Benefits of Collaboratory

How is Collaboratory used at DePaul?

Faculty and staff use Collaboratory to:

• Easily share details of their community engagement and public service activities.
• Highlight scholarly artifacts of community-engaged teaching and research.
• Showcase expertise, background, and community-based interests.
• Share research and services with potential funders, donors, and partners.
• Find out who else on campus is facilitating community engagement work.

Students use Collaboratory to:

• Discover DePaul faculty and staff who are experienced in specific disciplines and impact areas.
• Find courses that include service learning and other external engagement and public service opportunities.
• Contribute to conversations that develop community campus partnerships.

Community members use Collaboratory to:

• Become familiar with the diverse community engagement and public service activities that DePaul faculty, staff and students are working on.
• Identify faculty and staff who may be potential collaborators with the organization.
• Consider how organization can make additional connections with DePaul or others.

What data does Collaboratory collect?

Collaboratory collects information about Community Engagement Activities done in partnership with the community and Public Service Activities providing expertise, resources, or services to or for the community.

• Community Engagement Activities: Track community organizations, impact areas, populations served, locations, student involvement, units, and more. Each activity provides a complete description that reflects the literature base for community–engaged scholarship and partnership practices.
• Public Service Activities: Track activities such as camps, clinics, direct services, cultural performances, professional development opportunities, and the full spectrum of public service activities provided by faculty and staff for the public's general benefit.
• Courses: Include academic courses that integrate community engagement and public service activities. Collaboratory collects course descriptions, modes of learning/delivery, reflection strategies, student learning objectives, and more.
• Community Engagement Activities: Track those with whom you are connecting in the community from businesses and nonprofits to school systems and grassroots organizations. Quickly see the network of your institution's faculty and staff that work with the same organizations.
• Units: Discover who else at your institution is involved. Departments, offices, and centers are linked to activities, and have profiles summarizing community engagement and public service activities of the unit.
• Faculty and Staff: Highlight the network of community–based interdisciplinary collaborations across your institution by mapping where faculty and staff work together across units.
• Other Institutions: Recognize the distinct collaborations you have with other higher education institutions near and far.
• Programs and Initiatives: Capture your short and long–term institutional priorities such as strategic plans, scholarship programs, and programmatic initiatives that link to community engagement and public service activities.