Trends in the Development of e-Learning for Civil Servants

Yevhen M. Khrykov

1 a

, Olga M. Ptakhina

1 b

, Tetiana V. Sych

1 c

, Dmytro I. Dzvinchuk

2 d

and

Maryna V. Kormer

3 e

Luhansk Taras Shevchenko National University, 1 Gogol Sq., Starobilsk, 92703, Ukraine

Ivano-Frankivsk National Technical University of Oil and Gas, 15 Karpatska Str., Ivano-Frankivsk, 76019, Ukraine

State University of Economics and Technology, 5 Stepana Tilhy Str., Kryvyi Rih, 50006, Ukraine

Keywords:

Information and Communication Technologies, Civil Servants, E-Learning.

Abstract:

The article generalizes the information on numerous components of the system of public servants’ lifelong

education. One of the key areas of public administration development is the development of e-government,

so e-learning is considered as an important means of preparing public servants to implement this task. The

domestic and world experience of e-learning of public servants, which is realized in the form of distance

education, mixed learning and as a component of the traditional classroom educational process, is analyzed.

The threats and beneﬁts of ICT training, based on the survey of civil servants trained in ICT in Ukrainian higher

educational institutions are highlighted. The trends in the development of e-learning have been identiﬁed on

the basis of scientiﬁc and empirical facts. These trends are more or less inherent in some countries, that is why

these countries can determine the current challenges of e-learning development.

1 INTRODUCTION

Digitalization has covered all spheres of life in mod-

ern society (Kucherova et al., 2020). The introduc-

tion of information and communication technologies

(ICT) has become one of the main trends in public

administration. The spread of e-government allows

bringing government closer to citizens, promotes such

values as openness, transparency, accountability and

public access to information, which improves the

quality of public services (Trcek, 2019). In the con-

text of digitalization of society and the challenges

of modernity (pandemic COVID-19 (Tkachuk et al.,

2021)), the importance of civil servants’ e-learning

and e-government is growing both in the traditional

provision of digital services and in new innovative ef-

forts to overcome the crisis. At the same time, pub-

lic authorities are facing challenges of disseminating

false information, declining trust in government in-

stitutions and increasing skepticism, making it dif-

ﬁcult to reach consensus in society, and numerous

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5496-2753

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9672-4593

https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0230-3374

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6391-3822

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6509-0794

forms of digital gaps, especially among the poorest

and the most vulnerable groups of citizens. In this

situation, as noted in the OECD, civil servants must

adapt to new requirements, such as transparency of

administrative decisions, the right to appeal, data pro-

tection, providing information to citizens, the opera-

tion of hotlines (OECD, 1997).

Nowadays, information and communication tech-

nologies allow to solve a set of tasks related to the

collection, processing, storage and distribution of

graphic, textual, digital, audio and video information

based on electronic means of computer technology

and communication in the interests of its users. These

tasks cover almost all activities of a public servant.

As a result, there is an urgent need for special train-

ing of civil servants in e-government, which can be

implemented through the introduction of e-learning.

NASPAA STANDARDS focuses on the critical

situation in the formation of civil servants competen-

cies because they need skills to succeed in a multi-

sectoral, reference and rapidly changing environment

(NASPAA, 2020).

Since 2001, the UN has conducted annual surveys

of 193 member countries on the development of dig-

ital government, which conﬁrms the importance of

digitalization of public administration and equaliza-

tion of development in this regard. An important role

126

Khrykov, Y., Ptakhina, O., Sych, T., Dzvinchuk, D. and Kormer, M.

Trends in the Development of e-Learning for Civil Servants.

DOI: 10.5220/0010929400003364

In Proceedings of the 1st Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology (AET 2020) - Volume 2, pages 126-140

ISBN: 978-989-758-558-6

in achieving this ambitious goal is played by training

civil servants in the basics of e-government (United

Nations, 2020).

One of the key areas of public administration de-

velopment is the development of e-government, so

e-learning can be considered as an important means

of preparing public servants to implement this task.

The vast majority of civil servants study and work at

the same time, so e-learning is more in line with the

current situation, allows combining work and study.

The content and means of public servants’ activity

is a constantly changing and evolving system, so e-

learning can provide more ﬂexible approach to re-

sponding to new tasks, challenges of public life. In

this regard, it is important to identify general trends in

e-learning for civil servants. These trends are already

existent in the world but have not been approved in

all countries. Indeed, for some countries, these trends

are already common practice. However, each country

has speciﬁc features that are important to highlight,

which will help create a general picture of the desired

state of e-learning for civil servants.

