ARIS: Advancing Research Impact in Society
The Center for Advancing Research Impact in Society (ARIS) was launched in September 2018 with funding from the National Science Foundation to "advance the rigor, relevance, and practice of broader impacts (BI)." ARIS works to elevate research impact by providing high-quality resources and professional development opportunities and by creating connections among researchers, community partners, and engagement practitioners. The external evaluation team at SERC provides an independent, formative assessment of whether Center activities are being implemented as proposed (implementation evaluation) and desired outcomes are being achieved (outcome evaluation). Consistent with a Development Evaluation (DE) approach, the goal of this work is to provide project leaders with the information they need to continuously adapt and improve ARIS materials and programming throughout the grant period.

Megalopolitan Coastal Transformation Hub
SERC serves as the external evaluator for the MACH project which is a collaboration of thirteen university and institutional partners pursuing integrated, co-produced research. In addition to ongoing formative evaluation and thought partnership activities, our evaluation plan includes an annual Social Network Analysis, Principles Focused Evaluation, Workforce Development Plan Implementation Evaluation (assessing efforts to provide for the professional and career development needs of graduate students and post docs serving on the project's research team), and Broader Impacts Evaluation of the project's Community College and Documentary Film program activities. Learn more about MACH, including its publications.

Improving Undergraduate Scientific Explanations: Exploring the Role of Data Literacy
The Improving Undergraduate Scientific Explanations: Exploring the Role of Data Literacy Skills in Scientific Reasoning project at Rider University is supported by an NSF IUSE grant (#2021347) awarded to Kathleen Browne in 2020. The PIs investigate whether students who participate in courses that use data sets from the NSF-funded Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) and provide instruction in the use of "DCER" (i.e., Data Description-Claim-Evidence-Reasoning) are able to provide better explanations of scientific observations than those in a comparison group and perform better on assessments of scientific reasoning and data literacy.The SERC evaluation team consulted on the statistical analysis and conducted a process evaluation using artifact review and interviews.

C-ChanGe
The Cultural Change in Geoscience (C-ChanGe) project works toward a vision of the future where all people at each stage of their career experience academic geoscience as a safe and welcoming environment where they feel empowered to learn and contribute without stifling their identities, and the community recognizes contributions from everyone. SERC leads the professional development of 2 cohorts of faculty change agents empowered to work in their own context to make successive, incremental changes, leading to positive cultural shifts within their home departments with the support of a community of practice made up of local and national peers. The project also raises the visibility of the many other groups working towards an inclusive geoscience discipline through a web-based network to support awareness, recognition, and connectivity of national partner projects working on geoscience cultural change.

AI in Geoscience Education
This site explores emerging practices in the use of AI in geoscience education. SERC developed the initial website to reflect emerging discussions about AI use in higher education to encourage broader discussion within the geoscience education community.

IODP School of Rock 2020
The Scientific Ocean Drilling IMPACT workshop series, held in 2020-2022, strived to chart the future course of science communication and outreach for scientific ocean drilling, in direct support of the 2050 Framework for Scientific Ocean Drilling and its call to "communicate far-reaching scientific ocean drilling knowledge to the broader community." SERC provided support in hosting the project website, including providing virtual workshop support, web infrastructure for a 2022 in-person workshop, and as a mechanism for disseminating project products.

Polar STEAM
Polar STEAM, which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Math, integrates and enhances two long-standing National Science Foundation (NSF) programs: the Polar Educators program and the Antarctic Artists and Writers program and facilitates virtual and deployment collaborations with scientists conducting research in the polar regions. The external evaluation of project activities are led by the SERC Evaluation Team, using a mixed-methods approach to conduct a developmental evaluation that provides rapid feedback to support data-driven innovation (Patton et al., 2016), and an outcomes evaluation to monitor progress towards the stated project outcomes.

NC-FEW
NC-Few is community and hub to support the emergence of interdisciplinary educational efforts focused on food, energy, and water systems in a wide array of educational contexts. SERC is working with NC-FEW leadership in developing virtual and in-person events and evaluating the project's impact and outcomes.

GEODE
Google Earth for Onsite and Distance Education (GEODE) focuses on enhancements to virtual globes such as Google Earth that allow for plate tectonic reconstructions, embedded virtual specimens and outcrops, interactive imagery, "grand tours" of the Earth (and other planets and moons), and learning modules using large geoscience datasets. SERC supported the project in transitioning this website from its original location to a permanent home with SERC.

IEDA2
Events and teaching resources for geoscience educators to support the use of the IEDA data infrastructure that includes three complementary data systems -- EarthChem, LEPR, SESAR -- for research in the geosciences. SERC is working with project leaders to design and facilitate events and web hosting teaching resources.