Online Controlling Tool. Monitoring Costs of ICT-Supported Educational Solutions in Rural Areas Online

Abstract

Monitoring costs of ICT-supported educational solutions in rural areas is central in order to determine if a project is worthwhile. This is especially a challenge for ICT-supported projects conducted in rural areas, because they might for example only have a local paper-based accounting, lack cost structures for meaningful recording of costs or have limited financial expertise. Although there are existing suggestions on how to treat and capture costs, for example by breaking down the costs indifferent categories or by following a defined cost measurement process, there is a lack of sophisticated online controlling tools, that can help tackling these challenges. The research questions in this thesis are thus aiming to identify, how the costs of ICT-supported educational solutions in rural areas can be effectively monitored. They ask about how such a tool has to be designed, how it is used in practice and if the implemented cost-structure leads to more cost-transparency. To answer these questions, an online cost controlling tool was designed and applied in the context of an educational project in a rural school in Zimbabwe. The two interviews, focusing on the use of the tool, its applicability for rural areas and its cost transparency, with a head of school and an accountant, indicate that it is possible to effectively monitor costs online in rural areas and that the used cost-structure increases the cost-transparency of the ICT-supported educational solution.