Introduction

In Malaysia, interests among government agencies, non-governmental organizations and the private sector in introducing ICT knowledge, skills and usage to rural communities is increasing over time. Various efforts have been undertaken to bring communities closer to ICT, including organizing ICT awareness programs and ICT-related workshops; establishing public Internet access centers in villages; and even developing web-based and online applications such as Agribazaar (see notes on Agribazaar). In developing web-based applications for rural communities, information needs such as those associated with their socio-economic activities and daily lives are highly important. Identification of information needs is essential to the design of information systems in general and to the provision of effective information services in particular (Devadason & Lingam 1996).

In the state of Kedah, eighty five per cent of the population resides in rural areas. The introduction of ICT to these communities has shown that ICT penetration and usage programmes have not been very successful. Results have shown that most of the respondents are found to have (i) no computers, (ii) lack of basic ICT knowledge and skills, (iii) lack of awareness about the existence of online applications, and (iv) lack of interest in using ICT and online applications (Zulkhairi et al. 2009).

For rural communities, telecentres (TC) could be a major access point to search for varieties of information. As defined by the Economics Planning Unit (2007) of Malaysia, TC is a one-stop centre that provides ICT resources for public Internet access, dissemination of information and knowledge and e-government services, e-banking, e-health and others to improve the socio-economic status of targeted local communities. Information is important in empowering the communities in rural area to improve their quality of life.

According to Bhatnagar (2000), there are several ways to approach improving the quality of life in rural communities; one of them being by empowering citizens to access information and knowledge.. For instance, in an area where agriculture dominates economic activity, information regarding agriculture could be beneficial including by supporting decisions regarding the input and production (Singh 2004) and coordinating marketing of products not only to local the community but also to outsiders (Eggleston et al. 2002).

These communities could also benefit from having a community portal which features local news, discussion forums, links to local business and organization websites, etc. Such a portal could collect and integrate relevant information on the community, so that its members can better discover, search, query, and track interesting community activities (Rose et al. 2007). A community portal is a vital tool for communication and development in a community. It helps in disseminating information about community meetings, neighborhood gatherings, and even petitions to local authorities on policies and regulations. Rural human development projects such as the famous Grameen microfinance project (Heuer et al. 2004) in Bangladesh, iShakti (Patel et al. 2006) and Community Information Center (CIC) (Chaudhri & Dash 2007) both in India have shown excellent results in helping rural communities to improve standards of living.

It is emphasized by Norman (2000) that the contents of a portal must be designed to meet the communities’ needs for local information on agriculture, socio-economic activities, health, and nearby markets. In relation to this, a good portal must identify and satisfy information needs of a community. The objective of this study is to identify the information needs of rural communities in Malaysia.

Method

A total of twelve villages located in the northern region of Peninsular Malaysia, covering the states of Kedah and Perlis participated in the study. The selection of the villages were made according to four economic sectors, namely fishery, paddy, palm oil and rubber. Fieldwork was carried out involving surveys, interviews, observations and focus group discussions throughout a period of two months.

The questions asked during the survey intended to acquire information related to economic activities, the level of information they currently have obtained, and the level of additional information that they need. Focus group discussions were conducted to probe further the relevant information needs pertaining to communities' economic activities. Statistical analysis on the responses was performed to determine the information needs relevant to the communities’ daily activities.

Findings And Discussion

The activities involved in all four sectors can be classified into three important stages: planning and preparation, execution, and post- execution. The people engaged in all four economic sectors depend on reliable, up-to-date and fast information to effectively complete each stage. For example, in the fishery sector, the planning and preparation stage includes activities such as applying for licenses, preparing a boat and other equipment and supplies, and checking on weather conditions. The execution stage refers to the time when fishermen go out to the sea, move from one location to another to catch fish, and process the catch before going back to shore. Finally, the activities of the fishermen will include making contact with middlemen, selling the catch, and preparing for the next days activities. These activities show and explain the needs for a variety of fishery related information to be captured, processed, distributed, used and updated by the relevant agencies and communities.

