Swearer Center for Public Service

Data and Evaluation Partnerships

Breadcrumb

Data and Evaluation Partnerships

The Community-Engaged Data & Evaluation Collaborative (CEDEC) leverages Brown University’s resources to address data, evaluation and research priorities identified and valued by community organizations, nonprofits and public agencies in Rhode Island.

About CEDEC

CEDEC was born out of our community partners’ interest. When meeting with Swearer Center staff or providing input for the Center’s strategic planning, many local partners identified data and evaluation as a priority or opportunity for collaboration. 

Many community partners already collect, analyze and tell stories with data. They recognize the importance of evaluating their work’s impact, processes and outcomes, making data-informed decisions and increasing access to the information their communities prioritize. Through collaboration and coordination that boosts personnel and technical capacities, they may be able to realize their data’s potential more effectively. 

CEDEC matches the priorities of community partners with Brown University faculty, staff and students through coursework, fellowships, research programs and other forms of technical support. Undertaking data and evaluation projects with community partners is mutually beneficial because it both advances those partners’ goals and provides Brown University faculty, staff and students with meaningful, real-world learning and research opportunities. As of the Fall 2024 semester, we have connected over 30 Rhode Island community partners with Brown’s resources to advance their data and evaluation priorities.

Collaboration Across the University

CEDEC is an initiative of the Swearer Center bringing together partners from across Brown University, including:

Each campus partner brings its own distinctive and existing resources, including course-based projects, practica, capstones, experiential learning opportunities and faculty and staff research expertise. These resources vary in availability throughout the school year and in the potential fit to match with a community priority. That is why the collaborative aspect of our work is so important—each campus partner can step in when and where are most appropriate. This collaboration also bolsters partnership sustainability since CEDEC can connect a given community partner to multiple campus resources across time. While these units form CEDEC’s core, we also leverage resources across other units and areas of campus, depending on our community partners’ priorities.

Ways to Engage

Community-identified priorities are the heart of CEDEC’s work. Community partners arrive at CEDEC at various stages of their data and evaluation journeys. Some organizations have well-established data processes and systems but are looking for ways to analyze or visualize those data in ways they haven’t before. They may also be looking for a faculty researcher with access to additional data sources or experience in a particular methodology, and there may be a good fit for collaboration. Other organizations may not yet know where to start.

You do not have to have a fully-formed idea or project to work with CEDEC. Our staff and campus partners can work with you to develop and understand what a valuable partnership may look like. 

Common deliverables from CEDEC partnerships are:

  • Building out data collection protocols
  • Connecting to important public data sources, such as the US Census
  • Digitizing paper records into a database (or spreadsheet) through data entry
  • Developing plans for program- or organization-level evaluation
  • Developing a policy analysis or brief
  • Mapping participant engagement or impact through interactive visualizations
  • Organizing new or existing data 
  • Supporting data collection through surveys, literature reviews, focus groups or interviews
  • Visualizing and analyzing existing qualitative (such as text data) or quantitative data

If this opportunity sounds valuable to your organization, please email cedec@brown.edu with a short description of how you may want to collaborate. We will then follow up to discuss possibilities.

Faculty across campus have leveraged connections through CEDEC to incorporate community-engaged learning into their classrooms and support community-based grant proposals. They have also analyzed partners’ data, codesigned data systems and co-formulated research questions. Acknowledging that faculty and staff capacity for partnership may vary throughout and across academic years, CEDEC facilitates plans for partnership sustainability and relationship stewardship. Depending on community partners’ data and evaluation priorities, Brown University faculty and staff can engage through a few pathways:

  • Courses - Integrate community priorities into course-based learning, such as student assignments and semester-long projects.
  • Experiential learning - Integrate community priorities into practicum, capstones, theses and other training opportunities that are required for academic programs (e.g., by highlighting specific, relevant projects to participating students).
  • Research - Integrate community priorities into research programs, grant proposals, and training opportunities on campus; this could mean a collaborative research project or more traditional research driven in part by community-identified research questions and/or data from community partners.
  • Thought partnership - Inform community partners’ data and/or evaluation projects or systems; these types of partnerships can be short-term (e.g., a couple hours for a few weeks) or long-term (e.g., meeting periodically for several months), depending on capacity.

Please email cedec@brown.edu to explore how your research program, courses and/or interests may align with CEDEC community partners’ data and evaluation priorities. Visit our page on Policies and Guidance for community-engaged partnerships for more information on specific items that may come up while matching to community data and evaluation priorities.

 

There are many ways for students to engage with CEDEC, such as courses, fellowships, practica and capstones. These opportunities are typically coordinated through faculty and staff who have already scoped and developed projects with the community partner and CEDEC staff. Some of these opportunities include*:

We occasionally have openings and opportunities for students to engage outside of these connected resources:

  • Please keep an eye on the Swearer Opportunities page for paid opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students.
  • If you have an idea for a thesis or capstone project and do not have an existing community partner connection, please email cedec@brown.edu with your idea. Our staff may be able to identify a community-identified priority that fits.

*Note that you may have to satisfy the respective prerequisites and program eligibility requirements for many of these resources.

Getting Involved

  • Are you a community organization, nonprofit or public agency interested in support around a data or evaluation project? We encourage you either to fill out this Community Partnership Interest Form or to email cedec@brown.edu to schedule a time to talk. Based on your goals, project idea and timeline, we can help determine which CEDEC resource(s) might be best able to work with you.
  • Are you a student interested in working on a community-identified data or evaluation project? We would be happy to connect you with one of our institutional partners or a community partner with an open project. Please email cedec@brown.edu with initial information on your skills and goals.
  • Are you a faculty or staff member interested in engaging students with partners’ projects – or already working on a collaborative project yourself? We want to hear from you. Please share your experience or interests by either filling out this Campus-Community Engagement Form or emailing cedec@brown.edu.

Local Resources and Examples Created Through CEDEC

Providence Census Geography Crosswalk

  • A set of spreadsheets and tables and a series of maps that relate census geographies with local geographies in Providence, Rhode Island, such as neighborhoods and city wards.
  • The product was produced as a part of CEDEC and created by the GeoData@SciLi, which is a part of the Center for Library Exploration and Research (CLEAR) at the Brown University Library.

 

LGBTQ+ History in Providence StoryMap

Contact

cedec@brown.edu

Do you have questions about CEDEC?