Understand how digital systems change the nature of administrative and governance processes ← stephen's idea

Concept 3- Traditional 'best practices' in public administration can be 'worst practices' in the delivery of digital era public services.

Traditional administrative best practices are built on reliability and replicability to ensure highest levels of accountability in government. In fast moving environments, such as the selection and implementation of new technologies, decision cannot be made for the next hundred years, but need to be adapted iteratively and in response to user needs. Similarly, administrative practices of decision making about buying choices or implementation steps need to evolve, while at the same time holding up administrative values and standards.

Overview of this week’s teaching

All technologies only matter because they enable people to do things that would otherwise be difficult or impossible. Since 1966 (Gibson) the ways in which technologies assist people to do things have been called 'Affordances'. For example the affordance of a space rocket might be to 'launch a satellite'.

Digital technologies have created a range of new affordances. A public servant who isn't familiar with key affordances won't be able to make good choices about how digital technologies should and should not be used. So in this week's teaching we will help you to teach the affordances that matter the most.

This Week's Learning Outcomes

By the end of this week students will be able to:

• Maturity. Evaluate whether a technology is relatively mature, or relatively immature
• Sustainability. Assess the skills and maintenance that is needed to successfully deployed a technology over time
• Solutionism: Understand what 'solutionism' is and why it is problematic
• Inclusivity: Recognise that services have to work for everyone, and understand that many vendors will not prioritise this.
• Open source & standards: Understand the critical problem of interoperability, and the danger of failing to use open standards to facilitate it.
• No neutrality: Understand that all tools embody values, and that there is no such thing as a 'neutral' tool
• Legacy: Understand the likely existence of legacy systems, and the difficulties that emerge from them.

Different Options for Teaching

There are several different ways that you can structure your teaching to cover the same learning outcomes.