2 METHODOLOGY OF THE

RESEARCH

The results of the study presented in the article were

obtained using a set of methods. Identiﬁcation of

trends in the development of e-learning of civil ser-

vants was carried out on the basis of analysis and gen-

eralization of leading experience, modern approaches

and requirements for e-learning of civil servants, the

study of opinions of civil servants who study with the

use of ICT technologies. Information from both the

world’s largest and most developed countries and de-

veloping countries was considered. The source base

of the study consisted of 3 groups of sources. The

ﬁrst group of sources was studied by the netnographic

method: sites of different countries institutions en-

gaged in training of civil servants, sites of accredita-

tion institutions, international associations and orga-

nizations related to public administration.

The second group of sources, which was analyzed

during the study, consisted of scientiﬁc publications

on the use of information technology in the training of

civil servants. The third group of sources consisted of

international organizations documents that deal with

the problems of civil service and training of civil ser-

vants.

The analysis of world experience served us to

identify general trends in civil servants’ e-learning,

which are existent in the world, but have not been

approved in all countries. Selected trends allow any

country to analyze their practice and determine what

needs to be changed. Unlike many other countries,

the experience of civil servants’ training in Ukraine

is short. The world experience should be adapted to

Ukrainian realities; the peculiarities of the national

education system, the needs of Ukrainian civil ser-

vants, etc. should be taken into account. The use and

effectiveness of E-technologies depend signiﬁcantly

on students, it is important for us to clarify the posi-

tion of students to develop the use and effectiveness

of it. That is why an experimental part of the study

was conducted: to study the opinions of civil servants

who study ICT in Ukraine, namely: how they per-

ceive this approach to learning, how ready they are

for this form of learning and how they assess it, what

are their needs in connection with the digitalization of

public service.

Empirical material on the impact of ICT on the

civil servants’ training in the domestic education sys-

tem was obtained during a survey of 285 graduate stu-

dents in “Public Administration and Administration”

(distance study) in Luhansk and Ivano-Frankivsk re-

gions, the vast majority of students work in public ad-

ministration. Respondents assessed their own readi-

ness to use ICT in the educational process and in their

self-development, as well as the effectiveness of e-

government and digitalization of public administra-

tion in general. The Delphi method was used to iden-

tify the beneﬁts and threats of using ICT in the educa-

tional process. At the ﬁrst stage the lists of advantages

and threats of e-learning based on the results of a sur-

vey of 285 masters in the specialty “Public Admin-

istration”, analysis of scientiﬁc literature, generaliza-

tion of e-learning experience were determined. At the

second stage these lists were evaluated on a 10-point

scale by a group of experts, which consisted of 48 un-

dergraduates of the 1-2 courses in the specialty “Pub-

lic Administration”. The results of the experimental

work were conﬁrmed by statistical analysis. This ma-

terial was taken into account when identifying trends

in the development of e-learning for civil servants; it

was also correlated with identiﬁed trends and it em-

phasized the importance of implementing these trends

in the Ukrainian education system for civil servants.

3 LITERATURE REVIEW

Problems of training of civil servants, use of ICT were

investigated by: Dobos (Dobos, 2015) (learning en-

vironments in civil service professional development

training), Clark and Pal (Clark and Pal, 2011) (anal-

ysis of academic programs and professional compe-

tencies in Canada), He (He, 1702) (training system

Trends in the Development of e-Learning for Civil Servants

127

of civil servants in China and Australia), Ishikawa

(Ishikawa, 2007) (training of Japanese local gov-

ernment ofﬁcials), Suleimenova (Suleimenova, 2016)

(civil service training in Kazakhstan), Green and Hog-

arth (Green and Hogarth, 2016) (alignment of pub-

lic policy and employer views for training provision),

Sarantis and Ben Dhaou (Sarantis and Ben Dhaou,

2018) (training needs on Electronic Governance),

Kim (Kim, 2016) (innovating training), Maniam (Ma-

niam, 2011) (preparing public ofﬁcers for new modes

of governance), Saini (Saini, 2020) (considered 5 e-

government trends that dominated in 2020, as well as

forecasts that provide standards in 2021), Bezhovski

and Poorani (Bezhovski and Poorani, 2016) (the evo-

lution of E-Learning and new trends), Gaur (Gaur,

2015) (research trends in E-Learning), Carabaneanu

et al. (Carabaneanu et al., 2006) (trends in E-lerning),

C¸ a

gatay Baz (C¸ a

gatay Baz, 2018) (new trends in

E-Learning), Valverde-Berrocoso et al. (Valverde-

Berrocoso et al., 2020) (trends in educational research

about E-Learning).

