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UNDERSTANDING PROCESSES IN eGOVERNMENT : INTEGRATING HIGHER EDUCATION AND LIFELONG LEARNING IN AN INTERNATIONAL BLENDED LEARNING PROGRAM
| Content Provider | Semantic Scholar |
|---|---|
| Author | Gilge, Steffen Schoop, Eric Kriksciuniene, Dalia Breidung, Michael |
| Copyright Year | 2006 |
| Abstract | eGovernment seems to be a popular answer to the tough demands for change on the public administration of today. But eGovernment cannot be efficiently and effectively be integrated into the public institution, if there is no understanding of the underlying processes and the ways of enhancing them with modern Information and Communication Technologies. Hence, public administration institutions have a high demand for a sustainable qualification of current and future employees. This paper works out an eGovernment qualification program on the basis of a blended learning arrangement. It integrates four educational dimensions (intersectoral, interdisciplinary, international education and different learning arrangements) in a holistic approach and proposes a pattern based approach as a tool for the designer of a concrete qualification program. The overall concept presented here derives its basis from the empirical case-based research in the EU TEMPUS TACIS SCM project IQeG – Integrative Qualification in eGovernment (No. SCM-T037A05-2005). The findings show, that it is possible to implement an integrative eGovernment qualification program in the near future by using the courses designed as additional courses in present higher education institutions. Nevertheless it should be possible to further enhance the concept and build up an international eGovernment executive master program building upon the results of this paper. 1. Motivation and Objectives The professionalization of administrational structures and processes is a quest pursued by many public institutions in the western and eastern hemisphere. Public administrations on the local, intermediary and governmental level need to become more efficient and effective, since they are all facing a situation best to be described as a trilemma: 1) Effects of globalization both on society and on company level demand new, flexible and transparent administrative processes and international awareness by the process owners; 2) Accompanying the generally decreasing employment numbers, the average age of staff is high with substantial amount of employees close to retirement, which demands fast solutions for tacit and explicit knowledge exchange and documentation; 3) The modern information and communication potentials related to Internet technology and the growing claims by digitally literate citizens demand new process skills and media competencies within administrations. eGovernment seems to be a popular answer to these problems among public administrations around the world. For the public administrations and their consultants this term refers to a set of actions determined to use modern Informationand Communication-Technologies (ICT) as a means to enhance processes of information, communication and transactions within the public institution as well as between the public administration and citizens (G2C), business companies (G2B) and other public institutions (G2G). Thereby eGovernment is building upon principles from the domain of eBusiness and uses and adopts experiences from that field. Especially the core subject of process management is particularly relevant for both domains, since the leverage effect of modern ICT can only be fully reaped when underlying organisational processes are documented, understood and properly coordinated with the organisation's IT strategy. Hence, for its sustainable introduction, eGovernment needs a broad offensive for public administrative process codification (to achieve a sustainable knowledge cycle), understanding (to develop a process management culture) and reengineering (to improve processes and adapt for eGovernment purposes). Additionally, the focus on process management in the domain of eGovernment seems to benefit the building of a professional, impartial and transparent public institution, being the general aim in the domain of public administration, since: • the codification of processes makes administrative rules and procedures transparent; • the permanent process quality control by process owners and independent assessors lays the ground for impartial decisions; • the deeply rooted process management thinking, accompanied by ongoing process improvements, creates a professional and stable functioning public administration. 