Do You Have a Dissemination Policy?

A policy statement is a way many organizations express values to their staff and to the public. Policies serve as a foundation for implementation procedures and often address areas that are regulated by legal requirements, as well as areas that have multiple potential staff responses. Policies help guide staff by establishing a common vision and a "standard" of accepted behaviors for staff to demonstrate to achieve that vision. The question is: does dissemination deserve its own policy? Staff of the NCDDR feel that the development of such a policy could be useful in several ways:

• It helps to clarify the value placed upon dissemination by the NIDRR grantee organization.
• It provides an opportunity to consider the impact dissemination, and decisions reached about it, have on the ultimate utilization of information.
• It facilitates a clarification of the intended groups of users for the information generated through the disability research function.
• It can establish the value and assurances that will be engaged to achieve "ease of access and simplicity of comprehension and use" -- in other words, accessibility.
• It can reduce staff confusion about the correct course of action and, as a result, lower staff costs and increase timeliness of response time.

For unknown reasons, some organizations approach dissemination as an afterthought. Dissemination is often not considered as a part of the "real" scope-of-work and is frequently treated as nothing more than the distribution of a product to an all-too-frequent small group of professionals. Concepts of marketing and advertising are seldom linked to the dissemination plan for research outcomes. Policies are important opportunities for leaders to describe new ideals and new methods to achieve those ideals. You may be surprised to know that the U.S. Department of Education (ED) has recently developed its own policy regarding dissemination to people with disabilities. The new policy entitled Policy Statement on Making Materials and Information Available and Accessible to Individuals with Disabilities highlights areas that you should consider in developing your own policy statement.

If you do not have access to a copy of the ED policy mentioned and would like one, contact the NCDDR.

The ED's policy addresses the following important areas:

• clarification of the regulations that support a need for the policy and a "standard" of action, for example, ED mentions Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as amended as establishing its obligations.
• identification of your intended information users and the way in which your choices of format and distribution are designed to positively affect utilization; the ED policy addresses intended users as anyone who may benefit from the activities of the ED such as employees, applicants, program participants, personnel of other Federal entities, and members of the public who have disabilities.
• description of how a policy on dissemination assists in reaching the organization's stated mission, for example, ED states that its policy on dissemination supports the mission "to ensure equal access to education and to promote educational excellence throughout the nation."
• clarification of how you intend to achieve accessibility or "ease of access and simplicity of comprehension and use," for example, the ED states that unless there are fundamental alterations or financial and administrative burdens created, all documents will be produced in the format most usable by the requestor.
• identification of specific steps that will be taken to ensure that general public awareness of the availability of alternate formats of your material is planned; in ED's case, their policy addresses providing such information at display booths and on publication request forms in addition to the inclusion of special notices in all materials produced.
• specification regarding the timeliness of acquiring information via alternate formats, in other words, will all alternate format versions be available simultaneously or can an "acceptable delay and preparation" time frame be established?
• description of the strategies that are to be followed to implement the policy; the ED policy, for example, discusses administrative structures that will support implementation, funding for implementation, and rationale for the use of an outside contractor, among others.

The use of policy can be a very effective and low-cost method of addressing issues of dissemination and utilization. Although impacting the lives of end-users is often a goal of many human service projects and organizations, seldom do these projects and organizations explicate how efforts of dissemination will be tied to utilization. In these days of discussions about "Universal Services" on the Information Superhighway (U.S. Advisory Council on the National Information Infrastructure, 1996), clear policy statements assist leaders and staff in "teaming" their resources to accomplish impact.

References

U.S. Advisory Council on the National Information Infrastructure. (1996.) A nation of opportunity: A final report of the United States Advisory Council on the National Information Infrastructure. Washington, D.C.: Author.

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