Unit 5

Computer Science
and Information Technology

INTRODUCTION

The way people conduct business, entertain themselves and learn is

changing rapidly as a result of the introduction of information tech-
nology. Computers have affected even the way people see them-
selves. These typically computer-based technologies for gathering,
storing, manipulating and analyzing, and disseminating informa-
tion, is arguably one of the most important and exciting technologi-
cal developments to have hit the world over the last ten to fifteen
years. What comes to your mind almost immediately when you
think about this technology? Probably the Internet that allows you
access to the rest of the world and the cell phone that has increased
your access to families and friends.

Information technology has had remarkable impact on all areas of

many of our lives. We sometimes forget that, as with many other
technological developments, the impact of this technology has not
been uniform across the world or within our own countries. There
is little doubt that information and telecommunication technologies
have affected significantly the ways in which societies in high
income countries are organized, their effects on low income coun-
tries has been far less drastic. It is good to bear in mind, for example,
that there are fewer telephones in the whole of Sub-Saharan Africa
than there are in Manhattan. In the Caribbean there are also signifi-
cant differences in telephone penetration.

FD12A 257
 Until very recently, the number of telephones per 100 households
differed considerably both between countries and within countries.
This is changing rapidly since the cost of cell phones was reduced
but the difference between access to landlines remains. Access to
information technology depends on access to landlines. This differ-
ence in access to information technology is often referred to as the
“digital divide”.

Telephone penetration and access to wider information technology,

is now one of the factors that correlates most highly with the
economic well-being of a country. We cannot be sure which one is
responsible for the other. Are countries that are well off forging even
farther ahead because of this technology? Is it the technology that is
driving the rapid advance? Whichever is true, and maybe both are,
the digital divide greatly worries those who believe that a more
equitable distribution of wealth is a worthy goal for societies and
the international community to pursue.

OVERVIEW

In this Unit of the course, we explore some of the changes taking

place as a result of this technology. First, we look briefly at
computer science, the science underlying information technology.
We then turn our attention to the way in which societies are organ-
ized, as a result of this new tool. We consider the role of the
Internet and possibilities for and limitations on e-commerce in the
Caribbean. This is an important topic for all of us.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

After you have completed this unit, you should be able to:

1. Define the term “information technology”

2. Explain briefly the basic concepts of computer science

3. Describe the relationship between information technology and

computer science

258 FD12A
 4. Describe some of the impacts of the use of Information
Technology on individuals, organizations and societies

5. Evaluate the potential benefits of information technology for the

economic development of the Caribbean

READINGS

l Computers: History and development. Jones International and

Jones Digital Century.
http://www.digitalcentury.com/encyclo/update/comp_hd.html

l Frazer, Delroy and Lisa Nicely-Peterkin. Over 6 million hits for

Gleaner’s jamaicaelections.com. October, 2002. www.jamaica-
gleaner.com

l Black, Jane. Losing ground bit by bit. From Information rich

information poor. BBC News Special Report. November 1, 1999.

l Some Pros and Cons of E-Business.

FD12A 259
260 FD12A
 Session 5.1
Computer Science
and Informaton Technology

Computer science

Have you never wondered how a computer works? In the same way
that genetics is the science behind genetic engineering, computer
science is the science behind information technology. It may
surprise you to learn that there is an academic discipline named
after an artifact, even if the artifact in question is a relatively
complex one. After all, there is no similarly recognized science
named after, automobiles or refrigerators. What makes this even
more surprising is that, although computers play an important role
in computer science, they are not the central concept and figure
only peripherally in most definitions of computer science. What
then is computer science? To understand this we need to look first
at how instructions are provided to a computer in useable form.

Algorithms

The central concept in computer science is that of an algorithm.

An algorithm is a series of unambiguous executable steps to perform
some task in a finite amount of time. (For non-mathematicians:
a clearly stated set of instructions written in simple steps!) For
example, the following is an algorithm for making a cup of tea:

1. Put some water in a kettle.

2. Put the kettle on the stove.
3. Turn on the stove underneath the kettle.
4. Place a tea bag in a cup.
5. Wait until the water in the kettle reaches boiling point and when
it does, pour the water in the cup.

