This Specialisation Course will help you learn general IT management knowledge, smart city related skills and gain basic DevOps and transversal skills required to lead and manage complex processes of the digital transformation in cities and municipalities.
Key features
- Online Contact Sessions
- 42 hours
- Personalized learning path
- Online self-paced study
- 21 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.
A Smart City (SC) Planner can be defined as a high-level official that is able to bridge the needs that arise from:
- Traditional management and operational needs in cities
- Smart and sustainable cities frameworks, best practices, standards and technologies
- Strategic priorities of the city’s political leadership
Smart City specialisation course will help you gain a required skill set needed to co-create digital transformative processes in the smart city and be aware of the trends and best practices in the field to develop a strategy and implementation plan that reflects the needs and visions of citizens and various stakeholders.
It will also equip you with competences to monitor the progress and give you skills steaming from different disciplines and backgrounds like strategic planning, management, communication, technological development, legal affairs to accommodate vibrant processes on the horizontal and vertical level of the city.
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] (21 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 (42 hours) and Self Paced Study and Assessment (252 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
Ambiguity Tolerance
3
08/03/2021
Emotional Intelligence
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)
Decision Making and Problem Solving
7
05/04/2021 (Greece and Cyprus) 12/04/2021 (Italy and Germany)
Leadership and Management Skills
8
12/04/2021 (Greece and Cyprus) 19/04/2021 (Italy and Germany)
Knowledge Management
9
19/04/2021 (Greece and Cyprus) 26/04/2021 (Italy and Germany)
Advanced Presentation skills
10
26/04/2021 (Greece and Cyprus) 03/05/2021 (Italy and Germany)
Software development life cycle and agile methods
11
17/05/2021
IT security
12
24/05/2021
Introduction to Artificial Intelligence
13
31/05/2021
Introduction to ITIL
14
14/06/2021
Smart city sustainability
15
21/06/2021
Smart city standards and legal issues
16
28/06/2021
Smart city resilience
17
05/07/2021
Urban Management
18
12/07/2021
Citizen Driven/Citizen Orientation/User Experience Design
19
19/07/2021
Smart city procurement
20
26/07/2021
Digital twins
21
02/08/2021
Green Smart Cities
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
Ambiguity Tolerance
Course Module Description
This module focuses on providing attendants an overview of concurrent basic theoretical insights of the concept of ambiguity tolerance. Considering that nowadays work settings are confronted with high levels of ambiguity, employees need to efficiently operate within this context of ambiguity. Thus, the module specifically focuses on investigating both the nature and the implications of different attitudes towards ambiguity and ambiguity tolerance in work settings. It also aims to tackle the rather controversial issue of ambiguity tolerance among ethnic and national cultures.
Learning Objectives
- Define the concept of ambiguity.
- Define the concept of ambiguity tolerance.
- Discuss upon the distinction between ambiguity and ambiguity tolerance.
- Investigate the nature and consequences of attitudes towards ambiguity and uncertainty at work.
- Describe aspects of tolerance of ambiguity in organizations.
- Describe the connections among tolerance ambiguity and cultural variability.
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
Emotional Intelligence
Course Module Description
This module will help people to acquire competences in emotional intelligence (EI) in order to improve the quality of performance at work and for this reason it is highly important that people are aware of their own emotions.
EI is a transversal skill that can be applied to all sectors and it can help to understand personal feelings, turn intention into action, and make informed decisions.
Learning Objectives
- To improve the qualification of workers through the promotion of a series of transversal competences deriving from the use of Emotional Intelligence (Self‐knowledge, mood management, self‐motivation, empathy and managing relations)
- To increase the motivation and satisfaction of the workers as they will be able to manage their work in an emotionally intelligent way
- To improve the quality of life for beneficiaries of the fields where this module was implemented
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
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
Decision Making and Problem Solving
Course Module Description
The particular course module introduces the Decision Making process and Problem Solving approaches to trainees that will be able to first realize the general characteristics and scope of Decision Making problems, as well as the fundamentals, methods and techniques of Decision Theory. Furthermore, the module focuses on the uncertainty nature of most Decision Making problems, for which special consideration in the problem solving approach need to be given. Within this framework analyses of different Decision Making problems under uncertainty are demonstrated in a systematic way. In making well-informed decisions, the ability to acquire the appropriate data, generate proper information, establish the solution alternatives, as well as determine the suitable decision criteria are of paramount importance. In addition, problem solving requires a number of skills aiming at identifying the source of a problem and obtaining an effective solution. It encompasses aspects of analysis and creativity, research, communication and team building. Moreover, the Decision Tree Analysis is introduced to illustrate an established graphical solution approach to DM problems, whereas the fundamentals and several applications of the Linear Programming method for solving DM problems are also discussed.
Learning Objectives
The learning objectives of this module are the following:
- To realize the wide scope and characteristics of Decision Making and Problem Solving processes
- To understand the concept of an appropriately developed mathematical model representing a Decision Making problem and be able to formulate this model for addressing the problem
- To become familiar with the most widely used Decision Making and Problem Solving methods and tools (such as the Decision Trees and Linear Programming techniques)
- To recognize the probabilistic nature of Decision Making problems and basic characteristics of Decision Making under uncertainty
- To be able to apply the concepts and applications learnt to a real-world Decision Making problem
Course Module Title
Leadership and Managerial Skills
Course Module Description
The topic of leadership is very broad. This course is dedicated to exploring the many aspects of leadership and their impact on organizational performance. The participant in this course will get an overview of how to lead people. In order to achieve this, leadership skills, traits and types of leadership behaviors will be presented. Moreover it will be shown how the new digitalization era influences leadership.
