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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 7 of the open access syllabus developed by Teaching Public Service in the Digital Age. Read how part two of Unit 7 is taught here.
This page is part of 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.
<aside> 🚨 This class is more lecture than discussion format than many of David's other classes. The class outline below will reflect this fact and so may read differently that previous course outlines.
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As previously discussed in Units 2 and 5, data is the memory of government. Data is how governments track and manage assets over time and remember to whom and when it should deliver many modern day services. Traditionally this data has been closely held by governments, hard to access not only by the public but even by public servants in other parts of the same government. Over the past two decades the idea that government data is, in of itself, a public good has been ascendant. This idea holds that some, or even a great deal of government data should be made available to the public openly and freely in support of institutional transparency and public and private sector innovation.
In this class students will be introduced to the idea of open government data. What is it? And why has it - as an idea - spread so widely? In addition, students will explore why local and national governments have open data portals and open data strategies. The discussion will also seek to engage in the institutional barriers to making data open and discuss what policy goals open government data supports and hinders. Finally, the class will also walk through frameworks for thinking about where and how has open data had an impact. These are the issues this first class on "Openness" will tackle. The subsequent class will explore two different domains: open source and working in the open.
<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 6 - Openness.** 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: