Societal Value of IT: A New Perspective

Information Technology (IT) plays an ever more important role in our lives. Hidden from our direct percipience, the significance of IT-­based solutions is growing on societal level such as in the social services area (e.g. health, care, education), social security (e.g. pension, taxation), infrastructure provision (e.g. energy, transportation, water), or public protection (e.g. disaster control, emergency management). Relying on the assumption that IT creates -­ to some extent -­ «value» for the society, many governments and private institutions have contributed a remarkable amount of funding to the development and maintenance of IT infrastructures and corresponding services; however, without a clear idea of the potential positive or negative effects for the distinct stakeholders. As a consequence, many of the IT projects aiming at adopting and proliferating societal IT applications fail (causing big headlines in the mass media).
Since tax payers and other sponsoring bodies more than ever expect a clear "value for money" or "pay-­for-­performance", it is the goal of the proposed project to explore and explain «IT value» using a use-­ and user-­centric approach that goes beyond usual pure financial metrics.