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<aside> 💡 See other units in the syllabus
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This is a detailed breakdown of how David Eaves, a Lecturer at the University College London's Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (UCL IIPP), teaches the contents of Unit 4 of the open access syllabus developed by Teaching Public Service in the Digital Age. Read how part one of Unit 4 is taught here.
It is the first in a series of twenty-five classes that David developed originally for the Harvard Kennedy School's master and executive education programs, where he taught for eight years, and are now taught at UCL's master and applied learning programs.
We believe presenting diverse ways to teach the syllabus will help others adopt and teach the material in various contexts. See here how Konstanz University's Prof Ines Mergel teaches the same unit.
This page was developed for university faculty who teach public administrators or master's levels students in public policy and public administration. This material may also be suitable for teaching to upper year undergraduates.
Understanding citizens and designing effective services have always been helpful skill for public servants. In a digital era, as services move online and are freed of the constraints of paper public servants risk being more removed and distant from those they serve. As a result administrators must be still more skilled and disciplined about how they enable citizens to interact with digital era government services to, for example, prevent citizens from being overloaded with information or disinformation.
One way digital era organizations have tackled this problem, is to codify these competencies in new roles. Thus, traditional roles like project managers, who ensure projects are completed, are complimented by product managers, who seek to ensure the product or service can be easily used by citizens. This focus on citizens' experiences - elements of which make up the discipline of human centered design - should be understood and adopted by public administrators.
This class explores key design thinking concepts and discusses why good public service design matters. The readings and a pre-class exercise prompt students to use the Value Proposition chart, pushing them to reflect on the main benefits, challenges and practical implications of design thinking and user centered approaches.
<aside> 📖 By the end of this class students should be able to:
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<aside> 💡 This class has a specific focus on **Competency 1 - Users.** See all eight competencies here.
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As they work through the readings in advance, students should have in mind the following questions to help them prepare for class: