Development of Information Society Within the Scope of IT Volunteer Actions

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The Stages, Three-Layer Infrastructure, and Functional Level Regulation

for Development of Information Society within the Scope of Information

Technology Volunteer Actions

Rinda Cahyana1

1Sekolah Tinggi Teknologi [email protected]

Abstrak The general objective of every person in the information society is to

achieve a competitive advantage through information technology (IT) utilization.

Therfore human resource development in the field of IT must be carried out which

in the practice can involve IT volunteers. This study formulates the stages of

information society development and infrastructure in the scope of IT volunteer

actions, as well as the functional level of IT volunteers. The formulation is made

based on a review of relevant literatures. The study found that stages ofinformation society development life cycle which involving IT volunteer to increase

the number of IT literacy population, including stage of IT provision, Information

Society Propulsion Group (ISPG) development, IT awareness, basic IT skill

training, and capacity building. And also found a three layer infrastructure

required for execute life cycle, including layer of service, personnel, and platform.

ISPG sustainability guaranted by the functional level regulation of IT volunteers,

where anyone who join ISPG should provide time, energy, and ability to carrying

out trainer and manager function. Volunteers who have carried out these functions

are encouraged to carrying out pioneer function in order to increase number of IT

literacy population.

Key WordsHuman Resource Development, Information Society, Information

Technology, Volunteer.

1 Introduction

Information technology development has led to a rapid production and distribution of information, and

allow information to be stored and accessed anytime and anywhere via the internet. These conditionsare very beneficial for human life because information is the key to economic resources and one ofvery valuable or important assets for the company (Moody and Walsh, 1999; Drucker, 1992; Huang et

al, 1999). Internet as medium of global communication and media access to various online services is

a potential economic resource for individuals, companies, and contries (InternationalTelecommunication Union, 2002; Rab, 2007)

These benefit realized when information system as an information provider for organizations equipitself with IT, which include software, hardware, network, and data management (Turban et al, 2006;

OBrian and Marakas, 2005). If the competitive advantage gained by information society through IT

utilization, then each individual should information literacy and IT literacy. A person is considered

information literate if he or she know what information is needed by themselves, have ability to accessand find the information and process that information to create a values. This information literacy

should be supported by IT literacy, for example a person must be able to use a search engine to findinformation in the library catalog which stored in an online database (Rab, 2007; Andretta, 2005)


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Human resource development in the IT field to be prioritized so that everyone can participate fully in

the information society. The objective of development is to make everyone has basic IT skills so that

they can use IT in their daily lives, improve IT literacy in the population as a whole, and increase thenumber of trained personel in advanced areas (International Telecommunication Union, 2002). Efforts

to achive these objectives can be done by volunteers, the philanthropist individual or group of peoplewho are committed to give time, energy, or ability to carry out the services on behalf of the charity and

without pay, through or for non-profit organizations (Estonian Ministry of the Interior, 2006;CIVICUS, IAVE, and UNV, 2007; United States Bureau of Labor Statistic, 2008; Statistic Canada,

2006). This study formulates the stages of information society development and infrastructure in the

scope of information technology volunteer actions, as well as the functional level of informationtechnology volunteers. The formulation is made based on a review of relevant literatures.

2 The Stages

Internet access to communicate globally and access online services obtained through telecenter, whichthe place or facility that provide services to share information and IT-based communications for local

communities, which is also used for the development of economic, social, and cultural (Fuchs, 1997;

Colle and Roman, 1999; Cisler, 1998). The impact of telecenter include (Ariyabandu, 2009) :a.

Empowering people, especially woman in rural remote areas;b.

Provide access to IT devices that cant be owned by itself;

c. Making available the economic of world knowledge to the poor and disabled;d.

Provide social engineering, such as giving the opportunity to the poor to improve theirknowledge of computer education; and

e.

Promoting IT for development.

