(Playing) Government beyond Pen and Paper: Conceptualization, Implementation, and Outlook

Becker Jörg, Niemann Marco, Halsbenning Sebastian

Abstract

In a world of ever-rising political, social, and economic uncertainty digitalization appears to be one of the few constants. Public administrations— often perceived as the stronghold of traditionalism and bureaucracy—are facing increased pressure to provide digital services. The dire need for managers and clerks with corresponding eGovernment competences paved the way for new study programs and training courses. As some competences are hard to convey via frontal teaching, innovative concepts such as simulation games are gaining popularity. However, we posit that teaching eGovernment competences with pen and paper alone appears to be an almost ironic reference to current administrative working patterns. Hence, this paper sets forth to present a concept and implementation for an online platform to support various eGovernment simulation games. We also plan to use the game data to gain further insights into the proficiency profiles of participants to derive optimized simulation scenarios.

Keywords
simulation game, eGovernment, competences