Master of Science in
Digital Innovation and Management

Big data offers opportunities and risks; these in turn require deep technical knowledge as well as critical skills to analyse the quality and expected impact of any solution. Making sense of data is a key interdisciplinary challenge for many organisations, institutions and governments so they can understand and adapt quickly to changing conditions. For instance, a hospital can incorporate GPS data about the location of its ambulances and helicopters with data about the mission, the emergency calls, and the current status in various emergency rooms in order to take decisions in real-time when faced with an emergency call. Or for instance, step counters and mobile phones can be connected with Amazon Echo voice-activated assistant to help manage family life while potentially allowing a range of vendors to ensure availability of groceries and other products the family might need. While both these scenarios evoke a future of efficiency and convenience, they also raise issues about privacy and the influence such data services might have on work practices and everyday lives.

Extracting value from big data depends in part on solving engineering challenges and hiring data scientists, but the key lies in interdisciplinary and critical analyses of big data processes and solutions. The courses in this specialisation offer an opportunity for you to engage with technical challenges, organisational processes and societal concerns around big data. Most importantly, you will learn how to translate critical and theoretical tools you have gained throughout the program into practice and application.

Course: Big Data Processes (7.5 ECTS)

Organizations increasingly employ processes for collecting, generating, storing, governing and analysing large amounts of data. Such Big Data Processes, based on the discovery of meaningful patterns and insights in large datasets, can be used to explain and predict complex phenomena. In this class we will engage hands-on with all of the stages of a typical big data project around a specific case. This includes the collection and generation of data, as well as its visualisation and analysis for critical insights. This course presents students with opportunities to engage technically with data using state-of-the-art tools, in reflecting on the technological and societal implications, and limitations, at every relevant stage of the process. This includes discussions of how to derive value from big data processes as well as ethical and legal issues such as the use of personal data.

Course: Critical Big Data Management (15 ECTS)

There is no longer one approach that can fit all data management problems. For each problem, big data managers have to decide on appropriate models and systems to handle the relevant data. In this course, you will be introduced to a variety of methods in big data analytics and machine learning, and, using the skills acquired in the first part of the specialisation, will apply this to solve a specific business related problem. Based on the specific big data analysis, you will reflect on its organisational, legal, and ethical implications. 

The changes being brought about by digitalization processes are particularly visible in the public sector. A successful digital future, such as the one envisaged in various Danish digitalization strategies, requires a thorough engagement with the motivations, priorities, histories, practices and discourses that drive digitalization processes. It also requires a set of methodological tools and theoretical concepts suited to take into account the technologies at the centre of public digitalization, such as machine-learning algorithms, data centres, biometrics, satellite-based control mechanisms, social media platforms, digital patient journals and user portals.

This specialization provides you with a grounding in the history, theory, policy, expectations, challenges, practicalities and methods of digitalization initiatives. The two parts of the specialisation are united in their shared concern with ethnographic studies and both draw on theoretical frameworks from anthropology, Science and Technology Studies and organizational studies. In the first part, The Digital State, you develop an historically informed foundation for thinking about technologies and state projects over time, and a global perspective on public digitalization initiatives. The second part of the specialization, Digitalization and Public Sector Transformations, revolves around practical research projects in the local government setting and the different kinds of processes currently underway. 

By following the specialisation, you will gain critical skills in analysing, conceptualising and contextualising the changes around us. You will develop competences in the methods and techniques through which to study public digitalization yourself. Together, the two parts of the specialization provide a grounded and comparative understanding of the digitizing state in Scandinavia, and prepare you to work at the forefront of public sector transformations.

Course: The Digital State (7.5 ECTS)

The Digital State asks what the state is, in order to provide a foundation for understanding the changes that are taking place through initiatives of public digitalization. Taking a historical, comparative and global perspective, the course is arranged by themes which move us from past examples into the present and the everyday. 

First, we examine different understandings of the State, and how it can be present in everyday life. Drawing on students’ own encounters with the State, we critically explore the familiar. Next, we examine some of the motivations driving digitalization projects, and consider the priorities of those implementing such schemes. In our third theme, we consider the technologies involved in digitalization projects, across a range of state sectors. To see local initiatives clearly from where we are –in Denmark – we make use of comparative material from other countries, where digitalization projects play out differently. Drawing on cases from China, India, Iceland, Norway and more, we look at the different priorities and concerns arising around State digitalization globally. The course concludes with a regional focus on questions of trust and accountability in the Scandinavian State.

Course: The Digital State in Practice (15 ECTS)

This second part of the specialisation builds on theoretical tools from The Digital State and combines them with empirical insights into how public sector transformations take place and unfold in practice. 

Digitalization is bringing large-scale institutional changes to the public sector, not least in Denmark, a world-leading IT nation. Our focus in Digitalization and Public Sector Transformations is on the Danish public sector. You will have the opportunity to go into depth with the ‘how’ of public sector digitalization: how are digitalization processes changing the landscapes and infrastructures of the public sector today? Which types of hopes, challenges, motivations and risks are involved in these processes?

The course consists of three main elements:

• Thematic focus: How are digitalisation processes changing and challenging the welfare state? How are local governmental institutions, welfare encounters, work, professions and management practices changed by digitalization?  
• Concepts and method: How do we study and make sense of the changing organisational practices of the Danish welfare state?
• Project work: Grouped in research teams, you will conduct ethnographic research projects in local governmental settings going through processes of digitalization.  

You will carry out ethnographic research projects in groups in a local governmental setting, where you will study an ongoing IT project. As digital technologies transform internal work and management practices, they also transform the relation between welfare professionals and citizens. Understanding these processes of transformation and what they entail is crucial for working with digitalization, both in the public sector or a consultant in the private sector. 

Through your ethnographic research project, you will gain insight into the implementation and the organizational and societal changes caused by digitalization. Your project will enable you to link your empirical work to core theoretical concepts in the specialisation, and can be used as preparation for your thesis.

The specialisation comprises both service design and service management perspectives. Service Design is an approach which covers the analysis, design, and development of digital services. In turn, Service Management is a perspective focusing on the management of complex services and their ecosystems.

To design services it is essential to comprehend the whole life cycle of the service, the design, delivery, and management. Similarly, service management requires an understanding of the design principles and their underlying logic. This dual perspective helps you to get a grasp of service management and service design – and provides a solid foundation for your career development.

The specialisation draws on multidisciplinary fields based on theory, insights, and techniques from the design discipline, management, and business administration. We educate professionals who can operate in complex digital service environments and service ecosystems in private companies, public organizations, and non-governmental organizations. In addition, the specialization provides you with approaches, methods, and tools to understand services and their ecosystems, and co-create value to multiple actors in varying service contexts.

Course: Introduction to Service Design and Management (7.5 ECTS):

This course introduces you to Service Design and its basic principles, methods, and tools. The course focuses especially on the design of services that are either fully digital or where digital components play an important role. The teaching consists of lectures, case studies, and practical exercises. On the course you will, among other things, learn to develop and evaluate services by using methods such as service blueprint and co-design.

Course: Service Design - Management and Implementation (15 ECTS):

This course is the second part of the specialisation in Service Design. Therefore, participation requires that the introductory course has been completed. In this course you learn about the management and improvement of existing digital services and the importance of collaboration with different stakeholders. You learn to identify stakeholders who are involved in a service (such as public organisations, private companies and non-governmental organisations) and their motivations and needs, as well as challenges for implementing and operating digital services.

During the course, you will work on a project where you have to map challenges about a digital service in an organisation or a private company and suggest improvements to that service.