The objective of the research is to identify how information can influence development in the developing countries, especially in Bangladesh. A variety of information gathering stages were undertaken including documentary analysis, interviews with key officials, structured interviews with individuals living in rural and urban slum areas and focus groups. Officials at the central planning level responsible for community development and information services in Bangladesh were interviewed to ascertain their views of the relation of information and development in Bangladesh. At the grassroots level both information providers and users were interviewed to collect information relating to the impact of information services on development in rural and poor urban areas of Bangladesh. Structured interviews which allowed for quantitative analysis were undertaken in four remote villages and two poor urban areas. Analysis of the data collected has led to the development of a model for community information centres which might become central to information dissemination and provide a focus for information policy in Bangladesh.

Ever since the beginning of the European project, there was an urgent need to make the EU more citizen-friendly and responsive to the needs of citizens. In view of the deficit of EU democratic legitimacy, supranational institutions saw participation-based democracy as a response to this challenge. This is why, from 2001 onwards, the Commission developed a new communication and information strategy to foster debate and dialogue between EU administrations and Europeans. Within this context, the EU created the Europe Direct information centres (EDIC) which are EU local offices aiming at communicating and promoting participatory politics. This study explores if the EDIC in the Spanish autonomous community of Cantabria pursues participatory democracy and, consequently, if this centre contributes to tackling the crisis of democratic legitimacy in the EU. An interview and surveys are conducted to delve into the experience of the director of the centre and examine the opinion of users with regards to participation, political interest, satisfaction with the service, and so on. The hypothesis underlying this research is that this service has the potential for enhancing the political involvement of the Cantabrian population. The results obtained in this study confirm this assumption and indicate that this service is on the right track to achieve full participation. Besides this, the results reveal that the EDIC can reduce illegitimate practices in the EU. This thesis, therefore, presents the EDIC as a competent centre to locally assist the EU in strengthening the quality of democracy. This thesis stimulates further research and opens up new horizons in the field of European democracy.

This diploma work deals with the satisfaction of clients with services of the Tourist Information Centre in Znojmo, Czechia. The objective was to ascertain this satisfaction by means of an inquiry and comparison of information centres and to suggest recommendations and improvements that should finally lead to greater satisfaction of clients. In the theoretical part hereof, I have focused on the explanation of basic terminology related to tourism, tourist information centres, marketing research and satisfaction inquiry. In the practical part hereof, by means of a special questionnaire that I prepared, I have been ascertaining satisfaction of clients in the Tourist Information Centre in Znojmo. I have also been comparing tourist information centres in other towns and cities of similar size as the City of Znojmo. In conclusion, I have put down some recommendations and improvements which should finally lead to greater satisfaction of clients.

The primary aim of the thesis "Rural Tourism in South Bohemian Region" was the evaluation of the rural tourism offer in South Bohemian Region and the submission of appropriate suggestions. The secondary aim was to describe South Bohemian Region, to analyse actual documents relating to the tourism in the region and to create and evaluate SWOT analysis of tourism in the region.

This study comprised an information audit of certain micro enterprises of Umkhanyakude District Municipality in northern KwaZulu-Natal. The purpose of this study was to investigate the information needs, information resources available and the information gaps that exist in these enterprises. The Umkhanyakude District Municipality consists of five local municipalities, but this study focused mainly on two, Jozini and Mtubatuba, because of their large number of local economic activities compared with the other local municipalities. The study primarily used questionnaires to collect data. These questionnaires were administered in the two municipalities identified. The results of the study revealed that technical information relating to business and financial management were the highest ranking information needs indicated by the sampled enterprises. Legal and business management information was the second most-needed information for these enterprises. The study also revealed a correlation between the academic level of the entrepreneurs, the type of business that the entrepreneurs operate and the kind of information they needed. The information resources that these enterprises had and used included newspapers, business magazines, market research documents and government documents. Based on the responses of the respondents, a gap was identified. This includes the lack of relevant sources of information that meet the respondents' information needs. This study also revealed that there are a number of institutions that provide information for these enterprises, such as community libraries, government information centres, bookshops, government offices and so on. Although these information resource institutions exist within the district municipality, these enterprises also have other information needs. This therefore led the researcher to conclude that these information resource structures are not providing their services according to the needs of the community at large. Based on the identified gaps the researcher recommends a participatory proactive approach. This approach uses participatory development communication platforms for the district municipality, the information resource institutions and local enterprises. The district municipality needs to have a platform which will identify information needs, gaps and pportunities for local enterprises. The information resource institutions need to provide platforms where they can assess the information needs of their customers and also have a customer management feedback system where they can assess whether they are responding to the customer needs. Finally, the micro enterprises need to use existing platforms to make the municipality and information resource institutions aware of their information needs. These platforms could include local and presidential izimbizo where the government comes to the people to address their concerns and issues. The approach recommended by this study is part of a development communication approach where participatory two-way communication platforms are used to bring about development. Copyright / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Information Science / unrestricted

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Master’s thesis deals with implementation of a European standard DATEX II. This standard specifies the data format for information transmission in road transport. The road traffic is flowing streams of current information. For the work was selected network of meteorological stations, which will publish the measured data, ie weather conditions of road transport. Measured data will be available to consumers in the format DATEX II. Implementation will be operational in its entirety meteorological station from design to the actual web service that will produce data information for consumers.