About Resource
The Urban Institute is a nonprofit organization that conducts research on social and economic policy. In Data Walks: An Innovative Way to Share Data with Communities researchers describe a tool for engaging community members in research findings through data visualization.
A Data Walk offers researchers and/or community organizations an opportunity to analyze project data in partnership with community residents and other stakeholders. Data Walks are structured similarly to the well-known pedagogical tool “gallery walk” whereby groups of participants rotate through a series of data visualizations while interpreting, discussing, and reflecting on the subject matter.
This guidebook explains how to design, plan, and facilitate a Data Walk for use in your community-based participatory research project. See also the Urban Institute’s Community-Engaged and Participatory Methods Toolkits.
How to Use
Integrating Data Walks into community science projects may offer multiple benefits, such as:
- Enhanced data literacy among community members through the interpretation of quantitative data and its application to their personal lives;
- Advanced individual and collective problem solving and civic engagement through data-driven dialogue;
- Residents gain a greater understanding of research in their community and are provided an opportunity to define what role they can play within that effort to enact local change; and,
- Through engagement with a diverse cross-section of people, researchers can better contextualize their scientific findings, ultimately improving their research quality and better informing policies and programs that advance community priorities.
Use this guidebook to explore if Data Walks are the appropriate tool for your community science project, who the target participants should include, and how to maintain data integrity. When planning your Data Walk, ample consideration must be given to both content (including the appropriate data, using user-friendly charts, language access) and logistics (time and setting, recruitment and incentives, physical movement within the event space). Finally, ensure your Data Walk is a success by learning what’s needed for successful facilitation.
Location: Washington, DC, USA
Author(s)/Organization: Brittany Murray, Elsa Falkenburger, Priya Saxena for the Urban Institute
Publication Year: 2015
Tags
Attributes:Aims for Action, Centers Community Priorities
Outcomes:Capacity for Civic Engagement, Impactful Scientific Research
Approaches:Civic Engagement & Policymaking, Dialogue & Deliberation
Type:Guidebooks & Manuals