Digitalization and Sustainability

URL study guide

https://studiegids.vu.nl/en/courses/2024-2025/XM_0089

Course Objective

At the end of the course, the students will:
- be familiar with basic knowledge about digitalization and digital transformation, sustainability, and the role of digitalization in achieving business
- and other sustainability goals within society and organizations (Knowledge and understanding; Applying knowledge and understanding).
- be able to reason about the technology
- and business-related digitalization and sustainability concerns, and apply their reasoning to a concrete project (Applying knowledge and understanding; Making judgments).
- have a basic understanding of the types of sustainability impacts of digital solutions, so to identify and assess the trade-offs between the different sustainability concerns addressed by digital solutions (Knowledge and understanding; Applying knowledge and understanding; Making judgments).
- be able to write a scientific report about a concrete digitalization-and-sustainability project in a group of students (Applying knowledge and understanding; Making judgments; Communication skills).
- be trained to (i) explore the problem
- and solution space in the digital transition of a specific sector/domain, and (ii) identify and address a set of relevant sustainability goals (Applying knowledge and understanding; Making judgments; Learning skills).
- be able to reflect critically on what learned, its impact in society, and express own motivated opinions (Applying knowledge and understanding; Making judgments; Communication skills; Learning skills)

Course Content

The course follows a mixed-method approach and includes live lectures, flipped-classes with video lectures, active discussions, and teamwork. The lectures explain the basic concepts related to digitalization (such as the notions of digitalization and digital transformation, the role of technology, and the impact on business and society) and sustainability (such as the notions of sustainable software and software for sustainability, how to frame sustainability-quality concerns in the design of digital solutions, and how to assess sustainability impacts). Discussions are based on the video/live lectures and a set of papers the students will reflect upon. The students participate in small teams to incrementally develop an understanding of the digital transformation of a selected sector/domain and the related sustainability concerns, and work on a shared project and associated report.

Teaching Methods

The course will be centered on the practical project (in teamwork) of analyzing the sustainability-, business
- and technology
- implications of digitalizing a sector or application domain of own choice. The project is generic by design, to allow the students reflect on the gaps and opportunities for digital transformation, and choose their own focus for the most promising digitalization and sustainability goals. The theory will be explained in lectures (3 on digitalization topics and 3 on sustainability topics) some of which may be video-recorded upfront. Each week, live lectures will engage and challenge the students in lively discussions; while for flipped-classes the students will watch the video lecture upfront and individually carry out simple understanding tasks which will be discussed afterward in a live plenary session. The students will also read a paper each, distributed upfront related to each week’s topics, and answer reflective questions that help apply the gained knowledge to the practical project. There will be weekly active discussions in teamwork sessions, where the students will work in small teams on their practical project. Input to the teamwork sessions will be the reflection on the papers the team has read, and the specific project assignment. There is also a significant amount of self-study, both to study the theory, read the papers, and work on the practical project. The scheduled sessions are 2 hours per week lectures/discussion (l), and 2 hours per week teamwork (s). Attendance is mandatory.

Method of Assessment

Type and Weight of each component: Teamwork project assignments (80%, two group assignments), Individual assignment (20%). As part of the teamwork project assignments, each student gives an individual presentation. To pass the course, the scores of each component must be 6.0 or higher. Compensation: it is not possible to compensate one component with another. Mode of re-examination: if insufficient, each component can be revised and resubmitted once.

Literature

A (selection of a) list of papers on the course topics. Course material distributed on Canvas.

Target Audience

MSc Information Sciences

Custom Course Registration

Further information for this course will be made available online (Canvas). All students must be enrolled in the course Canvas community. Group enrolment takes place in Canvas.

Additional Information

The course has a maximum enrolment limit of 100. The students of the Master Information Sciences, for whom it is compulsory, have priority over the students that take this course as an elective or a constrained choice course. The students that take this course as an elective or a constrained choice course run the risk of not being able to participate, even if they have registered on time, if the maximum enrolment limit has been reached. The students of the Master Information Sciences, for whom it is compulsory, run the risk of being initially refused if the enrolment limit has been reached at the time of registration. However this will be adjusted manually after registration has been closed so that all the students of the Master Information Sciences will be able to participate.

Recommended background knowledge

Basic knowledge of some programming language. Knowledge of UML.

Explanation Canvas

Instructions about group enrolment and (if applicable) software tools for attendance will be provided at least one week before the course starts. All students must be enrolled before then.