The documents of international organizations, ac-

creditation agencies and associations contain various

information on the civil servants training. But so far

there are no publications that summarize the charac-

teristics of e-learning of civil servants in the world.

The problem of development of civil servants’ e-

learning trends has not been covered in publications

yet.

The purpose of this article is to identify trends

in the development of e-learning for civil servants,

aimed at forming their professional competencies

which should provide effective e-government.

4 ANALYSIS OF THE WORLD

EXPERIENCE OF CIVIL

SERVANTS’ TRAINING FOR

E-GOVERNMENT THROUGH

E-LEARNING

There are two directions in the system of civil servants

e-learning in the world. The ﬁrst one is the use of

ICT as a means, technology of training organization.

The second one is the study of ICT as a means of e-

government, which culminates in a master’s degree or

certiﬁcate.

It is no coincidence that the frame-

work of competencies of civil servants (as-

sets.publishing.service.gov.uk, 2018) contains

such competencies as: Government IT Profession,

Government Knowledge, Information Management

Profession. This necessitates the use of ICT not

only as a learning technology, but also the content of

education, which provides civil servants training for

using these technologies in public administration.

Nowadays, to ensure e-government, specialists

in the development of e-government development

strategy, system administrators of IT support, elec-

tronic data processing, automation of management

functions, decision support, creation of e-ofﬁce, ex-

pert support of e-government development projects,

project managers are needed. development of e-

government. These tasks are implemented mainly by

master’s programs. There are many universities in the

world that offer master’s degrees in public administra-

tion (Ashford University, Capella University, Kaplan

University, Texas A&M University – College Station,

Villanova University, George Washington University,

North Central University, Syracuse University, Uni-

versity of Houston, Seton Hall University, Rutgers

University, University of Central Florida, Univer-

sity of Nebraska Omaha, San Diego State University,

University of Baltimore, Old Dominion University –

Norfolk, University of North Carolina, University of

Southern California, Colorado State University, Uni-

versity of Colorado Denver and others). Most univer-

sities include e-government disciplines in their curric-

ula. And some universities specialize in training civil

servants for e-government. Consider a few of them.

University of Kent implements the MPA curricu-

lum, which includes a mandatory course Public Sec-

tor IT Management (Kent State University, 2021).

This course focuses on the management of informa-

tion technology (IT) systems in public sector agen-

cies. Speciﬁc topics covered include: planning and

acquisition of hardware and software and networks,

organizational governance and implementation, infor-

mation security and privacy legal issues surrounding

IT management, service delivery and emerging enter-

prise technologies.

Leiden University (Universiteit Leiden, 2021), the

oldest university in the Netherlands, emphasizes that

the public sector needs interdisciplinary expertise and

professionals able to make the most of the potential

of ICT and technological innovation. The specialist

training program has a strong international focus.The

program offers two specializations: ICT in business

and ICT in the public sector.

Master programme organized by the KU Leuven,

the University of M

unster and Tallinn University of

Technology, and co-ﬁnanced by the European Union

under the Erasmus+ programme (The Master of Sci-

ence in Public Sector innovation and e-Governance

(PIONEER)) (PIONEER, 2018) declares the mastery

of the basics of the use of information systems in

the public sector, as well as the introduction of e-

AET 2020 - Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

128

government.

The University of M

unster (www.uni-

muenster.de, 2021) aimed at a deeper understanding

of the use of information systems in relevant busi-

ness processes, ICT projects, new approaches to

service delivery, as well as an understanding of the

possibilities of ICT for public administration.

Tallinn University of Technology offers Master’s

programme (Tallinn University of Technology, 2020).

The Technology Governance and Digital Transforma-

tion. It equips students with the capacity for criti-

cal thinking and with practical management skills on

technological change, innovation and digital transfor-

mation that will make it equips students succeed in

tech-focused private and public organizations as well

as in international bodies. Students gain to understand

digital technologies as the key driver of development

around the world, that digital transformation brings

about sustainable, green growth and human-centred

development. Students gain in-depth knowledge of

the potential beneﬁts, risks, factors of failure / success

of e-government, the role of e-government in society

and trends in innovation in the public sector.

