[Telecentres] Basic Telecentre Items/ICT Definition

[Andy Carvin]

That's interesting, Don - I always thought ICTs was indeed an acronym 
for information AND communications technologies, rather than Information 
communications technologies. I've rarely ever noticed it written out 
without the "and" before. (In fact, I can recall several occasions where 
people have corrected others when they left out the "and.") Are we 
positive that's the case in the WSIS documents? In other ITU documents, 
not to mention the Millennium Development Goals, they use an "and" when 
they spell out the acronym. For example, in the official ITU faq on 
WSIS, the answer to the question, what is the information society, 
begins with this sentence: "* The digital revolution in information 
*and* communication technologies has created the platform for a free 
flow of information, ideas and knowledge across the globe." 
(http://www.itu.int/wsis/basic/faqs.asp). It's also used in the MDGs, 
Target 18 (http://www.developmentgoals.org/Partnership.htm#target18).

For our purposes, whenever we publish documents on our work, I think we 
should just include the version with the "and" included when we spell it 
out, but I don't think we should push for changing the acronym itself. 
ICT and ICT4D have become so accepted as acronyms, I don't think it'd be 
productive to push a change in that. Let's just be sure to include the 
"and" whenever we spell it out, and encourage others to do the same.

ac

Don Cameron wrote:

> 
> Your comments certainly beg a question… how appropriate is this acronym 
> of ICT’s? – We are not dealing with Information Communications 
> Technologies (ICT’s), we are dealing with Information _And_ 
> Communications Technology (I&CT). Perhaps there would be less confusion 
> about the true nature of I&CT were we to promote the use of an accurate 
> descriptor.
> 
>  
> 
> (I think it is acceptable to use ‘&’ instead of ‘A‘ in this day and age 
> however acknowledge that some may prefer the acronym IACT as in RADAR 
> where the word ‘And’ warrants an ‘A’ to be included). 
> 
>  
> 
> Rgds, Don
> 
>  
> 
> 
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-- 
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Andy Carvin
Program Director
EDC Center for Media & Community
acarvin @ edc . org
http://www.digitaldividenetwork.org
http://www.edwebproject.org/andy/blog/
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