In relation to computer education, educational institutions, especially at the level of compulsory

education, is an important place for the community, because everyone will pass through it. Mentionedin Brussels declaration that IT education and training can be integrated with the regular school system

(International Telecommunication Union, 2002). Training of human resource, especially teachers andstudents, is very important because will increase the need to use and apply information and

technology, promoting the growth of content and infrastructure, facilitate the development of ITservices industry in particular developing countries (Bamako Declaration, 2002). Therefore,educational institution must have internet access and IT devices for IT education as well as produce,

store, dan disseminate valuable information to society.

Telecenters and educational institutions can be the center of human resource development in the fieldof IT by IT volunteers. Many telecenter successful because of volunteer contributions, where

telecenter used to reach local people, provide training and capacity building for local people, mobilize

volunteers, and make it as a local development center (Acevendo, 2005). Volunteer can also contributein educational institutions, because schools or universities accept volunteer culture, participate inbulding these culture, is a type of organization that is most widely supported by volunteers, and

became places of recruitment or regeneration of volunteers aged 16-24 years old (Attwood at al, 2003;Musick dan Wilson, 2008; Low at al, 2007)

Recruitment and mobilization of volunteers in schools or universities optimistic successful due to

teenagers interested in joining a volunteer because of the free training (Ellis, 2004) or they are satisfiedwith incentives in the form of skill development (Low et al, 2007). The incentive money, although will

make volunteers feel more appreciated and can be encourage to do more work, but it can lower the

value of volunteerism, disturbing their motivation and reduce satisfaction (Ellis, 2004). The teens canbe formed into a trained personal in advantaced area to assist in human resources development. This

mean that they can use basic IT devices and teach it to the people, also can install and become the

first-level technical support in troubleshooting. Their presence beside to ensuring sustainability of IT


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education, as well as to maintain the availability of IT devices. Many teenagers around telecenter can

also be formed into trained personal / volunteer.

In respect with the wishes of information society to gain competitive advantage with IT, so humanresources development unable to stopped at the stages of IT awareness and basic IT training, but also

up to the capacity builing, through monitoring and assistance against users effort in applying basic IT

skills and build or expand their capabilities so that they can can receive the actual advantages from ITutilization (Acevendo, 2005). A group of volunteers who focus on human resources development

hereafter called ISPG.

Fig. 1: ISPGs position in increasing IT literacy population

Due to the increase IT literacy should occur in the population as a whole, so ISPG must be formed inmany telecenters or educational institutions. An experienced volunteers should be encouranged inorder to pioneer new ISPG. Based on these idea, the stages of information society development

conducted by IT volunteers will look like in figure 2.

Fig. 2: The stages of Information Society Development conducted by IT Volunteers

Basic IT skills learned and taught to the people or new ISPG member by IT volunteers are required byoverall users and related to information literacy. In relation to requirement, skills should include skillgroup of computer, files, offline applications, computer network, and online application, so that each

person can carry out information work either alone or in goup, and in the network or not. In addition,

skills must support information literacy, especially in activity such as searching, presenting, andstoring information (Eisnberg and Berkowitz, 1990). In relation to IT volunteers requirement, each

group of basic IT skills should include basic installation and maintenance. And all skills should make

the users become IT literacy and do not make anyone harmed / smart IT. Thereby the structure of basicIT skills will look like figure 3.


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Fig. 3: The Structure of Basic IT Skill

3 The Infrastructure

In view of the IT utilization by everyone in the information society, so the bottom layer of

infrastructure is IT platform. The layer above it is personnel as user of IT platform, and services that

executed by personnel. Personnel and services can be identified from the list of volunteer actions in

Acevendo (2005) which when grouped by type of service would become following:

a.

Information Provision Service, such as :

Find information proactively for users (both teachers, doctors, farmers, local officials,

housewives, or businessman) who have no access to IT.

Producing content / local information in a variety formats (text, multimedia, and so forth)

b. Human Resource Development Service, such as :

Carrying out offline or online basic IT skill training for end users in order to be proficient

in the relevant application, and accompanying thereafter up to they were able to use these

skills to gain an advantage.

Carrying out offline or online basic IT skill training for IT volunteers (Ministry of

Communication and Informatic of Indonesia, 2011) to increase number of trained

personnel in advanced area (International Telecommunication Union, 2002)

c.

