TRUCEN Resources
As called upon by The Research University Community Engagement Network (TRUCEN), the scholarship of engagement is an opportunity for faculty and staff to engage communities in their scholarly research.
The Engaged Scholarship Toolkit was discontinued in 2022. An archive of collected resources is available on the website.
TRUCEN Engaged Scholarship Resource Collection
Additional resources from TRUCEN are included on the Publications page.
Broader Impacts Resources
Broader Impacts (BI) is a framework used to analyze how research benefits society, with consideration of inclusion, public engagement, and societal well-being, along with other societal outcomes.
The ARIS Broader Impacts Toolkit is published by Center for Advancing Research Impact in Society (ARIS) and Rutgers University.
Broader Impacts Guiding Principles document
Broader Impacts Plan Checklist
The Broader Impacts Wizard helps researchers ensure their research fulfills the National Science Foundation (NSF)’s BI requirements.
Finding Research Participants: UD’s Center for Human Research Coordination
Finding diverse research participants is a multi-pronged and time-consuming process. The commitment from the University to support this endeavor drove the launch of the Center for Human Research Coordination (CHRC) in July 2021.
The Center helps researchers bridge the gap between research and finding willing diverse participants.
- CHRC staff actively work within the community to help recruit these populations into active studies at the University. The core is staffed with a team of research coordinators that recruit within the community weekly at senior centers, community centers as well as fitness clubs and community events.
- The CHRC’s Community Participant Registry further facilitates engagement within the community, helping researchers find willing participants 18 years and up from diverse backgrounds.
- The Center has also partnered with ResearchMatch.org, an online nation-wide registry that recruits volunteers from all populations within the United States. Faculty and their researcher teams will be able to recruit from over 167,000 active participants.
CHRC also administers REDCap—a secure web application for building and managing online surveys and databases—and provides data management education, database set-up, repository, maintenance, hardening and security for the University community.
Two examples of Community-Based Research
Participatory Action Research (PAR) strategies involve the participants as co-researchers. Unlike the top-down model—researcher as the one with the knowledge—in this method, the participant is seen as a contributor to the research process.
PAR is collaborative, critical, participatory, and developmental. It:
- focuses on enabling key stakeholders to address problems they see as important.
- is concerned with research alongside stakeholders rather than doing research about them.
- is concerned with achieving ongoing improvements rather than once-off solutions.
- links theory and practice and calls for rigorous critical thinking on the part of all involved.
- aims for ownership of the whole development process by agency stakeholders.
- argues that each specific change should be determined by those who will be affected by it.
Participatory Photo Mapping (PPM) is a transdisciplinary community-based research methodology that integrates digital tools, narrative interviewing, and participatory protocols for knowledge production (Dennis, Gaulocher, Carpiano, & Brown, 2009). In this method, community members are provided with digital camera and GIS Units. They take pictures of some aspect of their community where change is needed. Next, the photos become the object of interviews that are attached to particular images. The third step entails a mapping of the images with the GIS data. Finally, action items are developed by the participants and presented to policy makers (Dennis et al. p. 468). In sum, this is a method that can engage people in research about their lived experiences. Both qualitative and quantitative data emanates from this methodology.