client overview

The Michigan State University College of Arts and Letters (CAL) Office of Research is a small, but growing, unit in CAL that focuses on helping faculty and staff with research projects, specifically identifying funding opportunities and applying for funding opportunities.

The process

Designing the Study

Participants were recruited via email request to specific CAL listservs for faculty and staff.

Interviews

Coding

The adoption of co-creation activities in TDI workshops is an innovation that I spearheaded during my time as a postdoctoral researcher with TDI. They are now an integral part of the TDI workshop process. Prior to the workshop, NMDC asked each participant to submit a data set. I wanted to combine this pre-work with opportunities for participants to brainstorm, get to know each other, and start to unpack issues they would be discussing for the rest of the workshop. This resulted in a three-step co-creation activity:

1. Participants spend five minutes individually brainstorming what makes the data set they submitted (or a data set in general) “good” or “bad”

2. They were then invited to share these results in small groups and create lists of these qualities on large post-its (using markers and smaller post-its)

3. Each discussion group then came back together and used these “good” and “bad” lists to create a post-it describing the characteristics of an ideal data set.

I served as the lead facilitator for our three-hour, in-person workshop on October 21, 2019. I began the workshop with the short presentation and then we split the workshop participants into three groups, each of which was facilitated by a member of the team. Each group engaged with the instrument, had a lightly facilitated dialogue, and participated in the co-creation activity. Discussions around the instrument were lively and brought together a variety of different perspectives.

At the end of the workshop, we brought all three groups back together for a wrap-up where each discussion group then shared their final good/bad data set criteria with the full NMDC workshop group.

Deliverables

I provided a slide deck and a one-hour presentation in February 2024 to the Dean of the College of Arts and Letters, the Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies, and the Assistant Dean for Academic and Research Technology. This deck and presentation covered the study design and methodology for the project followed by recommendations for change at the University, College, and Office of Research levels based on the a) interview data, b) best practices for digital experiences, and c) my own experience as a faculty member and researcher. This data was also presented afterwards to the Associate Dean for Equity, Justice, and Faculty Affairs and the new Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies (changed in June 2024).

An overview of the study findings were sent to CAL faculty and staff via the first edition of the CAL Office of Research Newsletter in April 2024.

IMPACTS OF THIS WORK

Several recommendations from this study were put into place during Spring Semester 2024. These included:

1. A weekly office hour for faculty and staff to connect with the Office of Research

2. The creation of a newsletter for the CAL community with research news, highlights, and opportunities (created collaboratively with a member of the Office of Research staff)

3. Creating funding opportunities for community-engaged scholarship and creative practice work. We launched a pilot funding program for a training opportunity and were able to fund a faculty member to attend this training.

Work on other recommendations is currently in progress, these include:

1. Redesigning the CAL Office of Research website

2. Identifying additional funding opportunities and programs for faculty training

3. Integrating accessibility training into new faculty orientation and grant training

XYZ

Lessons learned

Developing Mutually Beneficial Interactional Expertise
I appreciate the opportunity to become an interactional expert with all of the groups I work with, but in this case, working with NMDC opened me up to thinking and learning about FAIR data standards and open data, which also impacted my work with NSF, NASA, and at my home institution. Designing and facilitating events can be moments for both parties to learn and grow from each other’s expertise and to find ways to move each other forward. 

Handling Leadership Changes
When planning an experience that is part of a larger event, make sure that you gather as much information as you can about the rest of the event, including about other facilitators of design activities/workshops that may be taking place. You want to design an experience that is both unique, memorable for the users, but also fits into the goals for the entire workshop and helps create a cohesive workshop experience for the participant. As this workshop was the kickoff event for a larger workshop, I needed to make sure our activities fed directly into the goals of the overall workshop and created an engaging first opportunity for participants to get to know each other. Transparent, frequent communication with the NMDC team allowed for smooth planning and execution of an event that worked in tandem with the rest of their kickoff workshop.