Evaluation of the rural informatization level in four Chinese regions: A methodology based on catastrophe theory

The paper presents a method that addresses the problem of using catastrophe theory to evaluate the informatization level in four Chinese regions. We developed an index evaluation system that consists of five categories (secondary indices) of Economic strength, Information infrastructure, Information terminal equipment, Human resources and Information utilization, and fourteen tertiary indices as the evaluation index system for the rural informatization level. The effectiveness of this method is tested by evaluating the level of information technology application in four Chinese rural regions (eastern, central, western, and northeastern regions). The results show that the catastrophe progression values (CPV) averaged at 0.806 in mainland China. The CPV for the eastern region is ranked the highest at 0.871, the northeast region second at 0.841, the central region third at 0.553, and the western region the lowest at 0.213. The results are found to be consistent with a priori expectations proving that the catastrophe progression method works well.

► A catastrophe theoretic approach was introduced to evaluate the level of ICTs.
► An empirical study is conducted on real cases in the four Chinese rural regions.
► The effectiveness of this method is tested to quantify the penetration of ICTs.
► The results are found to be consistent with a priori expectations.