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Session Title: Taming, Testing and Tapping Collaboration: A Panel Discussion on Multi-level Methods and Models for Evaluating Communities of Practice
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Panel Session 300 to be held in Sebastian Section I3 on Thursday, Nov 12, 1:40 PM to 3:10 PM
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Sponsored by the Cluster, Multi-site and Multi-level Evaluation TIG
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| Chair(s): |
| Andrea M Hegedus, Northrop Grumman Corporation, ahegedus@cdc.gov
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| Abstract:
There is still much to be learned as evaluators seek to improve the common understanding and measurement of the construct of collaboration. Collaboration is seen as one of the building blocks of communities of practice in that it supports social learning, shared resources, and partnerships among members. However, the definition of collaboration is often ubiquitous, elusive, and variable across different applications, making its measurement difficult and nongeneralizable. Using methods and models developed for the evaluation of communities of practice in multiple settings, members of this panel will present and engage participants in discussion about how they approach collaboration and its measurement. Drawing upon theory, multi-level methods, and lessons learned from practice, the panelists will provide evaluators with a conceptual framework for evaluating communities of practice. Additional take-aways will include specific tools such as social network analysis as well as strategies for integrating research and subsequent findings into the organization
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Understanding and Evaluating Organizational Collaboration
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| Rebecca Gajda, University of Massachusetts, rebecca.gajda@educ.umass.edu
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Practitioners, often mandated to forge communities of practice and strategic alliances, are not sure of what collaboration looks and feels like. They are not sure if their collective actions constitute true collaboration or if the structural, procedural, and interpersonal relationships among partners are as healthy as possible. In this presentation, I will assert that the evaluation field holds an important and unique position to help organizational improvement stakeholders meet contemporary health, human service, and educational reform challenges predicated on the structural and inter-professional power of collaboration. I will discuss how evaluators can use collaboration theory to demystify and operationalize the construct of collaboration. Methods for qualitative and quantitative assessment of collaborative integration and quality within and between communities of practice will be discussed. I will integrate lessons learned and ah-ha moments experienced as an evaluator of various health, social service, and education reform programs.
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Evaluating Collaboration Effectiveness in Disperse and Diverse Contexts: The Case of Tobacco Quitlines in North America
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| Michele Walsh, University of Arizona, mwalsh@email.arizona.edu
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| Jessie Saul, North American Quitline Consortium, jsaul@naquitline.org
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| Scott Leischow, Arizona Cancer Center, sleischow@azcc.arizona.edu
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The North American Quitline Consortium (NAQC) is committed to developing and supporting an infrastructure for conducting tobacco cessation quitline research that will be used by the quitline community to improve services. An example of such research is the Knowledge Integration in Quitlines: Networks to Improve Cessation (KIQNIC) project. KIQNIC is a 5-year NCI-funded research study that aims to better understand how NAQC members interact, share new evidence, make decisions on how and when to implement new knowledge, and ultimately adopt practices that they believe will improve quitline outcomes. We will present the theoretical framework for the project and will discuss the process of developing collaborative relations between KIQNIC researchers and the quitline community. We will discuss how building these relations allowed us to more effectively refine study instruments, facilitate data collection and determine which results, and in which format, would be most useful to quitline community members.
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Understanding Collaboration Through a Multi-level Conceptual Framework for the Evaluation of Communities of Practice
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| Andrea M Hegedus, Northrop Grumman Corporation, ahegedus@cdc.gov
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| Awal Khan, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, akhan@cdc.gov
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Evaluation of communities of practice can be viewed as a dynamic systems process that incorporates different levels of analysis, use of theory to guide process and outcomes, as well as a mixed methods approach to align appropriate methodology to the questions asked. A conceptual framework is one way to unite disparate activities into a unified whole. It provides a valuable tool to evaluate constructs such as collaboration across different levels of the model. Specification of the framework also requires that collaboration be defined in accordance with its use and application (e.g., intra-organizational relationships versus inter-personal relationships). This presentation offers a conceptual framework used to evaluate communities of practice in a national public health informatics setting, specifies how collaboration is defined and measured in different levels of the model, as well as how this work improves the understanding and measurement of collaborative processes.
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