Development of a model for monitoring and evaluation of the information society in Serbia

The main topic of the doctoral dissertation belongs to the field of information society, its development and mechanisms for tracking and measuring its advancements. This dissertation summarizes the existing research and theories developed on the topic of information society, its evolution and variety of forms, factors that determine its growth and various international initiatives aimed at guiding the global progress of information society. By investigating the possibilities to quantify the information society as a complex concept defined by the set of mutually correlated indicators, this dissertation research the most convenient metrics that would enable observing, measuring and evaluating the actual condition of information society. In addition to providing the classification and the evolution path of the benchmarking indicators that represent the cornerstone of every methodology aimed at quantifying the information society, this dissertation contains the overview of the most relevant methodologies used for evaluating the information society worldwide. However, the main focus of this work represents the design of the original model which specifies actions required to track and evaluate the advancements in the information society of Serbia. This model assumes: • theoretical foundation, • compatibility with the European Union (EU) standards, which enables its broad use in the projects with international cross-country analyses and comparisons, • compliance with the particularities of Serbian information society and the existing possibilities of Serbia for investment and further development. Formulation of the model has encompassed: • selection of the set of Information Society Indicators (ISI) in accordance with EU standards, but with modification with regards to characteristics and development possibilities of Serbia, • transformation of the ISI set that enables their ranking according to the significance for monitoring of the information society, • extracting a subset of the most relevant ISI, • Defining the sub-model that quantifies the degree of digital divide through an unique compound indicator - Digital Polarization Index (DPI). The formulated model has been verified on the case of Serbia, through monitoring and analysis of its information society over the 5-year period. The verification process has consisted of: •statistical monitoring, quantification and relevant data analysis, and •analysis of the results with respect to determining the current