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PA 543 Syllabus

E-Government


Fall 2005
Time: Wednesdays, 6:00 - 8:50
Location: POE 724 (not CA G106 as in TRACS)
Midterm: No meeting Wednesday, October 5. Paper in lieu of midterm. See below.
Final exam: Wednesday, December 7

Office hours by appointment.

PA 543 is a graduate-level course introducing policy and management issues specific to e-governance, offered by the Public Administration Program at NCSU. The course seeks to introduce students to topics salient to effective governmental adoption and implementation of initiatives mediated by the Internet, including e-procurement, e-licensing, online citizen access to governmental databases, and e-democracy initiatives, both in terms of prerequisites to successful implementation and in terms of organizational and social impacts of these initiatives. Core questions addressed in the course include what government functions are best implemented through e-government methods, how e-government initiatives may be evaluated to assess effectiveness, what exemplary practices might improve e-government effectiveness, what the sociopolitical implications of e-governance are, and how the training of public administrators must change given new roles emerging due to the rise of digital governance.

The course is organized around six course objectives:

  1. Students will be able to summarize and critique utopian and dystopian visions of e-governance
  2. Students will be able to summarize issues and policies pertaining to e-democracy and the US and global digital divide
  3. Students will be able to articulate the e-government business model and summarize pertinent e-government history and legislation
  4. Students will be able to summarize issues and policies pertaining to citizen access and governmental e-services
  5. Students will be able to summarize issues and policies pertaining to other e-government issues, including e-procurement, e-licensing, regulating and taxing e-commerce, training for e-public service, and more
  6. Students will be able to articulate and defend principles of government website design and assessment

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/pa543/, the instructor will be updating these materials as the course progresses. Reading assignments for the current week and the following week will remain as on the "Assignments" pages or the website, but readings for weeks later on in the course may be updated, though much will remain the same. Likewise, 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 begin; 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

Note: You are also to do one additional reading of your own choosing on the weekly topic (not counting Week 1, midterm week, and the speaker week), and come prepared to use it to make a discussion contribution in class. You may use sources on the class links page, the online readings page, the class bibliography page, or another source of your own choosing, perhaps using the NCSU Libraries Database Finder for journal literature. You should bring a handout for all members of the class, and the handout should include full bibliographic citation and where possible, the web address.

Bibliography. 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. A non-comprehensive, selected reading list is available on the bibliography page.

Grading. The grade is based on a presentation and class participation/attendance (30%), 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. The midterm paper and presentation topics may overlap if you wish.

Midterm paper assignment: In lieu of a midterm, a paper is due on the scheduled date of the midterm. There is no class meeting on this date. Your paper should be turned in in electronic format (Word .doc file, WordPerfect .wpd file, or generic .rtf Rich Text File) as a word processor attachment sent to david_garson@ncsu.edu. Please include on the cover page a statement whether you do or do not place your paper in the public domain, allowing it possibly to be used for educational purposes, including possibly being placed online. This statement will not affect your grade and is not an assurance that your paper will be used later on.

The midterm paper assignment is to do one of the following. Please note you may use all course topics, from before or after the midterm date.

  1. 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).

  2. Study the instruments mentioned in the course section on web evaluation, then compose your own survey instrument and interview the person most responsible for the web page of some public sector or non-profit sector organization, agency, or jurisdiction. Determine your evaluative criteria for e-government in advance. Write up the results of your interview and your evaluation of the web presence you have studied, writing in the style of a consultant engaged in constructive recommendations.

  3. Or you may simply write a research-based essay on a topic within any one of the weekly course topics.

Incompletes are not accepted except for medical reasons. Late assignments are down-graded. Assignments not turned in by the last day of class, or presentations missed, are graded zero for that grade component. Makeup work, if any, must be arranged within two weeks of due date at the option of the instructor, prior to two weeks before the end of classes.

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.

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. Students found guilty of academic misconduct will at a minimum receive 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.