Social embeddedness

Exploring collaboratory database

Collaboratory Database

We are pleased to share with you information about Collaboratory, ASU’s platform to capture the variety of ways faculty and staff are partnering with the community to address community challenges. In the past, staff and faculty submitted information about their social embeddedness work through an annual survey. This only provided a single snapshot of the collaboration taking place.

Collaboratory software permits greater institution-wide coordination by enabling users to search the database, identify which faculty and staff across the university are tackling the same social issues, and find out with whom they are partnering and in which communities. It also offers robust reporting capabilities that will enable each college and unit to better showcase the important work they do with our partner organizations.

We forward to your feedback on the platform and ideas for future collaboration. Please reach out to Christina Ngo, Sr. Director of Social Embeddedness, at christina.ngo@asu.edu to schedule a call or workshop to learn more about Collaboratory, including additional benefits, how to incorporate it into team practices, etc.

Launch Collaboratory at ASU

About Collaboratory

Collaboratory is a relational database that allows ASU to tell its community engagement narrative. It is ASU's platform to capture the variety of ways that faculty and staff partner with the community to address community challenges.

Collaboratory software permits greater institution-wide coordination by enabling users to search the database, identify which faculty and staff across the university are tackling the same social issues, and find out with whom they are partnering and in which communities. It also offers robust reporting capabilities that will enable each college and unit to better showcase the important work they do with our partner organizations.

By putting the activities at the center, we can connect them to other data points that staff and faculty are usually asked about in isolation. Collaboratory makes it so that we can collect all of that information at one time. It’s a very important tool for university leaders - a tool that gives information about how staff, faculty and students are collaborating with communities. Use your ASURITE ID and password to log in.

Want to learn more about getting your unit’s engagement activities in Collaboratory? Reach out to ASU’s Collaboratory administrator - Christina Ngo at Christina.Ngo@asu.edu.

Overview of Collaboratory

Overview of collaboratory

What is Collaboratory?

Collaboratory serves as an important source of information for ASU faculty, staff, students the community. It promotes transparency, providing clear information on how the university engages with the community, what activities are taking place and information about impact. By tracking this information, we can improve the way we collaborate and provide a record of what has worked in the past, what hasn't and what needs improvement. Sharing community engagement activities can help build trust between organizations by demonstrating their commitment to openness and honesty.

Learn more about Collaboratory

Collaboratory activity interface

Collaboratory's user interface is easy to use with intuitive navigation. This interface allows users with various levels of tech-savviness to report and interact with their community engagement activities.

Collaboratory brochure

Learn more about Collaboratory in the brochure below.

Collaboratory brochure

Features

Collaboratory collects ASU's community engagement and public service data to develop robust reports, share with stakeholders and provide evidence of how we operationalize the ASU Charter and Design Aspirations.

Navigate the social embeddedness ecosystem more efficiently

Collaboratory serves as a doorway to institutions that can often be challenging to access and navigate for internal and external stakeholders. Discover a real-time inventory of the unique ways community partners and ASU collaborate, including community-based teaching and learning, community-engaged research, place-based partnerships, professional development and capacity-building, the PreK-20 pipeline, knowledge exchange and civic engagement.

Help coordinate cross-disciplinary approaches

Collaboratory helps us more effectively communicate across disciplines and environments, giving us the chance to better understand how efforts fit together and can be in sync.

Better align our efforts

Collaboratory allows us to take a step back and see where our interests and work may align as a whole. This ensures that we are on the same page and can collaborate more effectively. With more aligned activities, we can significantly improve the quality of collaborative work and increase performance.

Reduce partnership fatigue

Collaboratory allows partners who might have competing priorities or additional tasks take the necessary steps to reassess how we engage and in what ways. By doing so, this creates a scenario in which we can be even more effective partners.

Reports

Collaboratory reports are used to present data and information that is collected, analyzed and shared by its community of users. This type of report can serve community engagement in several ways:

Communication: By presenting a comprehensive overview of the data collected and analyzed by the community, the report can facilitate open and transparent communication with stakeholders, including residents, community organizations and local government.
Decision-making: The report can provide data-driven insights and information to support informed decision-making by community leaders and stakeholders.
Collaboration: By presenting data in a transparent and accessible format, the report can foster collaboration and coordination among community organizations, residents, and local government.
Community-building: The report can highlight common goals and priorities, encouraging community members to work together to address shared challenges and opportunities.
Problem-solving: The report can provide data and insights that can be used to identify and solve community-wide problems.

By serving as a centralized repository for community data and information, Collaboratory and the reports generated from it can play an important role in fostering community engagement and collaboration.

ASU faculty and staff

Collaboratory helps me:

Share details of my community engagement and public service activities.
Highlight scholarly artifacts of community-based teaching and research.
Showcase my expertise, background and community-based interests.
Share research and services with potential funders, donors and partners.
Find out who else at ASU is facilitating community engagement work.

ASU student

Collaboratory helps me:

Learn how ASU is working with communities to address pressing social issues.
Identify which staff and faculty are doing work with community partners and how they are involved.
Learn more about community organizations and individuals that are partnering with ASU.

Community member

Collaboratory helps me:

Become familiar with the diverse array of activities with which ASU faculty, staff and students are working.
Identify faculty and staff who may be potential collaborators with my organization and/or me.
Consider how I and/or my organization can make additional connections with ASU or others.

ASU communications/marketing professional

Collaboratory helps me:

Use reliable, current data to respond to external stakeholders, showcase ASU's impact and reinforce key institutional messages.
Build awareness of, and affinity and support for, ASU's connections and work with community partners.
Discover the units, faculty and staff facilitating community engagement.
Learn more about the community members and organizations collaborating with ASU.

Data expert

Collaboratory helps me:

Become familiar with the diverse array of activities with which ASU faculty, staff and students are working.
Ensure the story of engagement is up-to-date and told accurately.
Encourage the use of quality data to inform strategic decision-making and respond to requests for internal and external reports.

Development professional

Collaboratory helps me:

Use data to match internal initiatives with the interest of philanthropic organizations and donors.
Reinforce key institutional messages by leveraging data for strategic communications.
Use reliable, current data to respond to external stakeholders and showcase ASU's impact.

Student recruiter/admissions officer

Collaboratory helps me:

Help prospective students become aware of the full scope of service-learning courses and other community-based engagement.
Share examples of community-university activities to showcase ASU's impact.
Promote my college or ASU's university profile as an engaged institution with prospective students, faculty, staff and communities.

Institutional researcher, accreditation professional and/or assessor

Collaboratory helps me:

Create a sustained, systematic process for reporting community engagement data that can support ASU's mission.
Contribute quality data to inform strategic decision-making and respond to requests for internal and external reports (e.g., Times Higher Education Impact Ranking, STARS, etc.).
Discover the units, faculty and staff facilitating community engagement.
Learn more about the community members and organizations collaborating.