Rationale and model for an online system for tracking and assessing community engagement

![CDATA[Universities making a commitment to community engagement must be able to track and provide a consolidated picture of projects and partnerships in order to document activity, inform the measurement of impact and outcomes, and contribute to program improvement. To date, persistent confusion about definitions of engagement as a mode of teaching and research, as opposed to other forms of university interaction with communities, has made efforts to measure engagement clumsy at best and, at worst, confusing. This paper outlines the key concepts, general design, functionalities, parameters and data sources of a new, comprehensive online system for tracking and improving community engagement developed at the University of Western Sydney. The conference presentation of this paper will include a demonstration of the system and explore the range of ways in which it can be used to improve engagement practices. The area of university community engagement performance requires specific attention given rapid changes in the current policy context of Australian higher education, including an increased focus on collaboration with communities for engaged research and learning purposes. This paper will begin with a description of the challenges of tracking engagement activities especially in regard to gathering data that would inform improvement and provide a review of literature regarding different views monitoring community engagement. Then, the authors will outline the challenges of monitoring and evaluation community engagement activities across a large university, and demonstrate the value of formal data collection as a strategy for increasing overall staff understanding of engagement concepts and best practices – what is measured is what is valued. In particular, the paper will explore how an online data collection system can be used to promote an understanding of the distinctions between community engagement as a form of academic scholarship and other external activities that fall in the realms of community service, professional or public service.]]