The Penn State Community Impact Map Is:
Purpose-driven
The Penn State Community Impact Map was created to answer a call from the Board of Trustees to provide a public-facing, interactive map that showcases Penn State’s many outreach and community engagement activities across Pennsylvania in support of Penn State’s “increase land-grant impact” goal.
Valuable
The map is designed as a tool to facilitate partnerships, gather information, find resources, and demonstrate the incredible reach and impact of Penn State. It will also serve as a tool to track metrics that are important to the Outreach strategic plan.
Collaborative
Entries on the map include submissions from every campus and college, representing work in every Pennsylvania county. Any faculty or staff member responsible for one or more community engagement activities at Penn State, Penn State Health, or Pennsylvania College of Technology is encouraged to submit activities.
Accessible
The map is publicly-accessible via the Penn State Outreach website and can be used as an interactive resource by anyone.
Timely
Because the map is intended to facilitate connections and the discovery of opportunities, only activities that began after July 1, 2023, are included to ensure relevancy and timeliness. We are currently preparing for our first annual review and update to encompass the 2024–2025 academic year.
Multi-faceted
The map allows users to filter activities by type of activity, campus affiliation, college affiliation, impact category, and alignment with Penn State’s goals. In addition to filters, layers featured on the map display activities and engagement by county, PA Senate District, PA House District, and Congressional District. When the engagement layers are activated, the information pop-ups include the number of alumni residing in the area and research-related expenditures for fiscal year 2022.
Data-centric
The map is built on the ESRI/ArcGIS platform and is populated via individual activity entries through an ArcGIS survey tool. The number of activity submissions and corresponding quality of submission data rely upon efficacy of the submission process and implicit trust in the activity owners.
Cost neutral
The map leverages existing technology and licenses through ESRI and utilizes existing resources and expertise within Penn State.
Ongoing
While the map showcases an impressive body of work, it should not be interpreted as a comprehensive or final representation of all outreach and community engagement at Penn State, but rather a work in progress. We will regularly reach out to faculty and staff members, determine additional use cases, partner with University stakeholders, solicit new entries, and request updates to existing activities. Once our first annual review and update is complete, users will be able to individually view the data for both the 2023–2024 and 2024–2025 academic years.
