Data Use as Liberation: A Case from an Education Management Information System in Uganda

Part 7: Pushing Boundaries - New and Innovative Philosophical, Theoretical and Methodological Approaches to Researching ICT4D International audience The Information Systems (IS) literature explores multiple consequences of data use practices, including the role of such practices in achieving empowerment. Limited knowledge is, however, available on the role of data use in fighting political bias, a phenomenon through which an individual or a group’s political influence diverts resources away from their optimal purposes. In this paper we rely on Freire’s concept of liberation to study a pilot project of an Education Management Information System (EMIS), conducted in two districts in Uganda, to illuminate the links between EMIS data use and the delinking of education managers from political bias. Our field data enable us to theorise EMIS data use as a practice of liberation, aimed at strengthening decision making processes crucial to development policy.