FD12A 261
 For a sequence of actions to be an algorithm, it must meet a number
of requirements. First, the steps that make up the algorithm must
be unambiguous in that there is no doubt in the mind of whoever is
reading the algorithm what the steps are. Clearly, the above meets
this requirement. Second, the steps in the algorithm must be
executable in the sense that the person performing the algorithm
must be able to perform the individual actions. Again, the above
algorithm meets this requirement for most of us, as most of us will
be capable of performing the actions that make up the algorithm.
Finally, the algorithm must achieve its aim in a finite amount of
time, a requirement that the above algorithm again meets. While
the first two requirements are straightforward, the final one may
need some explanation. By way of explanation, we give an example
of a sequence of unambiguous executable steps that does not termi-
nate:

1. Start with a number

2. Add one to that number
3. If you have reached a number that you cannot add one to, stop;
otherwise add one to the number that you have and go back to
step 3.

A little thought will show that, since there is no largest number, the
above sequence of actions never terminates and therefore is not an
algorithm.

Notice also that the first sequence of steps given above is only one
algorithm for making a cup of tea. We could have performed step 4
first or second or third. In each case, we would have generated a
slightly different algorithm, although all of them would have
resulted in us achieving our goal.

Did you also notice that the above definition of an algorithm is not
entirely clear? After all, it states that an algorithm must consist of a
sequence of executable steps but it does not say what makes a step
executable. Indeed, there may even be some doubt as to what makes
a step executable since there are certainly differences between
people that may prevent execution of a particular instruction. Steps,
such as “bowl a cricket ball at 90 miles an hour”, are executable for
only a few of us. Can we be more precise about exactly what makes

262 FD12A
 a step executable? Also, because we are dealing with algorithms in
the context of computers, we are really interested in steps that can
be executed by a computer.

This question was central in an area of mathematics, called

computational logic, in the 1930s. A number of different mathe-
maticians all came up with precise definitions of what steps would
be executable by a computer. Notable among these were Alan
Turing, Alonzo Church, and Stephen Kleene. Interestingly, although
all three arrived at different definitions, it later turned out that the
three definitions were equivalent. Everything that was a computer
executable algorithm under one definition was also a computer
executable algorithm under the other definition, and vice versa. This
was good reason to believe that these three mathematicians had
defined the notion correctly. It is also important to realize that this
work on algorithms was done before the construction of the first
physical computer. The first computer would not appear until the
1940s. 1

What makes computers such powerful tools is the fact that the
same computer can execute different algorithms. Thus, depending
on the algorithm that it has been given, the same computer can be
used to predict the likely path of a hurricane over the next 24 hours
or to type out a poem. However, before an algorithm can be
executed by a computer it first needs to be translated into a
program written in a programming language and this program
translated into a set of instructions that the computer can execute.
We refer to the translation of the algorithm into a program as the
linguistic realization of an algorithm and the execution of this
algorithm as its mechanical realization.

We already noticed that there are many different algorithms for

making a cup of tea. The same applies to computer algorithms. One
can design different algorithms for achieving the same task, and

1 As in the case of the automobile, there are many discussions about where the first
computer was invented and by whom. Leading contenders are Z3 (built by Konrad
Zuse in Germany in 1941), COLLOSSUS (built in England in 1943) and ENIAC (built
in the USA in 1944). As is the case with the automobile, the reason that people can
have this debate is that there is no clear-cut definition of exactly what a computer is,
or at least no agreement whether Z3 for example would classify as a computer under
whatever definition one prefers.

FD12A 263
 write different programs. However, it would obviously be good if
one could compare algorithms. If we have two algorithms for the
same task, is one better than the other, for example, because it runs
faster?

Bearing all this in mind, we can now define computer science as:

the study of the design of algorithms, their properties, and

their linguistic and mechanical realization.

