This white paper describes the theory of change that guided the development of Collaboratory, a software platform developed to support higher education institutions to accurately and comprehensively track their members’ relationships with the broader community through engagement and service activities.
Written by Collaboratory’s authors, Dr. Emily Janke, Dr. Barbara Holland, and Kristin Medlin, this document describes:
- the purposes for which Collaboratory was developed,
- the research and theories that guided the development of its fields, features, and functions,
- the institutional and national higher education context in which Collaboratory was initially created,
- the scholarly process through which it was designed,
- the current and future potential for Collaboratory to advance community and institutional priorities, as well as the field of community engagement scholarship and practice.