At the University of Birmingham (University of

Birmingham, 2021) the Master of Civil Service Train-

ing is provided by the Institute for Local Government

Research (INLOGOV), which is the leading center for

research and teaching on local government and strate-

gic public administration in the UK. This ensures the

unity of the process of training and research, which is

a condition for improving the quality of the process

of civil servants training to work at the national and

international levels. According to the university, 62%

of students study at a distance form – they are repre-

sentatives of other countries.

The analysis of training programs for civil ser-

vants allows us to draw several conclusions:

• the e-learning program creates favorable condi-

tions for cross-cultural interaction of students and

teachers, which signiﬁcantly enriches the learning

process;

• the number of students from other countries is an

indicator of the quality of master’s training at the

world’s leading universities;

• the participation of representatives of different

countries in master’s programs is the evidence not

only of globalization processes, but also the for-

mation of global theory and practice of public ad-

ministration, which has not yet received clear sys-

temic coverage;

• online learning is an important factor in the qual-

ity of IPA masters training in terms of realizing

the existing potential of e-learning;

• providing online training requires more resources,

but allows to improve the quality of IPA training

and make it available to representatives of differ-

ent countries.

The functioning of e-learning of public servants in

the world’s leading universities has led to the forma-

tion of a new social phenomenon aimed at the devel-

opment of public administration. This effect is pro-

vided by a combination of the processes of training

and development of civil servants, research, the in-

troduction of innovative technologies of public ad-

ministration. The subjects of this process are scien-

tists, teachers and civil servants – students who cre-

ate social communities interested in the development

of public administration as a requirement of social

progress.

The development of e-learning of civil servants

is inﬂuenced by the development of its technical and

program capabilities, cooperation of specialists from

different countries and Wiley Education Services, in-

volvement of working civil servants in the training

process, close connection with public administration

practice.

E-learning programs are implemented by national

administrative schools, academies, in some cases uni-

versities, banks, associations, and certain organiza-

tions, in China they are party schools. The result of

completion these programmes is a certiﬁcate. In some

countries special e-learning institutions have been es-

tablished: the GDS Academy in the United Kingdom

(GDS Academy, 2020), Design Academy for Public

Policy in Argentina (LabGobAR, 2016), the Brazil-

ian Distance Education Association ABED (ABED,

2021), DigitalGov (DigitalGov, 2020).

The GDS Academy inspired similar initiatives in

Scotland and Canada, which launched its own Digi-

tal Academy under Canada’s School of Public Service

in January. So GDS declares as a goal to build digi-

tal capacity in government, through training civil ser-

vants in computer science, user-centric design, data,

and other disciplines required.

In 2015 Singapore began offering government em-

ployees free access to over 2,500 classes, including

many on an online platform Udemy, at the country’s

Civil Service College in July 2018. There are intro-

ductory sessions for non-specialists who want to learn

the fundamentals of new tech and more advanced

courses for civil servants who work in digital. As of

February 2019, it has trained more than 10,000 em-

ployees at all levels of government.

Nowadays, Kazakhstan ranks 33rd in the UN e-

government ranking , that is why the training of

civil servants is focused on embedding programs

that strengthen the ability of civil servants to use

Trends in the Development of e-Learning for Civil Servants

129

digital technologies and train IT professionals for

all levels of government in the educational pro-

cess. Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan and the

Academy of Public Administration under the Presi-

dent of the Republic of Kazakhstan train specialists

in this area (Suleimenova, 2016).

In the vast majority of countries, institutions that

train civil servants are short of funds. The need to

save money leads to different approaches to solving

this problem. For example, in Spain, austerity has

made innovation in the civil service one of INAP’s

priorities, while in Canada, austerity has given new

attention to e-learning.

Although classroom learning remains the main

means of educating public servants today, it should

be noted that there is an increase in online learning

offers. For example, the Canada School of Public

Service (CSPS) (Clark and Pal, 2011) offers nearly

400 self-study courses available online in a variety of

administrative and policy areas, such as values and

ethics, language learning and risk management. The

Canada School of Public Service offers all public ser-

vants courses on a variety of topics. While many are

held in conventional classrooms, others are online, in-

teractive and self-paced, allowing for learning when

it’s most convenient.

