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Ongoing Research

Public Perceptions of IT/ICT in Iringa, Tanzania

The mechanisms of technology development are often 'push'-mechanisms in which developers take technologies that have worked well in industrialized countries and spend a great deal of effort and money to adapt technologies to the needs of particular development targets. There is very little research on what local people in developing countries expect of technology. There is also a lack of research on which kinds of issues the people at the receiving end of technology transfer hope technologies to solve, how they want to see technologies being used, or what kinds of changes they want technologies to help happen. In a similar vein, there is also a lack of knowledge on the technological threats that people in developing countries perceive, what they see as the biggest challenges that technologies will need to overcome, or what kinds of fears they have about technologies. This research explores expectations and challenges concerning technology in Iringa, Tanzania.

Matti Tedre, Bukaza Chachage, Hidaya A. Usanga, Minna Kamppuri

Learning e-Learning

Even in the industrialized countries, e-learning is something that students are not readily familiar with; it is something students will have to learn. In the developing world the problems of learning e-learning are accentuated. Ironically, e-learning is one of the things that is often quoted as bearing the promise of universal education. First, in this development research, participant observation and interviews are used to find out the biggest hindrances for learning to use a specific web-based e-learning platform, Moodle. Second, pedagogical and technological interventions for addressing those problems are developed and tested. The same research procedures are duplicated in the Finland, and the findings between Tanzania and Finland are compared.

Bukaza Chachage, Matti Tedre, Siamarie Lyaro

Issues of e-Privacy

One of the biggest hindrances to IT security in developing countries seems to be the issue of e-Privacy (or lack of e-privacy thereof.) Anecdotal evidence tells that students and staff members at Tanzanian universities give each other their passwords and lend their virtual identities to each other. In this interview- and survey-based research, that phenomenon is explored, analyzed, generalized, and finally the results are compared with the results of the same study duplicated in Finland.

Stage 1: Bukaza Chachage, Matti Tedre
Stage 2: Bukaza Chachage, Matti Tedre, Siamarie Lyaro, Robert Shirima

Publications:

Ethical Issues in Student Life in Tanzania

Results from the Tumaini's BIT class “Introduction to IT Ethics” and from University of Joensuu's ethics classes suggest that ethical premises, reasoning, and conclusions differ greatly between Finnish students and Tanzanian students. This phenomenographical research; which replicates the research done in Turku School of Economics, Pori Unit, Finland; focuses on the ethical issues in university education. This study concerns Tumaini University students’ student life, and is aimed at unearthing the moral conflicts that the students perceive in the course of their studies, and at understanding the patterns of reasoning they use to solve those conflicts or to cope with them.

Fredrick Ngumbuke, Matti Tedre

Course Contextualization in IT Education

Contextualization of course material and pedagogical approach has been argued to benefit IT education in the developing world. This design research is aimed at producing contextualized course material for the introductory IT courses at Tumaini University. The research is based on the design research tradition of continuous cycles of design, enactment, analysis, and redesign.

Matti Tedre, Fredrick Ngumbuke

Publications:

Mobile Phones and Income Poverty in Tanzania

Access to telecommunication has been cited as a factor for economic development. As such it is expected that mobile phones would increase growth, alleviate poverty, and overcome the perceived digital divide. Although the literature often associates mobile phone usage directly with socioeconomic development, there still appears to be mixed feelings on the perceived economic benefits of mobile phones--especially at the bottom poor. This research investigates whether mobile phones increase or reduce income poverty in the rural areas of Southern Highlands of Tanzania.

Hidaya A. Usanga, Hosea Mpogole

Publications:

Internet Cafés and Poverty Reduction in Tanzania

There is considerable evidence that the use of the Internet can prompt economic productivity, governance, education, health and quality of life. However, little research has been carried out on the impact of Internet usage in poverty reduction in Tanzania. A few studies on the area have focused on the presence/accessibility and use of the Internet only. It is not exactly known as to what extent access to Internet is translated into social well being of the people in urban and suburban areas. The purpose of this study is to investigate dynamics and develop strategies of using Internet for poverty reduction.

Bukaza Chachage, Hosea Mpogole