Commission for Links with the Environment
The president of the commission and Vice-Rector of Institutional Relations and Community Engagement at the University of Concepción (UdeC), Ximena Gauché Marchetti, highlighted the collaborative nature of the activity, which addressed registration systems, monitoring and evaluation indicators for community engagement.
On Monday, March 31, the Council of Rectors of Chilean Universities (CRUCH), through its Commission for Community Engagement, held the Open Workshop “Good practices in registration, monitoring and contribution and/or impact indicators systems”, developed in virtual mode.
The session was aimed at vice-rectors, directors, professionals, managers and committees in charge of Linkage in the CRUCH universities and its purpose was to share institutional experiences and strengthen management capacities in monitoring and evaluating community engagement, a strategic function for Chilean higher education institutions.
Ximena Gauché, President of the CRUCH Community Engagement Commission and Vice-Rector of Institutional Relations and Community Engagement at the University of Concepción (UdeC), highlighted that “this is an activity that we agreed upon as a Commission within the framework of the implementation of our work plan for the 2024-2025 period, which defines four lines of work, one of which refers to the systems for registering, monitoring, and reporting Community Engagement and its relationship with the contribution indicators determined by each university”.
Exhibitions
The speakers at the event were Óscar Cofré, General Director of Community Engagement at the University of Tarapacá (UTA), Sebastián Pérez, General Director of Community Engagement at the Diego Portales University (UDP), Daniela Dass, Head of the Community Engagement Assurance Department at the General Directorate of Community Engagement at the University of Talca (UTALCA), and Alfredo Valeria, in charge of the Studies and Projects Unit, Vice-Rectorate of Community Engagement and Public Commitment at the Catholic University of Temuco (UCT).
The exhibitors shared their institutional models of registration, monitoring and indicator systems, based on five key dimensions: system governance (administration, financing, income and verification of information); operationalization (defined dimensions and indicators); technical support (characteristics and level of integration of institutional platforms); visualization and reporting (availability of reports for the internal community and definitions regarding external access); and main conclusions (strengths and challenges identified by each institution).
The presentations highlighted the diversity of approaches, technological developments, and organizational structures, as well as shared challenges regarding the sustainability and strategic utility of these systems.
The day included an initial plenary session of the Community Engagement Commission and concluded with a question-and-answer session and open dialogue with the participants. The event was moderated by Carlos Lara, Vice-Rector for Community Engagement at the University of Valparaíso (UV) and Vice-President of the CRUCH Community Engagement Commission.
Based on the presentations given, the Chair of the Commission considered this working day to be positive, highlighting “The positive attitude of the universities that shared their models for recording community engagement activities and a series of implementation aspects showed that this is an issue universities are working on due to its direct relationship not only with reporting but also with their respective internal quality assurance models for community engagement and its continuous improvement. The presentations allowed us to identify some good practices that we hope to systematize for dissemination.”.
Vice-Rector Gauché added that they hope to hold other similar workshops in 2025, also aimed at the various teams in charge of outreach at CRUCH universities, in order to strengthen collaborative work that will deliver concrete results that contribute to guiding the actions and decision-making of CRUCH universities in matters of outreach and engagement, in accordance with national regulations on higher education and the mandate of the Commission.
To view the video with the exhibits, download HERE
Text and photograph: CRUCH Communications
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