E-learning is a key element of government train-

ing in the UK as well. Through civil service training,

the country has been able to provide a high level of

training for its staff, despite signiﬁcant budget cuts.

The Australian Public Service Commission offers

numerous e-learning courses that are implemented us-

ing different technologies. The APSC Curriculum

Catalog (APSC, 2021) includes suggestions for those

who are new to APS, those who want to build their

core skills and those who are looking to further de-

velop their leadership capabilities. The list of courses

is growing every year, so it is natural that Australia

is one of the world’s leading countries in terms of e-

government.

One of the leading centers for e-government is

Hong Kong and it is not accidental. The Civil

Service Training and Development Institute CSTDI

(Hong Kong) (Civil Service Bureau, 2017) is con-

stantly training civil servants to use ICT. It aims to

help all civil servants acquire the basic knowledge and

skills needed for the new digital age. For this pur-

pose, a training portal on “Innovation. Technology”

has been created, information on innovative trends

in new technologies, modern equipment for informa-

tion and communication technologies, project man-

agement of information technology implementation,

Internet security and protection of personal data, tools

for analysis large databases, methods of making info-

graphics and video clips, etc. are downloaded con-

stantly. In 2019, it was planned that about 43,000

civil servants at various levels would participate in in-

formation technology training programs organized by

CSTDI.

Consider examples of certiﬁed training programs

for civil servants. The 5-day training seminar “E-

Government, Digital Government Transformation,

Innovative Public Policy and Services” is planned by

GLOMACS in Dubai (GLOMACS Training & Con-

sultancy, 2021). This GLOMACS training seminar

will cover: E-Government, Digital Transformation,

Civic Centrism, Innovative Public Policy and Ser-

vices, Language Comprehension. This interactive

course involves a mix of presentations with discus-

sions, case studies, role-plays, discussions and exer-

cises, including case studies. Visitors will provide

questions and examples from their own work envi-

ronment. As in other courses, the Zoe Talent Solu-

tions model is used, which provides four steps Do –

Review – Learn – Apply Model.

Upon successful completion of this training

course, participants will be awarded a GLOMACS

certiﬁcate with appropriate credits for continuing pro-

fessional education.

In the GDS Academy Digital leadership course

engages non DDaT (digital, data and technology) For

senior civil servants in central government who need

to support digital transformation and oversee joined-

up, trusted services which respond to user needs. The

course content is policy and data based and is vali-

dated by senior members of the digital, data and tech-

nology (DDaT) profession across 30 government or-

ganisations. Case studies and examples are exclu-

sively public sector. These facts indicate that the

content of civil servants training in e-government is

determined on the basis of the position of leaders

of e-government implementation, which was stud-

ied and summarized by the training organizers (GDS

Academy, 2020).

Another example: the themes of HAUS trainings

(Training HAUS, 2021) support the objectives set by

the government of Finland, and respond to changes

in the operative environment. This is why our selec-

tion of training programmes and our course content

are updated constantly. This courses are always up

to date, of high quality and utilise a rich selection of

teaching methods. Content available in the eOppiva

digital learning environment for public administration

is leveraged also in courses implemented in the form

of contact teaching. The themes and methods of our

training programs are designed in closed collabora-

tion with key actors in public administration, includ-

ing: The Administrative Unit of the Finnish Govern-

AET 2020 - Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

130

ment.

The US’s DigitalGov team also organises commu-

nities of practice in more than 20 digital disciplines,

from AI to virtual reality.

DigitalGov University provide a range of free on-

line and in-person trainings and events for people

and teams across the federal government. Many of

events highlight innovations, case studies, tools, and

resources. All of events are recorded and archived on

YouTube. Trainings are open to anyone working in

the government or for a government agency (Digital-

Gov, 2020).

In Japan, the Japanese Academy of Municipal

Personnel (JAMP) and Local Autonomy Colleges

provide ongoing training in e-government and e-

administration, information and communication tech-

nology for municipal staff, from high-level techni-

cians to senior ofﬁcials (Ishikawa, 2007).

From the point of view of socio-economic and

political transformation in India, the task of training

civil servants is to include project work, the use of in-

formation technology, which will improve the quality

of public administration and access to it, establishing

links with national and international institutions. In

India, attention is drawn to the fact that, if mass learn-

ing is needed, there are distance learning schemes that

will ensure the implementation of this task.