ACTIVITY

1. Write an algorithm for revising/learning what you have just

read. Use whatever method you normally use to study as a
pattern. Your first steps could be:

Open the book on page 3

Read the first paragraph carefully
Write down …
Compare your algorithm with one written by someone
doing the same course. Use the three criteria in the passage
to determine which of you has written the best algorithm.

2. To what extent is computer sciece different from the natural

sciences discussed in other units? (Consider differences or
similarities in their objectives, methodologies, and the uses
to which findings are put.)

Information technology

As we said earlier, computer science is the science behind informa-

n Find out more
about the early tion technology (IT), and information technology has, at least in
history of computers. those places in the world where the technology is readily available,
significantly changed the way in which societies are organized and
the way in which people do things. In this section, we will explore
some of the factors responsible for this explosion in the use of infor-
mation technology. In so doing, we will describe some examples of
how information technology has changed the shape of societies in
countries with widespread access to the technology.

264 FD12A
 Economics of IT

The first factor responsible for the explosion in the use of informa-
tion technology has been the continuing decline in cost of computer
hardware. Some 10 years ago, George Moore, a founder of one of the
most successful computer processor manufacturers in the world,
Intel, formulated what is now called “Moore’s law”. Moore’s “law”
states that the power of a computer doubles every eighteen months
without an increase in price. Thus, a computer that can do x today
and costs $y, will still cost $y in eighteen months and do 2x. Or, and
equally importantly, a computer to do x will cost only ½$y in eight-
een months time.

The increase in computing power, without an increase in price, has

made it possible to tackle much harder problems using computers.
One reason that weather forecasting has become more accurate over
the last 15 years or so has been the fact that we have been able to
use more powerful computers to simulate the weather. The decreas-
ing cost of computing power has also made it possible to make
greater use of computer technology in existing products. For exam-
ple, all new cars, even cheap ones, have sophisticated computers in
them to control the operations of important elements of the car,
such as its engine. Indeed, the power of these computers is far
greater than early personal computers. Decreases in the cost of
computers have also made entirely new applications feasible. A good
example is the development of the mobile phone, or the use of
computers to create animated movies.

The decreasing cost of computers is only one factor. Another factor

has been the coming together of computer and communications
technologies. Getting computers to communicate over networks
used to be an expensive proposition. This is no longer so. Indeed,
anybody with access to a telephone and a computer with a modem
n Note that these can now connect to one of the most powerful sources of informa-
“laws” are not
comparable to the tion available today, namely the Internet.
scientifically proven
or deducaed laws
mentioned The drop in cost of telecommunications is the consequence of yet
previously. They are
statistical
another law, namely “Gilder’s law” which states that the amount of
observations that bandwidth available globally, i.e. the amount of information that
cannot be verified
accurately.
can be transmitted over any given time period, triples every year.
Clearly, with so much bandwidth available, one would expect the

FD12A 265
 cost of using it, i.e. the cost of transmitting information, to
decrease. It is this drop in the cost of telecommunication, as much
as the drop in the cost of computer hardware that has been behind
the emergence of the Internet. (We discuss the Internet in greater
detail in the next session.)

A final factor that is important in explaining the explosion of the

use of information technology is that many different organizations
have woken up to the importance of information to their busi-
nesses, and the fact that information technology can help them
make their businesses more efficient.

ACTIVITY

1. Write down the three main reasons for the rapid increase in
the use of IT.

2. What evidence is there that the Caribbean society is

involved in the “explosion of the use of information
technology”?

3. What import do you think this has had on our lives?

(Consider your personal life as well as the wider society.)

4. Computers now tackle harder problems, allow greater use of

existing technologies and make new applications feasible.
Identify one example of each of the above from (a) what you
just read, and (b) with which you are familiar.

5. Discuss THREE factors that account for the rapid increase in

the use of information technology. Can you think of other
factors that may have contributed to this explosion?
(Consider other economic factors, the role of advertising,
educational needs etc.)

