Evaluating Efforts to Address Campus Sexual Violence: Developing a Data Ecosystem

Abstract

Sexual violence is well documented as a major problem on college campuses, and the delivery of service and programs at institutions of higher education (IHE) has proliferated over recent years. However, the implementation of these efforts has often outpaced the field’s work in developing evaluation models. Many institutions depend on campus climate surveys for data to inform their efforts, yet there are multiple data points that can be accessed to provide a more holistic picture of efforts to address sexual violence on campus. The data ecosystem framework provided by Driver-Linn & Svenson (2017) offers a comprehensive approach for assessing efforts to address campus sexual violence (CSV), but implementation models are needed that connect evaluation and practice, take local context into account, and lead to changes on campus. This paper presents a case study from a multisite university to describe the process of implementing a “data ecosystem” to assess the institutions' efforts to effectively address CSV, and how the data was used by practitioners and administrators. The collaborative, utilization-driven model has provided valuable data to inform the delivery of services and programs across the university yet has limitations and requires a wide range of resources to sustain.