Similar explanations go for the information needs of the other sectors. Table I summarizes the information needs pertaining to the major activities or functions for the communities involved in the corresponding economic sectors.

Table 1: Information needs according to economic activities

Pertaining to the communities daily life, the information needs can be categorized in a few groups namely; agriculture, medical and health, education, religion, business, lifestyle, entertainment, family matters, sport, politics, career opportunities and IT/computer.

Fishery Sector

Majority of the communities in the four villages in the fishery sector are fishermen while others are involved in fishery- or sea-related jobs such as in associated secondary industries (e.g. dried fish, dried shrimp, and shrimp paste). Other than fishermen, members of these communities include the fisherman’s family, the Fishermen's Association, the owner of the boat, middlemen, and the workers in the secondary industry. The findings suggest that currently they obtain the following categories of information from a variety of sources (in descending order of importance ): (i) religion, (ii) family matters, (iii) education, and (iv) sport. In contrast, information they have obtained less are (i) IT/computer, (ii) agriculture, (iii) business, and (iv) career opportunity. These are illustrated in Fig. 1. The figure shows that there are remarkable differences between the currently obtained and required information for some of the categories. The gaps indicate that the communities are looking forward to learning more about what they have already known. For instance, even though they have obtained more than seventy per cent of information about family matters, they still expect to learn or have more knowledge about family matters in the future. Greater gaps are found in IT/computer, business, agriculture and career opportunity categories. These signify that the communities are yearning for information in those categories compared to other categories of information.

Paddy Sector

The categories of information obtained by the communities in the paddy sector are similar to those in the fishery sector. In sequence, the most information they acquire concern (i) religion, (ii) family matters, (iii), medical and health, and (iv) education. The least attained are (i) IT/computer, (ii) business, and (iii) career opportunity. Furthermore, there is also a higher difference between the information obtained and information needed in the IT/computer category. Fig. 2 shows the percentage of information in the IT/computer category currently obtained by communities in the paddy sector as being about twenty per cent, and the required information for that category is almost sixty per cent. The difference between the currently obtained and the required information of IT/computer category is about forty per cent. A big gap between information obtained and required is also evidenced in other categories including business, career opportunity, and education.

Palm Oil Sector

Fig. 3 illustrates the pattern of information obtained and required by the communities in the palm oil sector. The most information they currently acquire are concerning (i) religion, (ii) agriculture, (iii) medical and health, and (iv) family matters. The least acquired are (i) IT/Computer, and (ii) business. Compared to other categories of information, there is a high gap between the information obtained and required in IT/Computer, business, education and career opportunity categories.

Rubber Sector

With regards to the category of information that the communities currently obtain, Fig. 4 indicates that medical and health, education, religion and family matters lead the other categories. The least categories they require are IT/Computer, and business. A high gap of information obtained and information required exists in the IT/computer, career opportunity and religion categories. This signifies that the communities are in dire need of information pertaining to IT/computer. On the other hand, even though they have obtained a lot of information in the religion and career opportunity categories, the communities still want more in both.

Conclusion

Based on the findings, it can be concluded that the information needs for the rural communities can be classified into two categories (i) in association with economic activities, and (ii) in relation to daily life. In association with economic activities, the information needs of the communities from each sector differ according to the nature of their activities. However, information needs in relation to their daily life are mostly similar. IT/computer, business, education, career opportunity, agriculture, and medical and health are found to be the most common information needed by the communities from all four sectors. Information on politics and entertainment categories are the least needed by the communities. Other categories are found to be moderately required.

