JSGS assistant professor publishes e-case with lessons for instilling a data culture within public organizations

JSGS assistant professor, Cheryl Camillo, was one of four scholars awarded funding through the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs’ Hubert Project to develop open source multimedia materials with a human services focus.

JSGS assistant professor, Cheryl Camillo, was one of four scholars awarded funding through the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs’ Hubert Project to develop open source multimedia materials with a human services focus. Intended for public affairs educators, leadership consultants, and public and non-profit managers, her e-case offers seven lessons for instilling a data culture within public human services organizations.

Entitled, Learning to Use Data in a Public Human Services Agency, Camillo’s e-case tells the story of how an anxious, under-resourced staff of a state government office learned to utilize data to enhance day-to-day operations and implement strategic initiatives, such as an expansion of the Medicaid program that became the model for the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare). 

Camillo developed the e-case for public sector managers who are under increasing pressure to do more with less, and for university faculty who are training students for careers in public management. She drew from her experiences in government and academia to design the case in such a way that it would resonate with both audiences.

 “I designed the case to be more innovative than the typical case study,” says Camillo, “It uses multiple videos, images and documents to ‘speak the language’ of public sector managers and to capture the attention of students.”

By viewing the e-case, users learn the essential steps for instituting a data culture within a public organization.

“The e-case reflects the day-to-day realities of many public sector organizations, says Camillo.

In November 2017, Camillo debuted the case, alongside her fellow grantees at the annual conference of the Association for Research on Non-profit Organizations and Voluntary Action (ARNOVA). The panel was well received by social work and public administration faculty from across the world.

Camillo is an interdisciplinary scholar-practitioner with over 25 years’ experience in developing and implementing solutions to real-world social policy and governance problems. She is a graduate of Yale University and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University. As a JSGS assistant professor, she teaches courses in public administration, health administration, and public policy and conducts research into the design and implementation of health and social policy.