The role of ICT has evolved from a tool and utility to become a strategic asset for any organisation towards delivering business improvement and value. Furthermore, the importance of ICT-based innovation is recognized in bringing productivity improvements and sustainable competitive advantage to industry. Construction is an extremely information-intensive and knowledge-based industry. Therefore...

The economic performance of the EU has taken on a new dimension with the notion of a “new economy”. While ICT has become a major factor in explaining the prolonged, non-inflationary boom in the United States, the EU is lagging behind in most aspects of ICT. Arguing that the impact of ICT is inter-related with a range of factors, including innovation, human capital and organisational change, thi...

With the growing complexity of products and processes in a globalized market, companies are required to strive for a new quality of partnership. In Smart Networks, networking of partners goes beyond mere organizational networking, but involves also networking on the levels of knowledge and information/communication technology (ICT). The setup of ICT networking in newly formed Smart Networks req...

In line with a number of other countries, Norway has decided to base their ICT solutions in the public sector on a common ICT architecture. This article discusses some challenges related to this work. The theoretical basis for the discussions is our understanding of information infrastructures, which we claim offers a fruitful perspective to the building of ICT architectures. Of particular rele...

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) provides two-way communication, data storing and analysis, sensing and system monitoring, and intelligence such as historical and predictive analytics. Today’s Energy Smart Grid initiative proposes a highly decentralized and flexible energy supply and distribution by taking advantage of ICT infrastructures. In contrast, many water utilities do not ...

An Information and Communication Technology (ICT) policy is an official statement which spells out the objectives, goals, principles, strategies, etc intended to guide and regulate the development, operation and application of ICT. ICT policies must take into account other policies such as education policies, trade and investment policies, foreign policy, monetary policy, transport policy, etc....

The inherent advantages of SMEs in terms of flexibility and proximity to their markets have been widely acknowledged. In developing countries, SMEs play a significant role in flourishing the economy. The prevailing considerable interest in SMEs in developing countries is thus evident. While in the past many SMEs were acting on local markets, today web-based technologies and community networks a...

The application of ICT in education in rural and remote contexts is rapidly evolving and is actively being pursued as a solution to educational issues. ICT in education involves technological as well as pedagogical and social dimensions. This paper examines approaches being taken in developing ICT usage in Northern Territory schools for teaching and learning. It covers both technological and pe...

A study of the spectrum of use and related ICT infrastructure costs This report records work that Becta has done with schools which have implemented a range of open source software (OSS) solutions. This project, funded by the DfES, was one of an interrelated series, all looking at ways of helping schools make effective and sustainable use of ICT by exploring the total cost of ownership (TCO) of...

In order to support educators when selecting ICT tools, several educational organizations provide ICT tool registries whose functionality is limited by the data they contain. These registries could reduce the cost of creating and updating their datasets obtaining ICT tool descriptions from the Web of Data. However, some problems hinder the educational consumption of these descriptions: they are...