New graduation project on digital citizenship in collaboration with public administration students from Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences

Last year, three students from Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (Hogeschool van Amsterdam - HvA) wrote their bachelor thesis in collaboration with the Centre for BOLD Cities. This has been a fruitful experience for both the HvA-students and our team. We are therefore very happy to announce that this year a new thesis group will be supervised by our Centre in collaboration with Dorien Zandbergen (HvA). This year’s graduation project focusses on digital citizenship for youngsters, in particular MBO-students.

Topic
Many citizens have never heard of 'big data' or 'smart cities'. Our Centre has developed various tools to raise awareness amongst people about these questions (including jourbuurtjouwdata.nl, data walks and data dialogues). When creating new tools or programs, we want to involve the target group from the start. We would like to know which knowledge they have and which they lack, and which tools should/could be developed to enhance this knowledge.

We are living in a digital world, where people are online more and more. This requires a lot of knowledge and skills from us as (digital) citizens. Everyone is expected to be able to participate in the digitized society. But what do we mean by digital citizenship? Within MBO institutions there is a need to define digital citizenship and create teaching materials to prepare the professionals and citizens of the future.

 On the picture: Damian Sahai; Kevin den Harder; Dennis van der Graaf; Arjen Mohammadian and  [requests to stay anonymous] (HvA students), Dorien Zandbergen (supervisor) and Liesbet van Zoonen en Merlina Slotboom (Centre for BOLD Cities)

Expectation
The students from HvA will ponder the question what kind of teaching material MBO-students need, and in what way they would like to learn about digital citizenship. What challenges do these students face and what do they want to know more about?

Five bachelor students from the department of public administration will work in co-creation with MBO-students on the development of a part of the curriculum on digital citizenship. Together, they will develop a methodology and give advice on the topics the curriculum should include and what kind of teaching materials should be developed.

Our team is looking forward to the collaboration with the students this year. In the next couple of months, we will keep you updated on the progress these students are making. We are wishing the students a lot of luck with their research and graduation project!