Transformations in e-government studies in light of the Bologna system

TRANSFORMATIONS IN E-GOVERNMENT STUDIES
IN LIGHT OF THE BOLOGNA SYSTEM:
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC MANAGEMENT AND URBAN STUDIES
CORVINUS UNIVERSITY, BUDAPEST


The following is a short description of how e-government has emerged as a course of study, and how the educational profile of the Department of Public Management and Urban Studies has become more sophisticated by integrating e-government research and the Bologna guidelines into its courses. Teaching in this subject area has developed dynamically in the six years since its introduction in Hungary.

The Early Years
Originally, the Department focused on two main areas: organizational studies/public management, and urban studies. However, the subject of „e-public management,” originally considered just a methodological tool of applied technology, soon grew into its own, and the department shifted its research focus to this subject.
This shift was further encouraged by professionals in public management, who frequently turned to the university for related research materials and for training in the subject. Consequently, in the framework of a PHARE project, in 2002 the department wrote the first manual to introduce e-public management (as it stood then) in Hungary.
This successful experiment in continuing education inspired the department to offer e-government courses to its regularly enrolled and corresponding students – at present, these are elective, lecture-based courses.

Further Developments
To carry out e-public management research, the E-Government Foundation was created alongside the Department, which also assisted the Department’s teaching activities. In 2004, the Foundation started the E-Government Studies series of training materials, with each volume dedicated to a particular facet of e-public management. The volumes in this series, used both as textbooks and as professional literature, enabled the Department to rapidly expand its offerings to include the following courses in e-public management:
- Portals in Public Management: This subject introduces the use of the internet – the „classic” and most important basic infrastructure – in public administration. The course discusses back-office and front-office content, portal design, and the content and function of public management home pages; and ends with an overview of systematic evaluation of portals. 
- E-Municipal Management: The first half of this course deals with applications of communications and data management tools in managing local government. The second half addresses the effect of ICT developments on local administration.
- Regional E-Government – Regional Management: This subject discusses the concept of micro-regions – the varying types of micro-regions, the structure of a micro-region, its institutions and tasks. The course addresses the role of non-governmental organizations in local government, and how micro-regional associations function. E-government can be a cohesive force for these micro-regions; the course introduces the XR system using the example of offices of public records.
- IT systems in public management: This course provides an overview of solutions developed by Siemens, the largest European supplier and developer of e-government applications. By concentrating on systems used by offices of public records, the course provides an introduction to e-government. It gives separate treatment to official communications, data security, and the issue of electronic collaboration between government offices and businesses. After presenting e-systems for economic management, the course ends with a detailed introduction to the potential for quality enhancement by using electronic solutions in health care. 
- Legal Aspects of Electronic Government: This course provides a detailed overview and summary of „legal history”, the evolution of the legal framework of e-public administration during the periods from 1993-1999, 1999-2004, and the period since 2005. It analyzes and evaluates existing e-government strategies and programs. The course gives special emphasis to the laws and regulations that provide the basis for e-government operations.
- Knowledge Management: Through an overview of international standards and the current situation in Hungary, this course explores the significance of knowledge management to organizational competitiveness. It examines how knowledge management differs from other management theories and why it is especially important in public management. It also examines the relationship between knowledge management and the definition of an organizational strategy. 
Two other branches of e-public management – mobile technology applications and the potential of digital TV („T-public management”) – have been considered distinct research subjects for years, and the available research and information on these subjects represents an ever-growing body of knowledge.
Thus, in 2005, Hungary was the world’s first country to begin teaching M-government as a course of study, whose express goal is to present information on available cutting-edge technologies, and how the introduction of related standards can speed official transactions. This course of study also introduces the available technologies for mobile government and concrete situations in which these technologies can be fruitfully applied. 

Preparing the Graduate Program
At around this time, the Bologna process  provided a framework for transforming the higher education model. This also presented a fortuitous opportunity to add the more important parts of the e-government materials to the curriculum. Thus, e-government – earlier an elective – became an accredited required course for the B.S. degree, taught during the second semester of the Public Administration Management course. The follow-up course, called „M-government – Organizational management using Mobile technology”, became a required course of the Master’s program.

New Directions in the Human Resources Operative Program
The Human Resources Operative Program , created to support the goals of the Bologna process, put together six practice-oriented courses which today are electives in the B.S. program:
- Central Information Systems of State Administration: This course reviews the most comprehensive state administrative information systems used in Hungary. 
- Electronic Media and Public Service: This course focuses on Digital Television (DiTV). It introduces DiTV as a tool for forging a new type of relationship between the state and the citizen, a relationship which is interactive and participatory, which provides cost-effective, rapid and customer-oriented services, and which can potentially create new, innovative spheres of public interaction. This course also considers the potential of DiTV to boost civic activity and political participation.
- Location-based Technologies and Services in Public Administration. This course introduces ways of providing content and services that are location-specific. Since these technologies can be centralized, they provide economies of scale, and are able to make use of location-based information and data. 
- Satellite Imagery in Regional Planning: Students will learn about satellite images and how they can be used for practical applications – primarily for regional and land-use planning. This course gives (future) local government officials an overview of the types of geographical IT programs available, and which applications can be used to improve problem-solving and service delivery. 
- Tele-house, Online Communities and Public Service Delivery: This course discusses the legal, organizational, operational, personnel, cultural, management, and internal regulatory requirements for creating a universal system to encompass all of the multi-faceted relationships between public administration and its clients. The course touches on some theoretical bases, but concentrates mostly on methodologies and practices, with special emphasis on the Tele-house movement as an example of a specialized civic network. 
- 3D Information Systems for Municipalities: Up to 85 percent of information used in local public administration is geography-based information; thus, understanding 3D applications is essential for public officials. This course provides an application-oriented introduction to this subject in a way that is understandable to non-techies. 
Trial versions of these courses were successfully taught during the past academic year. All of them aim to bring the undergraduate program content into line with similar public administration bachelor’s degree courses in other EU member states, to improve competitiveness in public administration, and to stress the new directions in e-public administration. 

Master’s Course in E-Public Administration
The broad range of subject matter introduced in the programs outlined above, the lack of offerings appropriate for professional continuing education, and the existence of relevant best practices in other countries (such as Estonia’s eGovernance Academy ) led the Department’s leaders  to begin preparing and later accrediting a course of study leading to a Master’s degree. This program is based on the courses that earlier were electives in the undergraduate course, but which now cover a wider range of themes and are required for the Master’s degree.
The transformation of courses in e-public administration is an ongoing process. E-public administration and related disciplines are important emerging topics in public administration modernization: in addition to bringing the existing subject matter up to date, new courses are being developed to enrich the palate of available electives.
Several other colleges have adopted our department’s teaching materials and course outlines, and recommend them both for introductory courses (University of Debrecen ) and for graduate courses (University of Pécs ). Thus, it appears that the teaching of these subjects in Hungary is complying (at least in theory) with the principle of the Bologna process which recommends that courses be transferable among different institutions.

Budapest, November 9, 2007

Budai Balázs Benjámin
E-Government, Alapitvány