Smart City IT Officer Specialisation Course will help you acquire a required skill set needed to successfully co-create digital transformative processes in the smart city and be aware of the trends and best practices in the field to develop and operate high quality IT solutions and services that reflect the needs and visions of citizens and various stakeholders.
Key features
- Online Contact Sessions
- 36 hours
- Personalized learning path
- Online self-paced study
- 17 modules (12 hours / module)
- ECVET based Curriculum
- Work-based Learning
- 10 weeks
- Hands-on learning
Course language: English, German, Greek or Italian (depending on your residing country)
Successful students will be awarded a certificate in line with ECVET and EQF standards.
An SC IT Officer is an IT Technical Expert that is able to:
- Analyze the city’s organizational data.
- Determine information system requirements and define project objectives.
- Apply software development process, development environments, tools and techniques.
- Make recommendations for necessary IT system components e.g. hardware, software and networking systems.
- Design, implement and deploy, new IT services.
- Operate IT systems and services.
- Provide support and training to various types of users.
Apart from technical skills and experience, s SC IT officer should have transversal skills such as teamworking, social skills, ability to learn, etc.
About The Specialisation Course
The course is open to professionals and higher education students operating in municipal and the Smart City related fields from Cyprus, Germany, Greece and Italy. In the selection process, priority will be given to those who have finished DevOps Competences for Smart Cities MOOC.
Previous experiences and competences of applicants will be taken examined and validated following Prior non-formal and informal learning validation process outlined here. This will allow learners to personalize their learning path and build on existing competences and knowledge.
The Specialisation Course combines blended course[1] (18 weeks) and work-based learning (10 weeks).
Blended Course: 15 February 2021 – 30 July 2021 (c. 15 hours per week)
Work Based Learning: In the period between June and October
The course Curriculum is in line with the requirements of EQF and ECVET which means that the included learning outcomes and units of learning outcomes allow transparency, comparability and validation to enhance upskilling and the mobility of the professionals.
All students who will successfully complete the course will receive certification
Students will participate in the Online Contact Sessions (36 hours) and Self Paced Study and Assessment (216 hours).
Online Contact Sessions will consist of 1-hour introductory meeting where the trainer will present the training material and give information on the practical assignment to be completed by the learners and 1-hour closing meeting for group formative evaluation of the learning outcomes.
Online self-paced study and assessment will run on a dedicated Moodle training platform and will ensure you have easy access to lectures and assignments, manageable learning schedule, regular online tutorial sessions with your tutor and access to a repository of online digital training materials (audio-visual materials, case studies, articles, reading lists, etc.)
Assessment will be done through practical assignments that will be delivered for each module, promoting peer-evaluation, group works and formative assessment by experts. Check the knowledge, skills and competences you will gain below.
Work-based learning (WBL) will last 10 weeks (between June and October) in the total amount of 200h work in a real life learning environment and 5h of assessment. In addition to this, a short 1-hour face-to-face[2] meetings between the trainees / apprentices and the trainers will take place every two weeks. Designated DevOps partner organisations, students and organisation providing WBL will sign a WBL agreement that follows ECVET standards and rules.
If the students are working at the public institutions related to the field of the course or municipalities work-based learning can be implemented at the workplace.
The WBL will provide students with an immersive experience where they will be able to learn first-hand, by applying their knowledge and experience to a pre-defined situation via a live brief. This live brief will be co-created by the employer and your tutor by identifying the specific activities to be delivered in the workplace during the placement; learning objectives and associated tasks; reporting and feedback mechanisms; and mentoring support.
[1] Face-to-face meetings will be organized as Online Contact Session because of COVID-19 restrictions.
[2] Depending on the situation with COVID-19 this might be implemented as an online meeting.
SPECIALISATION COURSE CURRICULUM
Week
Starting Date
Module
1
22/02/2021
Project and Process Management
2
01/03/2021
Repository management
3
08/03/2021
Continuous integration
4
15/03/2021
Intercultural Skills
5
22/03/2021
Design Thinking
6
29/03/2021 (Greece and Cyprus) 29/03/2021 (Italy and Germany)
Configuration management
7
05/04/2021 (Greece and Cyprus) 12/04/2021 (Italy and Germany)
Using build, deployment and monitoring tools
8
12/04/2021 (Greece and Cyprus) 19/04/2021 (Italy and Germany)
Code Analysis and continuous testing tools
9
10/05/2021
IT Quality Assurance
10
17/05/2021
IT Security
11
24/05/2021
Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
12
31/05/2021
Introduction to ITIL
13
07/06/2021
Smart services and operating procedures
14
28/06/2021
Smart city resilience
15
12/07/2021
Citizen Driven/Citizen Orientation/User Experience Design
16
26/07/2021
Digital twins
17
02/08/2021
Green Smart Cities
Course Module Title
Software Development Life Cycles and Agile Methods
Course Module Description
Trainees will be introduced to the basic concepts of the software development life cycle (SDLC) and its importance to information system development projects. A SDLC consists of a series of related activities that are combined into phases, which constitute the “life stages” of an information system. A SDLC provides project managers with proper control and guidance over their software development projects. The primary objective of a SDLC is to ensure that high quality information systems are delivered to end-users and the productivity of the development staff is maximized. A SDLC can described through a SDLC model to facilitate more the understanding of the SDLC phases.
