PA 542 Syllabus

Public Information Technology

Prof. G. David Garson
NCSU Box 8102
Raleigh, NC 27695-8102


Tel. 919-515-3067
Fax: 919-515-7333 E-mail: David_Garson@ncsu.edu
Office location: Winston 022
Mailbox location: 212 Caldwell

PA 542 is a graduate-level course introducing policy and management issues in information technology, offered by the Public Administration Program at NCSU, focusing on but not limited to the public sector. Topics focus on prerequisites to successful implementation of government information technology initiatives, and also on organizational and social impacts of these initiatives: the causes of IT failures, IT success factors, needs assessment, portfolio management, project management, strategic planning, regulatory issues, access issues, privacy issues, security issues, privacy issues, and IT-related theories of organizational behavior and organizational change. Core questions addressed in the course include what information should be made available, how privacy and secrecy protections may be balanced against access rights and needs, what exemplary practices might improve governmental IT effectiveness, and education for the public service's new role in an information society.

Course content is organized around six course objectives:

1. Students will be able to summarize the literature on success factors in implementing public information technology projects, including lessons from failed systems
2. Students will be able to summarize issues and policies pertaining to managing public information technology, including needs assessment, contract management, project management, liability and risk management, and strategic planning
3. Students will be able to outline public information technology history and legislation, and discuss illustrative cases involving coordination and data sharing, regulation of the Internet and of the IT sector
4. Students will be able to summarize issues and policies pertaining to privacy, security, and intellectual property issues
5. Students will be able to relate the foregoing five content areas to social and organization theory, including research on IT organizational behavior in the public sector

Keeping Current. While the instructor has tried to be helpful by placing as much as possible online at the class website, http://www2.chass.ncsu.edu/garson/pa542, the instructor will be updating these materials as the course progresses. If you printed this syllabus prior to the first day of the course, it is not official: go back and reprint the syllabus, which might also have updates.

Class Discussion/Message List. You will be added to the class list by the instructor if you are listed by the Registrar by a few days before classes beging; otherwise you must join the class list. This online mailing list will be the only method apart from in-class announcements of communicating with you regarding possible changes in assignments, cancellations of classes, or other critical information. Such announcements are more timely than and supersede "weekly assignments" posted on the web. You may also use the list to pose questions to fellow students, solicit collaboration, or otherwise extend class participation beyond the actual meeting dates. Click here for more information.

Textbooks

• Garson, G. David (2006). Public Information Technology and E-Governance: Managing the Virtual State. Boston: Jones & Bartlett. ISBN: 978-1-59140-808-6. (Chapters in this text not assigned in this course are assigned in PA 543). An e-book version is also available from the publisher.
• Rocheleau, Bruce (2006).Public Management Information Systems. Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishers. ISBN 1591408091.
• See the assignments page.

Note: You are also to do one additional reading of your own choosing on the weekly topic, and come prepared to use it to make a discussion contribution in class, with handouts. You may use sources on the class links page or another source of your own choosing, perhaps using the NCSU Libraries Database Finder for journal literature. If you are concentrating in public information technology, you should be concerned with mastering the literature of the field. This goes well beyond textbooks and readings assigned in this course.

Grading. The grade is based on class participation/attendance (10%), a class presentation (20%), a midterm paper (30%), and a final examination (40%),. Presentations should correspond to a weekly topic. It is your responsibility to inform the instructor in writing in advance which weekly topic you will be doing.

Class participation: Your handouts from the weekly readings you do will be counted for this component.

Midterm: In lieu of a midterm, there is a midterm paper. There will be no class meeting on this date unless the class opts to have a one-hour structured-question midterm test so as to spread out the the basis for the course grade. The midterm paper should be a standard course research paper on a topic related to this course. Normally it will be about 16-20 pp. in length, but length is not a grading criterion per se. Like all research papers, you should have properly formatted citations of your sources (any standard format is acceptable). Your paper may be but is not limited to one of the following types: (1) case study, based on archival, journalistic, and interview research; (2) empirical, analyzing a dataset bearing on information technology; (3) legal/institutional, examining the legislative history and outcomes of a piece of IT-related legislation; (4) theoretical (the most challenging type!), evaluating the thought of some leading analyst of things digital.

Oral presentation. During the week listed on the "Weekly Topics" page, each student will deliver an oral presentation to the class on a topic related to this course. Students should bring a handout but otherwise the presentations are not expected to be written.

