policy

ITS 832 Chapter 1

Information Technology in a Global Economy

Professor Michael Solomon

Introduction

• Policy-making and implementation • Necessary to deal with societal problems

• Policy interventions • Costly

• Long-term implications

• May affect large groups of people

• Not easy to undo

Complexity and Uncertainty

• Ongoing process • Recognize issue as problem

• Develop alternative course of action

• Create or alter policy

• Implement policy

• Execute policy

• Evaluate policy

Policy cycle and stakeholders

Developments

• New technology that affects policy process • Social media

• Blogs

• Open data

• Freedom of information

• Wisdom of the crowds

• Open collaboration

• Transparency in policy simulation

• Agent-based simulation and hybrid modeling techniques

Combining Disciplines

• New field is known by different names • ePolicy-making

• Digital policy science

• Computational intelligence

• Digital science / Data science

• Policy informatics

• Multidisciplinary • Requires expertise from wide range of disciplines

Summary

• Policy-making is changing due to technology • Technology can help to develop more effective policy • Integrating technology requires substantial effort

• Many types of technology

• Requires different levels of expertise

• All technology is not helpful for each situation

• Emerging need for inter-disciplinary specialists