For Thursday Jan. 15, read Chapter 1 of 
the Global Information Technology Report (pp. 3-22)

1.  What is this chapter about?  Who would be interested in the
statistics being presented here?

2.  According to the authors, a country's ability to engage
in information and communications technology can be measured
in 3 areas (page 4):  environment, readiness and usage.
What exactly do the authors mean by these terms?

3.  Pages 21 and 22 show the components that make up the
"networked readiness index".  In your opinion, which components
are more important for determining how (IT) technologically
advanced a country is?  Comment on some of the components listed.
Note that pages 217-220 give details on how these components
are quantified.

4.  Pages 3-5 discuss the overall results of the country-by-country
survey.  What major conclusions can be drawn?  For example,
if a short article were to appear in a major magazine or newspaper
about the statistics (like Table 1), what would you expect the
article to highlight?

5.  On pages 6-14, we see how the various countries are ranked
based on the 9 individual areas of the technology survey.  Can you
find a country whose ranks are inconsistent? (for example, #1 on
one measure yet much further down the list on some other measure)

6.  What do the authors have to say about the correlation between
network readiness and the strength of a country's overall economy?
What do the authors mean by a "threshold" on pp. 16-17?

7.  What point are the authors trying to make in Figure 9
(Digital Convergence or Divergence)

8.  What do the authors mean by "Research Challenges" on page 18?
Can you comment on the quality of the data or methodology
beyond what is stated in this section?