Upon completion of this module, trainees will learn the concepts of some traditional SDLC models (Waterfall, Prototyping/Iterative, Incremental, Spiral, V-Model). The advantages/disadvantages and the cases of applicability of each model will be critically discussed.
Then, trainees will be introduced to contemporary and more flexible SDLC models, such as the Agile model, a SDLC combines iterative and incremental development. The differences between the agile model and traditional SDLC models (e.g., Waterfall) will be discussed.
Learning Objectives
After completing this module, the trainees will be able to:
- Explain what SDLC is describe the SDLC phases.
- Get a general overview of traditional SDLC models (Waterfall, Prototyping/Iterative, Incremental, Spiral, V-Model) and identify the advantages/disadvantages of each model.
- Provide an overview of what an “agile” SDLC is and how it is compared with traditional SDLC approaches (e.g., Waterfall).
Course Module Title
Intercultural Skills
Course Module Description
The module Intercultural skills provides an overview of the importance of acquiring these skills in the time of globalization. The module provides an understanding of national cultures impact the way business rea performed. It will ensure the participant the understanding of the cultural process as well as many of the elements involved and affecting business relationships ad performance.
This course aims to provide you core cultural concepts, frameworks, and tools for understanding and managing successfully cultural diversity.
Learning Objectives
Upon completion of the course, the learner will be able to:
- Identify the potential difficulties involved in international business relationships
- Improve your intercultural communication skills
- Deal with potential barriers in intercultural communication
- Explore tools to successfully manage cultural differences
- Develop further your intercultural competences and soft skills
Course Module Title
Project and Process Management (PPM)
Course Module Description
According to Project Management Institute (www.pmi.org) project management is “the application of knowledge, skills, tools, and techniques to project activities to meet the project requirements”. As such this module will not only build the required project management body of knowledge but it will also present tools and techniques needed for successful project management.
Knowledge areas required by a project manager for managing successfully project such as, project requirements management, change management, cost management, time management, quality management, risk management, communication management, etc. will be presented in detail, along with a number of tools for managing the respective processes.
Further, emphasis will be given to agile approaches for software project management and as well on peculiarities of software projects, covering topics such as software life-cycle models, effective estimation of software effort and size, software quality metrics and team management. Finally, since this module is targeted to smart cities officials an attempt should be made to establish the link between project management and organization’s strategy.
Learning Objectives
The learning objectives of this module are the following:
- To understand key principles in managing software projects
- To understand the strategic character of smart city development
- To understand that smart city development should be managed as a portfolio of projects.
- To be familiar with the different methods and techniques used for software project management.
- To be able to do the Project Scheduling, Scope Management, Risk Management, Quality management and Project Cost estimation using different techniques
Course Module Title
Design Thinking
Course Module Description
The current world’s environment is complex and in constant change. The race for global competition challenges the companies which are specially using traditional methods and unquestionable processes. This course will bring the learner to reflect and will present an alternative thinking and acting way to question the current status quo of companies
Learning Objectives
The learning objectives for the trainees in this module are the following:
- To understand the importance of design thinking change paradigm.
- To identify the practical application of this competence and its impact on value creation
- To describe how can design principles be embedded into an organization
- To identify design thinking approaches as an answer to business challenges
- To understand how business cultures support or limit design thinking
Course Module Title
IT Quality Assurance
Course Module Description
IT Quality Assurance contains a well-defined set of processes that are aligned with software development standards associated with regulatory guidelines. The course module is designed to offer to everyone the necessary knowledge and skills in order to understand the main quality assurance processes and their flοw aiming to the quality of software deliverables. The module does not require any previous knowledge in quality assurance issues and it assumes that the learner can understand the basic concepts of software development.
Learning Objectives
The learning objectives of this module are the following:
- To understand and design a software quality plan
- To recognize and arrange a set of quality metrics
- To understand and form a quality checklist
- To understand the significance of the process improvement plan
Course Module Title
IT Security
Course Module Description
IT Security is a complex and multidimensional challenge. The landscape of threats is constantly changing and evolving. Modern societies are highly dependent on the IT infrastructure, particularly in the context of smart cities. The building blocks of smart cities are IoT devices, which in essence are always connected mini computers. Despite the new novel services that are made available, most of these systems are susceptible to all kinds of cyberattacks.
