Ball State University remains committed to helping Indiana communities grow and prosper. The Indiana Communities Institute (ICI) in the Miller College of Business brings together many of Ball State’s top research and outreach activities to assist Indiana communities as they strive to improve life experiences for residents, businesses and visitors.

Information Technology’s Digital Corps was recently tapped to help ICI expand their mission through a new program called “Community-Based Action Planning.”

Community-Based Action Planning (CBAP) is a participant-oriented, “learn by doing” experience rooted in social science research and built on practical experience. The experience is based on principles of co-creation, a democratic method for managing risk and motivating action in support of building stronger, more sustainable places.

“Effective community development means communicating and interacting with residents on a very regular basis,” said Brian Blackford, ICI Interim Director of Program Development and Training. “We turned to the Digital Corps to help us create online tools to keep communities informed and engaged when we weren’t able to be there in person.”

Through an online dashboard, community members participating in the CBAP process are able to access resources, training, guides, community statistics, and more to help guide them through a process of assessing, analyzing, and creating action steps for their community.

The Digital Corps collaborated with ICI to create a robust, interactive website experience to guide community members through their journey.

“There was no ‘one size fits all’ solution for this project. Each community is different, and the way ICI interacts with these communities is very specific and hands-on,” said Brandon Smith, Director of the Digital Corps. “This took a collaborative effort from our entire Digital Corps team to get right. From user experience research and many rounds of design mockups to complex development solutions and even video production, this project has encompassed all the skills the Digital Corps brings to a project.”

The Community-Based Action Planning site is in the final stages of testing before launching to several Indiana communities early this summer.