1.      What kind of information can I expect to find (and in what format) in the KRC?

The Urban Indian Knowledge Resource Center makes information available through all electronic means available: video, text, image and audio. Additionally it provides you with different functions to get in contact with our staff: e mail, help forms and telephone numbers. Should you have technical difficulties or suggestions about the website functionality please contact our Operations Manager/Webmaster at gfine@ncuih.org

2.      How is the information divided?

Information and knowledge is available under six different components:

I.               Field-related  & Community Services & information
II.              Urban Indian  Knowledge Clearing House 
III.             News & Events
IV.             Urban Indian Population Evolution
V.              The Urban Indian Health  Programs Information  (Under Construction)
VI.             Best, Promising and Evidence-Based Practices ( Under Construction)
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3.      What am I to find in each category?

I.                   Field-related  & Community Services & information

You may find all of the information and knowledge available in these services on the left hand side bar. You will see that information is further divided in categories or disciplines (policy, research, legislation, technical assistance, technology and development) to make it easier for you to find information on the topic of your interest.  Ninety percent (90%) of the information is available to the general public, since this content is geared toward both informing and educating about our situation and the circumstances we face.   For the launching period some of the information in these pages and the pages in the main site will be similar.  However, as time passes by, any information six months or older will be stored in the KRC while the new information will be presented in the main website.  

II.                Urban Indian Knowledge Clearing House
The KRC Clearinghouse is the largest repository of documents and materials related / or specific about our Population, our Communities and the Programs who serve them. It originally started in 2006 as a collection of 134 academic research documents. However, it evolved into a clearinghouse making documents in a series of germane fields and disciplines focused on our programs and our communities (including all legislative and policy working documents and bills for the last 4 years). Documents available today are 1060, although there is one extra database that we are to include; along with documents that our members and invested parties keep sending (and for which we are grateful) to be included. We know there is a world of knowledge out there and we are eager to collect it and share it with all of you.

III.             News & Events
The KRC will showcase events related to or of interest for the Urban Indian Communities and Health Programs. Like in the case of the information contained in the field pages, the news and events will be stored as part of the efforts and historical events taking place in/ or affecting our communities. We are expecting to showcase events   that take place locally, as an extra information dissemination service for our members.

IV.             Urban Indian Population Evolution
This section presents Information and knowledge in regards to topics that impact, influence or continually exist in our communities everyday life, but that are rarely approached in a systematic manner. NCUIH believes that is extremely necessary to start documenting and disseminating these realities, so that they become part of the agenda in our leaders mind and actions. Topics such as:  the need to reconstruct our history as urban Indians; the state of our population at the national level (in aspects as diverse as technology, media or training needs). This section also provides subsections on the Urban-Tribal dialogue process; how to communicate and partner with other communities in the country, etc.

V.                The Urban Indian Health Programs Information (Under Construction)
For the time being this section will be closely similar to the UIHP section in the NCUIH Main Page, but as time passes, this section intends to be a national showcase for our programs to use in their advantage (say, an additional resource page for their programs) as well as a repository for all of their materials and documents they would like to share with the larger national audience. For instance, NCUIH would like to make all of the programs newsletters available for everyone. Likewise we would like to help disseminate information on local events or on awards given to our members for their excellent performance.

VI.             Best, Promising and Evidence-Based Practices (Under Construction)

There is substantial knowledge in our Urban Indian Health Programs that has been developed through experience and time. That is, a potential series of Best and Evidence based Practices that our leaders have orally transmitted to their personnel without ever being able to record them in a written form. The latter finds its roots in the historical development of the Urban Indian Health Programs; as well as the ongoing struggle to devote all funds and operations to cover services rather than creating written records of these culturally-appropriate practices tailored specifically to assist our communities in urban settings.

 For the above reason, NCUIH took the opportunity to do both research on the commonly accepted Standards for Best and evidence-based practices; as well as to design a series of tools to collect in a written form those organically developed and orally transmitted practices. Through a call for submissions, a total of 16 Best Practices of varied themes were collected. These documents underwent a process of review to make sure that the information collected actually had the required standards to be considered best practices.

Findings:

1)      The NCUIH team realized that there are no universally accepted standards for Best or Evidence-based Practices for Native American Programs (neither in Tribal or Urban programs). The closest concepts have been developed by SAMHSA in a Native American Diabetes program.  Although NCUIH could have adopted these or other standards or created its own set, we decided it is in the best interest of our programs to involve both the programs and the involved agencies in the process, so that the standards are not unilaterally created, but universally valid.

