Introduction to Networked Improvement Basics℠ is an 11-week (12-session), mediated online course that will familiarize participants with key concepts, strategies, and tools in improvement science. Learners will work in cohorts to develop their conceptual understanding of the principles and practices of improvement science and build their skills to apply improvement methods to real problems.

This course introduces an approach for attending to the work of an improvement network and is intended for network leaders and individuals who support the analytic activities of networks, such as data analysts, researchers, or evaluators. In the course, participants will use the Evidence for Improvement framework to consider a network’s activity related to its working theory of improvement, collaboration among its partners, concerns about scaling, and interaction with its environmental context. Course activities emphasize the importance of simultaneously engaging with the work in each of these areas and the implications that doing so has for the collaboration between a network leader and an analytic partner(s).

Improvement Reviews are a formal, protocol-driven process in which senior improvement specialists review the activities and progress of a NIC or improvement project, with particular attention given to the use of improvement methodologies. Reviews of networks can also attend to the health and effectiveness of the network as a social learning organization engaged in improvement science. Improvement reviews provide a “critical friendship” that can maximize improvement learning and the achievement of aims by a project team or NIC. Learn more about Evidence for Improvement: An Integrated Analytic Approach for Supporting Networks in Education