This module focuses on providing learners an overview of IT Security and highlights its need in information and communication systems with emphasis on IoT devices and smart cities. The purpose of the module is to provide knowledge of the security risks of information systems as well as the available mechanisms and technologies to protect them. The aim is to train learners in identifying vulnerabilities, developing security policies and implementing protection measures.
Learning Objectives
- Acknowledge the fundamental concepts in IT security
- Identify software and network vulnerabilities and threats. Perform risk assessment in an Information System and propose a methodology for mitigation of possible attacks
- Evaluate the usability of a security solution
- Assess the main cryptographic algorithms and combine them into a secure development environment
- Develop a security policy for IoT Ecosystems
Course Module Title
Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
Course Module Description
In this module, learners will understand what Artificial Intelligence (AI) is and understand its applications and use cases and how they transformed our lives.
AI concepts including machine learning, deep learning, and neural networks as well as use cases and applications of AI will be explored.
Learners will also deal with concerns surrounding AI such as ethics, bias, jobs and the impacts on society.
This module does not require any programming or computer science expertise and is designed to introduce the basics of AI to anyone whether you have a technical background or not.
Learning Objectives
- To become familiar with the fundamentals of AI principles
- To understand the basic rules between AI and problem solving
- To understand the contribution of AI in real-life conditions
- To understand the most popular machine learning models
- To explore the potential, limitations, and implications of AI systems
Course Module Title
Introduction to ITIL
Course Module Description
This course module introduces the trainees to ITIL best practices for IT Service Management.
Learning Objectives
- Explaining what ITIL is
- Defining roles in IT Service Management
- Illustrating ITIL Service Lifecycles
- Illustrating ITIL best practices.
Course Module Title
Repository Management
Course Module Description
This module introduces learners to critical, high-level theory, best practice, and practical application in order to get familiarized with the basic principles and terminology related to repository management systems.
Learning Objectives
- Recognize the main parts and basic functions of a repository manager
- Get familiar with components and formats that are supported in a repository manager
- Identify the different repository types
- Doing an organizational repository planning checklist
Course Module Title
Continuous integration
Course Module Description
Continuous integration is a software development methodology, of daily developer integrations verified by automated builds. More specifically, in Continuous Integration after a code commit, the software is built and tested immediately. In a large project with many developers, commits are made many times during a day. With each commit code is built and tested. If the test is passed, build is tested for deployment. If deployment is a success, the code is pushed to production. This commit, build, test, and deploy is a continuous process and hence the name continuous integration/deployment.
A Continuous Integration Pipeline is a powerful instrument that consists of a set of tools designed to host, monitor, compile and test code, or code changes. This course will describe the continuous integration process, the instruments that are being used during this process and the benefits for business through explained cases.
Further, emphasis will be given to Jenkins, the open source Continuous Integration Server, capable of orchestrating a chain of actions that help to achieve the Continuous Integration process in an automated fashion.
Learning Objectives
The learning objectives of this module are the following:
- To understand the importance and the key principles in continuous integration.
- To be familiar with the continuous integration pipeline.
- To recognize the tools that are being used under the continuous integration process.
- To be able to describe how the continuous integration process is being performed via Jenkins
Course Module Title
Configuration Management
Course Module Description
The module Configuration Management (CM) is a discipline applying technical and administrative direction and surveillance to:
- identify and document the functional and
- physical characteristics of a configuration item,
- control changes to those characteristics,
- record and report change processing and
- implementation status, and
- verify compliance with specified requirements.
Learning Objectives
Upon completion of the course, the learner will become proficient in:
- Configuration Management as classical and agile approach.
- Identify and document the functional and physical characteristics of a configuration item, control changes to those characteristics, record and report change processing and implementation status, and verify compliance with specified requirements.
- This course aims to equip you with the core concept of configuration management as well as agile concept for DevOps, pros and cons, system examples and use cases from Microsoft and Spotify.
Course Module Title
Using build, deployment and monitoring tools
Course Module Description
This course module provides the trainees with the main introductory concepts on build, deployment and monitoring tools within the DevOps framework.
Learning Objectives
- Build automation in DevOps;
- Deployment routines, processes, systems and tools for building either applications or entire end-to-end services;
- Deployment Patterns for Building Applications or Services;
- Monitoring and alerting criteria.
