Zahurin Mat Aji

A Conceptual Model for Psychological Empowerment of Telecentre Users

The Information and Communication Technologies usage among rural communities can be promoted through community telecentres. To date, there is a lack of adequate knowledge in terms of civic participation and empowerment that are related to ICT programs evaluations. This paper proposes a conceptual model for evaluating psychological empowerment of telecentres users based on review of literature. The Zimmerman’s constructs of empowerment theory that include intrapersonal, interactional and behavioural components form the basis of the model. Researchers in the area can used this model to examine the relationship among the components of psychological empowerment for different populations and settings, and create an avenue for understanding individual users of telecentre projects.

The influence of community characteristics towards telecentres success

Telecentres are physical spaces that provide public access to information and communication technology particularly the Internet for educational, personal, social, and economic development. This paper will closely look into the characteristics of the community that influence the success of telecentres. Although there are a number of influential factors in regards to community characteristics, the emphasis will be on groups and networks factor. Survey was conducted to collect data from users regarding their use of telecentres. In the questionnaire, apart from the users’ profiles, items related to the groups and networks were also included.Sampling was done based on a population comprising of telecentres implemented by state governments, non-governmental organizations, and private sectors. The findings suggest that there are some indications showing certain self belonging, as consequences to the usages of telecentres, to a group and establishing networks which can contribute to the success of telecentres.

Measuring virtual learning environment success from the teacher’s perspective: Scale development and validation

This paper reports on the development of an instrument designed to measure the VLE success (VLES) amongst teachers. The items for VLES instrument were constructed in several steps including items’ face validation, content validation and reliability analysis. Forty-five final items have been produced after the analyses, with the deletion of 33 initial items. This validated VLES scale will be useful for future researchers in developing and testing VLE models or theories while at the same time will provide the tool for VLE stakeholders to evaluate the implementation from the teachers’ point of view.

A formal model for measuring the effect of technological change on telecentre usage

Technological change (TC), in general refers to continuous invention, innovation and diffusion of technology. In relation to telecentre, TC is seen as the driving force of the centre’s operation. However, in recent years, telecentre’s usage and operation is declining slowly and this leads to the question about the continued relevance of these centres as well as calls for evidence of impacts to justify further resources and program improvements. The paper aims to present the simulation results on an agent-based model that was developed to show the impact of TC on telecentre’s usage. The model was constructed in four phases, Abstraction, Formalization, Simulation and Evaluation. Results showed that the computational model was able to show the effective usage of telecentre in different types of scenarios.

Rural internet centre (RIC) as catalysts for building knowledge-based society - the case of northern states of Malaysia

The creation of Rural Internet Centre (RIC) by the Malaysian government was to provide opportunity and to empower the rural communities in Malaysia. The RIC provides IT skills training and knowledge acquisition programs to the rural community in Malaysia, including women, the elderly, and children. RIC was launched in March 2000 with two centers: Sungai Ayer Tawar in Selangor and Kanowit in Sarawak. By 2006, 42 RICs have been implemented in thirteen states in the country (KTAK, 2006). The Ministry of Energy, Water and Communications (MEWC), Malaysia Post Berhad and Maju Sedunia Digital (MSD) are responsible for the project. The Malaysian government aim to set up 240 centres by the year 2010 which will eventually reaching an estimated 2.8 million members of the rural communities. The management of the centres operations and activities are given to the local communities. This creates opportunities to the locals to be employed and also provide the chance for acquisition of IT related skills and qualifications. This paper aims at providing an overview over the current RICs implementation with respect to supporting Malaysia governments aspiration towards building the knowledge-based society by the year 2020. RICs could function as the catalyst to achieve this objective. The initial findings on RICs current situations in Northern of Malaysia show that the centres can be further enhanced in order to function as desired.

Telecommuting in Malaysian government offices

The Government of Malaysia is working hard to bring the country into a developed and industrialized country by the 2020.To support this development, the government agencies collaborating with non-government agencies increasingly involve in numbers of high technology projects, which must be supported by committed and dedicated service-based civil servants, IT and non-IT professionals.Government-based agencies and institutions, however, are having problems to retain their employees for different reasons; family matters, working distance, unattractive salary and environmental aspects.To solve this problem, the Government should give an opportunity for the employees to work away from offices and to work for more than one employer.In this sense, telecommuting shall become a solution for civil servants in service-based industry and among IT professionals. Employees can work at home or at a remote centre through the use and support of high and reliable ICT infrastructure.The success of telecommuting programs especially in Malaysian environment is depending on numbers of criteria and sub-criteria.This study identified the criteria as rules, regulation and policies, infrastructure, finance, selection, training, environment and benefits.