A Model of Institution of Higher Learning and Community Collaboration for the Development of eCommunity

Zulkhairi Md Dahalin, Huda Ibrahim, Md Zahir Mat Cha, Nor Iadah Yusop, Nafishah Othman, Zahurin Mat, Mohamad Amir Abu Seman, Mohd Khairudin Kasiran, Abdul Jaleel Kehinde Shittu and Azman Yassin

Abstract:

This article presents a model of Institution of Higher Learning collaboration with rural eCommunity development aimed at identifying the matching roles of the institutions of higher learning in meeting the information needs of rural community and bridging the digital divide.  ICT and the Internet have made it possible for rural communities to participate in the information explosion.  However, current statistics imply only a small proportion of villages in the country enjoyed ICT facilities through eCommunity projects in the form of telecentres funded by the government and private sectors.  Furthermore, due to over-abundance of information readily available, it is difficult to fine-tune and focus that information that is of interest to the community even if diffusion of ICT and the Internet were to take place in the other underserved areas.  This can result in the lack of interest from members of the community towards initiatives for eCommunity development, which impedes the efforts to bridge the digital divide among the rural communities.  Institutions of higher learning have a role to play in addressing this predicament. To understand how the roles can be made possible, a case study was conducted in a selected rural village that represents a typical rural community in the northern region of Malaysia. A public university, Universiti Utara Malaysia was involved due to her proximity to the village that facilitates fieldworks in the form of interviews, data collections and observation.  A model of IHL Collaboration in eCommunity development was created to represent the interplay between the roles of the IHLs and the community information needs through the implementation of a community telecentre.  It is the hope that this model would contribute to other similar rural communities in the country that is in need of intellectual engagement in terms of advisory services, local content development, and socio-economic value creation that would enable a sustainable development of the community towards becoming an information-rich society.

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