In India, the use of information technology is seen

as a means of improving the quality of public admin-

istration and access to it. In this regard, educational

institutions offer a variety of programs on the Internet

that provide all the knowledge and skills needed for

leadership in public administration. Working adults

do not need to leave their careers to get a degree

(Mishra, 2012).

E-learning is gaining momentum in Brazil. The

Brazilian National School of Public Administration

ENAP offers 26 free e-courses on the following top-

ics: Ethics; State budget and ﬁnances; Human re-

source management; IT&C (information technology

and communications); Procurement legislation, etc.

(Stadler et al., 2017).

Civil servants in all parts of Brazil apply for ENAP

courses (Stadler et al., 2017) because of the quality

of their content and their relevance to their day-to-

day activities. The ENAP policy allows The Brazilian

National School to offer all e-learning courses free of

charge, which means that the School provides from

its own budget the design, development and review

of these courses.The content of e-learning depends on

the state of e-government in the country. For exam-

ple, in Cameroon, the training of civil servants in IT

primarily covered some software tools, such as Mi-

crosoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Publisher and the

basics of using the Internet, basic ofﬁce programs

(MS ofﬁce).

In Zimbabwe, the training of civil servants is

aimed at providing speciﬁc skills important for the

functioning of the civil service, as well as knowl-

edge of how to use information technology (working

with a word processor, spreadsheet, databases, graph-

ics, multimedia systems) (World Bank, 2016). These

programs can be divided according to the needs of

civil servants: programs for those who have just en-

tered the civil service are aimed at studying programs

of permanent use – Microsoft Word, Excel, Power-

Point, Publisher and the basics of Internet use, basic

ofﬁce programs (MS ofﬁce); programs dedicated to

general problems of e-government; programs related

to speciﬁc tasks and problems of e-government; pro-

grams on a variety of public administration issues in

which e-learning is a learning technology. Most of-

ten, the civil servant himself, according to his needs,

chooses a particular course and studies it. In some

cases, civil servants are offered seminars that address

a wide range of e-government issues. Such training

can be both free and paid.

Electronic technologies are used by almost all ed-

ucational institutions to control the quality of edu-

cation. Thus, the French National School of Public

Administration ENA, conducts assessment after grad-

uation, receives information from the association of

graduates of ENA. Graduates are not just former stu-

dents of the school, but also employers or colleagues

of new graduates. Their feedback also provides an un-

derstanding of whether the current proﬁle and qual-

iﬁcations are relevant to the tasks to be performed

and the challenges to be addressed in today’s public

administration. Annual surveys are conducted more

formally and systematically on the basis of question-

naires sent to all graduates who have left ENA in the

last 14 months and started working in the French pub-

lic administration. A parallel questionnaire is sent

to their supervisors in the ministries and departments

where they work to ﬁnd out whether the content of

the training conducted at ENA meets the expectations

and needs of the French government and whether for-

mer students feel they are well prepared to perform

their duties. In some countries, such as Australia,

360-degree staff assessment (or circular assessment)

is used to identify potential opportunities and learn-

ing outcomes (He, 1702).

In many countries, training of civil servants in the

workplace is becoming more widespread, which is al-

most entirely based on the use of information technol-

ogy, which ensures the implementation of organiza-

tional, control, and evaluation tasks. It is information

technology that can turn the training of civil servants

Trends in the Development of e-Learning for Civil Servants

131

in the workplace into a managed process.

In China, e-communication is seen as a means of

learning at work. The introduction of e-government

is supported by the training of public servants. For

example, in Yunnan Province, online trainings were

conducted for civil servants from 53 departments.

The e-Government portal of China provides informa-

tion on online training for civil servants (Public Af-

faires Training, 2006).

The results of the study conducted by the OECD

are important for the realization of the purpose of our

work. Thus, according to the survey of civil servants,

one of the ﬁve most important skills of a civil ser-

vant is information management and the use of new

technologies, and schools are increasingly looking for

new and innovative approaches to training civil ser-

vants, including the integration of information and

communication technologies (ICT). However, only

half of the respondents stated that they have a clear

policy on the use of digital technologies for the train-

ing of current and future civil servants (OECD, 1997).

The analysis of the world experience of train-

ing civil servants for e-government by means of e-

learning allows to systematize the existing trends in

the modern educational space and to identify tools

and means of e-learning that increase the readiness

of public servants for e-government.