Final exam. There is a conventional final exam, with both structured and essay questions.

Extra credit. Should you feel extra credit is needed to improve your grade, you may use any course topic to do one of the following:

1. Compose a model agency policy on privacy, security, access, strategic planning, project management, or any other course topic. The policy statement should have numbered paragraphs or points and should be followed by a "Discussion" section where policy choices, issues, and considerations of various paragraphs/points should be highlighted, writing from a public management point of view.

2. Write a short (ex., 8-10 pp.) case study which illustrates a major course topic. The case study should, of course, deal with a specific implementation attempt, agency, law, or directive. It is not a literature review. The case study must be organized using these section headings: Introduction (describe topic and its importance), Setting (describe agency and its environment), Problem (describe what was being done), Actors (describe who the main agencies and people were, and describe the predispositions of each), Decision Chronology (describe how the subject matter played out), Discussion (draw generalizations for public managers).

Grading standards: One can expect a "B" grade based on regular attendance and good work reflected in satisfactory completion of all assignments, including the presentation. "Good work" means your work reflects the ability to apply concepts in an organized way and to articulate related ideas at a pre-professional level. "A" grades reflect work which is superior, going beyond the norm with respect to the level of professionalism displayed. "C" grades reflect work at a fair level, displaying minimal command of course content and correct but deficient articulation of concepts central to the course. "D" grades reflect substandard work reflecting very limited ability to organize and articulate ideas related to the course and/or minimal effort on assignments. "F" grades reflect flagrant negelect of assignments and/or lack of command of course content.

Course Evaluations Course evaluations are now done online at http://classeval.ncsu.edu/. Help on course evaluations is by email at classeval@ncsu.edu..

Academic Integrity Statement

Please note the existence of the University policy on academic integrity found in the Code of Student Conduct (found in Appendix L of the Handbook for Advising and Teaching). Academic misconduct will not be tolerated in this class. Academic misconduct may be defined as "any activity which tends to compromise the academic integrity of the institution, or subvert the educational process". I expect complete honesty in the completion of tests and assignments. It is my understanding that the student's signature on any test or assignment means that the student neither gave nor received unauthorized aid. Beyond cheating on quizzes or exams, academic misconduct also includes the submission of plagiarized work for an academic requirement. Plagiarism is "the representation of another's works or ideas as one's own; it includes the unacknowledged word for word use and/or paraphrasing of another person's work, and/or the inappropriate unacknowledged use of another person's ideas". Thus each argument made in the research papers which is not completely the student's own, must be footnoted or otherwise referenced to indicate its source.

"Plagiarism, or presenting another's works or ideas as one's own, is a form of stealing. The instructor reserves the right to examine any source used by the student before giving a grade on a paper, and to give and "incomplete" in the course if necessary, to allow time to obtain sources. Students should be prepared to show source material to the instructor for the purpose of verifying information. Academic dishonesty will not be tolerated.

Academic dishonesty includes the following offenses:

1. Claiming as your own work a paper written by another student.
2. Turning in a paper that contains paraphrases of someone else's ideas but does not give proper credit to that person for those ideas.
3. Turning in a paper that is largely a restatement in your own words of a paper written by someone else, even if you give credit to that person for those ideas. The thesis and organizing principles of a paper must be your own.
4. Turning in a paper that uses the exact words of another author without using quotation marks, even if proper credit is given in a citation, or that changes the words only slightly and claims them to be paraphrases.
5. Turning in the same paper, even in a different version, for two different courses without the permission of both professors involved.
6. Using any external source (notes, books, other students, etc.) for assistance during an in-class exam, unless given permission to do so by the professor." ---- Source: Kendra Stewart et al., Columbia College

Further details on academic integrity are in NC State University's Code of Student Conduct (http://www.ncsu.edu/student_conduct).

The public administration faculty has agreed that violations of academic integrity must have consequences. Consequently, students who cheat (behaviors cited in point 1 and 6 or similar behavior) may receive at least an F in the course; other forms of dishonesty, similar to those covered in points 2 through 5 may result in at least a 0 for the assignment.

Statement Regarding Students with Disabilities

Every attempt is made in this course to conform to university policy on disabilities, as described at http://www2.ncsu.edu/ncsu/provost/info/hat/current/appendix/appen_k.html. If you have disability-related needs, please inform the instructor of them immediately.