About Grassroots and WIDE Research Center

Grassroots is a research project sponsored by the Writing In Digital Environments (WIDE) Research Center at Michigan State University (MSU). Grassroots was born out of a local need vocalized by community members to make compelling visual arguments, such as asset maps, to promote community change. In response to that need, WIDE Research Center created Grassroots, a mapping tool that allows individuals and community groups to create maps highlighting what assets they perceive as invaluable to their communities.

Using Grassroots, users can :

• Create maps showing important features of their community
• Save and share the maps they create with others
• Create new, specialized maps by starting with any map that is already shared
• Find maps by searching by geographic region, by users and groups, or by tags that identify maps’ purpose, features, etc.

There are many ways to use asset maps, ranging from creating maps showing current and proposed development patterns in a particular community, to maps that trace walking paths through historic neighborhoods. We hope Grassroots helps users discover many new ways to see their community and to share their vision with others.

WIDE sponsors projects like Grassroots in conjunction with our overarching goals:

• To help establish MSU as a leader in the area of digital writing research, and as a leader in preparing students for the knowledge economy.
• To support MSU faculty doing interdisciplinary research on digital information, knowledge work, community & culture.
• To partner with business, industry, government, education, and community organizations to help them design and distribute information to clients, customers, students, and the public.