Different uses of IT in organizations

Information technology can be used in two different ways. First, it

can simply be used to automate the processes already performed in
an organization. Automating processes has many advantages, such
as making the process faster, more reliable and less error-prone, and

266 FD12A
 allowing the organization to deal with many more cases. Unlike
humans, computers do not get tired and, at least if programmed
correctly, do not make mistakes.

Second, information technology can be used by organizations to

completely re-design the way in which they perform their business
operations. For example, some 10 years ago, Wal-Mart, the largest
retail company in the United States and indeed the world, used
information technology to give Johnson & Johnson access to its
sales data of disposable baby nappies. Since disposable nappies are
bulky items that require a lot of warehousing space and warehous-
ing space is expensive, Wal-Mart wanted to reduce its inventory of
disposable nappies. It did so by giving Johnson & Johnson access to
its sales data and asking it in return to re-stock the shelves in its
stores. In other words, Johnson & Johnson could keep track of
nappy sales on a daily basis by retrieving the data from the Wal-
Mart computers. The Johnson & Johnson computers could use these
records to “tell” them when to restock the shelves. Wal-Mart would
no longer need to store nappies in their warehouses. Wal-Mart
completely relied on Johnson & Johnson for making sure that its
stores always had supplies of nappies on their shelves. Clearly,
Johnson & Johnson has a stake in making sure that each Wal-Mart
store stocked a sufficient supply of nappies as Wal-Mart was one of
the largest sellers of this particular product. This relationship
between Wal-Mart and Johnson & Johnson would have been very
difficult to establish in the absence of an electronic link between
Wal-Mart stores and Johnson & Johnson.

More recently, the emergence of the Internet has led to even more
dramatic changes in the way in which companies do business and
the general way in which societies are organized. We discuss some of
these factors in the next section.

?
? CRITICAL THINKING ACTIVITY

1. To what extent do you think this type of link between

suppliers and retailers would be feasible in your country?
(Give at least THREE possible reasons for your opinion.)

FD12A 267
 2. List the advantages of using information technology
described in the passage above. Can you think of any other
advantages?

3. In what ways might the introduction of IT in the Caribbean

be problematic? Have you any personal experience with
these problems?

The Internet
Development and growth of the Internet

Perhaps the most visible example of the information technology

revolution is the Internet. The Internet is a global network of
computers sharing information. The Internet grew out of a project
originally sponsored by the US Department of Defense to build a
network of interconnected computers. Although its origins are
somewhat murky, it is probable that the original motivation was to
build a computer network that would allow the Department of
Defense to remain functional even after a nuclear attack had taken
out a large number of its sites.

n Protocols are
Two factors led to the growth of the Internet, both of which
agreed ways and / or involved the voluntary adoption of a set of standards. The first was
standards of getting adopting a protocol referred to as TCP/IP (Transmission Control
something done.
These protocols are Protocol/Internet Protocol) that made it possible for all types of
sets of rules computers to communicate with each other. The second factor was
governing the
exchange or the adoption of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) as the stan-
transmission of data dard for providing content for the Internet and the development of
between electronic
devises. TCP/IP the so-called Web browser to display information encoded in HTML.
allows computers to
talk to each other in
an error-free way. Today, the Internet has grown and continues to grow rapidly. By some
HTML is the layout estimates there are over 550 million users (or some 10% of the world
script used to design
web pages. HTTP is population). Unfortunately, accurate estimates are hard to come by
another protocol, and while there may be some dispute about the actual number of
used by most
browsers when users, there can be no dispute about the exponential increase in those
reading a web page. numbers. It is perhaps good to recall that the Internet in the form that
we know it today is only about 10 years old!

268 FD12A
 Although the Internet was initially used primarily for entertainment
and information exchange between academics, more recently it has
become a vehicle for commercial activity as well. Accurate estimates
are again hard to come by but it has been estimated that e-
commerce, the conduct of financial and commercial transactions
over the Internet, will reach a value of US$1trillion by 2003. There
are many disputes about the actual value of e-commerce but it is
again good to remember that in 1995 e-commerce did not exist.