IT Development Service, such as :

Identify the information required by community and the resources necessary to meet those

requirement.

Creating or customizing and managing Free and Open Sources based applications, website,

or geographic information system which provide tools for monitoring and reporting related

to volunteers project to domestic or foreign stakeholders.

Build a network in order volunteers could communicate with stakeholders through mobile

devices.

Overcoming technical issues about the use IT device (such as installation or maintenance)

from time to time, which is experienced by users or managers of IT public facilitiy (such as

telecenter), in urban and rural areas or in disaster or post-conflict situations.

d.

Collaborative Service, such as :

Increasing the involvement of other volunteers in procurement and management of online

knowledge network.

Cooperating with other project which have similar development issues.

Facilitating the participant of marginal group (eg. People with a particular disease) or

disadvantaged (eg. People with disabilities) in the IT project.


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From the list of volunteer actions, identified personnel who can be grouped into :

a.

Users group that include all users and potential users,

b.

Propulsion group that include IT volunteers in ISPG who running services besides IT

development service,

c.

Developers group that include the developers from IT volunteers, creative industries, education

institutions, government, and so forth,d.

Stakeholders group that use information and provide fund or project for ISPG.

The infrastructure scheme for information society development, it layers and components as show in

figure 4.

Fig. 4: The infrastructure scheme for information society development

Based on the list of volunteer action, ISPG website requires the following items :

a.

Collection of knowledge related to information literacy, IT li teracy, information provisionservice, and so forth, stored in knowledge management system.

b.

Cloud storage containing files, especially applications, that support or related to volunteersactions or capacity building, which sourced from inside or outside KPMI.

c. Remote education or training involving the use of video tutorials and lab modul, in elearning.

d.

IT volunteers contact list in geographic information system, which include information about

competence and contact address.e.

Technical support or service desk which can be contacted via live chat, email, or milis.f. Online summary report about volunteering performance which make easier for stakeholders to

know the result of any volunteering project.

4 The Functional Level

General overview of volunteer action in every ISPG and volunteer function required for ISPG

sustainability and increasing number of IT literacy population based on the volunteer actions list is as

shown in figure 5. ISPG require volunteers with trainer function to execute human resource

development service. Meanwhile, volunteers in manager function required to perform all service.

Besides carrying out collaborative service, volunteers in manager function also carrying outinformation provision service for the community or stakeholders through information system or other

media, as well as communicate platform requirement to developers group. And in order to form a lot

of ISPG, volunteers who have carried out the trainer and manager function should be encouranged to

carrying out pioneer function.


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Fig. 5: Propulsion Group

The functional level of IT volunteer in ISPG should be regulated to ensure sustainability regeneration

and services. Volunteers may come from academia, corporate, government, woman association, and

professional associations (Acevendo, 2005) as well as from a variety of faith and forms, both old and

young, men and woman, professional and amateur, disablility, rich and poor (CIVICUS, IAVE, dan

UNV, 2007). Anyone can join as volunteer in ISPG declaring their commitment to provide time,

energy, and ability (Estonian Ministry of the Interior, 2006)to learn basic IT skills, teaching skills

to new volunteers, managing all services at least a few hours in a day every week, and publish

all volunteer action related to services on the internet through ISPG website at least once a

month for a year or twelve year issue. And encouraged to pioneer new ISPG in other places.

Fig 6. The functional level of IT volunteer in ISPG

5 Conclussion

An increasing number of IT literacy population can be done by IT volunteers through information

society development life cycle, including the stage of IT provision, ISPG development, IT awareness,basic IT skill training, and capacity building. These effort involves a three layer infrastructure,


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34 Insan Akademika Publications

including the layer of service, personnel, and platform. ISPG sustainability guaranted by the functional

level regulation of IT volunteers, where anyone who join ISPG should provide time, energy, and

ability to carrying out trainer and manager function. Volunteers who have carried out these functionsare encouraged to carrying out pioneer function in order to increase number of IT literacy population.

6 References

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