STUDENT ORIENTED OUTREACHQuantitative and Qualitative Research Team

Team Members:Jason AllredAaron CruseScott Goodman

Sponsor:Debbie Gray - on behalf of the Outreach and Engagement Council

Project OverviewProblem:

• Currently there is some uncertainty in how much student oriented outreach the university is involved in.

• There is a need for more quantitative and qualitative information about outreach activities that involve students.

• That information will inform the actions of the universities’ Outreach and Engagement Council and may be used to help promote the university.

Project:

Our team developed a pilot survey that the faculty from the Colleges of Business and Engineering participated in to collect data about student oriented outreach activities and helped us determine which faculty were willing to share more information through an interview or written response.

Actual SurveyResults in Yellow

Follow-up Results

• 3 interviews with faculty

• 3 written responses project summaries

• 54 project abstracts (Engineering Expo)

• We generally received broad information about groups of projects and only obtained a couple narrative experiences about specific projects.

Small Scale Sustainable Power

Project Concept:Develop a hydro/solar electrical system for the remote Taylor Wilderness research station.

Location: Frank Church River of No Return area, Payette National Forest, Idaho

Students:Stephan Frazier, Wyatt Knepper, Ian Higginson, Paul Anderson Justin Schlee (mentor)

Interview April 23, 2010 with Dr. Herb Hesshttp://seniordesign.engr.uidaho.edu/2008_2009/small_scale_power/http://www.uidaho.edu/engr/expo/capstoneprojects/featured/taylorwilderness

http://maps.google.com

Video

Lessons learned• Decide before going into the project planning stage if this was to be a university wide

survey or just a pilot survey.

• Meeting with all stakeholders early on when project was getting planned, could have helped everyone get on the same page and have the same expectations.

• With the stakeholders we should have clearly defined who was to be involved and to what extent they were expected to influence the project.

• The university administration may have been more willing to issue the survey if it would have been presented as a survey developed by the Outreach and Engagement Council.

• As a team we should have pushed to have a fixed deadline for when the survey was to be finalized. This would have given us more time to prepare a better interview process.

Acknowledgements

Debbie Gray for being our project sponsor.

Tracie Lee for editing our documents late at night and helping us through the project process.

Priscilla Salant, Adrian Wurr, Jim Ekins, Steve Beyerlein for taking an interest in our project.

All those who tested our survey and gave us feedback.