A Force for Good: Human-Centered Design at Notre Dame (Spring 2016)

Client Profile:

The University of Notre Dame is a Catholic academic community of higher learning, animated from its origins by the Congregation of Holy Cross. The University seeks to cultivate in its students not only an appreciation for the great achievements of human beings but also a disciplined sensibility to the poverty, injustice and oppression that burden the lives of so many. The aim is to create a sense of human solidarity and concern for the common good that will bear fruit as learning becomes service to justice.

In spring semester 2016, a group of students from International Development in Practice II served as consultants to Deans of the College of Arts and Letters, College of Engineering, and the new Keough School of Global Affairs on the initiative of human-centered design. Their work has become a cornerstone for the macro movement at Notre Dame of bringing innovation, cross-discipline collaboration, and design thinking to the forefront of the University's mission to serve as a force for good.

College of Arts and Letters

College of Engineering

Keough School of Global Affairs

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Presentation

Team Biography

Assessing and Developing Usability for Foreign Aid Data - Diplomacy Lab (Fall 2015)

Client Profile

The U.S. is one of the largest donors globally for foreign assistance. In an effort to bring transparency & accountability to U.S. Foreign Assistance, the Department of State manages and coordinates the website ForeignAssistance.gov (FA.gov).

FA.gov currently provides budget, financial, and programmatic data from across ten agencies (representing 98% of the total foreign assistance portfolio) that are contributing to U.S. efforts on issues such as health, peace and security, democracy, environment, and humanitarian/emergency assistance. The site includes many different data elements including activity titles, descriptions, partner names, dates of performance, and locations.

Definition of Problem

The site is finalizing a complete redesign, with new interfaces and functionalities, and we want to develop and use cases for the data contained on this site. We are asking universities to review the information in the dataset and develop ideas on how to use the data to identify trends and draw conclusions. Universities can also take on projects to standardize or hack the data to improve the quality, i.e. standardizing vendor names (for example, MSF vs. Doctors without Borders vs Medicines Sans Frontieres).

Initial Steps and Options

The DAT should plan to analyze the ForeignAssistance.gov dataset. The team would develop ideas for using the data to identify trends and explore ways to compare, contrast, or combine data with other datasets. For example, the team might seek to link the data to the new Lives Saved Scorecard, pioneered by U.N. special envoy Ray Chambers, for financing the health MDGs. The team will most likely focus on data from one specific country or region.

Definition of Success

The Diplomacy Lab is enthusiastic to see projects that show how FA.gov data can be combined or analyzed with other datasets to tell a story on Foreign Assistance or US Diplomacy. Foreign Assistance data can be used in its entirety or segmented by country, agency, or sector

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Engaging Engineers in Development - College of Engineering (Fall 2015)

Client Profile

Engineering has been offered at the University since 1873, when Notre Dame became the first Catholic university in the country to have a school of engineering. In fact, Notre Dame boasts a long history of engineering developments in a variety of fields … from the construction of the first hand-driven wind tunnel in America (aerospace) and the successful transmission of one of the first wireless messages (communications) in the country to the discovery of a new class of actinyl peroxide compounds (energy) and demonstration of magnetic logic (computing).

When the College of Engineering was officially founded in 1920, most of the students were pursuing civil engineering, due to the nation’s need for surveyors and designers of roads, bridges, and railroads. Today, graduate and undergraduate students continue to explore a wide variety of fields through the five departments housed within the college as they search for ways to address some of society’s most pressing needs.

• Number of Teaching and Research Faculty: 169
• Number of Undergraduate Students, Sophmore-Senior: 1,214
• Number of Incoming First-Year Students: ~500
• Number of Graduate Students: 521

Definition of Problem

Undergraduate engineering programs are typically demanding programs with multiple requirements.  Notre Dame’s undergraduate program is extremely technically demanding.  A number of engineering students, for example, have wanted to pursue the rigorous training of the engineering program while taking advantage of other options, such as the university’s undergraduate minor in International Development Studies or training in human-centered design and design thinking.  At times, they have been unable to take advantage of these options because of the large number of required courses. Notre Dame is currently engaging in a curriculum review where, among other things, some of the traditional requirements are being re-examined in hopes of making space for other opportunities for students.  One area of interest is providing more “soft” skills that directly impact the work of engineers in addressing complex problems of great social importance. Some of these “soft” skills include design thinking, human centered design, negotiation skills, social and political analysis, and more.  

