation Matrix, Component Loadings, Component Scores and Scattergrams. vii Given that the raw data consisted of 15 observations by 28 variables, a 28 by 28 variables correlation matrix was generated. Of the 378 correlations that the thesis discovered, 183 are direct and 195 are indirect. However, 276 of the 378 relationships are negligible; only 102 correlations were strong and significant enough to deserve closer examination. Principal Component Analysis extracted a total of 15 Principal Components; and, the first seven according to the thesis, accounted for the cumulative percentage of 92% in the interrelationships. Furthermore, it is evident that Principal Component 1 consists of the characteristics of Modernized, Planning, Governance, Infrastructure, Skills and Culture, which are diametrically different from the Frustrated Development, Unsustainable State Intervention and Societal Inequalities, Limiting e-infrastructure, e-skills Constraint, Muted Development Potential and the Non-existent e-culture that are associated with the rest. Given the significance and strength of the eigenvalue and component loadings on Principal Component (PC) 1, it should signify the presence of enabling environments for e-infrastructure, e-governance, e-culture and e-skills consistent with modernized planning and governance of blended pedagogies. Therefore, a country that scores negatively on PC 1 and positively on PC 2 would represent a society that is far less prepared for blended pedagogies where an unrelenting state investment for e-infrastructure, e-governance, eskills and e-culture would translate into a replacement behaviour rather than integration of conventional didactics with digital technologies. This infers that the status of governance, infrastructure, skills and culture would remain less optimal for the adoption of blended pedagogies. For such countries, investing heavily in blended pedagogies without first creating the requisite conditions for engagement in the global knowledge economy would imply that they would have sought to exploit non-existent capacity in governance, infrastructure, skills and culture. South Africa's component score on PC 1 is -0.58, which would in terms of the analysis mean that this country lacks the character of modernized planning, governance, infrastructure, skills and culture that are necessary for engendering blended pedagogies. Countries such as Norway, Australia, Poland, Korea, Thailand, Vietnam and Sri Lanka that have variably trotted the blended pedagogies score positively on PC 1. Besides, viii some of these countries have not been successful in blended pedagogies, notwithstanding their apparent enabling environments. Conversely, South Africa's component score on PC 2 is extraordinarily higher than all of the 14 countries; and, it is 2.15 points higher than the nearest score. It is important to recognize that South Africa's score on PC 2 is an extreme case and a virtual outlier that has no connection to the rest of the fourteen countries, especially those in the Medium and Low HDI. Overall, South Africa's component scores highlight the relative dearth of appropriate planning, governance, infrastructure, skills and culture, that are necessary for the adoption of blended pedagogies. Whereas the thesis finds that there is no direct correlation between the level of human development and adoption of blended pedagogies, the latter appears to be a result of convoluted processes that involve the creation of enablers for e-culture largely through planning, governance, infrastructure, skills and culture. These qualities are embedded with societal equality, equity of access to services, capital formation, employment, education as well as Internet infrastructure. The thesis therefore, concludes that South Africa's potential for human development is derailed through endless planning that has become an end in itself. Planning for its own sake, which defines South Africa's democratic history, means that modernized governance, skills and e-culture that are necessary for blended pedagogies have remained substandard. The thesis establishes that South Africa’s national as well as Information and Communication Technology (ICT) planning demonstrates ambition and interest, which is however pursued in the absence of effective governance of implementation and adoption of appropriate educational technologies. Evidently, South Africa is yet to attain modernized planning, governance, skills and culture appropriate for the implementation of blended pedagogies, notwithstanding the infrastructure provided in some of the schools for teaching and learning. Instead, South Africa’s pedagogic digital transformation is characterized by replacement of conventional didactics with e-learning rather than integration for blended pedagogies. Therefore, this evidence suggests that, although South Africa’s educational ICT infrastructure seems to be relatively modernized, the absence of appropriate and adequate planning, governance, skills and e-culture impairs the successful implementation of blended learning. The thesis, therefore, recommends ix that adoption of blended pedagogies should be supported through the creation of eculture in households, underwritten by modernized planning, governance, infrastructure and skills for competitive participation in the global knowledge economy.