Admission requirements
This course is only available for Bachelor Public Administration students (DBM).
Description
This course integrates knowledge and skills from two first year DBM courses: The Digital State and Data Science Skills and Applications 1. The course achieves this by guiding students to develop group project/research of digital policies. During the development of their projects, students will approach the concepts, theories, and challenges associated with the development of the digital state, and how data analytics can be used to showcase the problems and help the government work better. In other words, students will explore real-life policy problems of the digital state, understand the causes, gaps, and investigate how can the problem and potential solutions be better understood via an evidence-based approach. Students will team up to develop their projects to demonstrate timely digital state issues, justify the importance of their project, project questions, the theoretical relevance, the data evidence, and analytical skills.
Course objectives
By the end of the course, students are expected to increase their academic insights, practical perspectives, and teamwork skills. Objectives include:
Comprehend scholarly literature and policy information to approach a research-worthy problem about the digital state.
Initiate, design, and deliver a data-driven research project by teamwork, leveraging project collaboration and communication skills.
Effectively and engagingly present and communicate the policy problems, as well as the design, data, analysis, and conclusions of the project.
Timetable
On the right side of the programme front page of the prospectus you will find links to the website and timetables, uSis and Brightspace.
Mode of instruction
The course has a mixed lecture approach, with a highly practical orientation. A part of the course will be based on lectures and working groups. Lecturers will guide the students to brainstorm and initiate a research project in integrating the knowledge and skills from The Digital State and Computational/Digital skills 1: Data - uses and opportunities courses to craft their research/projects. Activities in working groups include brainstorming, in-class discussion, presentation, and peer reviews. A very important part of the course will rely on self-study and group teamwork.
Total study load: 140 hours, of which:
Lecture, tutorials & working groups: 14 hours
(Lecture: 2 hour, working group 12 hours)
Self/Group-study: 126 hours
Students should attend all lectures and working group meetings (mandatory). Students must show that they have participated actively in their group.
Assessment method
Individual assignment (30%):
- Research memo & literature review
Group assignments (70%):
Team-effort and participation
Project presentations (pass/fail)
Final project report
There will be individual assignments regarding observation memos and literature reviews. Most assignments are group-based to conduct a team project. Students should attend all lectures and working group meetings (mandatory). Students must show that they have participated actively in their group. All assignments must be submitted on time on Brightspace.
To pass the course, students must present their group project in class and the grade for the final paper must be at least 5.5. Retake for the final paper assignment is allowed but the resubmission will receive a score with a maximum grade of 7 due to the principle of fairness.
Partial grades are only valid in the current academic year.
Reading list
This course builds on literature, knowledge, and toolkits learnt from the first year courses, in particular: the Digital State and Computational/Digital skills 1. Additional articles may be shared in the course guide and on Brightspace. Articles should be studied before the sessions.
Registration
Register yourself via MyStudymap for each course, workgroup and exam (not all courses have workgroups and/or exams). Do so on time, before the start of the course; some courses and workgroups have limited spaces. You can view your personal schedule in MyTimetable after logging in.
Registration for this course is possible from Tuesday 9 December 2025, 13:00 h.
Please note: guest-/contract-/exchange students do not register via MyStudymap but via uSis. Registration via uSis is possible from Thursday 11 December 2025.
Leiden University uses Brightspace as its online learning management system. After enrolment for the course in MyStudymap you will be automatically enrolled in the Brightspace environment of this course.
More information on registration via MyStudymap can be found on this page.
Contact
Dr. Hsini Huang: [h.i.huang@fgga.leidenuniv.nl]
Dr. JM (Jiska) Engelbert: [j.m.engelbert@fgga.leidenuniv.nl]