Andrew Ojulong, Alice Endra, Rhoda Diyoshak, Constant Okello-Obura

The purpose of this paper is to critically review literature pertaining to the evolution and application of Information Science so as to understand varied perspectives and attempt to address the following questions: what influenced the origin of Information Science; what was predicted to happen in the modern times; And how has the evolution and application of Information Science has impacted on the information services sector in the 21st century. Using the desk review approach to understand the subject matter based on published online literature from 1990 onwards. The paper examined the evolution and application of Information Science by reflecting on the evolution and application of Information Science from different schools of thoughts as reviewed from literature. We discussed the evolution based on the historical, documentation movement, institutional, sociological, technological, interdisciplinary, and philosophical perspectives. The paper concludes with a critique on the application of Information Science. This study is juxtaposed with Rayward, (1996) conclusions that suggested “the evolution of Information Science is an historical interdisciplinary and those interested in it need to draw on a range of related historical studies such as the history of science and technology, the history of printing and publishing, and the history of information institutions such as libraries, archives and museums”. We concluded that the trend brought about by the Internet through Information Technology has enabled Information Science field to simplify the processes of acquisition, processing, storage, retrieval, and dissemination of information to be used by various stakeholders. The Industrial Revolutions have facilitated the emergence of more robust trends in the application of Information Science within the professional practice and academic spheres. As such, Information Communication Technology (ICT) has become part of Information Science and we re-affirm that they complement each other.

Alex Lewis, Denrick Williams, Damith Wickramanayake

This study’s purpose was to investigate the willingness of Jamaican Citizens to use e-government services, specifically transactional e-government (online payments) at the Tax Administration of Jamaica (TAJ), using a quantitative methodology. Consequent to the study’s findings, appropriate measures were identified that will guide the government on the successful adoption of e-government. The Decomposed Theory of Planned Behaviour (DTPB) theoretical framework was used to identify the factors that would prevent the adoption of e-government services. Key findings revealed that 68.7% of respondents are willing to use e-government services. Moreover, this study revealed a significant correlation between perceived usefulness, ease of use, compatibility, and the attitude of Jamaicans to use e-government services. Also there is a significant correlation between peer influence, superior influence and the subjective norms of Jamaicans to use e-government services. Further there is a significant correlation between self-efficacy, resource facilitating conditions, technology facilitating conditions and Jamaicans’ perceived behavioural control to use e-government services. Additionally there is a significant correlation between attitude, subjective norms, perceived behavioural control and the behavioural intention of Jamaicans to use e-government services.

Deepak Tomar

This article aims to apply Porter’s forces model and the SWOT analysis to the Payment Industry and the Technology so that Organization can improve Technology infrastructure considering all five forces and improve strategy using SWOT models that provides strengths, weakness, opportunities and threat. This paper focuses on different quadrants involved in the Payments and considers analyzing these stakeholder and factor these from time to time in order to improve and thrive in business. This analysis of the data that we can collect from these models can drive major shifts in the strategy.

Zondi Chilembo, Simon Tembo

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have significantly changed the way citizens interact across society and how governments operate and deliver services to its citizenry. The concept of e-Government has brought about efficiency and transparency in service delivery by working towards ensuring that inter-government coordination and collaboration are attained in the context of New Public Administration. Developing countries, Zambia inclusive, have undergone widespread deployment of e-Government initiatives, but experienced high failure rates because projects never got implemented. In some cases, projects were abandoned immediately after implementation or never achieved the intended outcomes requirements. One of the major challenges encountered in implementation of e-Government relates to coordination and collaboration among government agencies due to the failure to embrace change with preference to working in silos. The objective of this study was to look at opportunities and challenges of coordinating the implementation of e-Government programmes in Zambia. The study looked at the role played by the e-Government coordinating institutions and how effective inter-agency coordination and collaboration is in implementing e-Government programmes in the context of Zambia. In addition, various literatures were reviewed to appreciate the e-Government development stages and categorisation (Government to Government, Government to Employee, Government to Citizen and Government to Business), collaboration and coordination between the various government agencies and how other countries have successfully implemented e-Government programmes in a coordinated manner. The mixed survey research strategy was employed for this study with the focus on quantitative approach. However, qualitative method was used to gain more insights useful for interpretation of the results from the quantitative study. The research target was all government mqinistries and selected implementing agencies. A total of 120 questionnaires were distributed and 115 were responded to, representing a response rate of 95.8 percent. The primary data obtained from questionnaires were analysed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) and Excel. The summary of the research findings shows that 35 percent of the respondents indicated that the e-Government Coordination should reside in the Office of the President, 31 percent in the Ministry of Transport and Communication, 16 percent a new Ministry of Information and Communication Technology should be created and 6 percent were of the view that an ICT Agency should be established. 56% of the respondents indicated that there was no framework in place for inter-agency collaboration while 43% said there was a framework for inter-agency collaboration. In Zambia, several researchers and scholars have reviewed e-government implementation. However, there has been no study that has sought to review the role of coordination and inter-agency collaboration in implementing e-Government programmes in Zambia. This study therefore seeks to fill this knowledge gap looking at the opportunities and challenges of coordinating the implementation of e-Government programmes in Zambia. The results of this study will inform policy makers to come up with policies, strategies and legislative interventions that will make e-Government coordination and collaboration of government agencies more effective and transparent.

