Education:IPMProject 1.3
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eGovernment & Information Society
Module information
| Contributed to the TRIAS wiki by: | This module was used by: |
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Learning goals
Duration/Study load
This module takes 10 weeks to complete. Study load: 84 hours (3ECTS/Study points)
Context and prequisites
Educational methods and educational elements used
- Lectures on the Information Society and its implications for a public manager
- Case-based Wikification Assignment
- Group project: Portal Assignment
- Individual wiki contribution assignments:
- Add valuable content to this wiki by writing/appending/improving encyclopedic pages
- Peer assessment of fellow students' encyclopedic pages
Assessment
The following items will be graded during this module (% weight in brackets):
- Group performance in creating and maintaining a Thematic Portal in this wiki, for the duration of the course (50%)
- Individual contributions to this wiki (50%):
- Creation and subsequent elaboration of new eGovernment encyclopedia pages
- Improvements of existing eGovernment encyclopedia pages
- Peer assessment feedback given, and collaborative behavior in general
Introduction
If someone were to venture the opinion: “The Industrial Age has ended, we now live in an Age of Information, and government had better catch up with life in the 21st century.” Who would disagree? Indeed, innovations – especially in information and communications technology (ICT) – have had an increasing impact on individuals and organizations for the past decades, and the question what this implies for government and governance today and tomorrow is a valid one. Digital IDs, citizen portals on internet, chip cards, police scanning YouTube videos, anti-terrorism databases, on-line tax returns, voting by SMS text message, are these good examples of how government should cope with a changing citizenry?
In most people’s lives, continuous change and increasing complexities are becoming a given fact, and in many aspects of social interaction, of doing business, of learning, of creating value, the only thing we can be sure of regarding tomorrow, is that it’s probably going to be quite different from how we do things today. A striking contrast with life in previous centuries.
On the one hand, a changing society poses new challenges for governmental institutions – and in the end for public managers. On the other hand, new solutions (or improvements on old ones, depending on your point of view) become available to government through the same innovations so profoundly affecting society. And do not forget that the old objectives of government may still apply, just with new and improved technologies to increase public efficiency and effectiveness. Hey, could there even be ‘old’ solutions to new problems resulting from this new Age we supposedly live in?
A critical approach to technology-driven calls for change in Government is warranted, based on sound arguments (including common sense combined with awareness of relevant scientific theory and findings). Just adding an ‘e’ (of electronic) to government is probably of limited –although positive – value. Defining eGovernment as ‘enhanced government’, a government better equipped for innovation and change, will help the discussion focus on how to make government do better in our future society.
Objectives
The general aim of this third Project is to make students aware of the impact of (ICT) innovation on society and government. In the course of this program, students should show an increasing ability to apply relevant theory on innovation and social change and its meaning for the role and functioning of public institutions. At an abstract (macro) level this implies understanding of concepts such as the Information Society, knowledge economy and (e)Governance. More down to earth, students need to become aware of the innovation-related changes in public management practice, such as increasing complexity of issues and networks, and the view of (future) public managers as knowledge workers. The latter will primarily be realized by students’ participation in (and contributions to!) the TRIAS eGovernment online open collaborative knowledge environment, better known as the TRIAS wiki.
Evaluation/Assessment
Students will be graded according to their performance w.r.t. several assignments within this project. During the first two weeks, they should make themselves aware of the requirements of each assignment, and of the skills necessary to be able to perform satisfactorily. The tutor-guided group meetings and the wiki-instructions should be used for determining a clear objective for the group assignments, and for acquiring the needed skills for both individual and group work during this project.
Assignments
The assignments for IPMProject 1.3 distinguish between individual work and group work, both taking place within the wiki environment provided by the TRIAS eGovernment education program.
Individual assignment
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The gist of the individual assignment is simple; ADD VALUE to the TRIAS wiki. With the research experience of the previous project in mind, the aspiring public manager should become an expert at selecting relevant information and knowledge and making it accessible, understandable and presentable for a critical professional audience. This is exactly what the online publishing (!) of conceptual pages in the TRIAS wiki will demand from an IPM student.
- First of all, each student is expected to write a new encyclopedic wikipage for at least five topics from a list provided in the TRIAS wiki for this project. The criteria for a well-written TRIAS encyclopedic page are explicitly contained in the wiki itself, and will be made clear in the wiki-training sessions as well.
- Next, students are required to perform a peer-assessment of at least five encyclopedic wikipages written for this project other than their own, based on the aforementioned criteria (the assessment distribution of all project pages will be drawn up by the project tutors).
- Finally, students must make the necessary improvements to both their initial pages and the pages they assessed, thus working together on pages in a true wiki-fashion.
Sufficient IPM wiki pages
For reference in peer-assessment and/or resit, the list below contains pages written (from scratch) for the IPMProject 1.3 assignment, and assessed 'sufficient' w.r.t. to the relevant criteria: Anonimity • Change management • Digital ID • Digital data privacy • E-learning • EBusiness • Geographical information systems • Global Positioning System • ICT-policy • Identity fraud • Illiteracy • Knowledge intensive organization • Management information sytem • Mobile phones • Query • Social exclusion • Voice over IP • Workflow management
My First wikpages
The following pages were first created by you and accepted for peer assessment by a fellow student, based on the general criteria for IPM wiki pages within the context of IPMProject1.3.
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Deadlines
| Claiming your five initial encyclopedia topics in the TRIAS wiki | Friday February 22nd, 12.00 (noon) |
| Completing (all the required elements of) the first version of ‘your’ encyclopedic wiki pages | Tuesday March 18th, 24.00 |
| Receiving a list of pages to assess | Thursday March 20th, 15.00 |
| Completing the peer assessments (on the discussion tabs) in the wiki | Thursday March 27th, 15.00 |
| Completing all improvements on the pages you initiated and assessed | Friday April 25th, 24.00 |
My pages to peer-assess
The following pages were assigned to you for peer assessment, using the general criteria for IPM wiki pages, within the context of IPMProject1.3.