There are many reasons that one can advance for the explosive
growth in Internet use. Some reasons have to do with the sheer
amount of information that is available on the Internet and the rela-
tively low cost of access. Anybody with a personal computer and a
telephone can basically access the Internet. Moreover, anybody can
find something of interest to them, whether it is music of various
kinds, the state of Dutch second division football, reviews of a new
film or what’s new in computer software.

Why companies use the Internet

Many commercial organizations have been attracted to the Internet

and use it for commercial purposes. This is often referred to as
e-commerce or e-business. Companies become involved in
e-commerce for a number of reasons, three of which are given
below:

1. The Internet enables companies to significantly reduce their transaction

costs. For example, the cost of conducting a simple bank
transaction over the Internet is less than 5% of the cost of
conducting the transaction face-to-face and less than 25% of the
cost of conducting that transaction using an Automated Teller
Machine. This saving results from lower overheads, less staff and
other indirect costs associated with face to face transactions.

2. The Internet enables companies to build new relationships with

customers and suppliers. Many companies, for example, insist that
potential suppliers replying to requests for tenders submit their
proposals over the Internet. It allows businesses a much wider
market for their goods and services and the ability to send orders
directly to suppliers without passing through additional
middlemen such as agents and wholesalers. Orders can be
confirmed immediately and a shipping trail set up on the net to

FD12A 269
 track goods from the time they leave the supplier until they
reach the customer.

3. Many companies have set up entirely new businesses on the Internet

forcing others to do the same. Companies that have seen Internet
businesses take a significant slice out of their market share have
had to establish an Internet presence as well. A good example is
amazon.com, which is a company selling books over the
Internet. It took a significant slice out of the market share of
Barnes & Noble and so forced the latter company to set up an
Internet site as well.

Using the Internet for business

The use of the Internet for commercial purposes primarily between

businesses is called B2B (Business To Business) and accounts for
some 80% of the total value of all e-commerce operations. However,
individual consumers have also been drawn to the Internet for
commercial reasons. For example, many individuals are using the
Internet to buy directly from retailers (in B2C e-commerce).
Examples include amazon.com and dell.com. The reasons for the
emergence of B2C e-commerce involve:

1. convenience (unlike real shops, the Internet does not close at

5.00 p.m.),

2. greater choice (a physical book store can only store a limited

number of books, whereas a virtual book store can in principle
offer any book that is in print), and

3. savings e.g., Internet sales often do not attract sales tax.

In addition, people are also using the Internet to sell and buy
directly from each other through on-line auctions. This type of e-
commerce is often referred to as C2C. A good example of this is
eBay.com which, in essence, is an electronic flea market.

Building international communities

The cheap and open access to the Internet has also helped create
global communities and global special interest groups. Although it is
unlikely that one will find a sufficient number of individuals with
the same esoteric interests in a geographically defined area, it is

270 FD12A
 more than likely that one can find sufficient individuals with similar
interests among a group of some 550 million.

The community building aspect of the Internet clearly has its posi-
tive sides. However, there are also some more negative aspects to it.
A person with strange interests will find it difficult to find similar
persons in a geographically defined community, no matter how large
this community. Clearly, this is no longer the case if the larger
community becomes globally defined by access to the Internet.
There is little harm in people using the Internet to create self-help
groups for people with particular diseases, or communities with
unusual interests, 1920s British motorcycles for example, but the
technology can also be used to create communities of people with
less savoury interests. Indeed, it is not too difficult to find Neo-Nazi
groups spreading their message via the internet or to find child
pornography. Can anything be done to control the use of the net?

?
? CRITICAL THINKING ACTIVITY

What might be the implication of creating global communities

via the Internet? Consider both positive and negative aspects of,
for example, political interest groups, criminal/terrorist activity,
privacy issues, interpersonal relations, etc.

