STKD6050 Innovative e-governance in Local Democracy Course description

The course is organized around a series of lectures, workshops, and a project. The lectures will cover the key topics for the course. The workshops will provide some hands-on experience on the key topics introduced during lectures. The project will help to consolidate the knowledge acquired during the course. The students are expected to attend all the lectures. The project will be focused on solving a real-world problem. The solution will be presented at the end of the course.

The following required coursework must be approved before the student can take the exam:

• An analytics project where a problem is defined and data chosen to solve/answer the problem. The analytics project is to be completed individually or in groups of up to five students.

After completing this course the student should have the following learning outcome:

Knowledge

On successful completion of the course, the students will have advanced knowledge on:

• the fundamentals of e-governance and e-democracy.
• local government systems and participation processes in general.
• the use of ICT for local administration, service production, and democratic participation.
• the possibilities and constraints which ICT brings about to local governance, security and privacy issues as well as ethical dilemmas connected to using ICT for political participation.

Skills

On successful completion of this course the students will have the ability to:

• develop ICT-centric ideas and solutions for communities and local governments concerning citizens political participation and effective communication among State and non-State actors.
• use critical thinking and interdisciplinary approaches to examine e-governance approaches in a variety of democratic political systems.
• analyze quantitative and qualitative data on the role of ICT in political participation.
• effectively present complex information in a way that is understandable and accessible for the general public prototype new ICT tools for e-governance.

General competence

On successful completion of this course, the students understands:

• e-governance as a concept and its development through time.
• the role of cooperation of various actors in the political field including government agencies and the ICT industry.
• ethical reflections on the role of ICT in political participation.
• relevant interdisciplinary research collaboration and intercultural communication.

The course will take an interactive approach and combine diverse teaching methods as well as active and engaged problem based learning.

Course participants will be offered:

• lectures by course instructors.
• workshops.
• diverse discussion groups.
• analysis of case studies.
• simulations, guest lectures from some prominent representatives of industry, civil society, or government officials.

Two examiners will be used, one of which can be external. External examiner is used regularly.

It is recommended to have completed one full year of university studies (60 ECTS) before the program starts. This course assumes that the student has knowledge in algebra, statistics and python programming. It is also an advantage to have some knowledge of empirical/experimental research methods.

The course has 5 ECTS of overlapping content towards STKD6510 "Big Data Analytics: Tools and Techniques for Acquiring Insights from Data II"

The final assessment will be graded on a grading scale from A to E (A is the highest grade and E the lowest) and F for fail.

Two examiners will be used, one of which can be external. External examiner is used regularly.

No overlaps.