I believe it is very important for government to adopt technological advances in order to improve their services. Specifically, the government should do a better job keeping up with implementation in the private sector. This is because peoples expectations will continue to increase as the private sector makes its services more convenient. I do not think it is unreasonable for people to have high expectations of government. While it is unlikely government will be able to provide the same level of service as the private sector, because it has many more considerations to take into account, it should strive to constantly innovate. It is important that people feel that the government is doing valuable work for them or it could have consequences for society. For example, voters may begin electing governments that cut services to lower taxes if people do not believe that government is providing them good value for their taxes. This may negatively impact vulnerable groups and result in an uneven distribution of services. As a result, I believe that the government needs to implement new technology to improve services and keep pace with the private sector as closely as reasonably possible, even if it means taking some risks. This, paired with transparency, should ensure public confidence in government and make people feel that their money is being well spent.

I was not able to attend the lecture for this module, but I can reflect on the course and my learning outcomes. Coming into the course, my understanding of digital governance was limited to government applying new technology to existing processes, such as digitizing paperwork and moving to online services. I found it valuable to understand digital governance not as just the application of technology, but the application of new processes. Specifically, design processes focusing on user-needs, with constant re-evaluation has given me a strong understanding of the importance of engaging with the users that will be actually using the service. It is clear that government needs to extensively consult with users before implementing a new service if they expect that service to be utilized. When I begin my co-op, I would like to take this approach with me and push for strong, meaningful stakeholder consultations so that we are fully informed about user-needs and we can design services that will be effective.

I also valued the discussion of open government, a concept that I favour strongly. It has been very useful for me as a student to be able to access government databases for statistics and to read about government decision-making processes. Many of my projects have been guided by government reports that included recommendations and the reasons for them. As well, statistics help to inform many subjects that we have worked on, providing evidence to back up claims.

Overall, I gained a lot from this course. I developed a great appreciation for the work being done to transition our governments to the digital era and I am eager to see the changes it will bring. I hope that Canada will be a global leader in this regard and I would like to do my utmost to encourage this by advocating digital governance approaches in my work. I believe that this will allow government to deliver effective and valued services to Canadians.

Coming into this module, I had some idea of how open government operates. I am familiar with Estonia’s digital citizenship initiative and how it has impacted service delivery in that country. From this module, I learned how this approach challenges governments, particularly with respect to citizen engagement. Citizens, while supporting open government, are likely to be very critical of any action taken by their government. There is also a risk of being trolled and government must be prepared to respond appropriately to this behaviour. For further research, I would like look at how Estonia has handled these challenges. As a case model for other digital government initiatives, it will be useful to see what has worked and what has failed there. I believe knowing how to react to these relatively new challenges will be useful in my co-op placement, which involves stakeholder engagement.

Ensuring citizens have access to data should be considered a critical component of digital governance policy. Within certain limits, such as when handling personal information, putting data into the hands of citizens can allow for a more evidence-based discourse on public policy and it can also lower the cost-burden on institutions. This has impacted me personally as I participated in the University of Waterloo’s DataFest 2019 in which my classmates and I used data to discover relationships, provide policy recommendations and support them with evidence. For our topic, we looked at whether Canada lags behind other OECD countries in terms of R&D investment and what structural factors impact this. We found that Canada does lag behind international counterparts and it is because our economy is structured in a way that is not attractive to research investment. We were able to present an argument that was backed by facts because we had access to data, specifically the amount of money spent on R&D in Canada, the United States and the United Kingdom. We also had access to Statistics Canada’s data which we used to find several other datasets that helped inform our analysis. As a result, we were able to provide some insights to policy-makers at relatively little cost to them that they may consider when developing policy in the future. After my experience with DataFest, I can say that I fully support providing open data to citizens.

I was not able to attend the guest lecture by Bianca Wylie, but I can speculate on how technology will shape society and its impacts on citizens. I am personally very excited to see how new technology will shape our world. Specifically, how disruptive innovation re-opens city planning and transforms spaces. I am also aware that it will bring with it increased responsibility as a citizen in a digital world. Since technology is neither inherently good or bad, it will be up to people living in a digital world to decide how it will be used. It could be used to increase access to services, but also to infringe on peoples privacy. Being a citizen in a digital world will require constant engagement and participation in decision making. Direct democracy is one method that comes to mind when I think of how technology can enable us to become more engaged. Burdensome local meetings regarding city development could be made more accessible and transparent through the application of digital governance methods. However, we must always be mindful of how technology can cause unintended consequences. It will require constant vigilance and re-evaluation to ensure that all people are included in a digital society and that no one is left behind.

In Module 3 we examined how to facilitate greater access to faculty in order to increase student success. This activity was particularly relevant to me. In my undergrad, I worked for my student union and we tried to work with administration on implementing policies beneficial to students. However, the university administration often rolled out new services and products without adequate consultation which resulted in minimal usage of some services and plenty of frustrated students. At the student union, our job was to impress upon administration the importance of consulting students during the design process to ensure that the product would actually be used. Although we were not successful, we were able to share our experiences with other student unions to help other student unions be more successful. We found that the top-down approach taken by the administration of universities, often without faculty and student input, is quite common across Canada. In order to better serve students, university administration should focus on user needs and meaningfully consult students throughout the design process.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton