Valuing and evaluating community-engaged scholarship

This article examines the nature of, and need for, evaluation of community-engaged university teaching and research. The research was conducted as part of a larger project aimed at improving institutional understanding of how to best support community-engaged university people. We interviewed 25 community-engaged colleagues, and used a general inductive approach to identify four recurring themes relating to evaluation within interview transcripts. The themes emphasised diverse conceptualisations of the nature of evaluation in this context, and concomitant concerns about where their community engagement fits within our higher education institution. Our research may help our institution, and others, to decide how best to provide institutional support to university people who choose to become community-engaged.