Member Spotlight: University of Illinois Chicago

The University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) is one of seven new members joining the Public Interest Technology University Network, but the institution started pursuing public interest tech more than four years ago. The seed for its public interest technology program was planted back in 2017. The then-new clinical associate professor at the school’s College of Urban Planning and Public Affairs Stephen Kleinschmit was working with students in its Masters of Public Administration program and he recognized an unmet need the school’s information technology and performance measurement concentration.

“Being here in Chicago, we'd always noticed that, traditionally, there's been a lot of need for public information. The city has a very advanced ecosystem of public information technology spread around a very robust civic technology community anchored by groups like ChiHack Night, and Code for America, and Chicago City Data Users Groups,” he explains. “We saw that this kind of emerging new form of, of using public open information, open data, and public informatics for civic innovation.”

At the same time, the city of Chicago also has a large data operation and is the home of large private organizations that develop commercial data services and applications. And yet there was no place for people to go and learn the skills needed to support any of the above, he says.

“We just saw that there was a need for a new type of public servant. And one that was steeped in an understanding of data and computation and advanced statistics -- particularly in operational context -- working in government agencies and nonprofits, but also that was informed by the ethics of public service that solve some of the problems arising with the ethical issues, issues of diversity, equity, inclusion, and in tech,” Kleinschmit explains. “To us, made us an ideal location to pursue essentially one of the first government analytics master's degrees in the country.”

The school started working on the new program in spring 2018, and it launched two programs this past fall and spring, the master’s of Civic Analytics program and the Civic Analytics minor, respectively. While the Covid-19 pandemic muted the launch somewhat – about 20 prospective students deferred their admission until the next school year – about two dozen students got started with the program, Kleinschmit says.

“We wanted to create a program that would become a feeder for civic technologists, city Information officers, city data officers, data analysts and other people like that,” he says. “We want our students to understand the culture of innovation and how to innovate using open data, how to interact with citizen activists who are using these tools so that they can not only understand the culture of innovation and be able to apply it to their own operations, but also how to create structures of open data use and policy that would be that would help anchor and feed the civic innovation movement and be able to assist activism, data journalism, political accountability, and government accountability.”

Students in the program come from traditional public affairs “feeder” majors – political science, economics, and public policy – but they also come from majors including physics, computer science, and other hard sciences. They’re learning the ins and outs of public data, public data structures, ethics, and legal requirements. Upcoming courses include PA446, which is coding for civic data applications and PA470, Artificial intelligence and machine learning in the public sector, among others.

Going forward, Kleinschmit and his department will continue expanding the program. Next up: The launch of UIC’s newest venture, the Civic Technology Research Lab. The lab is a multi-university program that’s focused on populating academic literature on the fundamentals of public analytics and public data education. Kleinschmit recently won a Network of Schools of Public Policy, Affairs, and Administration (NASPAA) competition to write field foundational literature. He’s also planning to launch a journal of civic technology that’s short form, open access, and disseminates high impact research on the topic. “I'm not a big fan of traditional academic publication because it shouldn't take 18 months from start to finish to communicate something that's important. It shouldn't be locked behind a paywall. It shouldn't be irrelevant by the time it's even posted,” he says, adding that the idea may turn into a PIT-UN Challenge grant application.