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

NSF科学，技术，工程和数学人才增强计划（STEP）旨在通过增加全国大学，学院和社区学院STEM学科毕业的学生人数，来满足人们认识到的大幅提高国家STEM领域劳动力能力的需求。实现这一目标的主要手段是向个别机构或机构团队提供基于成绩的多年赠款，以支持实施改善STEM学生招聘和保留的战略。STEP的总体成功取决于“最佳做法”的发展和实施，而“最佳做法”又取决于一个PI（从业者）社区的发展，他们分享想法、资源和数据，并能够在彼此的成功和经验的基础上再接再厉。 该项目的目标是促进在参与资助的STEP项目的科学家、行政人员、学生支助专家和评估人员之间建立“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年和2011年的STEP受赠方年度会议以及即将于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）继续规划和组织STEP社区的年度会议（2013年和2014年），借鉴以往STEP受赠方会议的经验教训;以及（2）继续发展和扩大STEP在线社区，方法是：（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。其目的是将这些组成部分无缝地结合在实践社区的发展中。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情况以及协作对改进STEP个别项目的执行、传播和创新的影响。智力优势。该项目的智力价值在于增加了分享从采用不同战略的STEP项目中吸取的经验教训的机会。由此产生的调查人员群体能够取得比他们仍然孤立时大得多的进展。对于STEP等项目的研究人员来说尤其如此。由于STEP PI和他们的项目团队代表了不同的学科，项目参与者属于同样不同的专业协会。 因此，他们不参加同样的会议，也不在同样的刊物上发表文章。此外，没有专业协会或期刊关注与STEP有关的问题。因此，该项目的活动都侧重于在参与STEP项目的人员中建立一个强大的实践社区，为STEP社区成员提供了与同行建立网络和交流想法的重要机会。此外，该项目还为相对较小的研究人员社区提供了开发和使用在线专业社交网站的经验教训。该项目的更广泛影响反映了STEM人才增强计划的潜在影响：增加完成STEM学科两年制和四年制学位课程的本科生人数。通过为STEP研究人员提供机会，分享他们的想法和资源，以及他们的成功和失败，该项目协助社区开发一个可以被其他机构采用或调整的经验证的最佳做法的集合。由于个别STEP项目通常会影响数百名学生，因此该项目间接影响了美国各地不同机构的数千名学生。

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.