Course subject: Public Serivce (PS)

The government work environment presents unique challenges in the realm of financial planning. This course explores the priority-setting, resource planing, and budget allocation processes in government, giving special attention to the roles, responsibilities and accountabilities of key stakeholders. The aim is to provide students with advanced knowledge of the government financial planning process, which will place them in a stronger position to consult with and make recommendations to management. This course is restricted to students enrolled in the Master of Public Service program.

Public servants often have to become communication specialists: they have to communicate with diverse audiences (e.g. citizen groups, politicians, lawyers, parliamentary committees and subcommittees) using a variety of genres (e.g. reports, records pamphlets, power point presentations, briefs) as well as different modes of communication (e.g. electronic, text, face-to-face). This course offers participants an opportunity to identify and interrogate the stylistic and visual strategies characteristic of the documents in their workplaces. Much of the course focuses on identifying the needs of different audiences and aligning stylistic and visual choices to those audiences. In the process of investigating documentation practices, course participants are offered opportunities to develop their own informal and formal communication skills. This course is restricted to students enrolled in the Master of Public Service program.

Some public service positions require proficiency in both of Canada's official languages, English and French. This optional course is taught at an intermediate level, and is designed to refresh and reinforce linguistic skills students have acquired through previous French language training (e.g. senior high school or university courses). It aims to strengthen proficiency in oral expression and comprehension, through the study of specialized vocabulary and situational learning scenarios, such as role-play exercises. This course is restricted to students enrolled in the Master of Public Service program.

Public servants are often involved in the development, implementation and evaluation of public policy. This course examines the dynamics of public policy development in Canada, analyzing the actors, interests and institutions involved in problem identification, policy design, decision-making, implementation and evaluation. It is designed to equip students with knowledge of the policy process and a framework to analyze and recommend courses of action in response to contemporary problems. This course is restricted to students enrolled in the Master of Public Service program.

An effective leader demonstrates mastery of skills in four key domains: personal, interpersonal, organizational, and contextual. Using these four areas as a guide, this course offers future public servants a comprehensive interactive program aimed at developing their skills as managerial leaders. Case studies drawn from government are examined and role-playing and problem-solving exercises are used to cultivate leadership capacity. Students explore the roles of values and ethics in the life of a public servant, the need to build community and foster a culture of collaboration, and the necessity of being an effective communicator and leader of people. This course is restricted to students enrolled in the Master of Public Service program.

In this course, teams of three or four students propose, research and write a major report on a topic that may arise from their co-op work term experience, coursework, or mutual interest in a particular salient, contemporary public issue. Teams are responsible for organizing regular meetings to coordinate work tasks, keeping a record of individual contributions to the project and producing a professional, thorough analysis which demonstrates the knowledge and skills they have acquired in the MPS program. This course is restricted to students enrolled in the Master of Public Service program.

To effectively support evidence-based decision making, public servants must be skilled in collective, analyzing, interpreting and presenting data. This course explores the principles and practices of effective research design, and equips students with essential skills in data collection and analysis. Topics may include methods of data collection, measurement, data coding, descriptive and inferential statistics, sampling, survey research techniques, questionnaire design, interviews, and research ethics.

This course focuses on the rationale for government intervention in a market economy. The course begins with a consideration of market successes through the analysis of the first and second theorems of welfare economics. The course then considers market failures through an analysis of distributional issues, public goods, externalities, non-competitive market structures, and asymmetric information. The role and degree of government intervention in health care, education, social assistance, employment insurance, and pension plans is also discussed.

The ushering in of the internet over the past two decades created change in every industry and every aspect of our lives; governments were not immune to that change, and have been working hard to understand what the changing digital landscape means to the way they serve the public. Like almost every organization in every sector, governments at all levels around the world are trying to figure out how to adapt to this digital disruption, and the changing public expectations that come with it, while still making sure critically important systems - including social services, public infrastructure, financial operations, and democratic governance - are still stable and solid for the people, communities and businesses that rely on them every day. The future of the public service is one that acknowledges that these systems need change, but that change can only come from new ways of working, of approaching challenges, and of understanding the relationship between public and public service. The digital era has not only ushered in new public expectations of government, but an ever-present need for the public service to renew itself to meet those expectations. This course will explore what government can and should look like in a digital era, while also examining how this digital transformation is already being done, but inside the public sector and beyond.