ICT Policy and Strategic Planning online course

The ICT Policy and Strategic Planning online course focused on assisting selected ACP participants in developing, monitoring, and evaluating effective national and regional ICT strategies.

This online course was designed to address globally accepted best practices in ICT policies, regulations, and strategies. The course aimed at anchoring the policy challenges of the Internet with practical aspects of implementing national and regional national ICT policies and strategies. The course was conducted for 8 weeks, from 13 June to 12 August, 2011. Even though the call announced 75 places, a total of 116 participants were accepted for the course due to the importance and the considerable interest shown for this course. Out of 103 participants that have successfully completed the course and received a certificate of completion, 79 were new to programme, while the remaining 24 had already completed the IG Foundation Course in 2010 or 2011 when they decided to enroll for this course.


Topics

The content of this course was developed in conjunction with the partner institutions and focused on understanding ICT strategies from different stakeholder perspectives, as outlined in the following chapters:

  • Introduction to ICT strategy
  • National ICT policies and strategies, context, and background
  • ICT policy development
  • E-readiness assessment and ICT benchmarking
  • Development of ICT action plans (including actions, Pathfinder projects, funding, partners)
  • Implementation of an action plan (implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of national ICT strategies, scope, project plans, deliverables, roles and responsibilities, dependencies, risks and mitigation strategies, change management)
  • ICT governance and management of the implementation process (governance structures and the implementation process, including monitoring and follow-up of the strategy)
  • Additional reading - case studies


Structure and benefits

The course was conducted entirely online; all Interactions were text-based. Most course activities could be completed whenever convenient to the participant, within a given weekly schedule. Real-time (synchronous) online interaction (attending online chat sessions) took place once a week.

The online classroom provided Web 2.0 tools for online learning and interaction, including a hypertext discussion system, blog message board, forum discussions, online chat sessions, and other important features.

The course included studying and discussing textual materials under the guidance of experienced tutors and with the support from topic experts. A final, narrative exam assessed the level of understanding of issues covered.

Successful students are awarded a DiploFoundation Certificate for the respective course, and were invited to join Diplo’s Alumni, and the Internet governance online community of over 1,000 members.