Unit 2

How Ines Mergel teaches Unit 2

Syllabus > Unit 2 > Ines Mergel teaches Unit 2

What is this page?

This is a detailed breakdown of how Professor Ines Mergel from the University of Konstanz teaches a class that covers the contents of Unit 2 of the open access syllabus developed by Teaching Public Service in the Digital Age.

The official designation of the course Professor Mergel is teaching here is "MA Seminar: Digital Governance".

We believe that context matters and a diversity of options around how the syllabus is taught can help others learn to adopt and teach the material well. To see how Harvard Kennedy School's David Eaves teaches the same unit, see here.

Who is this page for?

This page has been developed for use by university faculty who are teaching Master's levels students in Public Policy and Public Administration. It has been published to help them design their own approaches to teaching the digital era skills covered in Unit 2 of our syllabus.

Class Overview

For many purely policy or management-oriented public servants, it is difficult to understand what a digital product or digital service looks like, behind the front-end. In this session, we will explore the ways in which government digital systems are made out of numerous interconnected pieces. One of the key challenges for digital era governments is picking and combining components successfully.

This Class' Learning Objectives

By the end of this class students should be able to:

  1. Explain that digital systems are made of components which are connected together to solve problems.

  2. Understand that components are of different qualities and maturities, and that governments and public servants have to make choices about which ones to deploy.

  3. Outline a vision of Government as a platform.

How this class relates to the Digital Era Competencies

💡 This class relates most closely to our Digital Era Competency Number 8: "Understands the current and evolving affordances of digital technologies and can assess how they can be used to improve public outcomes".

Assigned Reading

Optional Reading

Pre-class Assignment

Students are asked to consider the following question: "How would you explain to a colleague how Coronavirus tracking apps actually work?"

Detailed Class Breakdown

Class plan: 90 minutes

The sections below describe the dynamics of each part of the class:

Introduction & warm up - 15'

Ines welcomes in her students and gets everyone warmed up by asking students to review the take aways from the previous session.

Discussion: How do you think the coronavirus tracking apps work? - 45'

After explaining that any software engineers in the class shouldn't dominate the conversation. the class is asked to lay out as clear as it can how the current wave of coronavirus tracking apps work. As the class unpacksand maps the flow of information, Ines challenges them to think about the technical components that enable and allow this functionality to take place, from smartphone sensors to encryption software.

Lecture: The most common technology components found in government digital systems - 20m

In a lecture Ines lays out some of the most common components found within the digital services and systems most widely deployed by governments. This includes Content Management Systems (CMS), Casework Systems (CRM), notification systems, databases and Analytics tools, as well as hardware like mobile phones and servers. Ines will show in a simplified way how an ordinary government service (such as booking a doctor's appointment), might use several of these components connected together.

Conversation: Components within a smartphone - 10'

In this exercise students are encouraged to consider the many different components that make their phones work, from wireless antennas to accelerometers. As well as encouraging students to name more and more components in their phone, stimulate a debate about whether all the components are equally good or effective.

In the final few minutes Ines covers the requirements for the course, answers and open questions from the students, and assigns work for week 3.

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If you are using any of our syllabus materials, please credit us on your course website using the following text:

We are proud to use the Teaching Public Service in the Digital Age syllabus in our curriculum and teaching. Developed by an international community of more than 20 professors and practitioners, the syllabus is available open-source and free at www.teachingpublicservice.digital

Why was this page created?

This teaching material forms part of the Teaching Public Service in the Digital Age project. Read more about it here.

Acknowledgements

David Eaves would like to note that this material was made possible by numerous practitioners and other faculty who have generously shared stories, pedagogy and their practices. David is also grateful to the students of DPI 662 at the Harvard Kennedy School for enriching the course and providing consent to have the material and questions shared. Finally, an enormous thank you must be given to Beatriz Vasconcellos, who helped assemble and organize the content on this page.