Leveraging Internal Partnerships and Existing Data Infrastructure to Track and Assess Community Engagement across the University

Abstract

Universities increasingly see community engagement as a means to achieve their mission. In order to assess the impact of these efforts, it is necessary to gather and analyze data from across the institution on community-engaged activities. This article presents a case study of Virginia Commonwealth University’s efforts in developing enterprise data mechanisms that track and assess community engagement across teaching, research, and service activities. We focus attention on the importance of internal collaboration and reliance on existing internal data mechanisms as key strategies. Lessons learned and uses of the data are discussed.