A Women in Engineering Knowledge Center: Informing Research, Practice, and Institutional Change

Wepan Inc, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

A WOMEN IN ENGINEERING KNOWLEDGE CENTER: INFORMING RESEARCH, PRACTICE, AND INSTITUTIONAL CHANGE This project will develop the WEPAN Knowledge Center will contribute to increasing the number of women in engineering at all levels by providing a unique, web-based resource for practice and research that synthesizes, targets and creates key information. The objectives of the WEPAN Knowledge Center are to create an Internet knowledge center that: . Creates knowledge and provides leadership in key policy areas and information on issues related to increasing women's participation in engineering; . Collects and offers access to research, best practices, lessons learned, data and information; . Provides capacity building tools, including webinars and blogs; . Provides a platform to test and disseminate a new toolkit for creating information resources that will support the work of researchers and practitioners. The WEPAN Knowledge Center will use new technologies such as harvesting mechanisms to bring together the many resources available but scattered among a wide variety of programs and universities. It will make them readily accessible to stakeholders who need this information to develop policies, intervention activities and research programs related to WIE issues. WKC will provide new views of national statistics, analyses and policy summaries and improve access to research, educational models and approaches. To build national capacity among education practitioners and educators, WKC will offer a series of white papers written by experts in engineering programs and human resources research, and offer unified access to bibliographies and annotated literature reviews, related organizations and experts, job postings and resume banks, directories of women-in-engineering programs, and leadership development. In addition to white papers on key issues, WKC will develop status reports, fact sheets and briefing materials on key topics and an e-newsletter; offer webinars and blogs; and facilitate navigation to significant relevant resources on other sites, such as assessment tools for educational programs.