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Place your comments and suggestions for improvements on the 'Discussion tab' of each page you assess, using the 'New peer assessment Talk' preload button when first editing this tab. Do not forget to sign your remarks with --~~~~ (or the signature WYSIWYG-button)!
Group assignment
Not dissimilar from the individual assignments, students will also need to improve the content of the TRIAS wiki in another way, this time needing to cooperate to get results. In order to promote the accessibility of the wiki content, the TRIAS wiki makes use of so-called ‘portals’. Four new (and initially quite empty) wiki-portals, each revolving around a major theme in the realm of eGovernment, will be made available to IPM students participating in this project. The portal themes are:
| (Editors: A.Novacescu • C.Helbig • M.N.Udealor • T.S.A.Bute) | |
| (Editors: A.Koroma • I.A.M.Aris • O.H.Onigbobi • S.M.Ndaga • T.Ongango) | |
| (Editors: D.G.Kuppens • J.H.vandenBerg • T.N.Musch) | |
| (Editors: C.M.Nwankwo • E.S.C.Kauffman • K.Peter-Mathewry) |
General requirements for the standard portal elements in the TRIAS wiki are available in the wiki and will be discussed during tutored group meetings. Students are encouraged to add their own improvements to the different portal sections!
Students must choose one of the two portals offered to their project group, with a maximum of four students per portal. The resulting ‘portal teams’ of ‘portal editors’ are responsible for the content creation within the portal, and for its embedding in the wiki, but also for the maintenance of this site for the duration of the third term – so link to existing wiki pages and those being created during the project, if necessary create some more wiki pages directly related to the portal, and keep an eye on the news! A task division should be agreed upon by each portal team, and handed in to the group tutor (through Blackboard and in the pigeon hole).
Deadlines
| Choosing your portal (and your team) | Friday February 22nd, 12.00 (noon) |
| Agreeing on a division of portal-related tasks within your team | Thursday March 6th, 17.00 |
| Completing the different portal sections | Friday March 21st, 24.00 |
| Maintaining/improving the portal until | Friday April 25th, 24.00 |
Assignment weights and calculation of the final grade
The individual assignment and the group (portal) assignment each count for 50% of the total score for this project.
Attendance and participation
80% Attendance is required for all sessions, both plenary lectures and group meetings. This means that for the currently planned total of 8 meetings, you are allowed to be absent no more than 2. Please take into account that most likely a number of additional guest lectures will also be part of the Project activities, which increases the number of meetings you need to attend in order to satisfy the 80% rule! Students attending less than 80% of the sessions will not receive their final grade (calculation described above)! Please note that the tutor/lecturer may record you as ‘not present’ for a specific meeting in case your participation is entirely lacking or disruptive.
Passing or failing
Students with a total score of 5,5 or higher will pass and receive the credit for this project. Students with a total score lower than 5,5 will fail, and need to do an individual resit assignment.
Resits
The individual resit assignment will also be wiki-based, building on the work a student has already done in the TRIAS wiki – but may involve work on new topics as well. The resit grade will replace the individual assignment grade and/or the group assignment grade only when higher (so a partial grade will never be replaced by a lower resit grade). There is no second resit possible for any of the evaluation items (with the usual exception of a contravening decision by the Examination Board).
The resit details are specified in the box below:
My resit assignmentWhen the (50-50) average of your individual and portal assignments is below 5.5 (indicated by the 'insufficient' label on top of your user page), you may take the course resit in the form of this new wiki-assignment, based on the individual work you already did. In order to pass this course you should make sure to complete this assignment as detailed in the next line, before the deadline of August 25th 2008:
DeadlineThe deadline for registering for re-assessment of your contributions is August 25th 2008. Always request re-assessmentPlease note that without a request for re-assessment to your first assessor, no grading of your additional contributions will be done! Request re-assessment by placing your name in the appropriate list on your tutor's user talk page. To do this, click on the name of your tutor in the following list and use the 'signature button' ( Specific resit focusPay specific attention to the following aspects:
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Planning
The first week of the third term will allow students to familiarize themselves with the course requirements and the TRIAS wiki environment. There will be only one plenary lecture in the first week. The following seven weeks (not counting the spring break), there will be a tutored group meeting for both groups, scheduled each Thursday afternoon. Depending on students’ needs, wiki skill training sessions will be arranged during the second week and/or later on in the project.
Please make sure to regularly check the IPMProject Blackboard course for details and the latest updates w.r.t. exact meeting times and locations.
Literature/Sites
In the first week, students will need to read the following title(s) as a background overview for their assignments:
- Castells, Manuel, Materials for an exploratory theory of the network society, in: British Journal of Sociology Vol. No. 51 Issue No. 1 (Jan/Mar 2000) pp. 5-24, ISSN 0007 1315 © London School of Economics 2000. NB: available in pdf on HHS Blackboard; focus on the pages 9-23!
- Europe’s Information Society information portal NB: use this site to assess the scope of public activities labeled ‘eGovernment’, and to get an idea of what wiki topics and portal Theme you would prefer.
The TRIAS wiki already contains useful information, albeit often fragmented, and sometimes quite technical. Please use the ‘search’ function at will! Several ‘points of entry’ will give you direct access to relevant content areas:
The TRIAS wiki also has a rich support environment, including several ‘Tours’ to guide you through the creation and editing of TRIAS wiki pages:
Planning schedule
Topics ('IPM wanted pages')
List of concepts to choose from for the individual assignment:
