Guest Editors:

Erna Ruijer - Assistant Professor, Utrecht University School of Governance

Veiko Lember - Professor, Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance, Tallinn University of Technology

Summary

The challenges and opportunities associated with digital transformation are high on public sector and research agendas. Increasingly, the importance of digital competencies - broadly defined as knowledge, skills, traits, and motives to cope with the digitalization and datafication of society and governmental organizations (Dingelstad et al 2022), are emphasized. Yet what capacities and competencies this requires of public officials and citizens, and how this is currently part of the public policy and administration curricula is currently underexposed. Scholars in public policy and administration tend to research digital governance as a service, but teaching digital governance is also about realizing and coping with the digital transformation, both within the public sector and society (Kattel and Mergel 2019).

For the special issue, we are therefore interested in contributions that focus on Teaching Digital Governance. We are interested in studies that discuss questions such as: what capacities and competencies do public managers, policy makers and public leaders need in order to manage and implement digital technologies and services in their organizations? What data knowledge and skills do civil servants and other public officials need in order to design inclusive policies in the digital era? What should current and future policy makers know about digitalization and other grand societal challenges, such as climate change (see for example Creutzig et al. 2022). What topics, knowledge and skills do we therefore have to teach students of public administration and management? And, in which (innovative) ways (see for example Ziewitz 2017)?

Furthermore, digital governance also requires competencies from citizens who require services from government, use data for citizen actions or engage in digital democracy. We are therefore also interested in studies that focus on the competencies citizens need to use e-government services and in how to educate and prepare citizens for the interaction with digital interfaces (Giest & Samuels, 2023). Also, what digital skills do citizens need to co-create public policies and services? Relevant topics in this regard are for example digital inclusion, digital participation, and digital and data literacy.

Finally, it can also be observed that digital developments in society, such the use of ChatGPT (Baidoo-Anu & Ansah, 2023) may lead to new questions for teachers and educators in governance, public policy and public administration. Questions such as: How should Large Language Models, and other AI-tools, be incorporated in public policy and administration education? How does this transform the provision of education? What knowledge and skills does this require from educators who teach public policy and administration to students?

We are interested in theoretical and empirical studies that focus on teaching digital governance. The contributions selected for this Special Issue contribute to knowledge in the areas of digital capacities and skills, digital inclusion, digital transformation, public policy, governance, and public administration. Articles should be approximately 8,000 words in length.  For this Special Issue we are also open to other formats, such as, shorter papers that present cases and specific teaching methods. Do not hesitate to contact the Special Issue editors if you have an idea for a novel contribution.

Scope of the Special Issue

The Special Issue will explore teaching digital governance. We invite researchers to submit abstracts for theoretical, empirical and critical oriented papers that address aspects of teaching digital governance such as methods and examples from interdisciplinary perspectives.

Topics covered by the Special Issue may include, but are not limited to:

• State-of-the-art academic thinking about Teaching Digital Governance;
• Theoretical and empirical analyses of approaches to teaching digital governance;
• Case studies or examples of innovative teaching methods in relation to digital governance;
• Theoretical and practical explorations of the teaching digital governance and in particular the digital capacities and skills needed in public organizations;
• Mechanisms and measures for evaluating digital skills and teaching digital governance;
• Approaches to advance critical thinking skills among public administration students (e.g., history of technology, critique of technology, ecological sustainability of digitalization, post-digitalization); and
• Empirical evidence on the nature and direction of the demand for digital governance skills and competences.

Acknowledgement

The special issue is supported by the ‘Public Administration Capabilities for Digital and Sustainable Transition’ (PADST) project, funded by the European Union (grant agreement ID: 101079227). See more at https://padst.eu.

Timeline

Important dates for the publication of this special issue are as follows:

• February 1, 2024: Call for abstracts published.
• April 1, 2024: Deadline for abstract submission
• April 15, 2024: Notification for invitation to submit full manuscript
• September 16, 2024: Deadline for submission of full manuscript
• Oct-March, 2025: Review process
• April 1, 2025: Final decision on manuscripts
• Anticipated publication:  Summer/Fall, 2025.

Further information about the Call for Papers can be found here.

Abstracts should initially be sent to h.j.m.ruijer@uu.nl by April 1, 2024. Abstracts should be up to 750 words and include the names of all authors and their institutional affiliations.

Abstracts will be reviewed by the Guest Editors of the Special Issue. This review will focus on the fit with the special issue theme, feasibility and potential contribution to knowledge. The authors of accepted abstracts will be invited to submit full manuscripts. Full manuscripts will be double-blind peer reviewed. Please note that initial acceptance of an abstract does not guarantee acceptance and publication of the final manuscript.

Final manuscripts must be submitted directly through IP’s submission system and needs to adhere to the journals submission guidelines:

informationpolity.com/guidelines

About Information Polity

Information Polity is a tangible expression of the increasing awareness that Information and Communication technologies (ICTs) have become of deep significance for all polities as new technology-enabled forms of government, governing and democratic practice are sought or experienced throughout the world. This journal positions itself in these contexts, seeking to be at the forefront of thought leadership and debate about emerging issues, impact, and implications of government and democracy in the information age.

More information: http://informationpolity.com

Author Instructions

Instructions for authors for manuscript format and citation requirements can be found at:

https://informationpolity.com/guidelines

Special Issue Guest Editors

Erna Ruijer, PhD, is Assistant Professor at Utrecht University School of Governance, The Netherlands (h.j.m.ruijer@uu.nl)

Veiko Lember, PhD, is Senior Research Fellow in Public Management and Policy at Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia; and Visiting Professor at Public Governance Institute, KU Leuven, Belgium.

Information Polity Editors-in-Chief

Professor Albert Meijer, Utrecht University

Professor William Webster, University of Stirling

References

Baidoo-Anu, D., & Ansah, L. O. (2023). Education in the era of generative artificial intelligence (AI): Understanding the potential benefits of ChatGPT in promoting teaching and learning. Journal of AI, 7(1), 52-62.

Creutzig, F., Acemoglu, D., Bai, X., Edwards, P.N., Hintz, M.J., Kaack, L.H., Kilkis, S., Kunkel, S., Luers, A., Milojevic-Dupont, N. and Rejeski, D., 2022. Digitalization and the Anthropocene. Annual Review of Environment and Resources, 47, 479-509.

Dingelstad, J., Borst, R. T., & Meijer, A. (2022). Hybrid Data Competencies for Municipal Civil Servants: An Empirical Analysis of the Required Competencies for Data-Driven Decision-Making. Public Personnel Management, 51(4), 458-490.

Giest, S., & Samuels, A. (2023). Administrative burden in digital public service delivery: The social infrastructure of library programs for e‐inclusion. Review of Policy Research, 40(5), 626-645.

Kattel, R., & Mergel, I. (2019). Estonia's digital transformation: Mission mystique and the hiding hand. In: Compton, M.E. and ‘T Hart, P. (eds.) Great Policy Successes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 143-160.

Ziewitz, M. (2017). A not quite random walk: Experimenting with the ethnomethods of the algorithm. Big Data & Society, 4(2), 2053951717738105.