5 DIGITIZATION OF THE

PROCESS OF TRAINING

PUBLIC SERVANTS FOR

E-GOVERNMENT IN UKRAINE

Ukraine’s commitment for a higher level of e-

government development opens up far-reaching op-

portunities not only for improving institutional pro-

cesses and the efﬁciency of public services, but also

for training civil servants. Training of highly profes-

sional heads of public institutions and competent civil

servants is one of the prerequisites for creating an ef-

fective system of public administration. Since 2016,

the specialty “Public Administration” has been intro-

duced in Ukraine. More than 140 higher education

institutions (HEIs) in Ukraine have a license for edu-

cational activities in this specialty.

The standard of higher education in Ukraine of

the second (master’s) level of higher education in

the specialty 281 Public management and adminis-

tration determines the formation of special compe-

tence “Ability to organize information and analyti-

cal support of management processes using modern

information resources and technologies, in particu-

lar to develop measures for the implementation of e-

government in various areas of public management

and administration”, as well as the learning outcome:

“to identify priority areas for e-government and e-

democracy” (MON, 2020).

Educational trends of recent years, modern learn-

ing conditions during the pandemic require intro-

ducing e-learning in the practice of civil servants’

training from the leaders of these educational in-

stitutions, the requirement of time is the correc-

tion of the content and forms of education and the

use of IT in research and teaching. Our analy-

sis of the content of more than 50 educational pro-

grams, which provide training for civil servants in

higher educational institutions of Ukraine, showed

that most educational programs have mandatory dis-

ciplines that provide training for civil servants in e-

government. These disciplines have different names,

namely: “Digital and e-Government and ICT”, “E-

Government”, “Information Policy and Digital Tech-

nologies”, “Information Technologies, e-Government

and E-Democracy”, “E-Government, resources and

services in the civil service”, “Information and analyt-

ical activities in public administration”,”Informatics

and computer technology”,”Information technology

in public administration”,”E-government, informa-

tion technology, resources and services on civil ser-

vice”, etc. In some master’s degrees such disciplines

are elective, their mastery depends on the choice of

students.

Some higher educational institutions offer educa-

tional programs that are entirely dedicated to prepar-

ing for e-government. Thus, one of the leading

universities of Ukraine “Kyiv Polytechnic Univer-

sity” offers an educational program “E-Government”,

which contains numerous disciplines related to the

preparation for e-government, including “Informa-

tion Security and Risk Management”, “Information

systems and Internet technologies in public adminis-

tration”,”International and national professional stan-

dards in the ﬁeld of e-government”,”E-government

and e-democracy”,”Tools of e-government and e-

democracy in preventing corruption”, “Implementa-

tion of e-government”, “Public procurement and e-

commerce” (pdp.nacs.gov.ua, 2019).

Uzhhorod National University also provides train-

ing in the e-government educational program. This

educational program contains the following disci-

plines: “Communications in public administration”,

“Architecture and information technology infrastruc-

ture of e-government”, “Electronic document man-

agement and information security”, “Foreign expe-

rience in e-democracy”, “Information security in e-

government”, “E-democracy”, “Benchmarking of e-

AET 2020 - Symposium on Advances in Educational Technology

132

government at the local level”, “Theoretical and

methodological, organizational and institutional ba-

sis of e-government”, “Public administration in the

development of the informatiion society”, “Elec-

tronic services”, “Information technology in the elec-

toral process”, “Marketing and management of e-

government” (www.uzhnu.edu.ua, 2021).

The analysis of the content of education in

Ukrainian master’s programs testiﬁes to the compli-

ance of the content of civil servants’ training with

global trends in preparation for e-government. Anal-

ysis of the forms of the educational process organi-

zation shows that almost all master’s programs offer

full-time, part-time and distance learning, which cor-

responds to general trends and features of education

during the pandemic.

On the basis of the Educational and Scien-

tiﬁc Institute of Public Administration, Management

and Postgraduate Education of the State Institution

“Luhansk Taras Shevchenko National University”

and Institute of Humanities and Public Administra-

tion of Ivano-Frankivsk National Technical Univer-

sity of Oil and Gas, which carry out educational ac-

tivities for the preparation of masters in “Public Ad-

ministration”, a survey of civil servants on digitaliza-

tion processes was conducted. The study surveyed

285 respondents who studied by correspondence over

the past 3 years. The research group included civil

servants of “C” and “B” categories from the regional

administrations, district state administrations, as well

as ofﬁcials from city and village councils of Luhansk

and Ivano-Frankivsk regions. Only 6% of respon-

dents do not work in the civil service and local gov-

ernment and study on a contract basis. Figures 1 and 2

shows the characteristics of the group of respondents

by age and length of service in public administration.

