The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) is pleased to announce the continuation of its Communities of Practice project. This multifaceted project promotes the effective use of state postsecondary data systems and provides a forum for states to work on solutions to common issues with those systems. Thanks to generous support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF), teams from 35 states participated in Communities of Practice during the first two years of the project.
SHEEO will hold the next in an ongoing series of Communities of Practice convenings December 3-4, 2019, in Denver, Colorado. This two-day meeting will provide an opportunity for state researchers, policy analysts, and workforce practitioners to address shared challenges related to using state data systems to define, measure, and publicize workforce outcomes for postsecondary education.
The Community of Practice will explore topics such as:
- Increasing state capacity to utilize linked postsecondary and workforce data.
- Making information on employment outcomes available and useful to consumers.
- Aligning educational output with workforce demand.
- Defining and measuring credentials of value.
- Emerging standards related to non-credit instruction, and academic and industry certifications.
- Developing partnerships with business and industry.
The Aligning Postsecondary Education and the Workforce Community of Practice will include teams from up to 15 states, SHEEO staff, BMGF staff, and subject-matter experts from other national education and workforce policy organizations. This convening will launch an ongoing network for Community of Practice members to share information and workshop solutions with their counterparts in other states. In 2020, SHEEO will convene one or multistate regional convenings to extend the work of the Community of Practice.
State teams should be comprised of three to four members with responsibility for state data systems, institutional research, policy analysis, or workforce development (multi-sector or cross-agency teams are encouraged). BMGF will defray all travel costs related to attending the convening.