Shadrick Sikaonga, Simon Tembo

E-Government is identified as one of the key pillars for economic and social development in Zambia’s National ICT Policy of 2006. Coupled with Zambia’s vision 2030 agenda of transforming the nation into a middle-income country, the goal of the SMART Zambia Agenda is to achieve social and economic transformation by adopting a paradigm shift from traditional paper and file format approaches to that of electronic service delivery. Though Zambia’s e-Government implementation is still in its infancy, various e-Government initiatives have been introduced in the civil service especially in the last decade. However, there is a mismatch between Zambia’s e-Government implementation performance at local and regional levels. For example, Zambia ranks lowly on the United Nations E-Government Survey Development Index (EGDI) compared to other UN Member States. Out of 193 Member States of the United Nations (UN), Zambia trails at 132 on the E-Government Development Index (EGDI) with a score of 0.3507 compared to other regional countries such as Mauritius, Tunisia, South Africa and Morocco with over 0.5000. Literature review shows that the Telecommunication Infrastructure Index (TII) is the lowest performing component on EGDI marginally rising from 0.0141 in 2010 to 0.1182 in 2016 compared to the World marginal rise of 0.4406 to 0.4922 during the same period. This however is compensated by the Online Service Index (OSI) that rose from 0.0356 in 2010 to 0.3696 in 2016 and the Human Capital Index (HCI) rising from 0.2313 in 2010 to 0.5643 to 2016 respectively though lower than the regional average scores. Similarly, the World Internet Statistics reports of 2016 indicated 40.2% internet penetration an implication that the majority Zambian had no access to e-Services that are provided over the Internet. Therefore, a case study of all Zambian government Ministries was examined to understand e-Government readiness in the Civil Services as regards e-Government implementation. From the study, results indicated that the civil services in endowed with a vibrant workforce of less than 50 years with the majority being university graduates and eager to embrace electronic government while some Ministries where already in full gear delivering e-Government services. However, it was also discovered that there are a number of challenges that ought to be addressed for e-Government to attain its maturity and these included lack of publicity of e-Government services, none existence of dedicated e-Government funding at Ministerial level, mismatch between policy pronouncements especially on ICT training with what was obtaining on the ground, cost of Internet and perceived inertial by a clique of civil servants to switch to electronic service delivery. Therefore, understanding the status core of e-Government readiness in the civil service provided an opportunity to cypher salient unaddressed challenges that could shape the road map for both policy makers and implementers in their decisions making.

Jacqueline Baidoo

The introduction; materials and methods; results and discussion (IMRAD) structure makes it easy for one to present his research findings. Is this structure applicable for agriculture economics and agribusiness scientists? This question was answered using 5 journals from SCOPUS. IMRAD structure is good since it helps the reader to follow the sequence of a paper. The IMRAD structure should be IMRADC to include the conclusion since conclusion summarizes the findings and discussions and also make recommendations. Agricultural economics journals should stick to the IMRADC structure.

Gezile Zulu, Simon Tembo

Due to the increase in internet usage by children over the years, countries in Africa have embarked on strengthening their policies through the integration of child online protection measures aimed at protecting children from internet risks and threats. Evidence suggested in studies concerning internet addiction disorder shows that overuse of the Internet can genuinely restrain children especially teenagers' experiences in life, their performance academically, overall happiness, and physiological well-being. Further, literature also suggests a relationship between internet use in adolescence and other variables such as depression, social isolation, distorted sense of reality, and access to uncensored material (pornography), eating disorders and online harassment among many others. Nevertheless, much remains uncertain as to whether such assertions can be generalized to Zambia although it is no secret internet usage among our children is only exhibiting an increasing trend owing to the continued access to portable internet platforms such as smart mobile phones. Findings from the research survey indicate that the majority 96% of the 105 respondents say that hate speech and social media addiction are the most prominent internet risks children are likely to encounter, 92% say it is cyberbullying, 89% say it is sexting and posting of nude photos and 89% say it is fake news among other risks. Further findings indicate that the majority 57% say that depression is the prominent effect of internet risks among children, 53% say it is low self-esteem, 52% say it is deteriorating social behavior and rudeness and 49% say it is loss of concentration on education. Very few comprehensive research have been done on the status of child online protection in Zambia from the perspectives of ISPs, MNOs and the regulating institution of telecommunications ZICTA. The study in addressing the literature gap is crucial for policy makers in the Ministry of Transport and Communication as it will act as a catalyst for refinement and concession of policies to bring into inclusion the risks that children are exposed to on the internet thereby play a role in protecting the future leaders of tomorrow.