Learning Objectives
The learning objectives for the trainees in this module are the following:
- To highlight the difference between leadership and management
- To understand how personality traits influence leaders emergence and performance
- To learn and explain the influences leaders have on people.
- To identify typical characteristics of successful leaders
- To describe different types of leadership
- To understand how top executives can influence organizational processes and performance
- To identify which new leadership competences are required in the new 4.0 environment
Course Module Title
Knowledge Management
Course Module Description
The goal of this course is to train learners to consider the latest knowledge management (KM) ideas, methods, tools and strategies so as to tackle with the complexities of organizing and handling knowledge.
This course discusses current problems in information management, intellectual capital and other intangible assets through exploration and interpretation of the fundamental principles of the information analysis, collection, classification, manipulation, storage, retrieval, movement, dissemination, and protection.
Learning Objectives
- To understand the difference between knowledge, data and information
- To understand what KM is
- To become familiar with KM in organizations
- To become familiar with KM models
- To become familiar with KM tools and applications
Course Module Title
Advanced Presentation Skills (APS)
Course Module Description
Advanced Presentation Skills course will help you create and deliver more powerful presentations to increase your influence and impact with stakeholders. From calming your nerves to clarifying your message, the biggest thing standing in the way of engaging your audience with confidence is mastering public speaking skills. This course will enhance your skills and confidence by providing techniques to structure presentations in order to deliver effective messages to your audience. You will explore techniques to fine-tune your skills as a speaker and the “golden rules” to help you take your presentations from good to great.
This course is designed for anyone who would like to improve their ability to design and deliver an impactful presentation. Whether you have been presenting regularly or occasionally, this course provides skills to do so even more successfully.
Learning Objectives
The learning objectives of this module are the following:
- To learn how to get to know what the audience want to hear and how to shape the presentation accordingly
- To be able to maintain confidence and handle nerves
- To be able to prepare, practice and achieve successful presentations which fulfil their objectives
- To understand how to keep audience attention throughout the presentation
- To understand the golden rules and inappropriate techniques of advanced presentation skills
- To learn the popular techniques of storytelling and pitching
- How to use Augmented Reality to Enhance Presentations
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
Smart City Sustainability
Course Module Description
This module explores the topic of sustainability applied to smart cities. Sustainability is defined as the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
Learning Objectives
- Understanding of equality and diversity, inclusivity and social cohesion
- Developing trust and sense of community
- Developing responsible citizens
- Understanding and practicing group decision making
- Ability to see the “bigger picture”
- Commitment in developing sustainable picture
- Knowledge of ecological and circular economy approaches
Course Module Title
Smart City Standards and Legal Issues
Course Module Description
Standardization is the process of “technological convergence”, as well as of innovation clarification. It is defined as “the consistent use of methodologies, procedures, tools, and techniques specified above the level of individual projects”. Smart city (SC) is an emerging topic, which has been evolved since the early 1990s. Almost all standardization bodies develop standards for SC. The aim of this module is twofold: it will describe the SC standardization process together with specifications and guidelines for the SC development that are introduced at international, supranational and national levels; since standardization introduces norms for the SC development, existing rules/legislation will be demonstrated that come up from European and International organizations.
Learning Objectives
The learning objectives of this module are the following:
- To understand key principles in smart city (SC) standardization.
- To be familiar with existing SC standards, specifications and techniques and with European and International norms.
- To compare competitive SC standards.
- To be able to use standards for SC development and to align to SC legal rules.
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
Urban Management
Course Module Description
The module Urban Management provides an overview of the key knowledge domains and competences required for effectively managing smart cities characterized by rapid urbanization triggering the need to cope with increased complexity. In addition, the implications of metropolisation for the city- regions relationship and recommendations for a balanced perspective in this context are given.
This course presents developments, frameworks, and tools for understanding and managing the complex eco-system of a smart city.
Learning Objectives
Upon completion of the course, the learner will be able to:
- Reflect on and understand the development of diverse perspectives of urban management
- Identify the necessity for integrating multidisciplinary concepts and competences to coordinate and lead diverse Smart City eco-system stakeholders
- Understand and use the role of the data landscape and technology as driving forces for urban management.
- Understand the effects of urbanization on the regions and develop competences to create a mutually supportive co-existence.
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
Smart City Procurement
Course Module Description
The objective of this module is to deliver comprehensive knowledge that covers theoretical aspects, modern methods and good practices in the subject of Procurement, using established models (e.g. ITIL) and guidelines issued by the EU and international organizations. Trends like Green/Sustainable Procurement and topics like ICT procurement and Public Private Partnerships are also discussed.
Learning Objectives
Key learning objectives are to familiarize smart city professionals involved in procurement activities with the following:
- Differences between the terms “purchasing” and “procurement”
- The procurement principles and cycle
- Decision making between “make, lease or buy” options
- The procurement procedures available to select
- Defining the requirements of a contract
- Setting evaluation criteria for potential tenderers
- Contract awarding methods available
- The basic structure of a contract
- Establishing contract management activities
- Contract performance evaluation
- Green and ICT procurement issues
- Good practices in ICT procurement
- Public Private Partnerships
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.