Eller’s Making Action Possible for Southern Arizona Dashboard Website Receives National 2016 AUBER Award

TUCSON, Ariz. – October 31, 2016 – A unique research-driven, interactive website created by the Economic and Business Research Center at the University of Arizona’s Eller College of Management has gained national and regional accolades for its ability to share data and metrics in a visually-compelling way and for being a timely, accurate source of information for the community.

Eller’s Making Action Possible (MAP) Dashboard, received one of the highest honors on October 25 when it won the 2016 Award of Excellence in Websites award from the Association from University Business and Economic Research (AUBER). Founded in 1947, AUBER is the premier organization in the United States promoting applied research in the areas of business economics and public policy.

Launched in 2014, the MAP Dashboard was created through a partnership between Eller’s Economic and Business Research Center, Southern Arizona Leadership Council and Community Foundation for Southern Arizona.

The MAP provides users with key metrics about the economy, state of education, health and social well-being, infrastructure, quality of place and workforce in the Tucson-area. These measures are compared to state, regional and national averages, showing areas where Southern Arizona excels and issues that may need to be addressed by the community.

“The purpose of the MAP Dashboard is to provide trusted information in a usable way so the community can identify new trends, benchmark its progress and make better, more informed decisions,” said George Hammond, director of the Economic and Business Research Center. “We’re proud to be recognized for the hundreds of hours of hard work that we and our partners have put in to making this important tool a reality for our community.”

More National and Local Awards 

Others also are recognizing the MAP Dashboard for its innovation. The website recently won the national 2016 Association of Public Data Users (APDU) Data Viz Awards for the quality of its visualizations using publicly available data. The project is one of only seven throughout the country to win the prestigious award. 

Closer to home, the MAP Dashboard will be honored by the Metropolitan Pima Alliance on Nov. 4 at the JW Marriott Tucson Star Pass Resort and Spa as a Top 20 Common Ground project. A unique recognition, the Common Ground Awards honor community leaders, real estate projects and development related programs that overcame great obstacles through collaboration.

The EBRC has also been selected as one of three finalists for the Governor’s Celebration of Innovation’s Academia Award. This reflects EBRC’s innovative use of cutting-edge cloud-based database technology to drive real-time data to the MAP Dashboard, the Arizona-Mexico Economic Indicators website, the award-winning Arizona’s Economy online magazine, and the Arizona’s Economy smartphone app. The award will be presented on Nov. 10 at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix.

For information, visit mapAZdashboard.arizona.edu.