Some legal issues

Censorship and the use of the law to enforce censorship, is not

effective in the context of the Internet. While most countries have
laws in place to prevent the distribution of material that they, or in
some cases their leaders, find offensive, the Internet, because of its
open character which gives anybody with access to the appropriate
(cheap) technology the chance to use it, is extremely hard to police.
Moreover, even when a state can find the person who uses the
Internet to distribute material or provide services that it objects to,
and prosecutes the individual successfully, there is no guarantee that
the material will disappear. The global nature of the Internet means
that the offender can simply start providing the material or the serv-
ice from elsewhere.

FD12A 271
 A good example of shifting sites to get around the law is Internet
gambling. A few years ago, the United States passed a law prohibit-
ing the provision of Internet gambling services. However, rather
than not providing these services, for which there was a clear
demand in the US, the organizations providing these services simply
relocated to the Eastern Caribbean. Internet gambling is as popular,
if not more so, as it was before the ban. It is just that the services
are now provided from the Caribbean, rather than from US based
organizations.

A related issue is that of intellectual property rights. Intellectual

property rights are the financial and moral rights that a creator of a
piece of intellectual property, such as a song, a piece of literature, or
a piece of software, has by virtue of the fact that he or she has made
that creation. The violation of intellectual property rights is nothing
new. For example, software piracy, which involves the illegal copy-
ing of software, began shortly after software became commercially
available. However, the ease with which information can be put on
the Internet has made the problem of the violation of intellectual
property rights worse, and many producers of intellectual property
rights (or owners of such rights) have undertaken steps to protect
what they consider to be their financial interests.

A good example of this is the case that the music companies

brought against Napster, an organization whose software made it
possible for Internet users to freely swap music. The record compa-
nies argued that this violated their Intellectual Property Rights, as
people had free access to music that they would otherwise have had
to buy. The US Supreme Court agreed and Napster was forced to
close its operations. However, the fact that since then, a number of
other Internet sites have sprung up that basically provide the same
service as Napster did, illustrates how difficult it is to protect intel-
lectual property rights.

?
? CRITICAL THINKING ACTIVITY

Recently one American university has made all its course

materials available on the Internet. The position taken is that
such academic knowledge should be available to all, particularly
since it is virtually impossible to prevent anyone from gaining

272 FD12A
 access. Do you consider this a reasonable point of view or that
it might start a free-for-all that would be the detriment of
individual property rights?

E-commerce and the Caribbean

Many have argued that the Internet provides important opportuni-

ties for poor countries, as it “levels the playing field”. The argument
is that in principle the Internet provides small poor countries access
to a global market and thus affords them great economic opportuni-
ties. Indeed, there are some success stories. A widely quoted exam-
ple is a group of Amerindian women in Guyana who used the
Internet to sell hand-made hammocks. The Internet gave these
women access to a market that had hitherto been out of their reach.

However, the use of the Internet to help in the economic develop-

ment of poor countries is not as straightforward as all that. One can
only use the Internet for one’s social and economic development if
one has access to it. Unfortunately, the vast majority of the citizens
of the poorest countries of the world do not have access to the net.
Earlier we mentioned the fact that there are fewer telephone lines in
Sub-Saharan Africa than in Manhattan, and we referred to this as
the digital divide.

There are, of course, efforts under way to address this problem and
the cellular phone is coming to the rescue by providing telephone
services that are considerably cheaper for both customer and service
provider than installing wired telephony. Already, Africa has more
cellular phone lines than wired ones, and the number of cellular
lines is increasing rapidly. However, while the provision of basic
telephony is of course important, and will lead to significant
economic opportunities, access to a telephone is a far cry from
access to the Internet.

Although the cost of Internet access is falling rapidly, in relative

terms, information technology remains very expensive in the devel-
oping world. The same computer that costs less than 5% of the
average person’s annual income in the richest countries of the
world, costs 15 to 30% of the annual income of a Caribbean person

FD12A 273
 and more than 4 times an average person’s annual salary in the
poorest countries of the world. In other words, while information
technology might provide important economic opportunities for
poor countries and their citizens, their very poverty often makes it
extremely hard for them to access the technology in the first place.

