Glossary

The aim of action research is to foster positive change in the community by taking action and then studying the effect. It is a cyclical process in which actions are reflected on, refined and new actions are taken based on what was learned.

Anchor institutions are non-profit organizations such as hospitals, universities and colleges that are rooted in the community and play a role in making strategic contributions to their local economies. As recipients of government funding, they tend to have a great amount of knowledge and monetary capital to offer the community. These institutions generally work with their communities through partnerships to help them develop and address complex socio-economic challenges.

Boundary spanners are people who bring together academics, community members, and organizations to work towards a common goal. Not to be confused with a broker, a boundary spanner is heavily invested in both sides of the collaboration and is often directly involved in the project as opposed to acting as an intermediary.

This type of role is important because it facilitates collaboration. Learn more about boundary spanners here: https://carleton.ca/communityfirst/2015/being-a-boundary-spanner/

A brokerage mechanism is an organization, person, tool or platform that helps connect and support relationship development between community groups and academics.

Collective impact is a model for making community change that was defined by Kania and Kramer in 2011. The model has five components: a common agenda, shared measurements, mutually reinforcing activities, continuous communication and the infrastructure to continue the work.

Learn more about collective impact through the resources below:

Collective Impact and Community Campus Partnerships — Article explaining what collective impact is, and how it works.

Developing Collective Impact Strategies — Article from Tamarack Institute

Community impact is the outcome of community initiatives, which may take several forms including improvements in the community, influencing policy and increased engagement.

For a more detailed description of ‘community impact’, see CFICE’s article What I’ve learned so far: An initial review of scholarly literature on community impact in CCE.

Community service-learning is a form of education in which students learn through the act of community service. In practice, this type of learning could take the form of field experiences for students such as internships or research activities in the community.

See also: Service-learning.

Want to learn more about CFICE’s community service-learning work? Check out the following articles and resources:

Community Service-Learning in Graduate Planning Education — Academic article

Engaged Pedagogy and Transformative Learning in Graduate Education: A Service-Learning Case Study — Academic article

Service learning for students – putting the community first! — A professor’s experience coordinating a service-learning course.

Reflections on International Service Learning — A student’s experience participating in an international service-learning experience.

Community-based organizations are non-profit, non-governmental, or charitable organizations that represent community needs and work to help them. CBOs may be associated with a particular area of concern or segment of the community.

Community-based research is research conducted in the community with active participation from community partners. The goal of community-based research is to make a positive impact in the community.

See also: community-engaged research, community-engaged scholarship.

Learn more about community-based research from our friends at Community-Based Research Canada.

Community-campus engagement occurs when members of communities and campuses come together to share resources and work towards a common goal.

Learn more about how CFICE views community-campus engagement by checking out our CCE infographic or our video on The Importance of Community-Campus Engagement.

Community-campus partnerships are relationships between community groups or individuals and academics or post-secondary institutions. These partnerships are focused on serving the community.

Learn more about the Top 5 Elements of a Successful Community-Campus Partnership.

Community-engaged research is research conducted in the community with active participation from community partners. The goal of community-engaged research is to make a positive impact in the community.

See also: community-engaged scholarship, community-based research.

Community-engaged scholarship is research conducted in the community with active participation from community partners. The goal of community-engaged scholarship is to make a positive impact in the community.

See also: community-engaged research, community-based research.

Check out this article on Community-Engaged Scholarship and Faculty Assessment or this article on Building effective relationships for community-engaged scholarship in Canadian food studies to learn more.

Being community-first means engaging in equitable partnerships to co-create knowledge and action plans for addressing pressing community issues.

Much of community engagement takes place across different sectors, whether those are geographic (across different communities), disciplines or causes. Cross-sectoral therefore means research or work that involves participants from many different issue-based, geographic, or discipline-based issues.

Environmental sustainability is a state in which human resource consumption and pollution do not threaten ecosystems and can be continued indefinitely.

Experiential learning is learning that takes place through doing.

Food security is a condition in which all people have access to sufficient amounts of safe, nutritious and culturally-appropriate food.

Food sovereignty is the right to healthy, culturally appropriate food that is produced ethically and sustainably and in which there is local control over food production rather than production for export.

Knowledge mobilization refers to the process of creating knowledge that is useful and used by the public and policy-makers. Knowledge mobilization is important at all stages of a project and includes the products, processes and relationships among knowledge creators, users, and mediators.

To learn more about Knowledge Mobilization, check out CFICE’s article “What the Heck is Knowledge Mobilization and Why Should I care?“.

Participatory research is a research methodology that emphasizes collaboration with the people or organizations being studied. This means that participants help design and focus the research in order to get a deeper understanding of the issues being faced. They also work with the researchers to analyze and interpret the results of the research. Participatory research is more appropriate for addressing existing needs because of the hands-on participation of the individuals being studied.

Service-learning is a form of education in which students learn through the act of community service. In practice, this type of learning could take the form of field experiences for students such as internships or research activities in the community.

See also: Community service-learning.

Theory of change is a methodology for planning how to meet the goals of an organization and evaluating its effectiveness. The method involves defining end goals then working backwards to identify the actions that will create the proper conditions to meet the desired goals.