Recommendation

To improve their socio economic status and to give a better life to their next generation, the communities are looking ahead to have more access to information pertaining to IT and computers, business and career opportunities. Based on the findings, it is believed that more aggressive ICT programmes need to be carried out for specific target groups to expose them to more information that can help to improve their socio-economic activities. Appropriate local applications and content can be developed and delivered, through a community portal, to suit the needs of the community, thereby creating the interest among the rural community to use ICT. Since the rural communities are from the four economic sectors, information regarding these four sectors can be included as part of the content, as well as other information related to businesses, agriculture, career opportunities, and others. Above all, to create early awareness and interests, the communities need to be introduced to knowledge and skills concerning IT and computers.

The information needs identified from the study can be used as a basis to design a template of a portal for community use. Using the template, the community can develop their own village portal by inserting appropriate information needed by the communities in the corresponding economic sectors. On top of that, they may include information such as their activities, jobs, and pictures gallery. In addition, they can also sell and promote their own product. The portal can become a means to connect them to other communities and the whole world to improve their knowledge, and socio-economic activities.

Notes:

Agribazaar is a Malay language Internet-based application that allows producers and suppliers of agricultural-based products to promote and sell their products. It can be accessed at http://www.agribazaar.com.my).

References

Bhatnagar S. C. (2000). Social implications of information and communication technology in developing countries: lessons from Asian success stories. The Electronic Journal on Information System in Developing Countries, 1(4), 1-9. Retrieved December 29, 2009 from http://www.ejisdc.org/ojs2/index.php/ejisdc/article/viewFile/4/4

Chaudhri, N. & Dash, S. S. (2007). Community information centers: e-governance at subdistrict level: a case study. Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance, Macao, China: ACM, 366-369.

De Rose, P., Shen, W., Chen, F., Doan, A. & Ramakrishnan, R. (2007). Building structured web community portals: a top-down, compositional, and incremental approach. Proceedings of the 33rd International Conference on Very Large Data Bases, Vienna, Austria.

Devadason, F. J. & Lingam, P. P. (1996). A methodology for identification of information needs of users. Proceedings of 62^nd IFLA General Conference, August, 25-31.

Economics Planning Unit (2007). Rangka kerja strategik kebangsaan bagi merapatkan jurang digital (NSF-BDD), Paper presented at Pusat Perkhidmatan dan Ilmu Komuniti Peringkat Negeri Pulau Pinang, June 13. (in Malay)

Eggleston K., Jensen, R., & Zeckhauser, R. (2002). Information and Communication Technologies, Markets, and Economic Development, in The Global Information Technology Report 2001-2002, ed. G. S. Kirkman, P. K. Cornelius, J. D. Sachs & K. Schwab, New York: Oxford University Press, New York, pp. 62-72.

Heuer, S. R., Kalra, R., Mainsah, E., & Zhang, Q. (2004). Grameen Bank: Taking Capitalism to the Poor. Chazen Web Journal of International Business, Spring, 1-29.

Norman, R. J. (2000). Community Participation- How People Power Brings Sustainable Benefits to Communities. Rural Development Perspectives, 14(1). Retrieved December 23, 2009 from http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/rbs/ezec/About/rdpmay99c.pdf.

Patel, S., Bataveljic, O., Lisboa, P. J., Hawkins, C. & Rajan, R. (2006). iShakti--Crossing the Digital Divide in Rural India. Proceedings of the 2006 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Web Intelligence: IEEE Computer Society, 1061-1065.

Singh, N. (2004). Information Technology and Rural Development in India. Santa Cruz Center for International Economics, Working Paper Series 1028, Center for International Economics, UC Santa Cruz.

Zulkhairi, M. D., Huda, I., Wan-Rozaini, S. O., Syahida, H., Mohd-Khairudin, K., Azman, Y., Osman, G., Shafiz-Affendi, M. Y., Nor Iadah, Y., Rafidah, A. R., Suwannit, C. C. & Mohd-Amir, A. S. (2009). Kajian Keperluan Aplikasi dan Kandungan ICT termasuk Penggunaan Jalur Lebar di Kawasan Luar Bandar negeri Kedah dan Perlis, Unpublished Research Report, Universiti Utara Malaysia. (in Malay)