1 Technische Universität Dresden, Department of Business Management and Economics, Chair of Business Informatics, esp. Information Management, D-01062 Dresden, Germany, {gilge| schoop}@wiim.wiwi.tudresden.de 2 Vilnius University, Kaunas Faculty of Humanities, Department of Informatics, LT–3000 Kaunas, Lithuania, dalia.kriksciuniene@vukhf.lt 3 Municipality of Dresden, IT-Service Division, D-01067 Dresden, Germany, MBreidung@dresden.de The question arising now is how to implement process management and the necessary underlying thinking in today's public administration organisation. For the authors this problem can only be tackled by creating the right mindset first and then establishing adequate methods and tools for the concrete implementation. Since this can only be reached by carefully designed and well-tutored, intentional learning actions of current and future public administration employees, a process oriented, integrative Blended Learning Program is presented in this paper. For the case of a modern eGovernment qualification program it is blending four dimensions intelligently into a holistic approach: • Intersectoral Dimension – Higher Education and Lifelong Learning are to be integrated; • Interdisciplinary Dimension – the domains of Public and Business Administration and (Business) Informatics are to be dealt with; • International Dimension – globalization demands an international approach to the topic; • Educational Dimension – different forms of learning arrangements have to be integrated. The empirical foundation for this approach has been derived from the project IQeG “Integrative Qualification in eGovernment”, a project funded by the European Union within the TEMPUS TACIS SCM framework (Funding No.: SM_SCM-T037A05-2005), where major ideas could be tested and enhanced by the discussion of partners from higher education institutions and public administration at the three sites St. Petersburg (Russian Federation), Kaunas (Lithuania) and Dresden (Germany) . These experiences are drawn out in the following chapter and consolidated in an eGovernment qualification program in chapter 3. 2. Experiences from the Project IQeG The project IQeG – Integrative Qualification in eGovernment (Duration: 2005/10/15 – 2006/10/14) is sponsored by the European Commission in the framework of the Trans-European Mobility Scheme for University Studies 2000-2006 (TEMPUS III) as a Structural Measures (SCM). The projects in this framework are intended to be short term interventions to tackle an identified problem in an EU partner country through the transfer of experiences from EU member countries. The rationale behind the project IQeG is to tackle the problems of Russia within the domain of eGovernment and address specified problems by intensive training of current and future public administration employees in order to compensate their initial lack of skills. When working out the project proposal it has been analysed that the solution of these problems cannot be implemented without the active involvement of higher education institutions, while merely few of them are currently ready to offer comprehensive educational programs on eGovernment, neither in further education nor on a higher education level. Hence, the integration of efforts and the exchange of best practices with specialists from the countries, which already went a few steps ahead on the way, would further facilitate the process of eGovernment education. Consequently, the project is aiming at the validation and export of existing didactical models and methods in case-based higher education in eGovernment from Technische Universität Dresden and Vilnius University, Kaunas Faculty to St. Petersburg State University. Through the project's work a lifelong learning concept in the field of eGovernment shall be designed and by this encourage the Bologna-Process in this subject. 2.1 eLearning and Virtual Collaborative Learning in the Project IQeG The validation and export of the existing didactical models during the IQeG project has been split into two phases. During the first phase the use of eLearning for teaching basic knowledge in the fields of eBusiness and eGovernment has been tested. For that, a joint course of the participating universities has purely been held in the virtual classroom using the eLearning experiences of the project partners, captured in a concept called VCL. VCL stands for Virtual Collaborative Learning and is defined as the learner-centred common solving of illstructured, academic tasks in self-organized small groups, in which learners are commonly responsible for the success of the entire group and in which the learners within the groups communicate with each other using modern ICT most of the time. The characteristics of the VCL concept can shortly be described as follows (cf. Schoop et al. 2005): • Heterogeneous groups (4-6 members) are formed, in which the students have to take over specific roles (project leader, researcher, writer, critic) and have to work collaboratively in a self-organized way; • Complex problems with open solutions, embedded into an authentic cover story and designed as a business case study, are given as assignments; • A VCL typically lasts about 3 weeks and demands a high weekly workload from students (on the average 10h per student and week; about 1 h per student and week for the coaching and assessing tutor); • The evaluation of students is based on a mixture of group achievement, individual communicative performance, role fulfilment and intra-group self-assessment; • Advanced information are provided for both students and tutors in forms of detailed guidelines, informing about the case, the roles, the tasks and the assessme |
| File Format | PDF HTM / HTML |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/NISPAcee/UNPAN027499.pdf |
| Alternate Webpage(s) | http://www.nispa.org/files/conferences/2006/papers/200604192202380.Gilge_Schoop_etal_NISPAcee.pdf |
| Language | English |
| Access Restriction | Open |
| Content Type | Text |
| Resource Type | Article |
