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Please note that our syllabus has now moved and can be found on our website here:

https://www.teachingpublicservice.digital/en/syllabus-index

This page is no longer being maintained.

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<aside> 💡 See other units in the syllabus

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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 4 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 it is helpful to see how professors in different contexts teach the same concepts, so to see a class breakdown from the US see here, and to see one from Brazil 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 4 of our syllabus.

Class Overview

This class section introduces students to the concept of human-centric design both as a new work practice as well as a general attitude toward inclusion of all users in the digital service design process. In order to make the content relevant to public administration students, the class starts with a review how public administrators have been using design approaches in the past and what the design elements are that are usually designed by them. The students then learn about human-centric design as a concepts, its values and methods. This approach is contrasted to existing approaches and experiences the students have when they interact with public administrations - they derive the administrative burdens they have encountered themselves. They subsequently apply these methods to an administrative process that they know (applying for financial aid/student loans) and develop a prototype of a user-oriented process (on paper).

This Class' Learning Objectives

<aside> 📖 By the end of this class students should be able to:

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How this class relates to the Digital Era Competencies

<aside> 💡 This class has a specific focus on **Competency 1 - Users.** See all eight competencies here.

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Assigned Reading