We've just completed a series of video tutorials for writers using the local PolicyOptions.org website and PolicyOptionsWiki.org website for publishing issue briefs.

Both these sites are a work in progress and we hope these short video tutorials can help new users learn how to use them....

We began our Trenton Pilot project earlier this month with four summer interns. They are being paid to from a grant The College of New Jersey from the J-Lab New Visions Program.

We have created a section of this blog to document the research process these students are going through this summer.

The guidelines for researching and writing a PolicyOptions Issue Brief have been updated on the PolicyOptionsWiki.org site. These guidelines are a work-in-progress, but should be useful for researchers and professors alike.

The Spring 2007 semester has a number of professors piloting the PolicyOptions Issue Brief template in their classes. For more details, please visit the PolicyOptionsWiki.org page for these profiles. If the profile of your course and how you are utilizing the issue brief template are not found there, please take the time to add it.

Finally, if you are hearing about this initiative for the first time and are interested in learning more, please contact me directly at rhackett@bonner.org or by phone at 609-924-6663.

Funds are currently available on a competitive basis for innovative community-based research (CBR) courses and projects. Awards will be between $2,500 — $7,500 per year for one to three years. These grants will be awarded to higher education institutions doing innovative CBR work that can serve as models for best practices.

Examples of innovative work could include, but are not limited to:

• Connecting community-based research to the policy and information needs of nonprofit organizations and citizens;...

We've just created the PolicyOptionsWiki to support the collaborative writing, editing, and updating of PolicyOption Issue Briefs.

In this first phase of the PolicyOptions.org Initiative, we are concentrating our energies on working with faculty and students on campuses to incorporate issue briefs as a form of public policy community-based research in academic courses and internships. The PolicyOptions Wiki will serve as the platform for collaborative research on issue briefs.

We are using the MediaWiki open source software that powers Wikipedia and many other similar websites. It has many features that will be helpful to our efforts, including the pages for readers and authors to discuss individual pages, be notified via email of changes to pages, and the use of templates which will help us maintain a common format for the issue briefs....

TCNJ, in partnership with the Bonner Foundation, has been awarded a $12,000 New Voices grant for the start-up of the Trenton bureau of PolicyOptions.org. The Trenton Community Information Bureau will be a project of the Trenton Center for Campus Community Partnerships (involving four area higher education institutions: Rider University, TCNJ, Princeton University, and Mercer County Community College).

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In our conference calls this week, the 25 participants (representing 21 campuses and the Bonner Foundation) expressed genuine enthusiasm for the aspirations of this initiative. We shared a variety of ideas, challenges and questions about the PolicyOptions.org strategy that now will shape how we move forward. Below are few highlights:

Ideas:

• Using the PolicyOptions IssueBrief template when assigning public policy analysis research papers as part of academic courses, academic internships, or service-based scholarship programs (i.e., Bonner Scholars/Leaders);...

This week we hosted two conference calls that kicked off the recruitment of faculty and campus staff interested in participating in the PolicyOptions.org initiative. I was really pleased with the enthusiasm everyone had for the overall idea and their concrete strategies for moving forward on their own campuses, as well as suggestions for ways we can support their efforts in the coming months.

The main focus of our discussion was on the PolicyOption Issue Brief template and research methodology, and how faculty are or will be incorporating this research approach into an academic course or internship.

As one participant wrote prior to the call:...