The project “E-Government 2.0 in practice” aims at developing innovative and interdisciplinary teaching curricula in the area of e-Government, offering a new quality of university education as regards the content provided (fostering the ICT application in administration, e-participation, etc) and educational tools applied. The implementation of e-Government solutions constitutes a priority in the EU members states. When compared to other EU countries, Poland places itself in an extremely unfavourable position. Low social participation is accompanied by deficits in the sphere of e-Government. Although great endeavours have been made over the last 10 years to implement change, the lack of systems approach and existing barriers in the area seem to prevail, one of them being a deficit of specialists with practical experience and adequate knowledge of potential solutions. The situation becomes even worse as there seem to be no relevant curricula provided by universities that would be practically-oriented and that would use effective teaching methods like workshops, simulations, etc. The project proposed by the consortium has been conceived to fill in this gap and contribute to the increase of knowledge and skills related to e-Government among project participants, young people in particular. By offering a free access to a new IT application, the project will provide the grounds for practical implementation of e-Government solutions. The project will pool together experts (including scientists) specializing in e-Government, civic engagement, research methodology (min. 15 people), specialists in IT implementation and social media (min. 5 people). Dissemination activities will encompass representatives of higher education institutions, mass media, central and regional administration and NGOs including c. 30 seminar and 50 conference participants. The scheduled summer program will bring together around 20 WSE and TUoT students. Given the open access to project educational resources the project will target around 450 entities. Within the project, a knowledge base on existing e-Government solutions and initiatives will be created (an international perspective will be taken into account). The base will take a form of an online catalogue and will include resources developed through the analysis of strategic documents, outcomes of research projects and evaluation of selected e-Gov 1.0 and e-Gov 2.0 implementations. A teaching methodology for e-Government 2.0 will be developed. Subsequently curricula along with related courses (and syllabi) will be prepared. To complement new curricula, a set of didactic tools will be developed including a casebook – a publication collecting model applications in e-Government, 8 e-learning courses, 8 video tutorials, 8 multimedia lectures, 8 presentations, 8 podcasts. A new IT application will be created and put into use – it will provide a role of a simulation platform and serve as an e-Government 2.0 virtual laboratory. Through the application students will be able to participate in online workshops simulating social consultation, crowdsourcing and citizenship audit processes and get involved in simulation games. Throughout the project phases different methodology will be applied including the analysis of source materials, desk research, case study and best practice development. Programming (technical works) will build upon GNU GPL or BSD, PHP, JavaScript, Action Script, MySQL. The project implementation will involve structuring and grouping project activities into relevant phases, each of them delivering a verified milestone. All project results including the IT application will be developed in Polish and in English and will be made accessible as Open Educational Resources, thus expanding the impact of project activities and the use of its effects. Project activities will be supplemented with a seminar summing up the research and analysis phase, a conference summarizing the project and promoting its results and “E-Government Academy” – an intensive summer program delivered in a blended-learning formulae. As a result of the project a new specialization in e-Government will be introduced on a Masters’ s and a postgraduate level by WSE. The new curricula, teaching methods and didactic tools will be disseminated among other universities in Poland and abroad. Practically-oriented study programs in e-Government will contribute to competence development of university alumnae – future public administration staff. The IT tool will be used both in education (e.g. in simulations) and in daily work of public administration bodies and NGOs. The project will provide solid grounds for strengthening international cooperation and exchange of experience in e-Gov 2.0 between Polish, British and Estonian organizations.
The project "E-Government 2.0 in practice" is an innovative project implemented under the Erasmus+ Higher education (Action 2 Strategic partnerships) between 01.09.2014 and 31.08.2016 with a value of 220 432,00 Euro. The objective of the project "E-Gov 2.0" was to create an innovative, interdisciplinary education program in the area of E-Gov, which is a new quality in higher education, both at the level of curricula (the use of ICT by the administration, e-participation, etc.), as well as the educational tools. Both the interdisciplinary education programme as well as educational tools, created as part of the project, are expected to change the approach to teaching the subject of e-administration at many Polish universities, support good practices exchange between the universities, as well as contact and cooperation between students from different countries, creating working groups as part of practicals conducted during studies. In the future, it is to result in the creation of new staff for the public administration prepared to use the E-Gov tools in practice. The project has been implemented jointly by four organizations: the leader was Tischner European University in Kraków (TEU), and the partners were Foundation Aurea Libertas Institute (FALI; specializes in participatory audit as well as issues connected with the use of modern technology in administration), Tallinn University of Technology (TUoT; one of the best technical universities, a leader involved in the area of e-Governance for 10 years, has been implementing projects in the field of e-government for the government, including a centralized system for document and data management, as well as government portal offering e-services to citizens), as well as an IT company Friendly Social LTD. (FS; specializing in the implementation of IT applications).The project included implementation of the following actions: The first result (O1) has been developed: a knowledge base concerning functioning solutions/initiatives in the area of E-gov 2.0 and planned actions in this respect in selected countries, as well as at the EU level, implementation programmes, good practices etc. A seminar was organized, summarizing the stage of research and analyses in the project (E1).The second outcome has been developed (O2): methodological guidelines for effective teaching applications e-Government 2.0, which in practice translated into creating a product: E-government 2.0 education in practice. A good teacher’s handbook. The third outcome has been developed (O3): 4 education programmes: a specialisation module in the second cycle full-time/part-time studies (200h), postgraduate studies, courses feasible for execution as a training or as a supplementary component of other academic curricula (three versions: 16h, 24h and 48h), as well as student summer school (14 days) The fourth outcome has been developed (O4): education materials: Casebook – E-government 2.0 case studies, educational resources online and knowledge tests.The fifth outcome has been developed (O5): Software – web application, which simulates the processes in the area of e-Government 2.0 / Policy Making 2.0.A conference has been organized summarizing the project and promoting its results (E2).A Summer School (C1) has been organized at the university of the Partner in Tallin, that was attended by Polish and Estonian students.Three international project meetings (M1, M2, M3) have been organized.The results of the project are: the increase the level of expertise in the area of e-government 2.0 in Poland by the most recent knowledge among people interested in the subject; creating sustainable foundations for international cooperation and experience exchange in the area of e-government 2.0 implementation, as well as further cooperation between partners implementing the project; Introduction of the E-Government – Management in the public administration major to the study offer of postgraduate studies, introduction of the Communication and modern technologies in the public sector major to the study offer of second cycle studies at the faculty of English Philology; free of charge as well as on based on the Open Educational Resources, sharing it with non-governmental organizations, employees of administration, graduates of courses, as well as all persons interested in the area of e-gov 2.0 computer tools developed as part of the project, including the possibility of using the tools at their professional work (connected with the public administration or in companies working for the public administration). All the results of the project have been prepared in Polish and English, and made available as Open Educational Resources, which extends the reach of the projects and the use of its results.The long-term benefits of the project are: establishing a strong partnership among organizations implementing/involved in the project; developing and disseminating ‘E-gov 2.0' on a large scale, along with all materials.