A community-engaged approach to evaluation for community and academic research partners: Example from the Alliance for Research in Chicagoland Communities

Established in 2008 and based at Northwestern University, the Alliance for Research in Chicagoland Communities (ARCC) uses a collaborative approach to develop evaluation tools to measure progress in supporting and promoting community-engaged research (CEnR). This is led by an Evaluation Work Group (EWG) of community and academic members of ARCC’s steering committee.

The EWG developed a four module on-line survey for community, faith, and community serving organizations, academics (faculty, staff, trainees from Northwestern and other Chicago universities), ARCC seed grantees, and ARCC Steering Committee members.

The survey was developed using input from community and academics, review of similar tools, adaptation of earlier ARCC-developed tools, and review of literature on CEnR capacities. EWG met monthly over 2 years for survey development. Based on a 2011 pilot survey conducted with Steering Committee members, the EWG decided to create specific survey modules for other constituencies including academic partners, community partners and ARCC seed grant recipients. Targeted modules were created to reduce subject burden while maximizing data collection.

Survey data focused on the following domains: 1) evaluating ARCC’s progress toward its goals and tracking outcomes of ARCC seed grant or other programs; 2) assessing CEnR capacity, needs, assets of communities and academics; and 3) identifying perceptions of institutional and community support for CEnR.

Presenters (including community and academic partners) will 1) discuss how the data will inform future ARCC initiatives; 2) share results from the multiple-module online survey launched in 2013; 3) provide lessons about collaboratively designing, implementing, and analyzing community research evaluation tools.