August 2015

The “Call for Knowledge and Findings” issued by AERA President Jeannie Oakes and AERA Executive Director Felice J. Levine in April 2015 generated an impressive response.

The crowdsourcing submissions produced a bank of research arenas, significant findings, and important scholarship that is already serving as a valuable resource. The submission materials are helping to inform AERA’s Annual Meeting Centennial activities, including the Education Knowledge Forum and other Annual Meeting Centennial programming. They are also a valuable information source that AERA staff can draw upon for other initiatives and activities aimed at advancing education research as a field.

Crowdsourcing holds considerable promise for AERA’s efforts to better achieve its value of inclusiveness by reaching beyond customary networks. Levine noted that the Association first used crowdsourcing productively in 2010 with a call for ideas related to the AERA initiative on research on LGBTQ issues in education.

“The responses we have received here demonstrate the breadth and depth of our field and prove again that our members are a great resource for improving the condition of education,” said Levine.

“We are greatly impressed with the overall quality of the contributions and are pleased to thank participants for their thoughtful and exciting responses,” Oakes said. “We wanted to draw on the expertise of AERA members in crafting the Knowledge Forum and in providing a knowledge base to support other programs to be held in conjunction with the Centennial. We received wonderful, substantive ideas from a diverse group of scholars with diverse perspectives about research that is ready for development in policy or practice.”

Details about the forthcoming Education Knowledge Forum will be published in future issues of AERA Highlights.