Big Data in Public Affairs Education

Abstract

Public affairs schools face the challenge of including emergent topics in their curricula to prepare students for the public sector job market. Some such topics reflect advances in the use of information technologies; others reflect updates to industry standards or changing needs of public sector information management professionals. This article focuses on big data that are created through citizens’ use of new technologies and the combination of administratively collected data with online data. Big data require changes in government information management skills, including collection, cleaning, and interpreting unstructured and unfiltered data; real-time decision making based on early signals and patterns that emerge; and new organizational roles and tasks, such as open innovation and change management. This article reviews the existing literature, compares big data requirements in neighboring disciplines, and suggests 13 modules for a big data syllabus that extend Mason’s PAPA model of ethical considerations for the information age.