2)      While implementing the project and reviewing the submissions, the NCUIH team realized there was a need to do further research on how our program leaders and practitioners perceive what a Best or Evidence practice is, for instance, a program or project may be extremely successful, but it may not be replicable, etc. For such reason, developing standards is the first step to move forward with the Best Practices collection project.

Our goal is to be able to manualize the process of practices collection and standardization.

4. How Do I use the Clearing House Search Engine?

 There are at least 3 ways of searching:

a)      Simple Search:
Available in most of the KRC pages on the right hand side column.
You have to basically enter a keyword and hit search. You will realize that next to the blank space there is a drop-down option. You may select Publication or Entire site. The former, Publication, will bring up results from the documents available in the database.  The second option will bring up both documents in the database and pages within the site related to the word you entered in the blank space.  Should you not get what you where looking for, please again with either a broader concept or a more specific one.

b)     Advanced Search:
Please go to the left hand side bar and click on the Clearing House Section; this link will take you to the   advanced search section. You have several options to select according to the field of the information you are looking for. For Instance, you may choose to check the health field. A series of further subdivisions will appear as a drop down menu. You may select an extra sub-category (filter) to make your search more specificor you can just simply leave the health option checked and then hit search. You may try different filters every time. The more filters you select the more specific your search. Likewise, the less filter you use the broader the results (and the more the number of documents) that will come up.

Using filters only You may choose to search using filters only. You may filter the information according to Author, Study Setting type, Study Samples type, Publication Year and/or Journal. Again, the more filters you select the more specific your search. Likewise, the less filter you use the broader the results (and the more the number of documents) that will come up.

c)      Keyword Search The Keyword (Text) Search feature allows you to search for any keyword on the most relevant fields in the database. The Keyword Search takes into account any and all filters that you may have already set using the Advanced Filters or the Column Filters. Currently, the Keyword Search can only search for one word or phrase, or date ranges. To perform a Keyword Search on the entire database contents without any filters, please be sure to clear all checked buttons in the field categories of the above options.

**Note: Should you hit the Search button without entering any text; the results will show up as a list of all of the documents (and pages, respectively) available in the site/database.

5.      Why an Online Knowledge Resource Center separate from the Main NCUIH site?

Re: in reality the two websites are just one (share the same website architecture), just with a different feel and look.   The rationale behind this is more strategic than aesthetics.
A) NCUIH has evolved into a stable organization capable of providing a series of new services and- more importantly--improved Technical Assistance based on scientific research as well as on evidence based practices.

B) In the past, materials and documents related to our fight and our plight would get lost in time or in diverse hands. This situation not only made it difficult for our leaders to have information ready or handy when needed, but it  also created an institutional and historical loss since  new leaders had to start from scratch instead of building on the projects carried out before. The Online Knowledge Resource Center is designed precisely a hub of resources and a permanent repository of knowledge for our population. That is a one-stop center storing    information, academic and practical tools specific to the Urban Indian Health Programs.

C) Current times call for speaking up and speaking out our truth. Although the Resource Center is focused on serving the Urban Indian Health Programs, the advancement and development of our sector requires connecting with a larger audience we believe it is necessary to disseminate information to other invested partners utilizing as many means of communication as possible. This audience includes scientific researchers, potential donors,   congressmen and federal agencies (other than I.H.S), universities, students and the general public.  The more educational tools we have, the more prepared we can be; and the larger our audience, the easier it is for us to speak about our populations needs and realities.

6.  I see the link and the information of the document of my interest, but how do I access the full-text version?

Approximately 70 % of the documents in the KRC are publicly available, especially policy and legislation document produced by NCUIH or its Native American Sister organizations. However there are a set of documents that, due to copyright issues, can only be distributed to NCUIH members. If you are a NCUIH please request your login name and password. If you already have your password please enter it in the  log-in slots located in the left hand side bar of the homepage. Once you have entered the same you will be able to see those documents that are available only to members. We have been contacting  each and all the publishers that own the rights of these copyrighted documents, however not all of them have accepted making them available for free. We are still negotiating individually with them to have a many documents available, but this is a lengthy and labor intensive process so please be patient with us. If you must get a document  that you find in our database, there are two options available either use the link provided in the document profile to reach the publisher/author or another institution that may hold the rights to distribute the document; or contact our staff to see if we can help you find a solution.

We indeed appreciate your interest in NCUIH's knowledge Resource Center and look forward to hearing from you   about related questions or suggestions.

Best Regards,

Alejandro Bermudez Del Villar,
KRC Project Director
abermudez@ncuih.org
202 544 0344