EPIC-N Communities of Practice Pushing Forward through Collaboration and Collective Knowledge
By: Max Prestigiacomo and Ada Inman
The EPIC-N Communities of Practice series is proving to be a critical resource for programs across the country. If you’re just catching up, you can check out the recording and notes from our January 2022 EPIC-Network call in which both the Rural and the Assessment Communities of Practice (COP) shared their respective progress reports which summarized their COP’s experience, work, and deliverables.
If you’re interested in learning more about the topics covered in this COP meeting, you can find a summary article here.
Rural & Assessment COP Deliverables
The deliverables for both Rural and Assessment COPs are listed below:
Assessment Community of Practice
Members of the Assessment COP are collaborating to develop an assessment calendar that EPIC-N member programs can adapt to their semester and quarterly calendars. The assessment calendar covers project tracking, storytelling, and evaluation measures. The COP is also creating a guide to all of the assessment tools housed on the EPIC Member Commons, including surveys and analytical tools available for use or export on Qualtrics, project dashboards that can be customized for each member program and track alignment with Sustainable Development Goals, as well as information about other methodologies developed by EPIC-N member programs.
Rural Community of Practice
The Rural COP created a resource folder that includes links to rural-focused articles, reports, current practices, and relevant podcasts, among other information as well as the COP meeting presentation materials and discussion questions. An immediate benefit of this COP was an opportunity to share and discuss experiences and challenges of working with or in rural settings, and gather ideas and feedback from fellow COP members on how to respond to these challenges and opportunities. The meeting notes provide a summary of many of these conversations. Ideally, this COP built a foundation that will foster continued dialogue and communication among members on this topic.
EPIC-N “Adopting the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals” COP
The UN SDG COP, co-led by Ilona Ballreich of Penn State University and Dean James McClain of the University of Liberia, just had its first meeting on January 20th and is ongoing until April. Register for the next meeting using this link: https://epicn.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_exRKMJzAXPcu6QS.
Interested in any of our Community of Practice groups? All COP materials will become available in the Member Commons on the EPIC-N Website. You can also find the COP website page here.
