This past year, I taught a number of training workshops about knowledge mobilization, applied research, and evaluation. I have some plans to combine and collate these presentations into something exciting, but in the meantime I’m posting some of the workshop materials here as open access resources.

by Anne Bergen

The first set of workshop slides come from two full-day workshops hosted by Gambling Research Exchange Ontario (formerly the Ontario Problem Gambling Research Centre). These workshops were part of a series of capacity building sessions for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers.

The fall 2014 workshop “Skills and Ideas for #ProblemGamblingKTE” was designed  to give participants tools to carry out knowledge translation and exchange (KTE) activities. Students in this workshop:

• practiced identifying target audiences and stakeholder groups and analyzing contextual factors relevant to KTE activities;
• created and presented plans for engaging and working with stakeholders and decision makers;
• translated key research messages using plain language writing and selected communication channels and social media tools to maximize research access and impact.

The winter 2015 workshop “Evaluating Problem Gambling KTE” provided participants with tools for monitoring and evaluation of research impact from knowledge transfer and exchange (KTE) activities. During this workshop, students:

• created an evaluation theory of change or logic model for problem gambling KTE;
• learned to consider goals, values, and context to decide on an appropriate evaluation approach;
• identified indicators and measures for KTE evaluation.

The second set of workshop slides comes from a plain language writing workshop at the University of Guelph’s Writer’s Workshop Conference. These slides were mixed with hands-on practice and small and large group discussions. Participants learned about:

• basic principles of plain language writing;
• value of plain language communication;
• translation of existing text into plain language;
• where to find plain language resources.