The Center for Social Research at NDSU in collaboration with Wilder Research has launched a new website called North Dakota Compass. The website is a social indicators project that serves as a tool to assess the progress of the state, its eight planning regions, 53 counties, four Native American reservations and larger cities on a variety of different measures. N.D. Compass tracks trends in topic areas such as children and youth, economy, health, housing and workforce. The website is modeled after Minnesota Compass, an award-winning social indicators project led by Wilder Research.

Richard Rathge, project director of N.D. Compass and professor in the Departments of Sociology/Anthropology and Agribusiness and Applied Economics at NDSU, said, “The site is designed to give residents, key stakeholders and policy makers a common foundation to identify, understand and act on community issues. The intent is to create a vehicle for problem solving and a platform for community member interaction.”

The website features monthly guest contributors discussing social indicator issues along with data sources and research strategies. This month’s guests are Randi Roth, executive director of the Otto Bremer Foundation, discussing community involvement, and Karen Olson, a researcher at the Center for Social Research, discussing the American Community Survey from the U.S. Census Bureau.

To view the website and sign up for the newsletter, visit ndcompass.org. N.D. Compass is funded by grants from the Bush Foundation, Otto Bremer Foundation, Dakota Medical Foundation and NDSU Development Foundation.

NDSU is recognized as one of the nation's top 108 public and private universities by the Carnegie Commission on Higher Education.