An exercise to update and gather information on the research and analysis activities taking place across Scotland's councils has been launched by the Analysis, Information and Research (AIR) community of practice.
For the first time, researchers and analysts are being invited to update or add details of their projects to a series of online wikis (web pages which can be updated by anyone) with the aim of creating a comprehensive, up-to-date picture of research activity across Scotland. It is hoped that this will allow researchers both inside and outside local government to see the kind of work being undertaken and encourage collaboration.
The new wikis follow previous lists of research activities which were collated by the Improvement Service. The previous updates were spreadsheets published periodically which outlined the research and analysis that councils were currently carrying out or had recently completed/published. Whilst many researchers found them useful, they were time-consuming to collate and quickly became outdated. The wikis mean that researchers can update the list themselves as soon as information is available, and provide links to any published research.The wikis can be found on the AIR community of practice (CoP) (http://www.communities.idea.gov.uk/c/910030/home.do) (you will need to register). There are currently 20 wikis which list research across a number of topic areas. A guide on how to update them is also in the CoP, and a forum has been set up to deal with any questions.
For more information, contact Paul Davison at Stirling Council or Louise Jenkins at the Improvement Service.