Even if one could solve the problem of access, the big problem
remains how to attract customers in the first place. Selling in the
“real world” (as opposed to the “virtual world” of the Internet) is
difficult but relatively well understood. If you are selling to individ-
ual customers in a store, then it pays to establish the store in the
best location possible. As the saying goes, in retail only three things
matter: “Location, location and location.” Similarly, selling to large
businesses often involves a well-understood marketing exercise with
repeated visits to the prospective customer and possibly visits by the
customer to one’s physical establishment as well.

It is less clear how one sells in the virtual world. In order to conduct
a sale, one first has to get the prospective customer to visit one’s
Internet site. Visiting a site requires a conscious decision on the part
of the prospective customer. Prospective customers may happen to
wander into a physical retail store, for example because they were
visiting the area in which the shop happens to be located. However,
a prospective customer is much less likely to visit an Internet site by
chance. One therefore has to entice customers to one’s site and this
is an expensive proposition. It has been estimated that the acquisi-
tion cost per customer (the cost of acquiring a potential customer) is
four to five times as high in the “virtual” world as in the real world.
Indeed, very few businesses that rely exclusively on the Internet for
sales have made any profit, despite their having access to consider-
able amounts of capital through their local stock markets. The ques-
tion is how companies located in the developing world, usually with
far less access to capital, can make a profit when many companies in
the rich world have not been able to do so.

274 FD12A
 ACTIVITY

Essay/discussion topic

“Although e-commerce offers many potential opportunities to small

countries these potential benefits have not all been realised.”

A good essay can contain answers to the following questions.

Use them as a guide.

(a) Why is the Internet seen as providing a “level playing

field” for all?
(b) What has attracted companies to the Internet?
(c) What are the problems and limitations faced by small or
poor countries with respect to e-commerce?
(d) Besides business, how might access to the Internet help a
developing country?
(e) How might regional Caribbean governments encourage
and support greater access to and use of the opportunities
offered by the Internet?

Whatever one thinks about the prospects of this technology for the
developing world, there is no doubt that it has had a significant
impact on the way in which the world is organized, and that it will
continue to have a significant impact. Companies and individuals,
no matter where they are located, would seem to have no choice but
to integrate this technology into their operations. We would all be
wise to keep abreast of developments in the fields of computer
science and information technology; the end is nowhere in sight.

ACTIVITY

Consider the ways in which IT has had an impact on the

society in which you live and how it might change our lives in
the future.

1. Compare your society now and ten years ago. List all the
differences (good and bad) that the increasing use of IT has
brought to your region.

2. What further changes would you expect in another 10 or

20 years?

FD12A 275
 3. How do you think these changes will affect social relations
in your country?

Some of the areas you might look at are: conducting business,

personal communications (staying in touch), education (will
distance education become the norm), shopping, meeting and
making friends, running a home, medicine – diagnosis and
treatment by distance, working from home vs going to the place
of work.

SUMMARY

Computer science is the science behind information technology. It

involves constructing algorithms that provide instructions that
computers can use.

Information technology is the computer based systems of gathering,

storing, manipulating, and analysing and disseminating information.
IT has increased tremendously because computers are relatively
cheap, powerful, and able to perform many difficult tasks. Vast
amounts of information become accessible to anyone. In organisa-
tions IT is used to improve already existing processes by automating
them and to re-design the way business operations are performed.

The Internet is a global network of computers sharing information.

It allows access to information from around the world at a relatively
low cost. The Internet has been used for entertainment, informa-
tion exchange between academics and institutions, conducting busi-
ness, and creating global interest groups e.g., support groups. Legal
issues surrounding the Internet include the lack of censorship and
the difficulty of protecting intellectual property.

E-commerce offers many opportunities to the Caribbean but at pres-

ent a number of limitations reduce the effectiveness of this avenue
of developing business. Phone lines are not available in some areas,
many who could benefit from using the Internet cannot afford it,
and marketing goods or services is expensive and difficult.

276 FD12A