Initial Steps and Options

• Work closely with Jay Brockman and Tracy Kijewski-Correa, as well as engineering graduate student advisors Erik Jensen and Kevin Fink (who are in the master’s program in civil engineering at ND) to define more clearly the project and proposed outcome.
• Identify and analyze other undergraduate engineering programs that have done a good job providing this kind of training (for example, with engineering programs in international development or “humanitarian engineering” or others).

Definition of Success

A clear analysis on best practices nationally and internationally, as well as opportunities and constraints in thinking about ways to enhance Notre Dame’s current engineering curriculum.

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Report

Advocacy for Women - CARE (Fall 2014)

Client Profile

CARE is a leading humanitarian organization fighting global poverty. CARE places special focus on working alongside marginalized women because, equipped with the proper resources, women have the power to help whole families and entire communities escape poverty. Women are at the heart of CARE’s community-based efforts to improve basic education, improve maternal and child health, increase access to clean water and sanitation, expand economic opportunity and protect natural resources. CARE also delivers emergency aid to survivors of conflict and natural disasters and helps people rebuild their lives. In 2013, CARE worked in 87 countries around the world, implementing long-term programs to fight poverty, respond to humanitarian emergencies and advocate for policy change to improve the lives of the poorest populations.

The purpose of CARE’s advocacy work is to influence U.S. Government policymakers and the American public to adopt and fully implement policies that support the efforts of poor and marginalized people in the developing world to realize their rights and improve their lives.

See all Development Advisory Team projects with CARE

Definition of Problem

Every spring, CARE hosts its annual National Conference and International Women’s Day Celebration (NCC). This two-day event convenes CARE advocates and supporters from around the country to learn about vital international development issues before heading to Capitol Hill to call on lawmakers to deliver lasting change to girls, women and communities around the world. Each year, the 200-300 participating advocates discuss two or three issues with lawmakers. Yet follow-up from the conference is often a challenge, as is measuring the impact of the conference and advocacy asks with lawmakers. Moreover, CARE is one of dozens of organizations that conduct such conferences and lobby days on Capitol Hill each year. CARE would like to compare our NCC with conferences and lobby days convened by similar organizations, particularly in relation to best practices, effective messaging, measuring impact and opportunities for follow-up.

Initial Steps and Options

Working with a Development Advisory Team, CARE would like to examine how other organizations engage advocates and supporters around advocacy conferences and lobby days. In particular:

• What are the best practices for engaging advocates at a conference and lobby day? (compare & contrast CARE’s NCC with other major conference & lobby days)
• What makes advocates sign up for the NCC, and travel to D.C. on their own dime and time to participate? (Conduct a survey or focus group with advocates who registered for/participated in the 2014 NCC on why they signed up, what went well and could be improved upon, etc).
• What are effective messaging strategies, particularly on the importance of U.S investments overseas and travel to see U.S. investments firsthand?
• How can we cut through the noise in reaching policymakers (particularly given the amount of Lobby Days)? How can CARE stand out and be more effective in its conference?
• How can we measure the effectiveness and impact of the NCC? How do other organizations measure the effectiveness and impact of their conferences and lobby days?
• How can we continue the momentum of the NCC, particularly with advocates and supporters? What are effective methods of follow-up with advocates, and with legislators? Again, conducting a review of the methods/processes of similar organizations.

Definition of Success

A systematic report with recommendations, addressing the questions listed above, that helps us increase the impact of our advocacy conference and lobby days on behalf of women.

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Report