What is a Yaffle? In Newfoundland English it means an armload of sticks, salt cod, or anything else for that matter. For the best part of last year, however, the word has been synonymous with the armload of research the Memorial University of Newfoundland has made searchable and accessible to the world through their “Yaffle” search engine.

Many our readers are familiar with the type of research that sits in “Ivory Towers” collecting dust on bookshelves, microfiche and cumbersome CD ROMs. In the past, university level research was generally unread and unused by the general public, but Yaffle has gained international attention for opening Memorial’s doors and exposing their knowledge to the entire planet. This process is what experts call “knowledge mobilization.” It is a growing community of academics who are bent on taking research and information and putting it into active service to benefit society.

The Yaffle search engine, which was launched last year, has also been called “A dating service for the academic set”. That analogy is accurate as Yaffle’s other function, unlike Google’s, allows users to make research inquiries and connects them to Memorial’s 500 academic experts. This interactive platform has put communities in touch with specialists who are able to assist them and has also given students a way to contact researchers who are active in their field of study.

The Leslie Harris Centre of Regional Policy and Development, more commonly known as the Harris Centre, has been at the heart of Memorial’s knowledge mobilization initiative. Its purpose is to be a conduit between the communities of Newfoundland and Labrador and the University’s knowledge base and vice versa. When it comes to making knowledge impactful to the immediate areas surrounding the university, Yaffle has become a key tool.

In an interview with the Globe and Mail, David Yetman, Manager of Knowledge Mobilization for the Harris Centre, mentioned that for people in his field, the mantra is universal. “Our sole purpose in life is to make connections.” Simply put, without the ability to reach out to the community at large, knowledge remains stagnant and in the hands of a very small number of experts. Yaffle’s unique selling point is its ability to begin a conversation that is only dependant on whether or not the user has access to the internet, rather than if the user has a PhD in a particular subject.

As Operations Manager at the Harris Centre, Jennifer Adams Warburton knows the unique value of Yaffle’s ability to put research into action first hand. In the past 12 months she has helped Yaffle amass 50,000 hits and grow its research library to 1,140 projects, articles and documents. A small feat compared with the millions of hits obtained by Google, but in this context, one query might lead to a tremendous benefit for a community or organization. East Coast Connected’s Ian Finley spoke with Ms. Adams Warburton at her office in St. John’s, Newfoundland.

Ian Finley: In thirty seconds, can you describe what Yaffle is to people who may not have heard of it?
Jennifer Adams Warburton: Yaffle is a searchable database that allows communities, individuals, community groups, and government to submit research ideas and needs to the university. Those needs are then picked up at the Harris Centre and shopped throughout the institution so that partners can be found and we use Yaffle as a matchmaking tool for [those] connections.

IF: Was there a specific need that Yaffle has fulfilled at Memorial, and was there a bright light going on that caused the whole project to come about?

JAW: Yes there was. At the university there were numerous lists that were being maintained for various reasons pertaining to types of expertise, inventory of funded research projects, and other groupings and inventories of funded research. It was determined through various committees that this research shares a lot of commonalities and should be consolidated into one place. The Harris Centre was doing a national project called Knowledge Impact in Society, or KIS for short. That project was all about getting knowledge centres at universities across the country out into the hands of the people. At the Harris Centre, Robert Greenwood [Director of the Harris Centre], David Yetman and others working on the KIS project at the time came up with this idea of a searchable database. So if there was a brainchild, that was it. As such, the university asked the Harris Centre to build it and own it on behalf of the university. So, funded through the KIS project and other provincial government funders, Yaffle was built.

IF: Yaffle has been compared with Google in terms of look and feel. In terms of functionality, how is it different than other search engines?

JAW: What really makes Yaffle unique is not so much the academic side of it but the community connection side of it. It’s also the fact that the research is written in a language that is accessible to anybody. It’s the difference between a “breast self-exam” and a “breast palpation”. Not everybody knows what palpation means, but nearly everyone knows what “self-exam” means. This is a real example of using broadly accessible language in Yaffle for the purposes of furthering the reach of the research.

IF: Can you give our readers an example of a successful connection that has been made as a result of a Yaffle query?

JAW: The real successes are the inquiries that result in funded research projects. We had someone inquire if it was feasible to sell bacon-wrapped scallops. They came to the university and we were able to connect them, here at the Harris Centre, with the Faculty of Business Administration at Memorial, who put a team on that project right away. A feasibility study was then produced on that business case; those kinds of stories happen all the time. Sometimes it’s just hiring a student. We are able to match research assistants to communities and sometimes they’re much longer term projects. You may have a community with a problem and they can come to us for a solution and we can connect them with experts in whatever field that is pertaining to them and that all happens through Yaffle.

IF: In your launch presentation there is a list of provincial and federal organizations, including governments, who have funded the project. Was it easy to get all those groups to come on board?

JAW: It was surprisingly easy to do. I mean, this is a big project so “easy” is a relative term. At the Harris Centre, we are experts at brokering relationships so we had to do that to make Yaffle work. When you start looking at spreading Yaffle as a model across other institutions and being able to use it for other communities, those brokering challenges are going to exist and that’s where we are in terms of our growth right now. We’re looking into the future, sharing this technology with others and how to navigate their rocky waters. We know how to navigate ours.

IF: It sounds you’ve got a feasible business plan to export Yaffle outside of Newfoundland. Are you going to licence this technology for other institutions?

JAW: At this point it looks like we’re going to pilot with another university and we are in the midst of shaping how that pilot is going to look. We’ve narrowed down our business model options to two or three choices and we are going to pilot them and see [what works]. Licensing is one, simply giving away the technology is another, but the real challenge is not necessarily creating Yaffle, it’s how to make Yaffle work and be successful. Yaffle is just a piece of technology. I’m a software developer so I don’t like to say “just a piece of technology” but in this case it’s important to acknowledge the human beings behind it.

IF: Who is working on the development of the business models?

JAW: We are working with a steering committee here at Memorial, and we have a team of graduate business students who are working on it. Our steering committee crosses many key departments of the university. We’ve also recently gone through an exercise where we’ve solicited feedback from some of our friends and partners outside the university to get their comments and advice on the business model that we’re proposing right now. We are expecting to have Yaffle available outside of Memorial within the next year or two years.

IF: Yaffle has been touted as “the spark that ignites research connections, bringing together grad students and rural municipal leaders, world-renowned scientists and non-profit groups.” Can you give an example of how Yaffle has done this in the non-profit sector?

JAW: We have recently put together a group at Memorial, the provincial government and a community group focused onyouth outreach.. Based on relationships forged through the Harris Centre and using Yaffle we’ve put together a team of people who are developing a community research network that is going to allow disenfranchised youth to be able to access and affect employment policy discussions. Community research networks are really hot right now across the country, so we’ve developed a model [based on] past projects, and using that as a jumping off point, the agency is now hoping to create their own network.

IF: Apart from 50,000 hits, can you give us any more statistics that speak to Yaffle’s success and the attention that it has brought the university?
JAW: That’s so hard to quantify. One of the things that Yaffle is good at is drilling down into the hard numbers, but it’s harder to tell impact. I can tell you who the most contacted researcher was or how many pages someone visited and for how long, but that’s not necessarily as impactful as telling you that based on Yaffle’s existence, the Director of the Harris Centre Rob Greenwood was invited to do a cross-Australian tour presenting on knowledge mobilization, processes, and specifically Yaffle, which he completed this past summer. He spoke at 6 different universities across the country and it’s pretty impressive that this university on a rock in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean is out in multiple continents sharing best practices and teaching others how to move knowledge in the way that we do it here.