Two-phased composite I-distance indicator approach for evaluation of countries’ information development

• This paper makes a review of the ICT Development Index-IDI, pointing to its drawbacks.
• The disadvantages of the IDI are mostly related to its bias and uncertainty.
• Paper presents the Composite I-distance Indicator-CIDI for measuring ICT development.
• CIDI is unbiased and more stable than the official IDI ranking methodology.
• CIDI can be used as an appropriate framework for information society evaluation.

The development of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) is an important issue that affects countries’ socioeconomic prosperity, and the majority of studies indicate that the productivity effect of ICT is quite significant. Thus, measuring the countries information development can gain numerous benefits since comparisons and rankings create a major challenge for countries’ further advancement and development. The aim of this paper is multiple. It firstly elaborates the term of the information society and examines countries’ ICT development. Secondly, it debates on the importance of measurement and ranking, emphasizing the methods of measuring the information society. It reviews the ICT Development Index (IDI) as one of these methods, pointing to its drawbacks. The disadvantages of the IDI are mostly related to its bias and uncertainty. This paper accentuates the importance of the stability and objectiveness of a measurement method, and for this reason it presents the Composite I-distance Indicator (CIDI) methodology for measuring countries’ ICT development that overcomes these drawbacks. In the case study, we analysed a dataset of 157 countries. The results presented in this study clearly indicate that the CIDI ranking methodology is unbiased and more stable than the official IDI ranking methodology, and can be used as an appropriate framework for information society evaluation measurement.