The characteristic of the respondents’ group by

age shows that the survey was conducted by peo-

ple aged 21 to 60, among them the predominant age

group is from 31 to 40 years (54%), people who usu-

ally have skills in the use of ICT technologies and are

able to master new technologies in e-learning. The

characteristic of the group of respondents by length of

public service shows that the survey was conducted by

experienced civil servants and local government ofﬁ-

cials. 51% of respondents have more than 5 years of

experience in the public service, which makes their

opinions valuable as experts on the processes of digi-

talization of public administration.

Respondents were asked to rate the level of man-

ifestation of a phenomenon of digitalization on a 10-

point scale (10 – maximum level, 1 – minimum level).

According to the survey, 68.2% of respondents rated

the impact of information technology (IT) on the ef-

fectiveness of public administration with the highest

number of points (from 8 to 10), the lowest level of

assessment – 5 points. The level of assessment of dig-

italization of public administration in Ukraine is esti-

mated at a minimum of 2 points and a maximum of

10 points, the majority of respondents (81.4%) within

5 – 8 points. The level of digitalization of work pro-

cesses in the organization at the place of work is esti-

mated by the majority of civil servants (56.4%) within

5 – 6 points. Only 17.2% of respondents gave high

marks (8–9 points). The minimum score on this issue

within 2 – 3 points was given to 12.1% of respon-

dents. The obtained data are indeed a subjective as-

sessment of the respondents, but they indicate prob-

lems in the practice of e-government implementing.

With this assessment, civil servants demonstrate their

opinion that ICT technologies are used in half in terms

of the possibilities of their use in work, the digitaliza-

tion of public administration is under development.

The results of the assessment of respondents’ own

readiness for the use of ICT in public administration

are shown in the diagram (ﬁgure 3).

Thus, most respondents acknowledge their will-

ingness to use ICT technologies, which is a favorable

factor for the digitalization of the public service and

the introduction of e-learning for civil servants. The

study also examined the impact of information tech-

nology on the learning process. Respondents’ assess-

ment of their own readiness to use ICT in the learning

process and their self-development (ﬁgure 4) showed

their conﬁdence in their readiness for e-learning.

Also, the majority of respondents (62.6%) rated

the increase in their level of ICT competence dur-

ing master’s studies in the range from 7 to 10 points.

However, this issue was rated at 2 – 3 points in 13%

of respondents, which may indicate insufﬁcient use of

ICT in the educational process.

To identify the trends in the development of e-

learning for public servants, it was important to pro-

vide information on the results of the Delphi study of

the ICT technologies impact on the educational pro-

cess, identify the beneﬁts and threats of the use of

IT. This study was carried out in two stages. At the

ﬁrst stage the opinion of 285 undergraduates from the

group of respondents on the beneﬁts and threats of the

use of ICT in the educational process was clariﬁed as

the result of the survey. Analysis and systematization

of the obtained data, study of the scientiﬁc literature

on this issue, our own research allowed us to form the

lists of beneﬁts and threats of e-learning and identify

11 beneﬁts and 7 threats.

At the second stage, a group of undergraduates of

the 1–2 years of study (48 people) acted as an ex-

pert group which corresponds the group of 285 re-

Trends in the Development of e-Learning for Civil Servants

133

Gas, which carry out educational activities for the preparation of masters in "Public

Administration", a survey of civil servants on digitalization processes was con-

ducted. The study surveyed 285 respondents who studied by correspondence over

the past 3 years. The research group included civil servants of "C" and "B"

categories from the regional administrations, district state administrations, as well

as officials from city and village councils of Luhansk and Ivano-Frankivsk regions.

Only 6% of respondents do not work in the civil service and local government and

study on a contract basis. Fig. 1 − 2 shows the characteristics of the group of

respondents by age and length of service in public administration.

Fig. 1. Characteristic of the respondents’ group by age

Fig. 2. Characteristic of the respondents’ group by length of work in public

service

Figure 1: Characteristic of the respondents’ group by age.