E-INFRASTRUCTURE ACCEPTANCE IN E-HEALTH, E-
LEARNING AND E-AGRICULTURE IN ZIMBABWE:
THE QUEST FOR THE USER ACCEPTANCE VARIABLE

E-INFRASTRUCTURE ACCEPTANCE IN E-HEALTH, E-
LEARNING AND E-AGRICULTURE IN ZIMBABWE:
THE QUEST FOR THE USER ACCEPTANCE VARIABLE

CHRISPEN CHIOME

One of the best ways to achieve global literacy is through communication, collaborative learning,
research, and problem solving. Technology helps tremendously in these areas, so it is a great tool
to use in this process. As e-infrastructures gain ground in many African countries and at the same
time promises a new way of delivering health, education and agriculture. New technologies
should be readily acceptable in order to deliver these essential services to the populace.
However, against a background of previous studies pointing to e-learning as a monster under the
bed (Chiome, Kurasha and Mupa, 2011) and after 98% of the students failed to voluntarily
register for an e-learning blended programme, this research set out to find the factors affecting
user acceptance of e- infrastructures in health, agriculture and education. This was a survey of
institutions engaged in e-agriculture, e-health and e-learning in Zimbabwe. A purposive sample
of 65students who were exposed to e-infrastructures was interviewed in order to determine the
user acceptance variable applicable in Zimbabwe. The study found out that e-infrastructure users
made rational choices faced with alternatives, belief in the usefulness or lack of it of the system,
too much effort put into using technology, content richness, e-infrastructure usefulness and
update regularity of the e-infrastructure are some of the absolutely vital technology acceptance
variables. The research argues that the ability to navigate the complex life and work
environments in the globally competitive information age requires e-infrastructure developers to
pay rigorous attention to technology acceptance to engage e-infrastructure users other than the
“early adopters” with the opportunities in e-infrastructures.

Proceedings and reports of the 6th UbuntuNet Alliance annual conference

2013