Assessment of the Performance of Rural ICT Offices in Delivering Services to Rural Regions (Case Study: Villages of Sardasht County)

Document Type : علمی

Authors

• Isa Bahari ¹
• Hamid barghi ²
• Heydar Rakhshani-e-Moghadam ³
• Edris Yousefzadeh ¹
• Nosrat Moradi ¹

¹ University of Isfahan

² university of isfahan

³ Shahid Chamran University of Ahvaz

10.22067/jrrp.v5i3.38860

Abstract

Extended abstract
1. INTRODUCTION
In recent years, the demand for applying strategies related to ICT for rural development in developing countries has provided a lot of capabilities and facilities for creating an evolution. Achieving abundant opportunities for a large part of the population of rural regions to pass digital gaps and access information resources as well as providing services by ICT can be the first stage of this evolution. Accordingly, benefits obtained from the revolution in ICT is not only limited to citizens and specific people, but it can have extensive effects on national and international economy in its macro sense. In this regard, it can be stated that the development of ICT in rural regions can open new windows towards the use of rural residents from unlimited facilities and rural communication be changed in a way which has not been imagined so far.
Regarding the subject, the main objective of the present study is to evaluate the performance of ICT rural offices in Sardasht County in providing services to rural regions. Therefore, the following questions are presented as the research questions:
- Is the degree of people’s awareness of services provided in ICT offices effective on the degree of using these offices?
- Is people’s acceptance of the role of ICT offices in creating welfare and convenience effective on the degree of using these offices?
- Can ICT offices result in saving time for doing administrative affairs of rural residents?
- How is the performance of ICT offices in providing services?
- Is the population size of villages effective on the performance of ICT offices?
2. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
Castles (2001) believes that humanity, by passing two important historical periods (the first and second revolutions), is now on the eve of the third period. The advent of “network societies” is considered one of significant characteristics of the third period. In fact, ICT has provided the possibility of the advent of network societies in which individuals and communities have received new identities and new definitions of humanity have been presented. In addition, these networks themselves have experienced permanent changes and consequently new life patterns in different regions under the influence of internal dynamism. By accepting Castles’ view as the ICT dimension in the issue of globalization, the concept of Information Society can be clarified. The challenge of globalization has made countries to develop their own ICT structures and provide capable environments for sharing information and knowledge, because the root of the current globalization should be searched in capitalism and consequently the advent of outstanding upheavals in technology and communication.
ICT as a tool for increasing the level of communication can create conditions so that villages can be developed day by day and become appropriate to their own contemporary conditions. Nowadays, the belief is that ICT centers are new concepts in the category of rural development which help villagers to access social, economic, educational, and academic opportunities via applying remote ICT. These centers, via accessing services of these few opportunities, provide the cost of these local societies. In fact, due to specific problems of rural regions, ICT offices can facilitate the strategy of rural development. In addition, the effects of distance and access as well as remoteness refer to this issue. On the other hand, providing appropriate bandwidth can provide new ways for the training and learning of rural population.

3. METHODOLOGY
The method employed in this research is applied in terms of objective, descriptive-analytical in terms of method, and survey study in terms of data collection method. The population of the study includes villages having ICT offices in Sardasht County in West Azerbaijan Province including 44 villages with 28970 residents. Regarding the temporal and cost limitations, the research was conducted on 20 villages with ICT offices via the simple random sampling method for distributing questionnaires. By calculating the sample size of local individuals (users) via Cochran formula at the significance level 95% and standard error 5%, 380 participants were selected. To sampling these participants, the stratified random sampling was used. The method of selecting experts was conducted via convenient sampling method, it means that officials of the selected rural offices were considered as experts. Using SPSS software, data were analyzed and employing statistical methods (descriptive and inferential statistics) such as Chi-square, one sample t-test, and non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis Test, research questions were answered.
4. DISCUSSION
Findings reveal that there is a significant relationship between people' awareness of services of ICT offices and the extent they use those offices which this amount has positive relationship with 55.73 coefficient. In addition, there is a significant relationship between the standpoint of villagers regarding the role of ICT offices in creating welfare and convenience and the extent they use those offices which this amount has positive relationship with coefficient as 98.42. In addition, findings indicate that from the viewpoint of those in charge of rural ICT offices, current facilities and resources of ICT offices are enough to fulfill needs of the clients. Furthermore, the quality of the deliverance of bank, postal and internet services of ICTs is acceptable and villagers are satisfied with those services.
5. CONCLUSIONS
The results obtained from the research indicate that ICT offices in rural regions of the county cause the increase in the quality of villagers’ access to services and it has provided a kind of equality and balance among rural residents in using public services. Therefore, it can be stated that ICT offices have been successful in providing services for villages of the county.
In addition, the results of the research indicate that the quality of the services provided by ICT offices is proportionate to the population of villages. It means that the bigger the size of the population of villages, the better the performance of ICT offices.
According to findings of the present study, to enhance and improve the performance of ICT offices in Sardasht County, the following strategies and suggestions are presented:
- Allocating sufficient credits for developing ICT and to reinforce telecommunication infrastructures in rural regions of the county both in hardware and software terms.
- Applying special workshops in ICT and more training courses for the staff and changing them from simple employees into informatics users.
- Setting up ICT offices in villages lacking in offices and particularly villages deprived of accessing this technology. This issue has contributed to population in villages and in addition to development of rural regions in the county; it has helped the national security because borderline villages are considered as military bases for the security of Iran.

Keywords

• Electronic village
• ICT offices
• Public Services
• Sardasht County

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