A Word from the Director

Linking D&U with Marketing

As the NCDDR launches a new scope-of-work, staff continue to capture and suggest new strategies and understandings to assist in the process of moving research outcomes into practice. Effective planning and implementation of dissemination practices can facilitate bridging the gap between the research environment and the world of practice.

As the paradigm of disability continues to change in the new millennium, our challenge of effectively disseminating disability research outcomes for routine use by appropriate end-users is growing. In our new Information Age, effective dissemination requires awareness of the information sources that are competing for the attention of the same end-user groups. Potential users of disability research outcomes will increasingly appraise outcomes based on their:

• ease of understanding,
• ease of access and use,
• perceived value or benefit resulting from application of the outcomes, and
• relevance of the research outcomes to the personal lives and current circumstances of the intended user.

In addition to information related to effective dissemination practices previously reported by the NCDDR, it appears appropriate to consider benefits that may be gained by analyzing the applicability of the marketing concept in order to better understand new strategies that may enhance greater utilization of disability research outcomes.

This issue of The Research Exchange relates previously shared dissemination and utilization (D&U) literature to strategies and techniques from the field of marketing. Our concept of marketing does not focus on the sale of products but rather focuses on ways to enhance the attraction and use of research information by appropriate end-user groups.

The application of selected marketing practices should help in realizing goals such as the following, from the Education Department Grants Administrative Regulations (EDGAR):

§ 75.192 Dissemination.

If an applicant proposes to publish and disseminate curricula or

Instructional materials under a grant, the applicant shall include an assurance in its application that the curricula or materials will reach the populations for which the curricula or materials were developed.

(Authority: 20 U.S.C. 1221e-3 and 3474)

The goal in this issue is to link D&U principles to corresponding and enhancing principles of effective marketing. Our understanding of information utilization is enhanced by adapting and appropriately applying strategies and techniques from the marketing literature. It is our hope that this "marriage of concepts" might cause us to analyze in a different way what has been routinely done, and provide some new ideas that may help us increase the effectiveness of our outreach efforts.

John D. Westbrook, Ph.D.
Director, NCDDR

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