Technological innovation has dramatically increased the interconnected nature of our world; a vast array of services, from mobile telephony bank payments to Internet e-voting, is now proliferating across every continent and informs how we communicate with one another, with business and with governments everyday. E-services are specifically defined as “deeds, efforts or performances whose delivery is mediated by information technology including the web, information kiosks and mobile devices” (Rowley).
For government, the possibilities to demonstrate a more immediate service delivery and transparent citizen engagement capability is being reflected in a variety of ongoing initiatives, from the US Administration’s Enhancing Citizen Participation, Singapore’s eCitizen service and the UK’s own T-Government third phase e-Government strategy, designed to ensure back office departmental processes are fully aligned to existing online (‘front-end’) services.
This two week course provides a contemporary principles and best practice assessment of e-services and e-governance from local, national and international perspectives. These will include direct experience from the innovative Web 2.0 – focused Obama administration, as well as current initiatives in the UK and elsewhere looking at a variety of schemes including participatory budgeting, online citizen focus groups, e-payment and e-registration, among others.
The course offers a tangible value-added focus on enhancing knowledge and skills to allow each participant to immediately start improving practices within their own organisation. Part of the transferable learning process will be supporting a development framework for each individual, ensuring that key issues in establishing and sustaining the delivery of e-services within their own local context are identified and workable solutions can be developed.