Collaboratory at Upstate

Seeking to better understand our combined institutional and individual efforts in our geographic region and beyond, USC Upstate has invested in Collaboratory, a community engagement data tracking system designed to empower higher education institutions to document and understand the full scope of their community engagement and public service activities as a step toward improving practice and enhance connections with the community. Collaboratory also makes this data publicly searchable. Check our publicly searchable data on our institutional page 

Collaboratory provides the means to systematically track our community engagement including curricular and co-curricular activities as well as faculty engaged research and service. Cataloging engagement is necessary in order to respond to key stakeholder groups, namely the Community Engagement Task Force, the Office of the Chancellor, Academic Affairs, University Advancement, University Communications, prospective students, and accrediting bodies for academic units.

Faculty/Staff Invitation/Appeal

For any data tracking system to be effective, it needs humans to provide information. We ask you to please help us populate this database so we can better serve our community and celebrate the great work you are doing! 

Would you be willing contribute information about your community partners and community engaged activities? We want capture all of the activities you participate in on behalf of the University.  Think about your CE contributions in these terms: What is the primary action? Who participates (on campus & off)? What are the goals? Collaboratory leads us through these questions and more for each activity. While you are welcome to put in as much historical data as you like, we will focus on moving forward starting with the 20-21 academic year.

This Activity Capture Form provides a preview of the information Collaboratory requests. Details on what to enter & more are available in our Collaboratory FAQs. If you'd rather talk than read, email servicelearning@uscupstate.edu & we set up a meeting to discuss this! 

We offer three ways to proceed:

Full Service: Email servicelearning@uscupstate.edu & we'll set up an appointment to get started

DIY Option: Go to the Collaboratory website, log in with your Upstate credentials (top right corner), scroll down to Faculty & Staff, & click on "Add Activities"

50/50 Deal: Fill out at least the first 5 items in this Activity Capture Form, then email me. We'll enter your data into Collaboratory and make an appointment with you to finish up

TBH, this process takes some time. We've found it takes 20+ minutes to complete a single activity. Because you do SO MUCH in our community, it may be best to set some time aside once a week to chip away at this. By the beginning of fall semester, we want to capture all of the activities you participate in on behalf of the University, so we can track and celebrate your CE work.

Thank you for your support of our community and of our community engagement activities at Upstate! Please let me know how I can support you in this and your other CE endeavors!