Introduction

The previous chapter explained that measuring the economic sustainability of a service sector is rather difficult, and often some indirect measures and different parameters need to be considered. Information systems and services are designed to support the activities of specific institutions such as the research and scholarly activities in universities, patient treatment and research activities in hospitals, and day-to-day business in government and business organizations. The economic sustainability of information systems and services depends on a number of indirect measures.

The importance of information in sustainable development has been recognized in many international and national policy documents and reports. According to Robert B. Zoellick, World Bank Group President, knowledge is power: ‘Making our knowledge widely and readily available will empower others to come up with solutions to the world's toughest problems. Our new Open Access policy is the natural evolution for a World Bank that is opening up more and more’ (World Bank, 2012).

In the UK, BIS observes that ‘imperfect information makes it difficult for both investors and businesses to make optimal investment decisions. The high cost of obtaining information on the viability of small and medium-sized enterprises relative to the size of funding they are seeking leads to potentially viable businesses not being able to raise finance’ (2010, 18) … ‘Information failures, both among learners and firms, may lead to suboptimal levels of investment in training’ (2010, 21).

The economic success or value for money of information systems and services is difficult to measure. The impact of information systems and services may be noted indirectly through developments in different areas, such human resources, education and research, innovative and efficient systems for business processes, and long-term social developments such as healthy living and informed citizenship.

This chapter examines the economic sustainability issues of information systems and services, especially in the context of higher education. There are two aspects to the economic sustainability of information:

• • sustainability of the information industry, which, as discussed below, makes a significant contribution to a country's economy and the higher education and research sector

• • sustainability of information services, which is inf luenced by a variety of new policies introduced recently by various government and other agencies.

A number of new services have appeared in the digital information landscape in the recent past that have made a significant impact on the information industry and information services sector.