Story shared by Patti Derbyshire

As we wave goodbye to summer and look ahead to fall, I was reflecting on the professional development I completed earlier in the summer with Simon Fraser University’s Evaluation for Social Change and Transformational Learning Program. Developed and taught by Reciprocal Consulting’s Kim van der Woerd and Sofia Vitalis, the coursework asks participants to consider what data is collected, by whom, how it is interpreted, and how it is used (or not). How might data affect policy, organizations and the people they serve?  

Research activities at Rise are both embedded in our methodology and stand alone on specific projects we engage with. They also coincide with First Nations Principles of OCAP — ownership, control, access, and possession of one’s individual and collective data, a response to the appropriation of Indigenous Knowledge in research. Rise research collaborations build OCAP into our processes by providing original transcripts, preview reports, and authorship to all participants who agree to engage with us on important questions and emerging topics. First voice is kept intact in reporting and presented in the preview research reporting for accuracy review. Finally and importantly, individuals are engaged with protocol and exercise their rights to alter consent or exercise their rights to data at any time. This contradicts long-standing conventions of paid and proprietary research at the expense or exclusion of Indigenous rights. All data is political. How are you working with OCAP in your organization?  

For more on the First Nations Information Governance Centre and OCAP see: https://fnigc.ca/ocap-training/