Students may be required to complete community-based activities as part of a course. Tracking this student work helps institutions understand engagement and fully report on faculty teaching efforts. Since course-based engagement varies widely, instructors must determine what data to capture and in what ways. Consider the following when entering course-based engagement in Collaboratory:
All Students Working on the Same Activity
If all students in the course participate in the same activity (e.g., one project with one partner) or complete similar projects (e.g., 12 student pairs each creating a marketing plan for a community organization), faculty/staff are encouraged to create a single activity record to capture the students' engagement. In the marketing plan example, the activity would focus on the project’s purpose and goals, listing each community organization as a collaborator.
Multiple Activities with Multiple Partners
However, if, in one course, each student completes a distinctly different individual project, each with a different partners, areas of focus, outcomes, etc., instructors are encouraged to create multiple activity records for each student project, even though the activities are all part of the same course. For example, if five student teams within the same course each work with a different partner to complete a different project, five separate activities should be created. Within each activity, the same course would be connected to it, allowing for the aggregation of each unique student project under the umbrella of the same course and instructor. To streamline data entry, activities with similar details can be cloned.
HEADS UP: For additional assistance thinking through capturing course-based in one of multiple activities, see HERE.
Students Proxy their Engaged Activities
To ease the burden of the instructor needing to enter multiple activities for their engaged course, instructors are encouraged to ask their students to report data directly to Collaboratory. Students can enter their course-based activities through Collaboratory's proxy function. Instructors may also initiate the proxy activity process by inviting their students to proxy an activity on their behalf.
Faculty should provide clear instructions in the syllabus and ensure that students submit their activities for publication, assign an Activity Lead, and claim their students' activity entries to ensure their activities are published.