"The Impact Gaps Canvas was designed to help people learn about a problem before jumping in to try to solve it"

This guide is designed as a guide and resource to support your use of the Impact Gaps Canvas. The quote above is from TacklingHeropreneurship.com, a site made by canvas creator Daniela Papi-Thornton at the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford University.

Please visit that site to download a copy of the canvas:

Applied business research is the research you do to create a company, product, or service, rather than to conduct a research study or academic article. This kind of research is less well defined than traditional health sciences literature searching.

For those who are used to the latter, it's worth pointing out that business information sources featured in this guide are: 

• Created for a corporate audience 

• Not typically peer reviewed or published in an academic journal 

• Built on reputation and trust, rather than empirical method 

• Arranged into competing "walled gardens" with unique taxonomies (no MESH headings) 

• Behind paywalls and not indexed in Google or the U of T Library catalogue 

• Provide information to test assumptions and reduce risk 

• Future predictions based on past behaviour (not a crystal ball!) 

• Finding a clear answer is by no means guaranteed 

The following is review from the pre-workshop module available on Quercus.

Note: Applied research requires careful thought about the source before you start your search. You need to be curious and creative about the sources you choose. Consider the timeliness of the information you need and the publication delays of the source types you are choosing. For example, recent news won't be covered in academic articles, because they take a long time to publish. For more information and an evaluation framework, see the Evaluating Sources page.

Step 1: Brainstorm potential authorities/stakeholders

Stakeholders are those who care enough about the problem to create or disseminate information, conduct research, and raise awareness in the larger community. These could include: 

• advocacy groups (teachers/students/families)
• academic/practitioner researchers
• municipal/provincial government offices
• occupational therapists
• professional associations
• school boards

Strategies to find stakeholders/authorities/reports: 

• Brainstorm a list of SPECIFIC, RELEVANT stakeholders. Use proper names, e.g. "TDSB" not "school board"
• Newspaper search
• Advanced Google search
• 211 Central search for community support organizations
• Database searching

Step 2: Find documentation

Information types and sources could include: 

• Curriculum documentation
• Statistics
• Government legislation
• Policy documentation
• Newspaper articles
• School board annual reports
• White papers

Step 3: Synthesize information

Summary, Analysis, Synthesis (SAS)

1. Summary - extract key information from a source without adding personal interpretation
2. Synthesis - identify which ideas are related or work together across multiple sources
3. Analysis - use the organized ideas to support your argument or next steps

Synthesis matrix:

* What resources & people have you connected with?
* What else do you need to learn in order to fill in your knowledge gaps?
* What can you do to improve your understanding or to take action to fill a gap?