Eddie Liywalii, Simon Tembo

E-government refers to the use by government agencies of information and communications technologies (ICTs), such as Wide Area Networks, the Internet, the World Wide Web (WWW) technologies and mobile computing that have the ability to transform relations with citizens, businesses, and other arms of government. E-government is intended to enhance the access to and delivery of government services to benefit citizens, business partners and employees while reducing corruption and costs but increasing transparency and revenue growth on the other hand. Despite the foregoing, the use of ICTs in both public and private sector, at individual and institutional levels, has brought about a spectrum of ethical challenges in our societies. The objectives of this research are to establish what ethical issues arise in e-government implementation especially in developing countries, in this case Zambia and the impact these ethical issues have on e-government implementation. In addition, to understand how IT systems can be designed to address the identified ethical issues that arise in e-government. A mixed method approach is used in combination with literature review of documents on IT policy analysis, e-government and systems implementation. To achieve the objectives, the study adopts and expands from the UNESCO E-Government toolkit for developing countries’ four types of interactions, the two interactions; Government to Employees (G2E) and Government to Citizens (G2C). These interactions are analyzed in order to identify the ethical issues that arise in e-government as, internal or external and system or human oriented, but falling within e-government framework. The summary of the research findings indicate 24.8% of the 102 total respondents say that the most prominent ethical issue that arise in e-government implementation and included in e-government policies is cyber security. 20.5% say it is privacy while 16.6% identify confidentiality, system integrity and accountability. The others are good governance and trust, universal access and fairness at 12.6%, 8.6% and 6.8% respectively. Some respondents affirm that the current e-government policy address these ethical issues in e-government implementation while others strongly disagree, in addition others strongly agree, that the inclusion of ethical issues in planning of e-government will contribute to the successful implementation of e-government. Very little research have been done to investigate what impact these ethical issues have on e-government implementation in Zambia. The available information is too general and does not address ethical issues in the G2E and G2C e-government interactions. These existing gaps have made this study unique and significant, it will provide policy makers and e-government practitioners with basic information that can be used to develop relevant IT policies and the design of IT systems that address the ethical issues to increase the confidence in end users and thus e-government success.

Esievo Lovet Ovigue, Abdulsalami Lucky T.

The cardinal aim of this research work is to understand how students make use of library resources and services in Federal University Library Lafia. The research design adopted for this study was a survey research. The sample size is five percent (5%) out of the total population of 3927 which is 196. The instruments used for data collection was questionnaires. The data gathered from the questionnaires was analysed and discussed using tables and percentages. The findings revealed that most of the students in Federal University Library Lafia make use of library. It was revealed that majority of the students recognized the presence of reference resources, text books, journals, newspapers and project in Federal University Library. It was also discovered that i Federal University Library has the problems of little resources in their courses of study, Users are not educated on how to use the library and the library has no guide to direct users to appropriate sections of the library. .It can be concluded that Federal University Library have available library resources and services, but were not fully utilized, the study finally recommends that the library management should endeavor to enhance their services through lending and online resources and services. Students should be sensitized on the importance and type of materials in the library during library orientation and how they can use the materials for assignment and research work.

Najim Al-Shammari

The aim of this paper is to improve the performance of e-commerce in Saudi Arabia through assisting Saudi retailers to reinforce their presence through a usable and trustworthy e-commerce website especially after the Saudi E-commerce Law been into effect. The advantage is that the Saudi stores will be more convenient to customers, gain their trust and contribute to the Saudi vision 2030. A questionnaire survey has been conducted to know the e-commerce websites mostly used by Saudis and why they have been chosen. 280 university students representing different regions and cultures of Saudi Arabia have been chosen to participate. Studies of website usability and usability inspection methods have been visited by this paper to identify the technical factors that contribute to improving website usability and to assist the Saudi e-commerce organizations overcome usability issues. This paper also talks about the vulnerability of cloud technology and social media when used for storing business and personal data for e-commerce purposes. Plus, it encapsulates the legal requirements such as data privacy as trust enhancing factors. Hence, this study is beneficial for Saudi law makers as it illustrates the requirements that should be part of the Saudi Data Privacy law which is not yet finalized. Although this study focuses on Saudi e-commerce, it is beneficial to the Saudi e-government as website usability and usability inspection methods are applicable to all websites. As a result, the online performance of the Saudi stores is week and need to be strengthened. Strong e-commerce activity make Saudi stores not only reach more customers and gain their trust but also contribute to achieving the Saudi government goals illustrated in the Saudi vision 2030.