E-competences and imparting e-competences in medium-sized local administrations

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Jörg Becker
• Subject Area: Data Management, Data-Intensive Systems, Computer Science Methods in Business Informatics ; Management and Marketing
• Term: since 2022
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 462287308

Federal structures, complex laws, and regulations as well as a large number of involved stakeholders make the public sector digitalisation a major challenge, especially in Germany. In this context, the e-government competence (e-competence) of public officials is proving to be a decisive success factor for digitalization projects and public sector digitalization as a whole. Previous research on e-competence, in particular frameworks, and e-competence training, including the eGov-Campus, offer limited added value for the specific challenges in medium-sized towns. On the one hand, it is necessary for medium-sized towns that local structures and administrative tasks are considered when defining competence needs. On the other hand, there is a need for adapted placement strategies to equip public officials with the appropriate competences and to provide them with continuous training.The sub-project "e-competences and imparting e-competences in medium-sized local administrations" ("Competences") within the research group "Future Smart Towns" develops a configurable reference model that shows the necessary e-competences for all roles in medium-sized local administrations and, depending on medium-sized town criteria, prototypical role-competence profiles so that the administrations can meet the digital requirements for providing customer-oriented services internally and at the interface to citizens and companies. In addition, the sub-project also addresses the question of how public officials can successfully acquire these e-competences. The sub-project can thus achieve an increase in the e-competence of a medium-sized town as a whole, so that the possibilities of digitalisation are exploited for more efficient processes and more citizen-friendly services. This contributes to the liveability of a medium-sized town in several ways. Citizens and businesses have to spend less time applying for and using administrative services. They perceive the public administration as digitally competent, which can lead to an increase in trust. Similarly, savings from increased efficiency can be invested in goods with a higher welfare contribution, such as education, culture, and sports. Since medium-sized towns are also not homogeneous in their structure and service provision, the role-specific e-competence service bundle must be formed criterion-dependently for specific medium-sized towns. For this purpose, it is necessary to make the reference model to be developed configurable, i.e. adaptable according to the criteria. The reference model includes tasks, roles, data, and processes specific to medium-sized towns as well as adequate mediation techniques for the efficient provision of stakeholder-friendly services.

• DFG Programme: Research Units
• Subproject of: FOR 5393: The future smart town
• Co-Investigators: Professor Dr. Norbert Kersting; Professor Dr. Marcelo Parreira do Amaral