Course Module Title
Code Analysis and Continuous Testing Tools
Course Module Description
In DevOps there is an increased need for source code analysis and review tools that assist software developers in avoiding bugs. An example of the former is the SpotBugs or SonarQube tools that can be used to detect various types of issues. An example of the latter is GitHub which a.o. enables code reviews.
Furthermore, using both systematic and automated testing, developers are assured that their source code meets both functional and quality criteria. This module will equip learners with the required skills to use static analysis and code review tools, as well as tools for systematic and automated testing.
Learning Objectives
The learning objectives of this module are the following:
- To understand key concepts of static code analysis.
- To understand key concepts of collaborative source code development and review.
- To understand key concepts of systematic and automated testing.
- To be familiar with some of the tools and techniques for static analysis and review.
- To be able to develop and apply systematic and automated testing in the source code under development.
Course Module Title
Smart Services and Operating Procedures
Course Module Description
The topic of Smart City inspires people to imagine how new technologies could support city services and change their daily life. This course module, in the introductory unit offer trainees a basic understanding of Smart Cities concepts, as well discusses the challenges that faces a city to become smart. Then, it gets deeper with the description of the cutting edge technologies used for the functioning of the Smart City. Furthermore, it introduces the supporting concepts of some of the most used smart services and in the last unit it concludes by presenting the different perspectives on Smart City services from the participating citizens, vendors and especially about the management and governance challenges that this raises.
Learning Objectives
The course module focuses on Smart City (SC) services, a topic that draws significant attention in cities around the world, and its learning objectives is to introduce trainees to the following issues:
- Learn fundamental concepts about SC
- Challenges to develop a SC
- Infrastructures of a SC
- Introduce the cutting edge technology that could transform a city
- Have a holistic view of SC major services
- Understand the evolvement of Citizens and business
- Introduce some SC worldwide
- Understanding business aspects of SC services
Course Module Title
Smart City Resilience
Course Module Description
This module explores the topic of resilience by providing the tools to make smart cities ready to adapt to crises and changes. Planning the resilience of a city also allows to seize the opportunities that can arise from negative events.
Learning Objectives
- Identify the indicators capable to define the degree of resilience of a city.
- Develop a monitoring plan for these indicators.
- Define a plan to improve the resilience of a city.
Course Module Title
Citizen Driven / Orientation
Course Module Description
This module facilitates attendants to learn how to enhance the collaboration and communication with citizens in the smart cities. It presents strategies and techniques for engaging citizens, how to develop and implement communication strategies with them, and how to set up and run information systems that record citizens’ behavior and satisfaction. Last, it introduces the attendant to the concepts of Communities of Practice and Communities of Interest.
Learning Objectives
Learning objectives (4 up to 10) for the specific course module
- Define citizen engagement and describe main strategies and techniques to engage citizens of smart cities
- Develop and implement a communication strategy with smart cities citizens
- Outline the principles of Organizational Citizenship Behavior and identify factors affecting smart cities citizens’ behaviorand saisfaction
- Initiate and run communities of practice
Course Module Title
Digital Twin for Smart Cities
Course Module Description
Digital Twin (DT) technologies are considered as key technologies that allow us to construct a virtual duplicate of our actual system and as such to provide a platform to review activities, to test interactions and the results of alternative decisions within the real system.
Usually, DT technologies are used, whenever a system is complex, dynamic, and its operation is considered as critical. Smart cities can be easily characterised as a complex system, where changes occur on daily basis and its operation is considered critical for the citizens. Further, the performance of smart cities is an important factor for citizens and businesses and it relies, in many cases, on the interaction of different subsystems.
Smart cities as a complex system, as a collection of interacting systems, transportation systems, health care systems, education systems, administration systems, etc., create challenges that must be resolved at a test environment, because of its stochastic nature.
Therefore, the implementation of DT technologies is necessary and important, in the context of a smart city, since it will be used as a management tool for improving smart city efficiency and operation, but as well for minimising the systems’ risk and improving policymaking and decision-making in general.
Learning Objectives
The learning objectives of this module are the following:
- To understand the key principles and concepts of digital twin technologies.
- To understand digital twin model development process
- To understand the connection between digital twin’s models and Internet of Things
- To be aware of how DT can be used for developing dynamic digital twin’s model for smart cities.
The Specialisation Course was developed and is organized by experts of the Erasmus+ Sector Skills Alliance project titled DevOps Competences for Smart Cities MOOC (project number 601015-EPP-1-2018-1-EL-EPPKA2-SSA). The aim of the project is the professional development through appropriate training of the personnel who work or will work in municipalities, which are gradually transformed into Smart Cities. This will be achieved with upskilling them with new IT skills and knowledge that are required for smart city management, such as the DevOps methodology.