Fostering Community in the STEM Talent Enhancement Program: Annual Meetings, a Community Website, and On-Line Activities

美国国家科学基金会科学、技术、工程和数学人才提升计划（STEP）旨在通过增加从美国大学、学院和社区学院毕业的STEM学科学生的数量，解决大幅提高美国STEM领域劳动力能力的公认需求。实现这一目标的主要手段是向个别院校或院校团队提供基于成绩的多年期资助，以支持实施改善STEM学生招聘和留用的策略。STEP的整体成功依赖于“最佳实践”的开发和实现，而“最佳实践”又依赖于pi（实践者）社区的发展，这些社区共享想法、资源和数据，并且可以在彼此的成功和经验的基础上进行构建。该项目的目标是促进在参与资助的STEP项目的科学家、管理人员、学生支持专家和评估人员之间建立一个“实践社区”。该项目建立在一个奖项的基础上，该奖项支持：(1)规划和组织2010年、2011年的STEP年度受助人会议以及即将于2012年举行的会议；(2)开发一个试点网站，以支持STEP社区。项目活动包括：(1)继续计划和组织STEP社区的年度会议（2013年和2014年），以从以前的STEP受助者会议中吸取的经验教训为基础；以及(2)通过以下方式继续发展和扩展STEP在线社区：(a)提高社区新网站STEP Central的可用性和实用性，(b)就社区感兴趣的主题提供在线培训课程和会议的机会，以及(c)鼓励STEP社区参与这些在线活动。其目的是在实践社区的开发中无缝地集成这些组件。对这些活动的形成性评价支持其发展，总结性评价将衡量联网的增加和协作对改进个别STEP项目的执行、传播和创新的影响。知识价值。这个项目的智力价值在于增加了分享使用不同策略的STEP项目的经验教训的机会。由此产生的调查人员群体能够比他们保持孤立时取得更大的进展。对于参与STEP等项目的调查人员来说尤其如此。因为STEP pi和他们的项目团队代表了不同的学科，项目参与者同样属于不同的专业团体。因此，他们不参加相同的会议或在相同的期刊上发表文章。此外，没有专业协会或期刊关注与STEP相关的问题。因此，这个项目的活动都集中于在参与STEP项目的人之间建立一个强大的实践社区，为STEP社区的成员提供了重要的机会来建立网络，并与他们的同龄人分享想法。此外，该项目还为相对较小的研究人员群体提供开发和使用在线专业社会网络网站的经验。更广泛的影响。该项目的广泛影响反映了STEM人才提升计划的潜在影响：增加完成STEM学科两年制和四年制学位课程的本科生数量。通过为STEP调查员提供机会，分享他们的想法和资源，以及他们的成功和失败，该项目帮助社区开发一套经过验证的最佳实践，可供其他机构采用或调整。由于单个STEP项目通常影响数百名学生，因此该项目间接影响了美国各地各种机构的数千名学生。

The NSF Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Talent Enhancement Program (STEP) aims to address a recognized need for substantially increasing the nation's workforce capacity in STEM fields by increasing the number of students graduating in STEM disciplines from the nation's universities, colleges and community colleges. The primary vehicle for achieving this goal is through the provision of merit-based multiyear grants to individual institutions or teams of institutions to support the implementation of strategies to improve recruitment and retention of STEM students. The overall success of STEP depends on the development and implementation of "best practices," which in turn depends on the development of a community of PIs (practitioners) who share ideas, resources, and data, and who can build on each other's successes and experiences. The goal of this project is to facilitate the building of a "community of practice" among the scientists, administrators, student support specialists and evaluators involved in funded STEP projects. The project builds on an award that supported: (1) planning and organizing annual STEP grantees meetings in 2010, 2011 and the upcoming meeting in 2012, and (2) the development of a pilot website to support the STEP community. Project activities include: (1) continuing to plan and organize annual meetings of the STEP community (in 2013 and 2014), building on lessons learned from previous STEP Grantees' meetings; and (2) continuing to develop and expand the STEP online community by (a) increasing the usability and usefulness of the community's new website, STEP Central, (b) offering opportunities for on-line training sessions and conferencing on topics of interest to the community, and (c) encouraging the involvement of the STEP community in these online activities. The intent is to seamlessly integrate these components in the development of a community of practice. Formative evaluation of these activities supports their development, and summative evaluation will measure the increases in networking and the impact of collaboration on improvement in the implementation, dissemination and innovation of individual STEP projects. Intellectual Merit. The intellectual merit of this project lies in enhancing the opportunity to share the lessons learned from STEP projects using diverse strategies. The resulting community of investigators is able to make significantly more progress than they would if they remained isolated. This is particularly true for investigators in programs such as STEP. Because STEP PIs and their project teams represent a diverse array of disciplines, project participants belong to an equally diverse set of professional societies. Consequently, they do not attend the same meetings or publish in the same journals. Furthermore, there is no professional society or journal that focuses on issues related to STEP. Hence, this project's activities, all focused on developing a strong community of practice among those involved in STEP projects, provides important opportunities for members of the STEP community to network and share ideas with their peers. Additionally, the project provides lessons in the development and use of on-line professional social networking sites for relatively small communities of researchers.Broader Impact. The broader impact of the project mirrors the potential impact of the STEM Talent Enhancement Program: increasing the number of undergraduate students completing two-year and four-year degree programs in STEM disciplines. By providing opportunities for STEP investigators to share their ideas and resources, and their successes and failures, the project assists the community in developing a collection of proven best practices that can be adopted or adapted by other institutions. Since individual STEP projects typically influence hundreds of students, this project indirectly influences thousands of students at a diverse array of institutions throughout the United States.