Using Technology to Increase the Efficiency and Effectiveness of Evaluations

Description: Evaluation (like the global economy) is rapidly being transformed by technology. The growth of the Internet is leading to new models of service delivery and new approaches to monitoring and evaluating those services. Powerful new tools are appearing for gathering data, data storage/retrieval, and disseminating evaluation findings. These tools hold the potential to make evaluations more effective, while reducing costs. Likewise, recent advances in knowledge management and communications are making evaluation information readily available for effective decision-making and organizational learning.

This course offers a "non-technical" overview of emerging impacts of technology on the evaluation field with special emphasis on the strengths and weaknesses of new evaluation tools. The course addresses the transformation technology is making on the design and delivery of programs and how they are evaluated; how evaluators are harnessing technology and developing new low-cost evaluation approaches and tools in many different sectors, including health care, education, government, and nonprofit agencies; ways evaluators are using the new evaluation methods to improve data collection and analysis and to strengthen the dissemination and utilization of evaluation findings; and how evaluators can take advantage of new opportunities the technological revolution offers for strengthening evaluations.

The intent is that participants attain an enhanced understanding of the relationship between evaluation and technology, new models and low-cost tools for evaluation, and fresh insights on using technology for communicating results more effectively. Each participant will receive a toolkit of support materials and suggested resources.

Instructor: Dr. Arnold Love is an internationally-recognized independent consultant based in Toronto, Canada, with more than 25 years of experience in evaluation. He is author of a chapter on internal evaluation in Encyclopedia of Program Evaluation (Sage, 2004), Internal Evaluation: Building Organizations from Within (Sage, 1991), and a chapter on implementation analysis for the new edition of The Handbook of Practical Program Evaluation (Jossey-Bass, 2004). Dr. Love is editor of the Canadian Evaluation Society's Evaluation Methods Sourcebook Series and of special issues of New Directions for Program Evaluation and the Canadian Journal of Program Evaluation. He received his PhD from University of Waterloo; has taught program evaluation at the National Centre for Nonprofit Management at York University and at the Centre for Innovative Management at Athabasca University. He served a 2-year term as President of the Canadian Evaluation Society. In 1996, he recieved the CES National Award for Distinguished Contribution to Evaluation in Canada and in 2005, he was made a Fellow of the CES. The American Evaluation Association recognized Dr. Love in 1998 for his contributions to building a worldwide evaluation community and in 2005 for his service to AEA . He is a member of the Performance Measurement, Evaluation and Audit Committee of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Date: July 23-24, 2007, Washington, DC

Certificates: CEP IC.b or CAEP IIC.b

CEU: 1.4    Fee: $795